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Title: Woman under socialism

Author: August Bebel

Translator: Daniel De Leon

Release date: December 10, 2009 [eBook #30646]
Most recently updated: January 5, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMAN UNDER
SOCIALISM ***

WOMAN UNDER
SOCIALISM

AUGUST BEBEL

Woman Under Socialism
By

AUGUST BEBEL

Translated from the Original
German of the 33d Edition
By

DANIEL DE LEON.

1917
NEW YORK LABOR NEWS COMPANY
NEW YORK

"The end of social development resembles the beginning of human existence. The
original equality returns. The mother-web of existence starts and rounds up the
cycle of human affairs."—Bachofen.
"Since the advent of civilization, the outgrowth of property has been so immense,
its forms so diversified, its uses so expanding and its management so intelligent in
the interests of its owners, that it has become, on the part of the people, an
unmanageable power. The human mind stands bewildered in the presence of its
own creation. The time will come, nevertheless, when human intelligence will rise
to the mastery over property, and define the relations of the State to the property it
protects, as well as the obligations and the limits of the rights of its owners. The
interests of society are paramount to individual interests, and the two must be
brought into just and harmonious relations. A mere property career is not the final
destiny of mankind, if progress is to be the law of the future as it has been of the
past. The time which has passed away since civilization began is but a fragment of
the past duration of man's existence; and but a fragment of the ages yet to come.
The dissolution of society bids fair to become the termination of a career of which
property is the end and aim; because such a career contains the elements of self-
destruction."—Morgan.

Copyright 1904, by the
New York Labor News Company

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
Bebel's work, "Die Frau und der Socialismus," rendered in this English version with
the title "Woman under Socialism," is the best-aimed shot at the existing social
system, both strategically and tactically considered. It is wise tactics and strategy to
attack an enemy on his weakest side. The Woman Question is the weakest link in the
capitalist mail.
The workingman, we know, is a defenceless being; but it takes much sharpening of the
intellect to appreciate the fact that "he cannot speak for himself." His sex is popularly
coupled with the sense of strength. The illusion conceals his feebleness, and deprives
him of help, often of sympathy. It is thus even with regard to the child. Proverbially
weak and needing support, the child, nevertheless, is not everywhere a victim in the
existing social order. Only in remote sense does the child of the ruling class suffer. The
invocation of the "Rights of the Child" leaves substantially untouched the children of
the rich. It is otherwise with woman. The shot that rips up the wrongs done to her
touches a nerve that aches from end to end in the capitalist world. There is no woman,
whatever her station, but in one way or other is a sufferer, a victim in modern society.
While upon the woman of the working class the cross of capitalist society rests
heaviest in all ways, not one of her sisters in all the upper ranks but bears some share
of the burden, or, to be plainer, of the smudge,—and what is more to the point, they
are aware of it. Accordingly, the invocation of the "Rights of Woman" not only rouses
the spirit of the heaviest sufferers under capitalist society, and thereby adds swing to
the blows of the male militants in their efforts to overthrow the existing order, it also
lames the adversary by raising sympathizers in his own camp, and inciting sedition
among his own retinue. Bebel's exhaustive work, here put in English garb, does this
double work unerringly.
I might stop here. The ethic formula commands self-effacement to a translator. More
so than well-brought-up children, who should be "seen and not heard," a translator
should, where at all possible, be neither seen nor heard. That, however, is not always
possible. In a work of this nature, which, to the extent of this one, projects itself into
hypotheses of the future, and even whose premises necessarily branch off into fields
that are not essentially basic to Socialism, much that is said is, as the author himself
announces in his introduction, purely the personal opinion of the writer. With these a
translator, however, much in general and fundamental accord, may not always agree.
Not agreeing, he is in duty bound to modify the ethic formula to the extent of marking
his exception, lest the general accord, implied in the act of translating, be construed
into specific approval of objected-to passages and views. Mindful of a translator's
duties as well as rights, I have reduced to a small number, and entered in the shape of

running footnotes to the text, the dissent I thought necessary to the passages that to me
seemed most objectionable in matters not related to the main question; and, as to
matters related to the main question, rather than enter dissent in running footnotes, I
have reserved for this place a summary of my own private views on the family of the
future.
It is an error to imagine that, in its spiral course, society ever returns to where it started
from. The spiral never returns upon its own track. Obedient to the law of social
evolution, the race often is forced, in the course of its onward march, to drop much
that is good, but also much that is bad. The bad, it is hoped, is dropped for all time; but
the good, when picked up again, never is picked up as originally dropped. Between the
original dropping and return to its vicinity along the tracks of the spiral, fresh elements
join. These new accretions so transmute whatever is re-picked up that it is essentially
remodeled. The "Communism," for instance, that the race is now heading toward, is,
materially, a different article from the "Communism" it once left behind. We move in
an upward spiral. No doubt moral concepts are the reflex of material possibilities. But,
for one thing, moral concepts are in themselves a powerful force, often hard to
distinguish in their effect from material ones; and, for another, these material
possibilities unfold material facts, secrets of Nature, that go to enrich the treasury of
science, and quicken the moral sense. Of such material facts are the discoveries in
embryology and kindred branches. They reveal the grave fact, previously reckoned
with in the matter of the breeding of domestic animals, that the act of impregnation is
an act of inoculation. This fact, absolutely material, furnishes a post-discovered
material basis for a pre-surmised moral concept,—the "oneness of flesh" with father
and mother. Thus science solidifies a poetic-moral yearning, once held imprisoned in
the benumbing shell of theological dogma, and reflects its morality in the poetic
expression of the monogamic family. The moral, as well as the material, accretions of
the race's intellect, since it uncoiled out of early Communism, bar, to my mind, all
prospect,—I would say danger, moral and hygienic,—of promiscuity, or of anything
even remotely approaching that.
Modern society is in a state of decomposition. Institutions, long held as of all time and
for all time, are crumbling. No wonder those bodies of society that come floating
down to us with the prerogatives of "teacher" are seen to-day rushing to opposite
extremes. On the matter of "Woman" or "The Family" the divergence among our
rulers is most marked. While both extremes cling like shipwrecked mariners to the
water-logged theory of private ownership in the means of production, the one extreme,
represented by the Roman Catholic church-machine, is seen to recede ever further
back within the shell of orthodoxy, and the other extreme, represented by the pseudo-
Darwinians, is seen to fly into ever wilder flights of heterodoxy on the matter of
"Marriage and Divorce." Agreed, both, in keeping woman nailed to the cross of a now
perverse social system, the former seeks to assuage her agony with the benumbing
balm of resignation, the latter to relieve her torture with the blister of libertinage.

Between these two extremes stand the gathering forces of revolution that are taking
shape in the militant Socialist Movement. Opinion among these forces, while it cannot
be said to clash, takes on a variety of shades—as needs will happen among men, who,
at one on basic principles, on the material substructure of institutional superstructure,
cannot but yield to the allurements of speculative thought on matters as yet hidden in
the future, and below the horizon. For one, I hold there is as little ground for rejecting
monogamy, by reason of the taint that clings to its inception, as there would be ground
for rejecting co-operation, by reason of the like taint that accompanied its rise, and
also clings to its development. For one, I hold that the smut of capitalist conditions,
that to-day clings to monogamy, is as avoidable an "incident" in the evolutionary
process as are the iniquities of capitalism that to-day are found the accompaniment of
co-operative labor;—and the further the parallel is pursued through the many
ramifications of the subject, the closer will it be discovered to hold. For one, I hold
that the monogamous family—bruised and wounded in the cruel rough-and-tumble of
modern society, where, with few favored exceptions of highest type, male creation is
held down, physically, mentally and morally, to the brutalizing level of the brute,
forced to grub and grub for bare existence, or, which amounts to the same, to scheme
and scheme in order to avoid being forced so to grub and grub—will have its wounds
staunched, its bruises healed, and, ennobled by the slowly acquired moral forces of
conjugal, paternal and filial affection, bloom under Socialism into a lever of mighty
power for the moral and physical elevation of the race.
At any rate, however the genius of our descendants may shape matters on this head,
one thing is certain: Woman—the race's mothers, wives, sisters, daughters—long
sinned against through unnumbered generations—is about to be atoned to. All the
moral and intellectual forces of the age are seen obviously converging to that point. It
will be the crowning work of Militant Socialism, like a mightier Perseus, to strike the
shackles from the chained Andromeda of modern society, Woman, and raise her to the
dignity of her sex.
DANIEL DE LEON.
New York, June 21, 1903.

INDEX

Translator's Preface iii
Introduction 1
Woman in the Past—
Chapter I—Before Christianity 9
Chapter II—Under Christianity 47
Woman in the Present—
Chapter I—Sexual Instinct, Wedlock, Checks and Obstructions
79
to Marriage
Chapter II—Further Checks and Obstructions to Marriage,
118
Numerical Proportion of the Sexes, Its Causes and Effects
Chapter III—Prostitution a Necessary Social Institution of
146
the Capitalist World
Chapter IV—Woman's Position as a Breadwinner, Her Intellectual
167
Faculties, Darwinism and the Condition of Society
Chapter V—Woman's Civic and Political Status 216
Chapter VI—The State and Society 235
Chapter VII—The Socialization of Society 272
Woman in the Future 343
Internationality 350
Population and Over-Population 355
Conclusion 372

INTRODUCTION.
We live in the age of a great social Revolution, that every day makes further progress.
A growingly powerful intellectual stir and unrest is noticeable in all the layers of
society; and the movement pushes towards deep-reaching changes. All feel that the
ground they stand on shakes. A number of questions have risen; they occupy the
attention of ever widening circles; and discussion runs high on their solution. One of
the most important of these, one that pushes itself ever more to the fore, is the so-
called "Woman Question."
The question concerns the position that woman should occupy in our social organism;
how she may unfold her powers and faculties in all directions, to the end that she
become a complete and useful member of human society, enjoying equal rights with
all. From our view-point, this question coincides with that other:—what shape and
organization human society must assume to the end that, in the place of oppression,
exploitation, want and misery in manifold forms, there shall be physical and social
health on the part of the individual and of society. To us, accordingly, the Woman
Question is only one of the aspects of the general Social Question, which is now
filling all heads, which is setting all minds in motion and which, consequently, can
find its final solution only in the abolition of the existing social contradictions, and of
the evils which flow from them.
Nevertheless, it is necessary to treat the so-called Woman Question separately. On the
one hand the question, What was the former position of woman, what is it to-day, and
what will it be in the future? concerns, in Europe at least, the larger section of society,
seeing that here the female sex constitutes the larger part of the population. On the
other hand, the prevailing notions, regarding the development that woman has
undergone in the course of centuries, correspond so little with the facts, that light upon
the subject becomes a necessity for the understanding of the present and of the future.
Indeed, a good part of the prejudices with which the ever-growing movement is
looked upon in various circles—and not least in the circle of woman herself—rests
upon lack of knowledge and lack of understanding. Many are heard claiming there is
no Woman Question, because the position that woman formerly occupied, occupies to-
day and will in the future continue to occupy, is determined by her "natural calling,"
which destines her for wife and mother, and limits her to the sphere of the home.
Accordingly, whatever lies beyond her four walls, or is not closely and obviously
connected with her household duties, concerns her not.
On the Woman Question, the same as on the general Social Question, in which the
position of the working class in society plays the chief role, opposing parties stand

arrayed against each other. One party, that which would leave everything as it is, have
their answer ready at hand; they imagine the matter is settled with referring woman to
her "natural calling." They forget that, to-day, for reasons later to be developed,
millions of women are wholly unable to fill that "natural calling," so much insisted
upon in their behalf, of householders, breeders and nurses of children; and that, with
other millions, the "calling" has suffered extensive shipwreck—wedlock, to them,
having turned into a yoke and into slavery, compelling them to drag along their lives
in misery and want. Of course, this fact concerns those "wise men" as little as that
other fact, that unnumbered millions of women, engaged in the several pursuits of life,
are compelled, often in unnatural ways, and far beyond the measure of their strength,
to wear themselves out in order to eke out a meager existence. At this unpleasant fact
those "wise men" stuff their ears, and they shut their eyes with as much violence as
they do before the misery of the working class, consoling themselves and others with
"it has ever been, and will ever remain so." That woman has the right to share the
conquests of civilization achieved in our days; to utilize these to the easing and
improving of her condition; and to develop her mental and physical faculties, and turn
them to advantage as well as man,—they will none of that. Are they told that woman
must also be economically, in order to be physically and intellectually free, to the end
that she no longer depend upon the "good-will" and the "mercy" of the other sex?—
forthwith their patience is at end; their anger is kindled; and there follows a torrent of
violent charges against the "craziness of the times," and the "insane emancipational
efforts."
These are the Philistines of male and female sex, incapable of finding their way out of
the narrow circle of their prejudices. It is the breed of the owls, to be found
everywhere when day is breaking, and they cry out in affright when a ray of light falls
upon their comfortable darkness.
Another element among the adversaries of the movement cannot shut its eyes before
the glaring facts. This element admits that there was hardly a time when a larger
number of women found themselves in so unsatisfactory a condition as to-day,
relatively to the degree of general civilization; and they admit that it is therefore
necessary to inquire how the condition of woman can be improved, in so far as she
remains dependent upon herself. To this portion of our adversaries, the Social
Question seems solved for those women who have entered the haven of matrimony.
In keeping with their views, this element demands that, to unmarried woman, at least,
all fields of work, for which her strength and faculties are adequate, shall be opened,
to the end that she may enter the competitive field for work with man. A small set goes
even further, and demands that competition for work be not limited to the field of the
lower occupations, but should also extend higher, to the professions, to the field of art
and science. This set demands the admission of woman to all the higher institutions of
learning, namely, the universities, which in many countries are still closed to her. Their

admission is advocated to the classes of several branches of study, to the medical
profession, to the civil service (the Post Office, telegraph and railroad offices), for
which they consider women peculiarly adapted;, and they point to the practical results
that have been attained, especially in the United States, through the employment of
woman. The one and the other also make the demand that political rights be conferred
upon woman. Woman, they admit, is human and a member of the State, as well as
man: legislation, until now in the exclusive control of man, proves that he exploited
the privilege to his own exclusive benefit, and kept woman in every respect under
guardianship, a thing to be henceforth prevented.
It is noteworthy that the efforts here roughly sketched, do not reach beyond the frame-
work of the existing social order. The question never is put whether, these objects
being attained, any real and thoroughgoing improvement in the condition of woman
will have been achieved. Standing on the ground of bourgeois, that is, of the capitalist
social order, the full social equality of man and woman is considered the solution of
the question. These folks are not aware, or they slide over the fact that, in so far as the
unrestricted admission of woman to the industrial occupations is concerned, the object
has already been actually attained, and it meets with the strongest support on the part
of the ruling class, who as will be shown further on, find therein their own interest.
Under existing conditions, the admission of women to all industrial occupations can
have for its only effect that the competitive struggle of the working people become
ever sharper, and rage ever mere fiercely. Hence the inevitable result,—the lowering
of incomes for female and male labor, whether this income be in the form of wage or
salary.
That this solution cannot be the right one is clear. The full civic equality of woman is,
however, not merely the ultimate object of the men, who, planted upon the existing
social order, favor the efforts in behalf of woman. It is also recognized by the female
bourgeois, active in the Woman Movement. These, together with the males of their
mental stamp, stand, accordingly, with their demands in contrast to the larger portion
of the men, who oppose them, partly out of old-fogy narrowness, partly also—in so far
as the admission of woman to the higher studies and the better-paid public positions is
concerned—out of mean selfishness, out of fear of competition. A difference in
principle, however, a class difference, such as there is between the working and the
capitalist class, does not exist between these two sets of male and female citizens.
Let the by no means impossible case be imagined that the representatives of the
movement for the civic rights of woman carry through all their demands for placing
woman upon an equal footing with man. What then? Neither the slavery, which
modern marriage amounts to for numberless women, nor prostitution, nor the material
dependence of the large majority of married women upon their marital lords, would
thereby be removed. For the large majority of women it is, indeed, immaterial whether
a thousand, or ten thousand, members of their own sex, belonging to the more favored

strata of society, land in the higher branches of learning, the practice of medicine, a
scientific career, or some government office. Nothing is thereby changed in the total
condition of the sex.
The mass of the female sex suffers in two respects: On the one side woman suffers
from economic and social dependence upon man. True enough, this dependence may
be alleviated by formally placing her upon an equality before the law, and in point of
rights; but the dependence is not removed. On the other side, woman suffers from the
economic dependence that woman in general, the working-woman in particular, finds
herself in, along with the workingman.
Evidently, all women, without difference of social standing, have an interest—as the
sex that in the course of social development has been oppressed, and ruled, and defiled
by man—in removing such a state of things, and must exert themselves to change it, in
so far as it can be changed by changes in the laws and institutions within the frame-
work of the present social order. But the enormous majority of women are furthermore
interested in the most lively manner in that the existing State and social order be
radically transformed, to the end that both wage-slavery, under which the working-
women deeply pine, and sex slavery, which is intimately connected with our property
and industrial systems, be wiped out.
The larger portion by far of the women in society, engaged in the movement for the
emancipation of woman, do not see the necessity for such a radical change. Influenced
by their privileged social standing, they see in the more far-reaching working-women's
movement dangers, not infrequently abhorrent aims, which they feel constrained to
ignore, eventually even to resist. The class-antagonism, that in the general social
movement rages between the capitalist and the working class, and which, with the
ripening of conditions, grows sharper and more pronounced, turns up likewise on the
surface of the Woman's Movement; and it finds its corresponding expression in the
aims and tactics of those engaged in it.
All the same, the hostile sisters have, to a far greater extent than the male population
—split up as the latter is in the class struggle—a number of points of contact, on
which they can, although marching separately, strike jointly. This happens on all the
fields, on which the question is the equality of woman with man, within modern
society. This embraces the participation of woman in all the fields of human activity,
for which her strength and faculties are fit; and also her full civil and political equality
with man. These are very important, and as will be shown further on, very extensive
fields. Besides all this the working woman has also a special interest in doing battle
hand in hand with the male portion of the working class, for all the means and
institutions that may protect the working woman from physical and moral
degeneration, and which promise to secure to her the vitality and fitness necessary for
motherhood and for the education of children. Furthermore, as already indicated, it is
the part of the working-woman to make common cause with the male members of her

class and of her lot in the struggle for a radical transformation of society, looking to
the establishment of such conditions as may make possible the real economic and
spiritual independence of both sexes, by means of social institutions that afford to all a
full share in the enjoyment of all the conquests of civilization made by mankind.
The goal, accordingly, is not merely the realization of the equal rights of woman with
man within present society, as is aimed at by the bourgeois woman emancipationists. It
lies beyond,—the removal of all impediments that make man dependent upon man;
and, consequently, one sex upon the other. Accordingly, this solution of the Woman
Question coincides completely with the solution of the Social Question. It follows that
he who aims at the solution of the Woman Question to its full extent, is necessarily
bound to go hand in hand with those who have inscribed upon their banner the
solution of the Social Question as a question of civilization for the whole human race.
These are the Socialists, that is, the Social Democracy.
Of all existing parties in Germany, the Social Democratic Party is the only one which
has placed in its programme the full equality of woman, her emancipation from all
dependence and oppression. And the party has done so, not for agitational reasons, but
out of necessity, out of principle. There can be no emancipation of humanity without
the social independence and equality of the sexes.
Up to this point all Socialists are likely to agree with the presentation made of
fundamental principles. But the same cannot be said on the subject of the manner in
which we portray the ultimate aims to ourselves; how the measures and special
institutions shall be shaped which will establish the aimed-at independence and
equality of all members of the sexes, consequently that of man and woman also.
The moment the field of the known is abandoned, and one launches out into pictures
of future forms, a wide field is opened for speculation. Differences of opinion start
over that which is probable or not probable. That which in that direction is set forth in
this book can, accordingly, be taken only as the personal opinion of the author himself;
possible attacks must be directed against him only; only he is responsible.
Attacks that are objective, and are honestly meant, will be welcome to us. Attacks that
violate truth in the presentation of the contents of this book, or that rest upon false
premises we shall ignore. For the rest, in the following pages all conclusions, even the
extremest, will be drawn, which, the facts being verified, the results attained may
warrant. Freedom from prejudice is the first condition for the recognition of truth.
Only the unrestricted utterance of that which is, and must be, leads to the goal.

PART I

WOMAN IN THE PAST

CHAPTER I.
BEFORE CHRISTIANITY.

Woman and the workingman have, since old, had this in common—oppression. The
forms of oppression have suffered changes in the course of time, and in various
countries. But the oppression always remained. Many a time and oft, in the course of
the ages, did the oppressed become conscious of their oppression; and such conscious
knowledge of their condition did bring on changes and reliefs. Nevertheless, a
knowledge, that grasped the actual feature of the oppression by grasping its causes, is,
with woman as with the workingman, the fruit of our own days. The actual feature of
society, and of the laws that lie at the bottom of its development, had first to be
known, before a general movement could take place for the removal of conditions,
recognized as oppressive and unjust. The breadth and intensity of such a movement
depends, however, upon the measure of the understanding prevalent among the
suffering social layers and circles, and upon the measure of freedom of motion that
they enjoy. In both respects, woman stands, through custom and education, as well as
the freedom allowed her by law, behind the workingman. To this, another
circumstance is added. Conditions, lasting through a long series of generations, finally
grow into custom; heredity and education then cause such conditions to appear on
both sides as "natural." Hence it comes that, even to-day, woman in particular, accepts
her subordinate position as a matter of course. It is no easy matter to make her
understand that that position is unworthy, and that it is her duty to endeavor to become
a member of society, equal-righted with, and in every sense a peer of man.
However much in common woman may be shown to have with the workingman, she
leads him in one thing:—Woman was the first human being to come into bondage: she
was a slave before the male slave existed.
All social dependence and oppression has its roots in the economic dependence of the
oppressed upon the oppressor. In this condition woman finds herself, from an early
day down to our own. The history of the development of human society proves the
fact everywhere.
The knowledge of the history of this development is, however, comparatively new. As
little as the myth of the Creation of the World—as taught us by the Bible—can be
upheld in sight of the investigations of geographers and, scientists, grounded as these
investigations are upon unquestionable and innumerable facts, just so untenable has its
myth proved concerning the creation and evolution of man. True enough, as yet the
veil is far from being lifted from all the sub-departments of this historical development

of mankind; over many, on which already light has been shed, differences of opinion
still exist among the investigators on the meaning and connection of this or that fact;
nevertheless, on the whole, there is agreement and clearness. It is established that man
did not, like the first human couple of the Bible, make his first appearance on earth in
an advanced stage of civilization. He reached that plane only in the course of endlessly
long lapses of time, after he had gradually freed himself from purely animal
conditions, and had experienced long terms of development, in the course of which his
social as well as his sexual relations—the relations between man and woman—had
undergone a great variety of changes.
The favorite phrase—a phrase that the ignorant or impostors daily smite our ears with
on the subject of the relations between man and woman, and between the poor and the
rich—"it always has been so," and the conclusion drawn therefrom—"it will always be
so," is in every sense of the word false, superficial and trumped-up.
For the purposes of this work a cursory presentation of the relations between the
sexes, since primitive society, is of special importance. It is so because it can thereby
be proved that, seeing that these relations have materially changed in the previous
course of human development, and that the changes have taken place in even step with
the existing systems of production, on the one hand, and of the distribution of the
product of labor, on the other, it is natural and goes without saying that, along with
further changes and revolutions in the system of production and distribution, the
relations between the sexes are bound to change again. Nothing is "eternal," either in
nature or in human life; eternal only is change and interchange.
As far back as one may go in the development of human society, the horde is found as
the first human community. True enough, Honeger mentions in his "General History of
Civilization" that even to-day in the little explored interior of the island of Borneo,
there are wild people, living separately; and Huegel likewise maintains that, in the
wild mountain regions of India, human couples have been discovered living alone, and
who, ape-like, fled to the trees as soon as they were met; but there is no further
knowledge on the subject. If verified, these claims would only confirm the previous
superstition and hypothesis concerning the development of the human race. The
probability is that, wherever human beings sprang up, there were, at first, single
couples. Certain it is, however, that so soon as a larger number of beings existed,
descended from a common parent stock, they held together in hordes in order that, by
their joint efforts, they might, first of all, gain their still very primitive conditions of
life and support, as well as to protect themselves against their common enemies, wild
animals. Growing numbers and increased difficulties in securing subsistence, which
originally consisted in roots, berries and fruit, first led to the splitting up or
segmentation of the hordes, and to the search for new habitats.
This almost animal-like state, of which we have no further credible antiquarian proofs,
undoubtedly once existed, judging from all that we have learned concerning the

several grades of civilization of wild peoples still living, or known to have lived
within historic times. Man did not, upon the call of a Creator, step ready-made into
existence as a higher product of civilization. It was otherwise. He has had to pass
through the most varied stages in an endlessly long and slow process of development.
Only via ebbing and flowing periods of civilization, and in constant differentiation
with his fellows in all parts of the world, and in all zones, did he gradually climb up to
his present height.
Indeed, while in one section of the earth's surface great peoples and nations belong to
the most advanced stages of civilization, other peoples are found in different sections
standing on the greatest variety of gradations in development. They thus present to us
a picture of our own past history; and they point to the road which mankind traversed
in the course of its development. If but certain common and generally accepted data
are established, that may serve everywhere as sign-posts to guide investigation, a mass
of facts will follow, throwing a wholly new light upon the relations of man in the past
and the present. A number of social phenomena—unintelligible to us to-day, and
attacked by superficial judges as nonsensical, not infrequently even as "immoral"—
will become clear and natural. A material lifting of the veil, formerly spread over the
history of the development of our race, has been effected through the investigations
made, since Bachofen, by a considerable number of scientists, like Tylor, MacLennan,
Lubbock and others. Prominently among the men who joined these was Morgan, with
his fundamental work, that Frederick Engels further substantiated and supplemented
with a series of historical facts, economic and political in their nature, and that, more
recently, has been partly confirmed and partly rectified by Cunow.[1]
By means of these expositions—especially as clearly and lucidly presented by
Frederick Engels, in his support of Morgan's excellent and fundamental work,—a
mass of light is shed upon hitherto unintelligible, partly seemingly contradictory
phenomena in the life of the races and tribes of both high and low degree of culture.
Only now do we gain an insight into the structure that human society raised in the
course of time. According thereto, our former views of marriage, the family, the
community, the State, rested upon notions that were wholly false; so false that they
turn out to be no better than a fancy-picture, wholly devoid of foundation in fact.
All that is said and proved about marriage, the family, the community and the State
holds good especially with regard to woman, who, in the various periods of
development did likewise fill a place, that differs materially from the "eternal,"
imputed to her.
Morgan, whom Engels agrees with in this, divides the history of mankind into three
main epochs:—savagery, barbarism and civilization. Each of the two first ones he
again divides into an under, a middle and an upper period, each distinguishing itself
from the other by certain innovations and improvements, predicated in each instance

upon the control over subsistence. Morgan, accordingly, exactly in the sense of the
materialist conception of history, as established by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,—
perceives the leading characteristics in the development of society to be the changes
that, in given epochs, the conditions of life are molded into; and he perceives the
changes to be due to the progress made in the process of production, that is to say, in
the procurement of subsistence. Summed up in a few words, the lower period of
savagery constitutes the infancy of the human race, during which the race, partly
living in trees, is mainly nourished by fruits and roots, and during which articulate
language takes its inception. The middle period of savagery commences with the
acquisition of a fish subsistence, and the use of fire. The construction of weapons
begins; at first the club and spear, fashioned out of wood and stone. Thereby also
begins the chase, and probably also war with contiguous hordes for the sources of
food, for domiciles and hunting grounds. At this stage appears also cannibalism, still
practiced to-day by some tribes and peoples of Africa, Australia and Polynesia. The
upper period of savagery is characterized by the perfection of weapons to the point of
the bow and arrow; finger weaving, the making of baskets out of filaments of bark, the
fashioning of sharpened stone tools have here their start, and thereby begins also the
preparation of wood for the building of boats and huts. The form of life has
accordingly, become many-sided. The existing tools and implements, needed for the
control of a plentiful food supply, make possible the subsistance of larger
communities.
The lower period of barbarism Morgan starts with the invention of the art of pottery.
The taming and domestication of animals, and, along with that, the production of meat
and milk, and the preparation of hides, horns and hair for various purposes of use,
have here their start. Hand in hand therewith begins the cultivation of plants,—in the
West of maize, in the East of almost all known cereals, maize excepted. The middle
period of barbarism shows us, in the East, the ever more extensive domestication of
animals; in the West, the cultivation of maize and plants by irrigation. Here also begins
the use of adobe-bricks and of stone for house-building. The domestication of animals
promotes the rearing of herds, and leads to the pastoral life. The necessity of larger
quantities of food for men and beasts leads to field agriculture. Along therewith, the
people begin to be localized; food increases in quantity and diversity, and gradually
cannibalism disappears.
The upper period of barbarism begins finally with the smelting of iron ore, and the
discovery of the phonetic alphabet. The iron plow-share is invented, making possible
agriculture on a larger scale; the iron axe and spade are brought into requisition,
making easy the clearing of the forests. With the preparation of iron, a number of
fields are opened to activity, imparting to life a new form. Iron utensils help the
building of houses, vessels and weapons; with the preparation of metals arises skilled
handwork, a more perfect knowledge of weapons, and the building of walled cities.

Architecture, as an art, then rises; mythology, poetry and history find support and
expansion in the discovery of the phonetic alphabet.
The Orient and the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, particularly Egypt,
Greece and Italy, are those in which the last sketched stage of life principally
unfolded; and it laid the foundation for the social transformation that in the course of
time exercised a determining influence on the social development of Europe and of the
whole earth.
As a matter of course, the social development of the human race through the periods
of savagery and barbarism had also its peculiar sexual and social relations, differing
materially from those of later days.
Bachofen and Morgan have traced these relations by means of thorough
investigations. Bachofen, by studying closely all ancient and modern writings, so as to
arrive at the nature of phenomena that appear singular to us in mythology, folk-lore
and historic tradition, and that, nevertheless, seem to be re-echoed in incidents and
events of later days, occasionally even of our own. Morgan, by spending decades of
his life among the Iroquois Indians, located in the State of New York, and thereby
making observations, through which he gained new and unexpected insight into the
system of life, the family and the relationships of the said Indian tribe, and, based
upon which, observations made elsewhere, first received their correct interpretation
and explanation.
Both of them, Bachofen and Morgan, discovered, each along his own line of research,
the latter, however, far more clearly than the former, that the relations of the sexes
during primitive times of human development were substantially different from the
relations existing in historic days, and among the modern civilized peoples. Especially
did Morgan discover—thanks to his many years' sojourn among the Iroquois of North
America, and grounded upon comparative studies, which he was moved to by that
which he there observed,—that all the existing races, that are still materially
backward, possess systems of family and consanguinity that are totally different from
ours, but must be similar to those once prevalent among all races during the previous
stages of civilization.
Morgan found, at the time that he lived among the Iroquois, that among them there
existed a system of monogamy, easily dissolvable by both parties, and which he
designated as the "pairing family." He also found that the terms for the degrees of
consanguinity—father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister—although, according to
our conception, there can be no doubt as to their application, were there, nevertheless,
applied in quite different sense. The Iroquois calls not only his own children "sons"
and "daughters," but also the children of all his brothers; and their children call him
"father." Conversely, the female Iroquois calls not only her own children "sons" and
"daughters," but all those of her sisters, and likewise do their children call her

"mother." On the other hand, she calls the children of her brothers "nephews" and
"nieces," and these call her "aunt." The children of brothers call one another "brothers"
and "sisters;" likewise the children of sisters. Finally, the children of a woman and
those of her brother call one another "cousins." Accordingly, the singular spectacle is
seen of the terms of relationship going, not as in our sense, by the degree of
consanguinity, but by the sex of the relative.
This system of relationship is in full force, not only among all the American Indians,
as well as among the aborigines of India, the tribes of Dekan and the Gaura tribes of
Hindostan, but, according to the investigations that have taken place since Bachofen,
similar conditions must have existed everywhere in primitive times, as they still exist
to-day among many peoples of Upper and Further Asia, Africa and Australia. When, in
connection with these investigations and established facts, the investigation will be
everywhere taken up on the sex and family relations of wild and barbarous nations still
living, then will the fact transpire that, what Bachofen still confusedly found among
numerous peoples of antiquity, and rather surmised than otherwise; what Morgan
found among the Iroquois; what Cunow found among the Austral-Negros, are but
social and sexual formations, that constitute the groundwork of human development
for all the peoples of the earth.
The investigations of Morgan bring, moreover, other interesting facts to light.
Although the "pairing family" of the Iroquois starts in insolvable contradiction with
the terms of consanguinity in use among them, it turns out that, as late as the first half
of the 19th Century, there existed on the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) a family-form that
actually tallied with that which, among the Iroquois, existed in name only. But the
system of consanguinity, in force in Hawaii, failed, in turn, to tally with the family-
form actually in existence there. It referred to an older family-form, one still more
primitive, but no longer extant. There, all the children of brothers and sisters, without
exception, were "brothers" and "sisters." Accordingly, they were not considered the
common children of their mothers and of the sisters of these, or of their fathers and of
the brothers of these, but of all the brothers and sisters of their parents, without
distinction. The Hawaiian system of consanguinity corresponded, accordingly, with a
stage of development that was lower than the family-form still actually in existence.
Hence transpires the curious fact that, in Hawaii, as with the Indians of North
America, two distinct systems of consanguinity are, or rather, at a time, were in vogue,
which no longer tallied with actual conditions, but were both overtaken by a higher
state. On this head Morgan says: "The family represents an active principle. It is never
stationary, but advances from a lower to a higher form as society advances from a
lower to a higher condition, and finally passes out of one form into another of higher
grade. Systems of consanguinity, on the contrary, are passive; recording the progress
made by the family at long intervals apart, and only changing radically when the
family has radically changed."

The theory,—even to-day generally considered conclusive, and which is stubbornly
upheld as irrefutable by the representatives of the status quo—to the effect that the
existing family-form has existed since time immemorial, and, lest the whole social
fabric be put in jeopardy, must continue to exist forever, turned out, accordingly, after
these discoveries of the investigators, to be wholly false and untenable. The form,
under which the relations of the sexes appear and the situation of the family is raised,
depends rather upon the social conditions, upon the manner in which man controls his
subsistence. The form changes with the changed degree of culture at each given
period.
The study of primitive history leaves now no room for doubt that, at the lowest grades
of human development, the relation of the sexes is totally different from that of latter
times, and that a state of things resulted therefrom, which, looked at with modern eyes,
appears as monstrous, and as a sink of immorality. Nevertheless, as each social stage
of human development has its own conditions of production, so likewise has each its
own code of morals, which is but the reflection of the social condition. That is moral
which is usage; and that, in turn, is usage which corresponds with the innermost being,
i. e., the needs of a given period.
Morgan reaches the conclusion that, at the lower period of savagery, there was sexual
intercourse between the several grades or generations, every woman belonging to
every man, and every man to every woman,—in other words, promiscuity. All men
live in polygamy and all women in polyandry. There is a general community of
women and of men, but also a community of children, Strábo reports (sixty-six years
before our reckoning) that, among the Arabians, brothers cohabited with sisters and
with their own mother. On any route other than that of incest, the increase of
population is nowhere possible, if, as alleged in the Bible also, descent from one
couple is granted. The Bible itself contradicts itself on this delicate point. It is stated
there that Cain, after he had murdered his brother Abel, took a wife of another people.
Whence came that other people? The theory of promiscuity in primitive times, that is
to say, that the horde was endogamous, that sexual intercourse was indiscriminate, is
furthermore supported by the Hindoo myth, according to which Brahma married his
own daughter Saravasti. The same myth turns up again among the Egyptians and the
northern Edda. The Egyptian god Ammon was the spouse of his own mother, and
boasted of it. Odin, according to the Edda, was the mate of his own daughter Frigga.[2]
Morgan proceeds from the principle that, from the state of promiscuity, soon a higher
form of sexual intercourse took shape. He designates this the consanguine family.
Here the groups, that stand in sexual relation, are separated by grades or generations,
so that grandfathers and grandmothers, within an age group, are husbands and wives.
Their children, likewise, constitute a group of common couples; likewise the children
of these, so soon as they have reached the requisite age. Accordingly, in contrast with
the sex relations of the rawest period, in which promiscuity of sexes exists without
distinction of age, now one generation is excluded from sexual intercourse with

another. Sexual intercourse, however, exists between brothers and sisters, male and
female cousins of the first, second and third remove. All of these together are brothers
and sisters, but towards one another, they are all husbands and wives. This family-
form corresponds with the system of consanguinity that still existed in Hawaii during
the first part of the 19th Century, in name only, but no longer in fact. On the other
hand, according to the American Indian system of consanguinity, a brother and sister
can never be the father and mother of the same child—a thing, however, permissible in
the Hawaiian family system. Probably the consanguine family was the state that, at the
time of Herodotus, existed among the Massagetae, on the subject of which he reports:
"Each man received a wife, but all were allowed to use her." And he continues: "At
any time a man desires a woman, he hangs his quiver in front of his wagon, and
cohabits, unconcerned, with her.... He at the same time sticks his staff into the ground,
a symbol of his own act.... Cohabitation is exercised in public."[3] Similar conditions
Bachofen shows have existed among the Lycians, Etruscans, Cretans, Athenians,
Lesbians and Egyptians.
According to Morgan, the consanguine family is supervened by a third and higher
form of family relationship, which he designates as the Punaluan family. Punalua,
"dear friend," "intimate companion."
Cunow, in his above named book, takes exception to Morgan's views that the
consanguine family, which rests on the organization of marriage classes by
generations, preceded the punaluan family as an original organization. Cunow does
not see in the consanguine family the most primitive of all social forms, until now
discovered. He sees in it merely a middle form, that takes its origin in the generation
groups; a transition stage toward the pure gentile organization, on which, as a graft,
the division in age classes, belonging to the consanguine family system, still continues
for a time in altered form, along with the division in totem-groups.[4] Cunow explains
further: The division in classes—every individual, man or woman, carries the name of
his or her class and generation group totem—does not serve to exclude sexual
intercourse between collateral, but to prevent cohabitation between relatives in the
ascending and descending line, between parents and children, aunts and nephews,
uncles and nieces. Terms such as "aunt," "uncle," etc., he designates as grade-names.
Cunow furnishes the proofs for the correctness of the views in which he differs from
Morgan on some points. But, however he may differ from Morgan in single instances,
he emphatically defends him against the attacks of Westermann and others. He says:
"Although here and there a hypothesis of Morgan may have proved itself false, and
some others may be allowed only a qualified approval, that merit none can gainsay
him that he has been the first to establish the identity of the North American totem-
group with the gentile organization of the Romans; and, secondly, to demonstrate that
our modern systems of consanguinity and family-forms are the result of a long process

of development. In a measure he has thereby first made recent investigations possible;
he has first built the foundation on which we may build further." In the introduction
also to his book he says expressly that his own work is partly a supplement to
Morgan's book on primitive man.
The Westermanns, the Starckes, the Zieglers—the latter of whom, in his book,
criticized in the introduction to the twenty-fifth edition of this work, refers mainly to
the first named, in order to attack our statements with theirs—will have to submit,
with good grace or bad, to the fact that the rise and development of the family has not
taken the course that fits in with their bourgeois prejudices. The refutation that, in the
last part of his work, Cunow bestows upon Westermann and Starcke, Ziegler's
authorities, are calculated to enlighten their most fanatic followers upon the value of
their caviling criticisms of, and arguments against, Morgan.
According to Morgan, the punaluan family has its start with the exclusion of
consanguineous brothers and sisters, on the mother's side. Where a woman has several
husbands, the evidence of paternity is impossible. Paternity becomes a fiction. Even
to-day, under the rule of strict monogamous marriage, paternity, as Goethe, in his
"Apprenticeship," lets Frederick say, "rests only upon faith." If with monogamy,
paternity is often doubtful, it is impossible of proof in polygamy: only descent from
the mother is certain and unquestionable. Accordingly, descent from the mother
afforded the only criterion. As all deep-reaching transformations in the social relations
of primitive man are accomplished only slowly, the change of the so-called
consanguine into the punaluan family must unquestionably have engaged vast periods
of time, and been broken through by many relapses, still noticeable in much later days.
The proximate external inducement for the development of the punaluan family was,
possibly, the necessity of splitting up the strongly swollen membership of the family,
to the end that new grounds could be occupied for cattle ranges and agriculture.
Probably, also, with the reaching of a higher grade of civilization, a sense gradually
asserted itself of the harmfulness and indecorousness of sexual intercourse between
brothers and sisters, and close relatives. In favor of this theory stands a pretty
tradition, that, as related by Cunow, Gaston found among the Dieyeries, one of the
South Australian tribes, on the rise of the "Mordu" consanguine group. He says:
"After creation, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers and other near relatives married
promiscuously among one another, until the evil effects of such connections showed
themselves clearly. A conference of leaders was held, and it was considered in what
way this could be avoided. The outcome of the conference was a request to the
Muramura (Great Spirit); and he ordered in his answer that the tribe be divided into
several branches, and that, in order to distinguish them, they be called by different
names, after animate or inanimate objects. For instance: after the dingo, the mouse, the
emu, the rain, the iguana-lizard, etc. The members of one and the same group could
not marry another. The son of a Dingo could not, for instance, marry the daughter of a

Dingo; each of the two could, however, enter into connections with the Mouse, the
Emu, the Rat, or any other family."
This tradition is more sensible and natural, by a good deal, than the Christian tradition,
taught by the Bible. It shows plainly the rise of the consanguine groups. Moreover,
Paul Lafargue, makes in the "Neue Zeit" the sagacious, and, we think, felicitous point,
that names, such as Adam and Eve, are not names of individual persons, but the names
of gentes, in which, at the time, the Jews were joined. Lafargue solves by his argument
a series of otherwise obscure and contradictory passages in the first Book of Moses.
Again, M. Beer calls attention, likewise in the "Neue Zeit," that, to this day, it is a
conjugal custom among Jews that the bride and the bridegroom's mother may not
carry the same name, otherwise—thus runs this belief—a misfortune will befall the
family: sickness and death will pursue them. In our opinion, this is a further proof for
the correctness of Lafargue's theory. The gentile organization forbids marriage
between persons that descend from the same gens stock. Such a common descent must
be considered to exist, according to gentile principles, between the bride, that carries
the name of "Eve," and the bridegroom's mother of the same name. Modern Jews, of
course, have no longer the remotest suspicion of the real connection between their
prejudice and their old gentile constitution, which forbade such marriages of relatives.
The old gentile order had for its object to avoid the degenerating consequences of in-
breeding. Although this gentile constitution has for thousands of years been destroyed
among the Jews, tradition, as we see, has continued to live in superstition.
Quite possible, the experience, made at an early day with the breeding of animals,
revealed the harmfulness of in-breeding. How far this experience went transpires from
the manner in which, according to the first Book of Moses, chap. 30, verse 32 and
sequel, Jacob understood how to outwit his father-in-law Laban, by knowing how to
encompass the birth of eanlings that were streaked and pied, and which, according to
Laban's promises, were to be Jacob's. The old Israelites had, accordingly, long before
Darwin, studied Darwinism.
Once upon the subject of the conditions existing among the old Jews, a few other facts
are in order, clearly proving that, among them, descent in the female line was actually
in force of old. True enough, on the subject of woman, I Moses, 3, 16, runs this wise:
"And thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee;" and the verse
also undergoes the variation: "the woman shall leave father and mother, and cleave to
her husband." In point of fact, however, I Moses, 2, 24, has it this way: "Therefore
shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall
be one flesh." The same language recurs in Matthew 19, 15; Mark 10, 7, and in the
Epistle to the Ephesians 5, 31. The command sprang, accordingly, from the system of
descent in the female line, and the exegetists, at a loss what to do with it, allowed it to
appear in a light that is utterly false.

Descent in female line appears clearly also in IV Moses, 32, 41. It is there said that
Jair had a father, who was of the tribe of Judah, but his mother was of the tribe of
Manasseh, and Jair is expressly called the son of Manasseh, and he inherited in that
tribe. Another instance of descent in the female line among the Jews is met in
Nehemiah 7, 63. There the children of a priest, who took to wife one of the daughters
of Barzillai—a Jewish clan—are called children of Barzillai; they are, accordingly, not
called after the father, who, moreover, as a priest occupied a privileged position, but
after the mother. For the rest, already in the days of the Old Testament, accordingly, in
historic times, the father-right prevailed among the Jews, and the clan and tribe
organization rested on descent in the male line. Accordingly, the daughters were shut
off as heirs, as may be seen in I Moses 31, 14-15, where even Leah and Rachel, the
daughters of Laban, complain: "Is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our
father's house? Are we not counted of him strangers? for he has sold us, and hath quite
devoured also our money."
As happened with all peoples where descent in male replaced descent in female line,
woman among the Jews stood wholly bereft of rights. Wedlock was marriage by
purchase. On woman the obligation was laid of the strictest chastity; on the other
hand, man was not bound by the same ordinance; he, moreover, was privileged to
possess several wives. Did the husband, after the bridal night, believe to have found
that his wife had, before marriage, lost her maidenhood, not only had he the right to
cast her off, she was stoned to death. The same punishment fell upon the adultress;
upon the husband, however, only in case he committed adultery with a married Jewish
woman. According to V Moses 24, 1-4, the husband had also the right to cast off his
newly-married wife, if she found no favor in his eyes, even if only out of dislike. He
was then to write her a bill of divorcement, give it in her hand, and let her out of the
house. An expression of the low position that woman took later among the Jews is
furthermore found in the circumstances that, even to this day, woman attends divine
service in the synagogue, in a space strictly separated from the men, and they are not
included in the prayers.[5]
The relations of the sexes in the punaluan family consisted, according to Morgan, in
one or more sisters, belonging to one family group, marrying jointly one or more
brothers of another group. The consanguine sisters, or the first, second and more
remote cousins were wives in common with their husbands in common, who could not
be their brothers. These consanguine brothers, or cousins of several degrees, were the
husbands in common of their wives in common, who could not be their sisters. With
the stopping of in-breeding, the new family-form undoubtedly contributed towards the
rapid and vigorous development of the tribes, and imparted to the tribes, that had
turned to this form of family connection, an advantage over those that still retained the
old form of connections.

In general, the physical and intellectual differences between man and woman were
vastly less in primitive days than in our society. Among all the peoples, living in the
state of savagery or barbarism, the differences in the weight and size of the brain are
slighter than among the peoples in civilization. Likewise, in strength of body and
agility, the women among these peoples are but little behind the men. This is attested
not only by the testimony of the ancient writers on the peoples who clung to the
mother-right. Further testimony is furnished by the armies of women among the
Ashantees and of the King of Dahomey in West Africa, who distinguished themselves
by special bravery and ferocity. Likewise does the opinion of Tacitus on the women of
the old Germans, and Caesar's accounts of the women of the Iberians and Scots
confirm the fact. Columbus had to sustain a fight before Santa Cruz with an Indian
skiff in which the women fought as bravely as the men; and we find this theory further
confirmed in the passages from Havelock Ellis's work, "Man and Woman," which Dr.
Hope B. Adams-Walther deals upon in Nos. 39 and 40 of the "Neue Zeit." He says:
"About the Andombis of the Congo, Johnson relates that the women work hard as
carriers and in other occupations. All the same, they lead a perfectly happy life. They
are often stronger and more handsomely built than the men; not a few of them have
positively magnificent figures. Parke styles the Manynema of the same neighborhood
'fine animals,' and he finds the women very stately. They carry burdens as heavy as the
men and with equal ease. A North American Indian chief said to Hearne: 'Women are
created for labor; a woman can carry or drag as much as two men.' Schellong, who
published a painstaking study on the Papuans of New Guinea in the Ethnologic
Journal, issued in 1891, is of the opinion that the women are more strongly built than
the men. In the interior of Australia, women are sometimes beaten by men out of
jealousy; but it happens not infrequently that it is the man, who, on such occasions,
receives the stronger dose. In Cuba the women fought shoulder to shoulder with the
men. Among some tribes in India, as well as the Pueblos of North and the Patagonians
of South America, the women are as tall as the men. Even among the Arabians and
Druses the difference in size is slight; and yet nearer home, among the Russians, the
sexes are more alike than is the case among the western Europeans. Accordingly, in all
parts of the earth there are instances of equal or approximately equal physical
development."
The family relations that flow from the Punaluan family were these: The children of
my mother's sisters are her children, and the children of my father's brothers are his
children, and all together are my brothers and sisters. Conversely, the children of my
mother's brothers are her nephews and nieces, and the children of my father's sisters
are his nephews and nieces, and they, all together, are my cousins. Again, the husbands
of my mother's sisters are her husbands also, and the wives of my father's brothers are
also his wives; but my father's sisters and my mother's brothers are excluded from
family relationship, and their children are my cousins.[6]

Along with arising civilization, sexual intercourse is proscribed between brothers and
sisters, and the proscription gradually extends to the remotest collateral relatives on
the mother's side. A new group of consanguinity arises, the gens, which, in its first
form, is made up of a series of consanguine and more remote sisters, together with
their children and their consanguine and more remote brothers on their mother's side.
The gens has a common female ancestor, from whom the female successors descend in
generations. The husbands of these women are not of the consanguine group, the gens,
of their wives; they are of the gens of their sisters. Conversely, the children of these
men belong to the family group of their, the children's mother, descent being in the
female line. The mother is the head of the family; and thus arises the "mother-right,"
which for a long time constitutes the basis of the family and of inheritance. In keeping
therewith—so long as descent was recognized in the female line—woman had a seat
and voice in the councils of the gens; they voted in the election of the sachems and of
the military chiefs, and deposed them.
About the Lycians, who abided by the mother-right, Herodotus says; "Their customs
are partly Cretan, partly Carian. They have, however, a custom that distinguishes them
from all other nations in the world. Ask a Lycian who he is, and he answers by giving
you his own name, the name of his mother, and so on in the female line. Aye, if a free-
born woman marries a slave, her children are citizens, but if a free man marries a
stranger, or takes a concubine, even if he be the highest person in the State, his
children forfeit all citizen rights."
In those days, "matrimonium" and not "patrimonium," "mater familias" and not "pater
familias" were the terms used; and the native land is called the "dear motherland." As
with the previous family-forms, so did the gens rest upon the community of property,
and had a communistic system of household. The woman is the real guide and leader
of this family community; hence she enjoys a high degree of respect, in the house as
well as in the affairs of the family community concerning the tribe. She is judge and
adjuster of disputes, and frequently performs the ceremonies of religion as priestess.
The frequent appearance of Queens and Princesses in antiquity, their controlling
influence, even there where their sons reigned, for instance, in the history of old
Egypt, are results of the mother-right. Mythology, at that epoch, assumes
predominantly female characters: Astarte, Ceres, Demeter, Latona, Isis, Frigga, Freia,
Gerdha, etc. Woman is considered inviolable; matricide is the blackest of all crimes: it
summons all men to retribution. The blood-feud is the common concern of all the men
of the tribe; each is obliged to avenge the wrong done to a member of the family
community by the members of another tribe. In defence of the women the men are
spurred to highest valor. Thus did the effects of the mother-right, gyneocracy, manifest
themselves in all the relations of life among the peoples of antiquity—among the
Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, before the time of the Heroes;
among the peoples of Italy, before the founding of Rome; among the Scythians, the
Gauls, the Iberians and Cantabrians, the Germans of Tacitus, etc. Woman, at that time,

takes in the family and in public life a position such as she has never since taken.
Along these lines, says Tacitus in his "Germania": "They (the Germans) even suppose
somewhat of sanctity and prescience to be inherent in the female sex; and, therefore,
neither despise their counsels, nor disregard their responses;" and Diodorus, who lived
at the time of Caesar, feels highly indignant over the position of women in Egypt,
having learned that there, not the sons, but the daughters, supported their aging
parents. He contemptuously shrugs his shoulders at the poltroons of the Nile, who
relinquish household and public rights to the members of the weaker sex, and allow
them privileges that must sound unheard-of to a Greek or a Roman.
Under the gyneocracy, a state of comparative peace prevailed in general. The horizon
was narrow and small, life primitive. The different tribes separated themselves from
one another, as best they could, and respected their mutual boundaries. Was, however,
one tribe attacked by another, then the men were obliged to rush to its defence, and in
this they were supported by the women in the most vigorous fashion. According to
Herodotus, the women joined in battle among the Scythians: as he claims, the maid
could not marry before she had slain an enemy. What role women played in battle
among the Germans, Iberians, Scots, etc., has already been stated. But in the gens also
did they, under given circumstances, command a strong regiment:—woe to the man
who was either too lazy or too unskilled to contribute his share to the common
support. He was shown the door, and, either he returned to his own gens, where it was
with difficulty he was again received with friendliness, or he joined another gens that
was more tolerant toward him.[7]
That conjugal life still bears this character in the interior of Africa, Livingstone
learned to his great surprise, as he narrates in his "Missionary Travels and Researches
in Southern Africa," London, 1857. On the Zambesi he ran across the Valonda—a
handsome, vigorous negro tribe, devoted to agriculture—where he found confirmed
the informations received from the Portuguese, and which at first seemed incredible to
him, with regard to the privileged position enjoyed by women. They sit in council; the
young man who marries must move from his own, to the village of his wife: he
thereby pledges himself to furnish the mother of his wife for life with kindling wood:
if he divorces, the children remain the property of the mother. On the other hand, the
wife must see to the sustenance of the husband. Although, occasionally, slight
disagreements break out between man and wife, Livingstone found that the men did
not retaliate, but he discovered that the men, who offended their wives, were punished
in the most sensitive manner—through their stomachs. The husband, he says, comes
home to eat, but one woman sends him off to another, and he gets nothing. Tired and
hungry he climbs a tree in the most populous part of the village, and announces in
woeful tones: "Hear! Hear! I thought I had married women, but they are witches to
me! I am a bachelor; I have not a single wife! Is that right towards a man like me?" If
a woman gives physical expression to her anger at a man, she is sentenced to carry
him on her back from the court of the chieftain to her own house. While she is

carrying him home, the other men scoff at and jeer her; the women, on the contrary,
encourage her with all their might, calling out to her: "Treat him as he deserves; do it
again!"
Similar conditions still exist in the German colony of Cameroon in West Africa. A
German ship's doctor, who studied the country and its people by personal observation,
writes us thus:
"With a large number of tribes, inheritance is based on maternity. Paternity is
immaterial. Brothers and sisters are only the children of one mother. A man does not
bequeath his property to his children, but to the children of his sister, that is to say, to
his nephews and nieces, as his nearest demonstrable blood relatives. A chief of the
Way people explained to me in horrible English: "My sister and I are certainly blood
relatives, consequently her son is my heir; when I die, he will be the king of my
town." "And your father?" I inquired. "I don't know what that means, 'my father,'"
answered he. Upon my putting to him the question whether he had no children, rolling
on the ground with laughter, he answered that, with them, men have no children, only
women.
"I can assure you," our informant goes on to write, "that even the heir of King Bell in
Cameroon is the King's nephew, and not one of his sons. The so-called children of
King Bell, several of whom are now going through training in German cities, are
merely children of his wives, whose fathers are unknown; one of them I might,
possibly, claim for myself."
What say the adversaries of the theory of descent in the female line to this sketch
drawn from the immediate present? Our informant is a man with eyes open, who
probed things to the very bottom. How many of those who live among these semi-
savage races, do as much? Hence the wild accounts about the "immorality" of the
natives.
Furthermore, there come to our notice the memorials of the Imperial Government,
submitted to the Reichstag on the German colonies (Session of 1894-95). In the
memorial on the Southwestern territory of Africa there occurs this passage, p. 239:
"Without their advice—the oldest and wealthiest—he (chief of the tribe in principal
village) can not render the slightest decision, and not the men only, but quite often the
women also, even the servants, express their opinion."
In the report of the Marshall Islands, p. 254 of the memorial, it runs thus: "The ruling
power over all the islands of the Marshall group never rested in the hands of a single
chieftain.... Seeing, however, that no female member of this class (the Irody) is alive,
and only the mother conveys nobility and rank to the child, the Irodies dies out with
their chieftain." The expression used, and the descriptions made, by reporters betray

what an utter blank are to them the conditions that they refer to: they can not find their
bearings among them.
With an increasing population, there arise a number of sisters, which, in turn, produce
daughter gentes. Over and against these, the mother gens appears as phratry. A number
of phratries constitute a tribe. This social organization is so firm that it still constituted
the foundation for the military organization in the old States, after the old gentile
constitution had fallen to pieces. The tribe splits up into several tribes, all of which
have the same constitution, and in each of which the old gentes are reproduced.
However, seeing that the gentile constitution forbids the intermarriage of brothers and
sisters, and of relatives on the mother's side to the furthest degree, it undermines its
own foundation. Due to the evermore complicated relations of the separate gentes with
one another—a condition of things that the social and economic progress promotes—
the inhibition of marriage between the several gentes, that descend from the mother's
side, becomes in the long run impracticable: it breaks down of itself, or is burst
asunder. So long as the production of the means of subsistence was still at the lowest
stages, and satisfied only simple wants, the activity of man and woman was essentially
the same. Along with an increasing division of labor, there came about, not merely a
division of functions, but also a division of occupations. Fishing, the hunt, cattle-
raising,—demanded separate knowledge; and, to a still higher degree, the construction
of tools and utensils, which became mainly the property of the men. Field agriculture
expanded materially the circle of activities, and it created a supply of subsistence that
satisfied the highest demands of the time. Man, whose activity stood in the foreground
in the course of this development, became the real lord and owner of these sources of
wealth, which, in turn, furnished the basis for commerce; and this created new
relations, and social changes.
Not only did ever fresh causes of friction and conflicts arise for the possession of the
best lands, due to the increase of population, and the need of wider domains for cattle-
raising and agriculture, but, along with such increase of population, there arose the
need of labor power to cultivate the ground. The more numerous these powers, all the
greater was the wealth in products and herds. These struggles led, first, to the rape of
women, later to the enslaving of conquered men. The women became laborers and
objects of pleasure for the conqueror; their males became slaves. Two elements were
thereby simultaneously introduced into the old gentile constitution. The two and the
gentile constitution could not, in the long run, get along together.
Furthermore, hand in hand with the increasing differentiation of occupations, owing to
the growing need of tools, utensils, weapons, etc., handicraft rises into existence. It
follows its own course of development and separates itself from agriculture. As a
consequence, a distinct population, one that plies the trades, is called into life; and it
splits off from the agricultural population with entirely different interests.

According to the mother-right, i. e., so long as descent followed only in female line,
the custom was that the gentile relatives inherited from the deceased gentile fellow-
members on the mother's side. The property remained in the gens. The children of the
deceased father did not belong to his gens, but to that of the mother: accordingly, they
did not inherit from the father; at his death his property fell back to his own gens.
Under the new conditions, where the father was the property-holder, i. e., the owner of
herds and slaves, of weapons and utensils, and where he had become a
handicraftsman, or merchant, his property, so long as he was still considered of the
gens of his mother, fell after his death, not to his own children, but to his brothers and
sisters, and to the children of his sisters, or to the successors of his sisters. His own
children went away empty-handed. The pressure to change such a state of things was,
accordingly, powerful;—and it was changed. Thereupon a condition arose that was not
yet monogamy, but that approximated it; there arose the "pairing family." A certain
man lived with a certain woman, and the children, born of that relation, were that
couple's own children. These pairing families increased in the measure in which the
marriage inhibitions, that flowed from the gentile constitution, hampered marriage,
and in which the above mentioned economic grounds rendered desirable this new form
of family life. Personal property accorded ill with the old condition of things, which
rested upon the community of goods. Both rank and occupation now decidedly
favored the necessity for the choice of a domicile. The production of merchandise
begot commerce with neighboring and foreign nations; and that necessitated money. It
was man who led and controlled this development. His private interests had,
accordingly, no longer any real points of contact with the old gentile organization,
whose interests often stood in opposition to his own. Accordingly, the importance of
the gentile organization sank ever more. The gens finally became little more than the
center of the religious functions for the family, its economic significance was gone.
The complete dissolution of gentile organization became only a question of time.
With the dissolution of the old gentile organization, the influence and position of
woman sank rapidly. The mother-right vanished; the father-right stepped into its shoes.
Man now became a private property-holder: he had an interest in children, whom he
could look upon as legitimate, and whom he made the heirs of his property: hence he
forced upon woman the command of abstinence from intercourse with other men.
At the same time man assumed the right of taking unto himself, beside his own wife,
or several of them, as many concubines as his condition allowed; and the children of
these concubines were likewise treated as legitimate. On this head we find two
valuable illustrations in the Bible. In I Book of Moses, chapter 16, verses 1 and 2, we
read: "Now Sarai, Abram's wife, bare him no children: and she had a hand-maid, an
Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the Lord
has restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may
obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai." The second
remarkable illustration is found in I Book of Moses 30, 1 and sequel: "And when

Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto
Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel;
and he said, Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?
and she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my
knees that I may also have children by her. And she gave him Bilhah her handmaid to
wife: and Jacob went in unto her."
Jacob, accordingly, had not only the daughters of Laban, two sisters, simultaneously
for wives, they also helped him to their maids, all of which, according to the usage of
the times, was wholly free from taint of impropriety. The two principal wives he had
bought, as is well known, by serving Laban seven years for each. The purchase of a
wife was at the time common among the Jews, but, along with the purchase of wives,
whom they were compelled to take from among their own people, they practiced on an
extensive scale the rape of women from among the peoples that they conquered. The
Benjaminites raped the daughters of Silos.[8] In such wars, it was originally customary
that all the men who fell into the hands of the vanquisher were killed. The captured
woman became a slave, a concubine. Nevertheless, she could be raised to the dignity
of a legitimate wife so soon as she had fulfilled certain conditions of the Jews: she had
to cut her hair and nails; to lay off the dress she was captured in, and exchange it for
another that was given her; thereupon she had to mourn a whole month for her father
and mother: she was, in a manner to be dead to her own people, become estranged
from them: then could she climb into the conjugal bed. The largest number of wives
had King Solomon, as is known. According to Kings 1, 11, not less than 700 wives
and 300 concubines are ascribed to him.
With the rule of the father-right and descent in the male line in the Jewish gentile
organization, the daughters were excluded from inheritance. Later this was, however,
changed, at least when a father left no sons. This appears from IV Book of Moses 27,
2-8, where it is reported that, as Zelaphehad died without sons, and his daughter
complained bitterly that she was to be excluded from her father's inheritance, which
was to fall back to the tribe of Joseph, Moses decided that, in that case, the daughters
should inherit. But seeing that she contemplated marrying, according to custom, in
another tribe, the tribe of Joseph complained that thereby the inheritance would be lost
to it. Thereupon Moses decided further (4, 36) that heiresses, though free in the choice
of a husband, were bound to marry in the tribe of their own father. For the sake of
property, the old ordinance was overthrown. Similarly, in Athens, did Solon decree
that an heiress had to marry her nearest male agnate, even though both belonged to the
same gens, and, according to former law, such a marriage was forbidden. Solon
ordered also that a property-holder was not compelled as thitherto, to leave his
property to his own gens in case he died childless; but that he could by testament
constitute any one else his heir. From all this it is obvious:—man does not rule
property, property rules him, and becomes his master.

With the rule of private property, the subjection of woman to man, her bondage was
sealed. Then came the time of disregard, even of contempt for woman.
The reign of the mother-right implied communism; equality for all; the rise of the
father-right implied the reign of private property, and, with it, the oppression and
enslavement of woman.
It is difficult to trace in detail the manner in which the change was achieved. A
knowledge of the events is lacking. Neither did this first great revolution in the lap of
mankind come into force simultaneously among the ancient nations; nor yet is it
probable that it was accomplished everywhere in the same manner. Among the peoples
of old Greece, it was Athens where the new order of things first prevailed.
Frederick Engels is of the opinion that this great revolution was accomplished
peacefully, and that, after all the conditions for the new rights were at hand, it only
required a simple vote in the gens in order to rear the father in the place of the mother-
right. Bachofen, on the contrary, grounding his opinion upon more or less reliable
information from the old writers, holds that the women offered strong resistance to
this social transformation. He, for instance, sees in the legends of the Amazonian
Kingdoms, which re-appear under manifold variations in the old history of Asia and
the Orient, and also have turned up in South America and in China, proofs for the
struggle and resistance which the women offered to the new order. We leave that as it
may be.
With the rule of man, women lost their position in the community; they were excluded
from the councils and from all leading influence. Man exacts conjugal fidelity from
her, but claims exemption for himself. If she violates that, she is guilty of the most
serious deception that can afflict the new citizen; she thereby introduces into his house
stranger's children as heirs of his property. Hence, among all ancient nations, the
breach of conjugal fidelity on the part of woman is punished with death or slavery.
Notwithstanding women were thus removed from their position as leaders, the
customs connected with the old system of morals continued for centuries to sway the
public mind, although the meaning of the surviving customs was gradually lost to the
people. It is only in modern times that pains are being taken to inquire into the original
meaning of these old customs. In Greece, for instance, it remained a religious practice
that Greek women prayed only to goddesses for advice, help and favors. Likewise, the
yearly recurring celebration of the Thesmophoria owed its origin to the days of
mother-right. Even in later days, the women of Greece celebrated this festival for five
days in honor of Demeter; and no man was allowed to be present. It was similarly in
old Rome with a festival in honor of Ceres. Both Demeter and Ceres were considered
goddesses of fertility. In Germany also such festivals, once customary in the heathen
days of Frigga, were held, deep into the Middle Ages, Frigga being considered the
goddess of fertility among the old Germans. According to the narratives, women gave

a free reign to their frolicsomeness on the occasions of these festivals. Also here men
were excluded from participation in the festival.
In Athens, where, as already stated, the mother-right made earliest room for the father-
right, but, as it seems, under strong opposition from the women, the transition is
portrayed touchingly and in all the fullness of its tragic import, in the "Eumenides" of
Aeschylus. The story is this: Agamemnon, King of Mycene, and husband of
Clytemnestra, sacrifices his daughter, Iphigenia, upon the command of the oracle on
his expedition against Troy. The mother, indignant at the sacrifice of her daughter,
takes, during her husband's absence, Aegysthos for her consort. Upon Agamemnon's
return to Mycene, after an absence of many years, he is murdered by Aegysthos with
the connivance of Clytemnestra. Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra,
avenges the murder of his father, at the instigation of Apollo and Athene, by slaying
his mother and Aegysthos. The Erinnyes, as representatives of the old law, pursue
Orestes on account of the murder of his mother. Apollo and Athene, the latter of
whom, according to mythology, is motherless—she leaped full-armed out of the head
of Jupiter—represent the new law, and defend Orestes. The issue is carried to the
Areopagus, before which the following dialogue ensues. The two hostile principles
come here into dramatic vividness of expression:

Erinnyes—The prophet bade thee be a matricide?
Orestes—And to this hour I am well content withal.
Erinnyes—Thoul't change that tune, when judgment seizes thee.
Orestes—My father from his tomb will take my part; I fear not.
Erinnyes—Ay, rely on dead men's aid,
When guilty of matricide!
Orestes—She, that is slain,
Was doubly tainted.
Erinnyes—How? Inform the court.
Orestes—She slew her wedded lord, and slew my sire.
Erinnyes—Death gave her quittance, then. But thou yet livest.
Orestes—And while she lived, why did you not pursue her?
Erinnyes—No tie of blood bound her to whom she slew.
Orestes—But I was tied by blood-affinity
To her who bare me?
Erinnyes—Else, thou accursed one,
How nourished she thy life within her womb?
Wouldst thou renounce the holiest bond of all?

The Erinnyes, it will be noticed, recognize no rights on the part of the father and the
husband; to them there exists only the right of the mother. That Clytemnestra slew her
husband is indifferent to them; on the other hand, they demand punishment for the
matricide, committed by Orestes: in killing his mother he had committed the worst

crime imaginable under the old gentile order. Apollo, on the contrary, stands on the
opposite principle. Commissioned by Zeus to avenge the murder of his father, he had
led Orestes to the murder of his own mother. Apollo now defends Orestes' action
before the judges, saying:

That scruple likewise I can satisfy.
She who is called the mother of the child
Is not its parent, but the nurse of seed
Implanted in begetting. He that sows
Is author of the shoot, which she, if Heaven
Prevent not, keeps as in a garden-ground.
In proof whereof, to show that fatherhood
May be without the mother, I appeal
To Pallas, daughter of Olympian Zeus,
In present witness here. Behold a plant,
Not moulded in the darkness of the womb,
Yet nobler than all scions of Heaven's stock.

According to Apollo, the act of begetting confers the superior right; whereas,
according to the views in force until then, the mother, who gives to the child her blood
and its life, was esteemed the sole possessor of the child, while the man, the father of
her child, was regarded a stranger. Hence the Erinnyes reply to the strange notions of
Apollo:

Thou didst lead astray
Those primal goddesses with draughts of wine,
O'erturning ordinance.
Young, thou wouldst override our ancient right.

The judges, thereupon, make ready for the sentence. One half stand by the old, one
half by the new right; a tie is threatened; thereupon Athene seizes the ballot from the
altar and dropping it in the urn, says:

To me it falls to give my judgment last.
Here openly I give it for Orestes.
No mother bore me. To the masculine side
For all save marriage my whole heart is given,—
In all and everything the father's child.
So little care I for a woman's death,
That slew her lord, the guardian of her home.
Now though the votes be even, Orestes wins.

The new right won. Marriage with the father as head, had overpowered the
gyneocracy.
Another legend represents the downfall of the mother-right in Athens this way: "Under
the reign of Kekrops, a double miracle happened. There broke forth simultaneously
out of the earth an oil-tree, and at another place water. The frightened king sent to
Delphi to interrogate the Oracle upon the meaning of these happenings. The answer
was: 'The oil-tree stands for Minerva, the water for Neptune; it is now with the citizens
after which of the two deities they wish to name their city.' Kekrops called together the
assembly of the people in which men and women enjoyed the right of suffrage. The
men voted for Neptune, the women for Minerva; and as the women had a majority of
one, Minerva won. Thereupon Neptune was angered and he caused the sea to wash
over the territory of the Athenians. In order to soothe the wrath of the god, the
Athenians placed a threefold punishment upon their women:—they were to forfeit the
suffrage, children were no longer to carry their mother's name, and they themselves
were no longer to be called Athenian women."[9]
As in Athens, the transition from the mother to the father-right was everywhere
achieved so soon as a certain height was reached in social development. Woman is
crowded into the house; she is isolated; she is assigned special quarters—the
gynekonitis—, in which she lives; she is even excluded from intercourse with the male
visitors of the house. That, in fact, was the principal object of her isolation.
This change finds its expression as early as the Odyssey. Telemachus forbids
Penelope's, his mother's, presence among the suitors. He, the son, orders his mother:

But come now, go to thy bower, and deal with such things as
ye can;
With the sock and the loom be busy, and thine handmaids
order and teach,
That they speed the work and the wearing; but for men is the
word and the speech;
For all, but for me the chiefest, for here am I the might and
the power.

Such was the doctrine already common in Greece at that time. It went even further.
Woman, even if a widow, stands so completely under the rule of the nearest male
relative, that she no longer has even the choice of a husband. The suitors, tired of long
waiting, due to the cunning of Penelope, address themselves to Telemachus through
the mouth of Antinous, saying:

But for thee, do we the suitors this answer to thee show,
That thou in thy soul may'st know it, and that all the folk may
know,

Send thou thy mother away, and bid her a wedding to gain
With whomso her father willeth, of whomso her heart may be
fain.
It is at an end with the freedom of woman. If she leaves the house, she must veil
herself not to awaken the desires of another man. In the Orient, where, due to the
warm climate, sexual passion is strongest, this method of seclusion is carried even to-
day to extreme lengths. Athens becomes in this a pattern for the ancient nations.
Woman shares, indeed, her husband's bed, but not his table; she does not address him
by name, but "Sir;" she is his maid-servant; she was allowed to appear nowhere
openly; on the street she was ever veiled and clad with greatest simplicity. If she
committed adultery, she paid for the trespass, according to the laws of Solon, with her
life, or with her freedom. The husband could sell her for a slave.
The position of the Greek woman at the time when Greece was rushing to the zenith of
her development comes into plastic expression in the "Medea" of Euripedes. She
complains:

Ay, of all living and of all reasoning things
Are women the most miserable race:
Who first needs buy a husband at great price,
To take him then for owner of our lives:
For this ill is more keen than common ills.
And of essays most perilous is this,
Whether one good or evil do we take.
For evil-famed to women is divorce,
Nor can one spurn a husband. She, so brought
Beneath new rule and wont, had surely need
To be a prophetess, unless at home
She learned the likeliest prospect with her spouse.
And if, we having aptly searched out this,
A husband house with us not savagely
Drawing in the yoke, ours is an envied life;
But if not, most to be desired is death.
And if a man grow sick to herd indoors,
He, going forth, stays his heart's weariness,
Turning him to some friend or natural peer;
But we perforce to one sole being look.
But, say they, we, while they fight with the spear,
Lead in our homes a life undangerous:
Judging amiss; for I would liefer thrice
Bear brunt of arms than once bring forth a child.

Wholly otherwise stood matters for the men. Although with an eye to the begetting of
legitimate heirs for his property, he imposed upon woman strict abstinence from other
men, he was, nevertheless, not inclined to lay a corresponding abstinence upon
himself.
Hetairism sprang up. Women distinguished for their beauty and intellect, and who, as a
rule, were aliens, preferred a free life in intimate intercourse with men, to the slavery
of marriage. Nothing objectionable was seen in that. The names and fame of these
hetairae, who held intimate intercourse with the leading men of Greece, and
participated in their learned discourses, as well as in their revels, has come down to
our own days; whereas the names of the legitimate wives are mostly forgotten and
lost. Thus the handsome Aspasia was the intimate friend of the celebrated Pericles,
who later made her his legitimate wife; the name of Phryne became in later days the
generic designation of those women that were to be had for money. Phryne held
intimate relations with Hyperides, and she stood for Praxiteles, one of the first
sculptors of Greece, as the model for his Aphrodite. Danae was the sweetheart of
Epicurus, Archeanassa that of Plato. Other celebrated hetairae, whose names have
reached our days, were Lais of Corinth, Gnathanea, etc. There is no celebrated Greek,
who had no intercourse with hetairae. It belonged to the style of life of distinguished
Greeks. Demosthenes, the great orator, described in his oration against Neara, the
sexual life of the rich men of Athens in these words: "We marry a woman in order to
obtain legitimate children, and to have a faithful warder in the house; we keep
concubines for our service and daily care; and hetairae for the enjoyment of love."
The wife was, accordingly, only an apparatus for the production of children; a faithful
dog, that watched the house. The master of the house, on the contrary, lived according
to his bon plaisir, as he willed.
In order to satisfy the demand for venal women, particularly with younger males, there
arose that which was unknown under the rule of the mother-right,—prostitution.
Prostitution distinguishes itself from the free sexual intercourse that customs and
social institutions rendered a matter of course under primitive conditions, and,
accordingly, freed from objectionableness, in that the woman sells her body, either to
one man or to several, for material benefit. Prostitution, therefore, exists so soon as
woman makes a trade of her charms. Solon, who formulated the new law for Athens,
and is, consequently, esteemed the founder of the new legal status, was also the
founder of the public houses for women, the "deikterion,"—official houses of
prostitution—, and the price to all the customers was the same. According to Philemon
it amounted to one obolus, about four cents of our money. Like the temples with the
Greeks and Romans, and the Christian churches in Middle Ages, the deikterion was
inviolable: it stood under the protection of the Government. Until about a hundred and
fifty years before our reckoning, the Temple of Jerusalem also was the usual place of
gathering for the filles de joie.

For the benefit that Solon bestowed upon the Athenian male population, in founding
the deikterion, he was praised in song by one of his contemporaries in these words:
"Hail to you, Solon! You bought public women for the benefit of the city, for the
benefit of the morality of a city that is full of vigorous young men, who, in the absence
of your wise institution, would give themselves over to the disturbing annoyance of
the better women." We shall see that, at the close of the nineteenth century,
justification is sought for the regulation of houses of prostitution by Government, and
for the necessity of prostitution itself, upon the identical grounds. Thus, actions,
committed by men, were recognized by legislation as a natural right, while, committed
by women, were held to be shameful, and a serious crime. As is well known, even to-
day not few are the men who prefer the company of a pretty female sinner to that of
their own wives, and who not infrequently belong to the "Props of the State," the
"Pillars of Order," and are "guardians of the sanctity of marriage and the family."
True enough, it seems, that the Greek women often revenged themselves upon their
marital-lords for the yoke placed upon them. If prostitution is the supplement of
monogamy, on the one side, adultery among women and the cuckoldry of men is its
supplement, on the other. Among the Greek dramatic poets, Euripides is the woman-
hater: he loved to make women the object of attacks in his dramas. What all he twitted
them with appears best from the speech that a Greek woman flings at him in the
"Thesmophoria" of Aristophanes. She says among other things:

With what slanderous dirt does not he (Euripides) besmirch
us?
When does the slanderer's tongue hold its peace? In short:
Wherever there is an audience, tragedies or choruses,
There we are called corner-loafers, anglers for men,
Fond of the wine-cup, treasonable arch-gossips,
Not a good hair is left us; we are the plague of men.
Therefore, soon as our husbands return to us home from the
benches,[10]
Eyes of suspicion upon us they cast, and look about
Whether a place of concealment conceal not a rival.
Whereupon, none of the things, at first by us done,
Now is allowed us: Such stuff against us
Does he in the men's heads stick, that, if a woman
Is weaving a garland, she is held to be in love; or when,
While hustling the household to keep, something drops,
Forthwith the husband inquires: "Whom are those fragments
meant for?
Plainly, they are meant for the guest from Corinthos."

We can understand that this ready-tongued Greek woman should serve the assailer of
her sex in such manner; nevertheless, Euripides could not very well have made these
accusations, nor could he have found credence with the men, if they knew not but too
well that the accusations were justified. To judge by the concluding sentences of this
address, the custom—met later in Germany and many other countries—had not yet
been naturalized in Greece, that the host placed his own wife or daughter at the
disposal of his guest for the night. Murner writes on this custom, prevalent in Holland
as late as the fifteenth century, in these words: "It is the custom in the Netherlands,
when the host has a dear guest, that he lets his wife sleep with him on faith."[11]
The increasing struggles between the classes in the several states of Greece, and the
sad state of many of the smaller communities, gave occasion for Plato to inquire into
the best constitution and the best institutions for the State. In his "Republic," set up by
him as ideal, he demands, at least for the first class of his citizens, the watchers, the
complete equality of woman. Women are to participate in the exercises of arms, the
same as the men, and are to fill the same duties as these, only they are to attend to the
lighter ones, "owing to the weakness of the sex." He maintains that the natural
inclinations are equally distributed among the two sexes, only that woman is in all
matters weaker than man. Furthermore, the women are to be common to the men, and
vice versa; likewise are the children to be common, "so that neither the father may
know his child, nor the child his father."[12]
Aristotle, in his "Politics," is satisfied with less. Woman should have a free hand in the
selection of her husband, but she is to be subordinate to him; nevertheless, she should
have the right "to give good advice." Thucydides expresses an opinion that meets with
the applause of all modern Philistines. He says: "That wife deserves the highest praise
of whom, outside of her home, neither good nor bad is heard."
With such views, respect for woman was bound to sink to a low level; fear of over-
population even led to the avoidance of intimate intercourse with her. Unnatural
means of satisfying sexual desires were resorted to. The Greek states were cities with
small territories, unable to supply the usual sustenance to a population in excess of a
given number. Hence the fear of over-population caused Aristotle to recommend to the
men abstinence from their wives, and pederasty, instead. Before him, Socrates had
praised pederasty as the sign of a higher culture. In the end, the most promising men
of Greece became adherents of this unnatural passion. Regard for women sank all the
deeper. There were now houses for male prostitutes, as there were for female. In such
a social atmosphere, it was natural for Thucydides to utter the saying that woman was
worse than the storm-lashed ocean's wave, than the fire's glow, than the cascade of the
wild mountain torrent. "If it is a God that invented woman, wherever, he may be, let
him know, that he is the unhallowed cause of the greatest evil."[13]

The male population of Greece having become addicted to pederasty, the female
population fell into the opposite extreme: it took to the love of members of its own
sex. This happened especially with the women of the island of Lesbos, whence this
aberration was, and still continues to be named, "Lesbian love," for it has not yet died
out: it survives among us. The poetess Sappho, "the Lesbian nightingale," who lived
about six hundred years before our reckoning, is considered the leading representative
of this form of love. Her passion is glowingly expressed in her hymn to Aphrodite,
whom she implores:

"Glittering-throned, undying Aphrodite,
Wile-weaving daughter of high Zeus, I pray thee,
Tame not my soul with heavy woe, dread mistress,
Nay, nor with anguish."

A still more passionate sensuousness is attested in her hymn to the handsome Atthis.
While in Athens, along with the rest of Greece, the father-right ruled, Sparta, the rival
for supremacy with Athens, still continued under the mother-right, a condition that had
become wholly foreign to most Greeks. The story runs that one day a Greek asked a
Spartan what punishment was meted out in Sparta to the adulterer. He answered:
"Stranger, among us there are no adulterers." "But if there should be any?" "For
punishment," the Spartan replied, sarcastically, "he must donate an ox, so large as to
be able to reach over Taygetus with his head, and drink out of Eurotas." Upon the
startled question, put by the stranger, "How can an ox be so large?" the Spartan
answered laughing: "How is it possible that there could be an adulterer in Sparta?" At
the same time the self-consciousness of the Spartan woman appears in the proud
answer given a stranger by the wife of Leonidas. On his saying to her: "You female
Lacedaemonians are the only women who rule over your men," she answered: "So are
we the only women who bring men into the world."
The free condition of women under the mother-right promoted her beauty, raised her
pride, her dignity and her self-reliance. The judgment of all ancient writers is to the
effect that, during the period of the gyneocracy, these qualities were highly developed
among women. The constrained condition that later supervened, necessarily had its
evil effect upon them. The difference appears even in the garb of the two periods. The
garb of the Doric woman hung loose from her shoulders; it left the arms free, and
thighs exposed: it is the garb of Diana, who is represented as free and bold in our
museums. The Ionian garb, on the contrary, concealed the body and hampered its
motion. The garb of woman to-day is, far more than usually realized, a sign of her
dependence and helplessness. The style of woman's dress amongst most peoples,
down to our own days, renders her awkward, forces on her a sense of weakness, and
makes her timid; and this, finally, finds its expression in her attitude and character. The
custom among the Spartans of letting the girls go naked until marriageable age—a

custom that the climate allowed—contributed considerably, in the opinion of an
ancient writer, to impart to them a taste for simplicity and for attention to decency. Nor
was there in the custom, according to the views of those days, aught offensive to
decorum, or inciting to lust. Furthermore, the girls participated in all the bodily
exercises, just as the boys, and thus there was reared a vigorous, proud, self-conscious
race, a race that was conscious of its own merit, as proved by the answer of Leonidas'
wife to the stranger.
In intimate connection with the mother-right, after it had ceased to be a ruling social
principle, stood certain customs, which modern writers, ignorant of their meaning,
designate as "prostitution." In Babylon, it was a religious duty with the maid, who had
reached puberty, to appear once in the temple of Mylitta in order to offer her
maidenhood as a sacrifice, by surrendering herself to some man. Similarly happened
in the Serapeum of Memphis; in Armenia, in honor of the goddess Anaitis; in Cyprus;
in Tyrus and Sidon, in honor of Astarte or Aphrodite. The festivals of Isis among the
Egyptians served similar customs. This sacrifice of virginity was demanded in order to
atone with the goddess for the exclusive surrender of woman to one man in marriage:
—"Not that she may wilt in the arms of a single man is woman arrayed by nature with
all the charms at its command."[14] The continued favor of the goddess had to be
purchased by the sacrifice of virginity to a stranger. It was likewise in line with the old
idea that the Lybian maids earned their dower by prostituting their bodies. In accord
with the mother-right, these women were sexually free during their unmarried status;
and the men saw so little objection in these pickings, that those were taken by them for
wives who had been most in demand. It was thus also among the Thracians, in the
days of Herodotus: "They do not watch the maidens, but leave them full freedom to
associate with whom they please. The women, however, they watch strictly. They buy
them from their parents for large sums." Celebrated were the Hierodulae of the temple
of Aphrodite at Corinth, where always more than one thousand maidens were
gathered, and constituted a chief point of attraction for the men of Greece. Of the
daughter of King Cheops of Egypt, the legend relates that she had a pyramid built out
of the proceeds of prostitution of her charms.
Conditions, similar to these, prevail down to now, on the Mariana, the Philippine and
the Polynesian islands; according to Waitz, also among several African tribes. Another
custom, prevalent till late on the Balearic islands, and indicative of the right of all men
to a woman, was that, on the wedding night, the male kin had access to the bride in
order of seniority. The bridegroom came last; he then took her as wife into his own
possession. This custom has been changed among other people so that the priest or the
tribal chiefs (kings) exercise the privilege over the bride, as representatives of the men
of the tribe. On Malabar, the Caimars hire patamars (priests) to deflower their wives....
The chief priest (Namburi) is in duty bound to render this service to the king
(Zamorin) at his wedding, and the king rewards him with fifty gold pieces.[15] In
Further India, and on several islands of the great ocean, it is sometimes the priests and

sometimes the tribal chiefs who undertake the function.[16] The same happens in
Senegambia, where the tribal chief exercises, as a duty of his office, the deflowering
of maids, and receives therefor a present. Again, with other peoples, the custom was,
and continues here and yonder, that the deflowering of a maid, sometimes even of a
child only a few months old, is done by means of images of deities, fashioned
expressly for this purpose. It may also be accepted as certain that the "jus primae
noctis" (the right of the first night), prevalent in Germany and all Europe until late in
the Middle Ages, owes its origin to the same tradition, as Frederick Engels observes.
The landlord, who, as master of his dependents and serfs, looked upon himself as their
chief, exercised the right of the head of the tribe, a right that he considered had passed
over to himself as the arbiter of their lives and existence.
Echoes of the mother-right are further detected in the singular custom among some
South American tribes, that, instead of the lying-in woman, the man goes to bed, there
acts like a woman in labor, and is tended by the wife. The custom implies that the
father recognizes the new born child as his own. By imitating the pains of child-birth,
the man fills the fiction that the birth is also his work; that he, therefore, has a right to
the child, who, according to the former custom, belonged to the mother and the
mother's gens, respectively. The custom is said to have also maintained itself among
the Basques, who must be looked upon as a people of primitive usages and customs.
Likewise is the custom said to prevail among several mountain tribes in China. It
prevailed until not long since in Corsica.
In Greece likewise did woman become an article of purchase. So soon as she stepped
into the house of her marital lord, she ceased to exist for her family. This was
symbolically expressed by burning before the door the handsomely decked wagon
which took her to the house of her husband. Among the Ostiaks of Siberia, to this day,
the father sells his daughter: he chaffers with the representative of the bridegroom
about the price to be paid. Likewise among several African tribes, the same as in the
days of Jacob, the custom is that a man who courts a maid, enters in the service of his
future mother-in-law. Even with us, marriage by purchase has not died out: it prevails
in bourgeois society worse than ever. Marriage for money, almost everywhere
customary among the ruling classes, is nothing other than marriage by purchase.
Indeed, the marriage gift, which in all civilized countries the bridegroom makes to the
bride, is but a symbol of the purchase of the wife as property.
Along with marriage by purchase, there was the custom of marriage by rape. The rape
of women was a customary practice, not alone among the ancient Jews, but
everywhere in antiquity. It is met with among almost all nations. The best known
historic instance is the rape of the Sabine women by the Romans. The rape of women
was an easy remedy where women ran short, as, according to the legend, happened to
the early Romans; or where polygamy was the custom, as everywhere in the Orient.

There it assumed large proportions during the supremacy of the Arabs, from the
seventh to the twelfth century.
Symbolically, the rape of woman still occurs, for instance among the Araucans of
South Chile. While the friends of the bridegroom are negotiating with the father of the
bride, the bridegroom steals with his horse into the neighborhood of the house, and
seeks to capture the bride. So soon as he catches her, he throws her upon his horse, and
makes off with her to the woods. The men, women and children thereupon raise a
great hue and cry, and seek to prevent the escape. But when the bridegroom has
reached the thick of the woods, the marriage is considered consummated. This holds
good also when the abduction takes place against the will of the parents. Similar
customs prevail among the peoples of Australia.
Among ourselves, the custom of "wedding trips" still reminds us of the former rape of
the wife: the bride is carried off from her domestic flock. On the other hand, the
exchange of rings is a reminiscence of the subjection and enchainment of the woman
to the man. The custom originated in Rome. The bride received an iron ring from her
husband as a sign of her bondage to him. Later the ring was made of gold; much later
the exchange of rings was introduced, as a sign of mutual union.
The old family ties of the gens had, accordingly, lost their foundation through the
development of the conditions of production, and through the rule of private property.
Upon the abolition of the gens, grounded on mother-right, the gens, grounded on the
father-right first took its place, although not for long, and with materially weakened
functions. Its task was mainly to attend to the common religious affairs and to the
ceremonial of funerals: to safeguard the mutual obligation of protection and of help
against violence: to enforce the right, and, in certain cases, the duty of marrying in the
gens, in cases when rich heiresses or female orphans were concerned. The gens,
furthermore, administered the still existing common property. But the segmentation of
handicraft from agriculture; the ever wider expansion of commerce; the founding of
cities, rendered necessary by both of these; the conquest of booty and prisoners of war,
the latter of which directly affected the household,—all of these tore to shreds the
conditions and bonds of eld. Handicraft had gradually subdivided itself into a larger
number of separate trades—weaving, pottery, iron-forging, the preparation of arms,
house and shipbuilding, etc. Accordingly, it pushed toward another organization. The
ever further introduction of slavery, the admittance of strangers into the community,—
these were all so many new and additional elements that rendered the old constitution
of society ever more impossible.
Along with private property and the personal right of inheritance, class distinctions
and class contrasts came into existence. Rich property-owners drew together against
those who owned less, or nothing. The former sought to get into their own hands the
public offices of the new commonwealth, and to make them hereditary. Money, now
become necessary, created thitherto unknown forms of indebtedness. Wars against

enemies from without, and conflicting interests within, as well as the various interests
and relations which agriculture, handicraft and commerce mutually produced rendered
necessary complicated rules of right, they demanded special organs to guard the
orderly movement of the social machinery, and to settle disputes. The same held good
for the relations of master and slave, creditor and debtor. A power, accordingly,
became necessary to supervise, lead, regulate and harmonize all these relations, with
authority to protect, and, when needed, to punish. Thus rose the State, the product,
accordingly of the conflicting interests that sprang up in the new social order. Its
administration naturally fell into the hands of those who had the liveliest interest in its
establishment, and who, in virtue of their social power, possessed the greatest
influence,—the rich. Aristocracy of property and democracy confronted each other,
accordingly, even there where externally complete equality of political rights existed.
Under the mother-right, there was no written law. The relations were simple, and
custom was held sacred. Under the new, and much more complicated order, written
law was one of the most important requirements; and special organs became necessary
to administer it. In the measure that the legal relations and legal conditions gained in
intricacy, a special class of people gathered shape, who made the study of the law their
special vocation, and who finally had a special interest in rendering the law ever more
complicated. Then arose the men learned in the laws, the jurists, who, due to the
importance of the statutory law to the whole of society, rose to influential social rank.
The new system of rights found in the course of time its classic expression in the
Roman State, whence the influence that Roman law exercises down to the present.
The institution of the State is, accordingly, the necessary result of a social order, that,
standing upon the higher plane of the subdivision of labor, is broken up into a large
number of occupations, animated by different, frequently conflicting, interests, and
hence has the oppression of the weaker for a consequence. This fact was recognized
even by an Arabian tribe, the Nabateans, who, according to Diodorus, established the
regulation not to sow, not to plant, to drink no wine, and to build no houses, but to live
in tents, because if those things were done, they could be easily compelled to obey by a
superior power (the power of the State). Likewise among the Rachebites, the
descendants of the father-in-law of Moses, there existed similar prescriptions.[17] Aye,
the whole Mosaic system of laws is aimed at preventing the Jews from moving out of
an agricultural state, because otherwise, so the legislators feared, their democratic-
communistic society would go under. Hence the selection of the "Promised Land" in a
region bounded, on one side, by a not very accessible mountain range, the Lebanon;
on the other side, South and East, by but slightly fertile stretches of land, partly by
deserts;—a region, accordingly, that rendered isolation possible. Hence came the
keeping of the Jews away from the sea, which favored commerce, colonization and the
accumulation of wealth; hence the rigid laws concerning seclusion from other peoples,
the severe regulations against foreign marriages, the poor laws, the agrarian laws, the
jubileum,—all of them provisions calculated to prevent the accumulation of great

wealth by the individual. The Jewish people were to be kept in permanent disability
ever to become the builders of a real State. Hence it happens that the tribal
organization, which rested upon the gentile order, remained in force with them till its
complete dissolution, and continues to affect them even now.
It seems that the Latin tribes, which took a hand in the founding of Rome, had long
passed beyond the stage of the mother-right. Hence Rome was built from the start as a
State. The women that they needed they captured, as the legend tells us, from the tribe
of the Sabines, and they called themselves after their Sabine wives,—Quirites. Even in
later years, the Roman citizens were addressed in the Forum as Quirites. "Populus
Romanus" stood for the free population of Rome in general; but "Populus Romanus
quiritium" expressed the ancestry and quality of the Roman citizen. The Roman gens
was of father-right stamp. The children inherited as consanguineous heirs; if there
were no children, the relatives of the male line inherited; were none of these in
existence, then the property reverted to the gens. By marriage, woman lost her right to
inherit her father's property and that of his brothers. She had stepped out of her gens:
neither she nor her children could inherit from her father or his brothers: otherwise the
inheritance would be lost to the paternal gens. The division in gentes, phratries and
tribes constituted in Rome for centuries the foundation of the military organization,
and also of the exercise of the rights of citizenship. But with the decay of the paternal
gentes and the decline of their significance, conditions shaped themselves more
favorably for woman. She could not only inherit, but had the right to administer her
own fortune. She was, accordingly, far more favorably situated than her Greek sister.
The freer position that, despite all legal impediments, she gradually knew how to
conquer, caused the elder Cato, born 234 before our reckoning, to complain: "If, after
the example of his ancestors, every head of a family kept his wife in proper subjection,
we would not have so much public bother with the whole sex."[18]
So long as the father lived, he held in Rome the guardianship over his daughter, even
if she were married, unless he appointed another guardian himself. When the father
died, the nearest male of kin, even though declared unqualified as an agnate, came in
as guardian. The guardian had the right at any time to transfer the guardianship to any
third person that he pleased. Accordingly, before the law, the Roman woman had no
will of her own.
The nuptial forms were various, and in the course of centuries underwent manifold
alterations. The most solemn nuptials were celebrated before the High Priest, in the
presence of at least ten witnesses. At the occasion, the bridal pair, in token of their
union, partook together from a cake made of flour, salt and water. As will be noticed, a
ceremony is here celebrated, that bears great resemblance to the breaking of the
sacramental wafer at the Christian communion. A second form of nuptials consisted in
possession. The marriage was considered accomplished if, with the consent of her
father or guardian, a woman lived with the chosen man a whole year under one roof. A

third form of nuptials was a sort of mutual purchase, both sides exchanging coins, and
the promise to be man and wife. Already at the time of Cicero[19] free divorce for both
sides was generally established; it was even debated whether the announcement of the
divorce was necessary. The "lex Julia de adulteriis," however, prescribed that the
divorce was to be solemnly proclaimed. This decree was made for the reason that
women, who committed adultery, and were summoned to answer the charge, often
claimed to have been divorced. Justinian, the Christian[20] forbade free divorce, unless
both sides desired to retire to a monastery. His successor, Justinian II, however, found
himself obliged to allow it again.
With the growing power and rising wealth of Rome, mad-brained vices and excesses
took the place of the former severity of manners. Rome became the center from which
debauchery, riotous luxury and sensuous refinements radiated over the whole of the
then civilized world. The excesses took—especially during the time of the Emperors,
and, to a great extent, through the Emperors themselves—forms that only insanity
could suggest. Men and women vied with one another in vice. The number of houses
of prostitution became ever larger, and, hand in hand with these, the "Greek love"
(pederasty) spread itself ever more among the male population. At times, the number
of young men in Rome who prostituted themselves was larger than that of the female
prostitutes.
"The hetairae appeared, surrounded by their admirers, in great pomp on the streets,
promenades, the circus and theatres, often carried by negroes upon litters, where,
holding a mirror in their hands, and sparkling with ornaments and precious stones,
they lay outstretched, nude, fan-carrying slaves standing by them, and surrounded by a
swarm of boys, eunuchs and flute-players; grotesque dwarfs closed the procession."
These excesses assumed such proportions in the Roman Empire that they became a
danger to the Empire itself. The example of the men was followed by the women.
There were women, Seneca reports, who counted the years, not as was the usage, after
the consuls, but after the number of their husbands. Adultery was general; and, in
order that the women might escape the severe punishments prescribed for the offense,
they, and among them the leading dames of Rome, caused themselves to be entered in
the registers of the Aediles as prostitutes.
Hand in hand with these excesses, civil wars and the latifundia system, celibacy and
childlessness increased in such measure that the number of Roman citizens and of
patricians ran down considerably. Hence in the year 16 B. C., Augustus issued the so-
called Julian Law,[21] which offered prizes for the birth of children, and imposed
penalties for celibacy upon the Roman citizens and patricians. He who had children
had precedence in rank over the childless and unmarried. Bachelors could accept no
inheritance, except from their own nearest kin. The childless could only inherit one-
half; the rest fell to the State. Women, who could be taxed with adultery, had to

surrender one-half of their dower to the abused husband. Thereupon there were men
who married out of speculation on the adultery of their wives. This caused Plutarch to
observe: "The Romans marry, not to obtain heirs, but to inherit."
Still later the Julian Law was made severer. Tiberius decreed that no woman, whose
grandfather, father or husband had been or still was a Roman Knight, could prostitute
herself for money. Married women, who caused themselves to be entered in the
registers of prostitutes, were condemned to banishment from Italy as adulteresses. Of
course, there were no such punishments for the men. Moreover, as Juvenal reports,
even the murder of husbands by poison was a frequent occurrence in the Rome of his
day—the first half of the first century before Christ.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Bachofen's book appeared in 1861 under the title, "Das Mutterrecht" (Mother-right)
"Eine Untersuchung ueber die Gynaekokratie der Alten Welt nach ihrer religioesen und
rechtlichen Natur," Stuttgart, Krais & Hoffmann. Morgan's fundamental work, "Ancient
Society," appeared in a German translation in 1891, J. H. W. Dietz, Stuttgart. From the
same publisher there appeared in German: "The Origin of the Family, of Private Property
and the State, in support of Lewis H. Morgan's Investigations," by Frederick Engels.
Fourth enlarged edition, 1892. Also "Die Verwandtschafts-Organisationen der
Australneger. Ein Beitrag zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der Familie," by Heinrich Cunow,
1894.
[The perspective into which the Pleiades of distinguished names are thrown in the text
just above is apt to convey an incorrect impression, and the impression is not materially
corrected in the subsequent references to them. Neither Bachofen, nor yet Tylor,
McLennan or Lubbock contributed to the principles that now are canons in ethnology.
They were not even path-finders, valuable though their works are.
Bachofen collected, in his work entitled "Das Mutterrecht," the gleanings of vast and
tireless researches among the writings of the ancients, with an eye to female authority.
Subsequently, and helping themselves more particularly to the more recent contributions
to archeology, that partly dealt with living aborigines, Tylor, McLennan and Lubbock
produced respectively, "Early History of Mankind;" "Primitive Marriage;" and "Pre-
Historic Times" and "Origin of Civilization." These works, though partly theoretic, yet
are mainly descriptive. By an effort of genius—like the wood-pecker, whose instinct tells
it the desired worm is beneath the bark and who pecks at and round about it—all these
men, Bachofen foremost, scented sense in the seeming nonsense of ancient traditions, or
surmised significance in the more recently ascertained customs of living aborigines. But
again, like the wood-pecker, that has struck a bark too thick for its bill, these men could
not solve the problem they were at. They lacked the information to pick, and they had
not, nor were they so situated as to furnish themselves with, the key to open the lock.
Morgan furnished the key.
Lewis Henry Morgan, born In Aurora, N. Y., November 21, 1818, and equipped with vast
scholarship and archeological information, took up his residence among the Iroquois
Indians, by whom, the Hawk gens of the Seneca tribe, he was eventually adopted. The
fruit of his observations there and among other Indian tribes that he visited even west of
the Mississippi, together with simultaneous information sent him by the American
missionaries in the Sandwich Islands, was a series of epoch-making works, "The League
of the Iroquois," "Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family," and
"Ancient Society," which appeared in 1877. A last and not least valuable work was his
"Houses and Houselife of the American Aborigines." A solid foundation was now laid for
the science of ethnology and anthropology. The problem was substantially solved.

The robust scientific mind of Karl Marx promptly absorbed the revelations made by
Morgan, and he recast his own views accordingly. A serious ethnological error had crept
into his great work, "Capital," two editions of which had been previously published in
German between 1863-1873. A footnote by Frederick Engels (p. 344, Swan,
Sonnenschein & Co., English edition, 1886) testifies to the revolution Morgan's works
had wrought on the ethnological conceptions of the founder of Socialist economics and
sociology.
Subsequently, Frederick Engels, planted squarely on the principles established by
Morgan, issued a series of brilliant monographs, in which, equipped with the key
furnished by Morgan and which Engels' extensive economic and sociologic knowledge
enabled him to wield with deftness, he explained interesting social phenomena among the
ancients, and thereby greatly enriched the literature of social science.
Finally, Heinrich Cunow, though imagining to perceive some minor flaws in some
secondary parts of Morgan's theory, placed himself in absolute accord with the body of
Morgan's real work, as stated later in the text in a quotation from Cunow; and, following
closely in Morgan's footsteps, made and published interesting independent researches on
the system of consanguinity among the Austral-Negros.—The Translator.]
[2] In his book against us, Ziegler ridicules the idea of attributing to myths any
significance whatever in the history of civilization. In that notion stands betrayed the
superficial nature of so-called scientists. They do not recognize what they do not see. A
deep significance lies at the bottom of myths. They have grown out of the people's soul;
out of olden morals and customs that have gradually disappeared, and now continue to
live only in the myth. When we strike facts that explain a myth we are in possession of
solid ground for its interpretation.
[3] Bachofen: "Das Mutterrecht."
[4] Totem-group means generation-group. Each grade or generation has its own totem-
animal. For instance: Opossum, emu, wolf, bear, etc., after which the group is named.
The totem-animal frequently enjoys great honor. It is held sacred with the respective
group, and its members may neither kill the animal, nor eat its flesh. The totem-animal
has a similar significance to the patron saint of the guild in the Middle Ages.
[5] In the oldest ward of the city of Prague, there is a small synagogue that comes down
from the sixth century of our reckoning, and is said to be the oldest synagogue in
Germany. If the visitor steps down about seven steps into the half-dark space, he
discovers in the opposite wall several target-like openings that lead into a completely
dark room. To the question, where these openings lead to our leader answered: "To the
woman's compartment, whence they witness the service." The modern synagogues are
much more cheerfully arranged, but the separation of the women from the men is
preserved.
[6] Frederick Engels, "The Origin of the Family."

[7] Frederick Engels, ubi supra.
[8] Book of Judges, 20, 21 and sequel.
[9] Bachofen: "Das Mutterrecht."
[10] Of the theater, to which women had no access.
[11] Johann Scherr, "Deutsche Kultur-und Sittengeschichte:" Leipsic, 1887. Otto Wigand.
As is known, Suderman deals with the same subject in his play, "Die Ehre."
[12] Plato, "The Republic," Book V.
[13] Leon Bichter, "La Femme Libre."
[14] Bachofen. "Das Mutterrecht."
[15] K. Kautsky, "Die Entstehung der Ehe und der Familie," Kosmos, 1883.
[16] Montegazza, "L'Amour dans l'Humanite."
[17] Joh. David Michaelis, "Mosaisches Recht," Reutlingen, 1793.
[18] Karl Heinzen, "Ueber die Rechte und Stellung der Frauen."
[19] Born 106 before our reckoning.
[20] He lived from 527 to 565 of our reckoning.
[21] Augustus, the son of Caesar by adoption, was of the Julian gens, hence the title
"Julian" law.

CHAPTER II.
UNDER CHRISTIANITY.

The opposite of polygamy,—as we have learned to know it among Oriental peoples, and
as it still exists among them, but owing to the number of available women and the cost of
their support, can be indulged in only by the privileged and the rich—is polyandry. The
latter exists mainly among the highland people of Thibet, among the Garras on the
Hindoo-Chinese frontier, among the Baigas in Godwana, the Nairs in the southern
extremity of India; it is said to be found also among the Eskimos and Aleutians. Heredity
is determined in the only way possible,—after the mother: the children belong to her. The
husbands of a woman are usually brothers. When the elder brother marries, the other
brothers likewise become the husbands of the woman; the woman, however, preserves
the right to take other men besides. Conversely, the men also are said to have the right of
taking a second, third, fourth, or more wives. To what circumstances polyandry owes its
origin is not yet clear. Seeing that the polyandrous nations, without exception, live either
on high mountain regions, or in the cold zone, polyandry probably owes its existence to a
phenomenon that Tarnowsky comments on.[22] He learned from reliable travelers that a
long sojourn at high elevations lowers the sensuous pleasures, and weakens erection, both
of which return with new vigor by re-descension to lower altitudes. This lowering of the
sexual powers, Tarnowsky is of the opinion, might partly account for the comparative
slight increase of population on highland regions; and he is of the opinion that, when the
debility is transmitted, it may become a source of degeneration that operates upon the
perversity of the sexual sense.
We may also add that a protracted domicile, together with the habits of life contracted on
very high or cold regions, may have for a further result that polyandry lays no excessive
demands upon a woman. The women themselves are correspondingly affected in their
nature. That they are so is rendered probable by the circumstance that, among the Eskimo
girls, menstruation sets in only with the nineteenth year, whereas in the warm zones it
sets in as early as the tenth or eleventh, and in the temperate latitudes between the
fourteenth and the sixteenth year. In view of the fact that warm climates, as universally
recognized, exercise a strongly stimulating influence upon the sexual instinct,—whence
polygamy finds its widest diffusion in warm countries—it is quite likely that cold regions
—to which high mountains and plateaus belong, and where the thinner air may also
contribute its share—may exercise materially a restringent effect upon the sexual instinct.
It must, moreover, be noted that experience shows conception occurs rarer with women
who cohabit with several men. The increase of population is, accordingly, slight under
polyandry; and it fits in with the difficulty of securing subsistence, encountered in cold
lands and mountain regions;—whereby additional proof is furnished that also, in this, to
us so seemingly strange phenomenon of polyandry, production has its determining

influence upon the relations of the sexes. Finally, it is to be ascertained whether among
these peoples, who live on high mountains or in cold zones, the killing of girl babies is
not a frequent practice, as is oft reported of the Mongolian tribes, on the highlands of
China.
Exactly the reverse of the custom among the Romans during the Empire, of allowing
celibacy and childlessness to gain the upper hand, was the custom prevalent among the
Jews. True enough, the Jewish woman had no right to choose; her father fixed upon the
husband she was to wed; but marriage was a duty, that they religiously followed. The
Talmud advises: "When your daughter is of marriageable age, give his freedom to one of
your slaves and engage her to him." In the same sense the Jews followed strictly the
command of their God: "Increase and multiply." Due to this, and despite all persecutions
and oppression, they have diligently increased their numbers. The Jew is the sworn
enemy of Malthusianism.
Already Tacitus says of them: "Among themselves there is a stubborn holding together,
and ready open-handedness; but, for all others, hostile hatred. Never do they eat, never do
they sleep with foes; and, although greatly inclined to sensuousness, they abstain from
procreation with foreign women. Nevertheless they strive to increase their people.
Infanticide is held a sin with them; and the souls of those who die in battle or by
execution they consider immortal. Hence the love of procreation beside their contempt of
death." Tacitus hated and abhorred the Jews, because, in contempt of the religion of their
fathers, they heaped up wealth and treasures. He called them the "worst set of people," an
"ugly race."[23]
Under the over-lordship of the Romans, the Jews drew ever closer together. Under the
long period of sufferings, which, from that time on, they had to endure, almost
throughout the whole of the Christian Middle Ages, grew that intimate family life that is
to-day considered a sort of pattern by the modern bourgeois regime. On the other side,
Roman society underwent the process of disintegration and dissolution, which led the
Empire to its destruction. Upon the excesses, bordering on insanity, followed the other
extreme,—the most rigid abstinence. As excess, in former days, now asceticism assumed
religious forms. A dream-land-fanaticism made propaganda for it. The unbounded
gluttony and luxury of the ruling classes stood in glaring contrast with the want and
misery of the millions upon millions that conquering Rome dragged, from all the then
known countries of the world, into Italy and slavery. Among these were also numberless
women, who, separated from their domestic hearths, from their parents or their husbands,
and torn from their children, felt their misery most keenly, and yearned for deliverance. A
large number of Roman women, disgusted at that which happened all around them, found
themselves in similar frame of mind; any change in their condition seemed to them a
relief. A deep longing for a change, for deliverance, took possession of extensive social
layers;—and the deliverer seemed to approach. The conquest of Jerusalem and of the
Jewish kingdom by the Romans had for its consequence the destruction of all national
independence, and begot among the ascetic sects of that country, dreamers, who
announced the birth of a new kingdom, that was to bring freedom and happiness to all.

Christ came, and Christianity arose. It embodied the opposition to the bestial materialism
that reigned among the great and the rich of the Roman Empire; it represented the revolt
against the contempt for and oppression of the masses. But originating in Judaism, which
knew woman only as a being bereft of all rights, and biased by the Biblical conception
which saw in her the source of all evil, Christianity preached contempt for woman. It also
preached abstinence, the mortification of the flesh, then so sinful, and it pointed with its
ambiguous phrases to a prospective kingdom, which some interpreted as of heaven,
others as of earth, and which was to bring freedom and justice to all. With these doctrines
it found fertile ground in the submerged bottom of the Roman Empire. Woman, hoping,
along with all the miserable, for freedom and deliverance from her condition, joined
readily and zealously. Down to our own days, never yet was a great and important
movement achieved in the world without women also having been conspicuously active
as combatants and martyrs. Those who praise Christianity as a great achievement of
civilization should not forget that it was woman in particular to whom Christianity owes a
great part of its success. Her proselyting zeal played a weighty role in the Roman Empire,
as well as among the barbarous peoples of the Middle Ages. The mightiest were by her
converted to Christianity. It was Clotilde, for instance, who moved Clovis, the King of
the Franks, to accept Christianity; it was, again, Bertha, Queen of Kent, and Gisela,
Queen of Hungary, who introduced Christianity in their countries. To the influence of the
women is due the conversion of many of the great. But Christianity requited woman ill.
Its tenets breathe the same contempt for woman that is breathed in all the religions of the
East. It orders her to be the obedient servant of her husband, and the vow of obedience
she must, to this day, make to him at the altar.
Let us hear the Bible and Christianity speak of woman and marriage. The ten
commandments are addressed only to the men; in the tenth commandment woman is
bracketed with servants and domestic animals. Man is warned not to covet his neighbor's
wife, nor his manservant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that
is his. Woman, accordingly, appears as an object, as a piece of property, that the man may
not hanker after, if in another's possession. Jesus, who belonged to a sect—the sect which
imposed upon itself strict asceticism and even self-emasculation[24]—being asked by his
disciples whether it is good to marry, answers: "All men cannot receive this saying, save
they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their
mother's womb; and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men; and
there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's
sake."[25] Emasculation is, according hereto, an act hallowed by God, and the
renunciation of love and marriage a good deed.
Paul, who, in a higher degree than even Jesus himself, may be called the founder of the
Christian religion; Paul, who first impressed an international character upon this creed,
and tore it away from the narrow sectarianism of the Jews, writes to the Corinthians:
"Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: "It is good for a man not to touch
a woman;" "he that giveth her in marriage doeth well; but he that giveth her not in
marriage doeth better."[26] "Walk in the Spirit and fulfil not the lust of the flesh, for the

flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh;" "they that are Christ's have
crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts."" He followed his own precepts, and did
not marry. This hatred of the flesh is the hatred of woman, but also the fear of woman,
who—see the scene in Paradise—is represented as the seducer of man. In this spirit did
the Apostles and the Fathers of the Church preach; in this spirit did the Church work
throughout the whole of the Middle Ages, when it reared its cloisters, and introduced
celibacy among the priesthood;—and to this day it works in the same spirit.
According to Christianity, woman is the unclean being; the seducer, who introduced sin
into the world and ruined man. Hence Apostles, and Fathers of the Church alike, have
ever looked upon marriage as a necessary evil,—the same as is said to-day of
prostitution. Tertulian exclaims: "Woman, thou should ever walk in mourning and rags,
thy eyes full of tears, present the aspect of repentance to induce forgetfulness of your
having ruined the human race. Woman, thou art the Gate of Hell!" Hieronymus says:
"Marriage always is a vice; all that we can do is to excuse and cleanse it," hence it was
made a sacrament of the Church. Origen declares: "Marriage is something unholy and
unclean, a means for sensuality," and, in order to resist the temptation, he emasculated
himself. Tertulian declares: "Celibacy is preferable, even if the human race goes to
ground." Augustine teaches: "The celibates will shine in heaven like brilliant stars, while
their parents (who brought them forth) are like dark stars." Eusebius and Hieronymus
agree that the Biblical command, "Increase and multiply," no longer fits the times, and
does not concern the Christians. Hundreds of other quotations from the most influential
Fathers of the Church could be cited, all of which tend in the same direction. By means of
their continuous teaching and preaching, they have spread those unnatural views touching
sexual matters, and the intercourse of the sexes, the latter of which, nevertheless, remains
a commandment of nature, and obedience to which is one of the most important duties in
the mission of life. Modern society is still severely ailing from these teachings, and it is
recovering but slowly.
Peter calls out emphatically to women: "Ye wives, be in subjection to your own
husbands."[27] Paul writes to the Ephesians: "The husband is the head of the wife, even as
Christ is the head of the Church;"[28] and in Corinthians: "Man is the image and glory of
God; but the woman is the glory of the man."[29] According to which every sot of a man
may hold himself better than the most distinguished woman;—indeed, it is so in practice
to-day. Also against the higher education of women does Paul raise his weighty voice:
"Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach,
nor to usurp authority over the man, out to be in silence;"[30] and again: "Let your women
keep silence in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are
commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything,
let them ask their husbands at home; for it is a shame for women to speak in the church."
[31]

Such doctrines are not peculiar to Christianity only. Christianity being a mixture of
Judaism and Greek philosophy, and seeing that these, in turn, have their roots in the older

civilization of the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Hindoos, the subordinate position that
Christianity assigned to woman was one common in antiquity. In the Hindoo laws of
Manu it is said regarding woman: "The source of dishonor is woman; the source of strife
is woman; the source of earthly existence is woman; therefore avoid woman." Beside this
degradation of woman, fear of her ever and anon reappears naively. Manu further sets
forth: "Woman is by nature ever inclined to tempt man; hence a man should not sit in a
secluded place even with his nearest female relative." Woman, accordingly, is, according
to the Hindoo as well as the Old Testament and Christian view, everywhere the tempter.
All masterhood implies the degradation of the mastered. The subordinate position of
woman continues, to this day, even more in force in the backward civilization of the East
than among the nations that enjoy a so-called Christian view-point. That which, in the so-
called Christian world, gradually improved the situation of woman was, not Christianity,
but the advanced culture of the West struggling against the Christian doctrine.
Christianity is guiltless of woman's present improved position to what it was at the start
of the era. Only reluctantly, and forced thereto, did Christianity become untrue to its true
spirit with regard to woman. Those who rave about "the mission of Christianity to
emancipate mankind," differ from us in this, as in other respects. They claim that
Christianity freed woman from her previous low position, and they ground themselves
upon the worship of Mary, the "mother of God,"—a cult, however, that sprang up only
later in Christendom, but which they point to as a sign of regard for the whole sex. The
Roman Catholic Church, which celebrates this cult, should be the last to lay claim to such
a doctrine. The Saints and Fathers of the Church, cited above, and whose utterances could
be easily multiplied—and they are the leading Church authorities—express themselves
separately and collectively hostile to woman and to marriage. The Council of Macon,
which, in the sixteenth century, discussed the question whether woman had a soul, and
which decided with a majority of but one vote, that she had, likewise argues against the
theory of such a friendly posture towards woman. The introduction of celibacy by
Gregory VII[32]—although resorted to first of all and mainly with the end in view of
holding in the unmarried priesthood a power that could not be alienated from the service
of the Church through any family interests—was, nevertheless, possible only with such
fundamental doctrines as the Church held touching the sinfulness of the lusts of the flesh;
and it goes to confirm our theory.
Neither did the Reformers, especially Calvin and the Scotch ministers, with their wrath at
the "lusts of the flesh," entertain any doubt touching the hostile posture of Christianity
towards woman.[33]
By the introduction of the cult of Mary, the Roman Catholic Church shrewdly placed the
worship of Mary in the place of that of the heathen goddesses, in vogue among all the
people over whom Christianity was then extending itself. Mary took the place of the
Cybele, the Mylitta, the Aphrodite, the Venus, the Ceres, etc., of the southern races; of the
Freia, the Frigga, etc., of the Germanian tribes. She was a mere spiritually-Christian
idealization.

The primeval, physically robust, though rude yet uncorrupted races, that, during the first
centuries of our reckoning, crowded down from the North and East like a gigantic ocean
wave, and swamped the worn-out universal Empire of Rome, where Christianity had
gradually been superimposing itself as master, resisted with all their might the ascetic
doctrines of the Christian preachers. With good grace or bad, the latter were forced to
reckon with these robust natures. With astonishment did the Romans perceive that the
customs of those peoples were quite different from their own. Tacitus rendered to this fact
the tribute of his acknowledgment, which, with regard to the Germans, he expressed in
these words: "The matrimonial bond is, nevertheless, strict and severe among them; nor is
there anything in their manners more commendable than this. Almost singly among the
barbarians, they content themselves with one wife. Adultery is extremely rare among so
numerous a people. Its punishment is instant, and at the pleasure of the husband. He cuts
off the hair of the offender, strips her, and in the presence of her relations expels her from
his house, and pursues her with stripes through the whole village. Nor is any indulgence
shown to a prostitute. Neither beauty, youth, nor riches can procure her a husband; for
none there looks on vice with a smile, or calls mutual seduction the way of the world.
The youths partake late of the pleasures of love, and hence pass the age of puberty
unexhausted; nor are the virgins hurried into marriage; the same maturity, the same full
growth is required; the sexes unite equally matched, and robust; and the children inherit
the vigor of their parents."
With the object in view of holding up a pattern to the Romans, Tacitus painted the
conjugal conditions of the old Germans with rather too rosy a hue. No doubt, the
adulteress was severely punished among them; but the same did not hold good with
regard to the adulterer. At the time of Tacitus, the gens was still in bloom among the
Germans. He, to whom, living under the advanced Roman conditions, the old gentile
constitution, together with its principles, was bound to seem strange and
incomprehensible, narrates with astonishment that, with the Germans, the mother's
brother, considered his nephew as an own son; aye, some looked upon the bond of
consanguinity between the uncle on the mother's side and his nephew as more sacred and
closer than that between father and son. So that, when hostages were demanded, the
sister's son was considered a better guarantee than an own son. Engels adds hereto: "If an
own son was given by the members of such a gens as a pledge for a treaty, and he fell a
sacrifice through his own father's violation of the treaty, the latter had to settle accounts
for himself. If, however, it was a sister's son who was sacrificed, then the old gentile right
was violated. The nearest gentile relative, held before all others to safeguard the boy or
lad, had caused his death; he either had no right to offer him as a pledge, or he was bound
to observe the treaty."[34]
For the rest, as Engels shows, the mother-right had already yielded to the father-right
among the Germans, at the time of Tacitus. The children inherited from their father; in the
absence of these, then the brothers and the uncle of the father on the mother's side. The
admission of the mother's brother as an heir, although descent from the father determined
the line of inheritance, is explained with the theory that the old right had only recently

died away. It was only reminiscences of the old right that furnished the conditions, which
enabled Tacitus to find a, to the Romans, incomprehensible regard for the female sex
among the Germans. He also found that their courage was pricked to the utmost by the
women. The thought that their women might fall into captivity or slavery was the most
horrible that the old German could conceive of; it spurred him to utmost resistance. But
the women also were animated by the spirit that possessed the men. When Marius refused
the captured women of the Teutons to dedicate themselves as priestesses to Vesta (the
goddess of maidenly chastity) they committed suicide.
In the time of Tacitus, the Germans already acquired settled habitations. Yearly the
division of land by lots took place. Besides that, there was common property in the
woods, water and pasture grounds. Their lives were yet simple; their wealth principally
cattle; their dress consisted of coarse woolen mantles, or skins of animals. Neither
women nor chiefs wore under-clothing. The working of metals was in practice only
among those tribes located too far away for the introduction of Roman products of
industry. Justice was administered in minor affairs by the council of elders; on more
important matters, by the assembly of the people. The chiefs were elected, generally out
of the same family, but the transition of the father-right favored the heredity of office, and
led finally to the establishment of a hereditary nobility, from which later sprang the
kingdom. As in Greece and Rome, the German gens went to pieces with the rise of
private property and the development of industries and trade, and through the
commingling with members of strange tribes and peoples. The place of the gens was
taken by the community, the mark, the democratic organization of free peasants, the latter
of which, in the course of many centuries, constituted a firm bulwark in the struggles
against the nobility, the Church and the Princes,—a bulwark that broke down by little and
little, but that did not wholly crumble even after the feudal State had come to power, and
the one-time free peasants were in droves reduced to the condition of serfs and
dependents.
The confederation of marks was represented by the heads of the families. Married
women, daughters, daughters-in-law were excluded from council and administration. The
time when women were conspicuous in the conduct of the affairs of the tribe—a
circumstance that likewise astonished Tacitus in the highest degree, and which he reports
in terms of contempt—were gone. The Salic law abolished in the fifth century of our
reckoning the succession of the female sex to hereditary domains.
Soon as he married, every member of a mark was entitled to a share in the common
lands. As a rule, grand-parents, parents and children lived under one roof, in communal
household. Hence, with a view of being allotted a further share, under-aged or unripe
sons were not infrequently married by their father to some marriageable maiden; the
father then filled the duties of husband, in the stead of his son.[35] Young married couples
received a cart-load of beechwood, and timber for a block-house. If a daughter was born
to the couple, they received one load of wood; if a son, two loads.[36] The female sex was
considered worth only one-half.

Marriage was simple. A religious formality was unknown. Mutual declarations sufficed.
As soon as a couple mounted the nuptial bed, the marriage was consummated. The
custom that marriage needs an act of the Church for its validity, came in only in the ninth
century. Only in the sixteenth century, on decree of the Council of Trent, was marriage
declared a sacrament of the Roman Catholic Church.
With the rise of feudalism, the condition of a large number of the members of the free
communities declined. The victorious army-commanders utilized their power to
appropriate large territories unto themselves; they considered themselves masters of the
common property, which they distributed among their devoted retinue—slaves, serfs,
freedmen, generally of foreign descent,—for a term of years, or with the right of
inheritance. They thus furnished themselves with a court and military nobility, in all
things devoted to their will. The establishment of the large Empire of the Franks finally
put an end to the last vestiges of the old gentile constitution. In the place of the former
councils of chiefs, now stood the lieutenants of the army and of the newly formed
nobility.
Gradually, the mass of the freemen, members of the once free communities, lapsed into
exhaustion and poverty, due to the continuous wars of conquest and the strifes among the
great, whose burdens they had to bear. They could no longer meet the obligation of
furnishing the army requisitions. In lieu thereof, Princes and high nobility secured
servants, while the peasants placed themselves and their property under the protection of
some temporal or spiritual lord—the Church had managed, within but few centuries, to
become a great power—wherefor they paid rent and tribute. Thus the thitherto free
peasant's estate was transformed into hired property; and this, with time, was burdened
with ever more obligations. Once landed in this state of dependence, it was not long
before the peasant lost his personal freedom also. In this way dependence and serfdom
spread ever more.
The landlord possessed the almost absolute right of disposal over his serfs and
dependents. He had the right, as soon as a male reached his eighteenth year, or the female
her fourteenth, to compel their marriage. He could assign a woman to a man, and a man
to a woman. He enjoyed the same right over widows and widowers. In his attribute of
lord over his subjects, he also considered the sexual use of his female serfs and
dependents to be at his own disposal,—a power that finds its expression in the "jus
primae noctis" (the right of the first night). This right also belonged to his representative,
the stewart, unless, upon the payment of a tribute, the exercise of the right was
renounced. The very names of the tribute betray its nature.[37]
It is extensively disputed that this "right of the first night" ever existed. The "right of the
first night" is quite a thorn in the side of certain folks, for the reason that the right was
still exercised at an age, that they love to hold up as a model,—a genuine model of
morality and piety. It has been pointed out how this "right of the first night" was the
rudiment of a custom, that hung together with the age of the mother-right, when all the
women were the wives of all the men of a class. With the disappearance of the old family

organization, the custom survived in the surrender of the bride, on the wedding night, to
the men of her own community. But, in the course of time, the right is ever more
restricted, and finally falls to the chief of the tribe, or to the priest, as a religious act, to be
exercised by them alone. The feudal lord assumes the right as a consequence of his power
over the person who belongs to the land, and which is his property; and he exercises the
right if he wills, or relinquishes it in lieu of a tribute in products or money. How real was
the "right of the first night" appears from Jacob Grimm's "Weisthumer."[38]

Sugenheim[39] says the "jus primae noctis," as a right appertaining to the landlords,
originates in that his consent to marriage was necessary. Out of this right there arose in
Bearn the usage that all the first-born of marriages, in which the "jus primae noctis" was
exercised, were of free rank. Later, the right was generally redeemable by a tribute.
According to Sugenheim, those who held most stubbornly to the right were the Bishops
of Amiens; it lasted with them till the beginning of the fifteenth century. In Scotland the
right was declared redeemable by King Malcolm III, towards the end of the eleventh
century; in Germany, however, it continued in force much longer. According to the
archives of a Swabian cloister, Adelberg, for the year 1496, the serfs, located at
Boertlingen, had to redeem the right by the bridegroom's giving a cake of salt, and the
bride paying one pound seven shillings, or with a pan, "in which she can sit with her
buttocks." In other places the bridegrooms had to deliver to the landlord for ransom as
much cheese or butter "as their buttocks were thick and heavy." In still other places they
had to give a handsome cordovan tarbouret "that they could just fill."[40] According to the
accounts given by the Bavarian Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals, Welsch, the
obligation to redeem the "jus primae noctis" existed in Bavaria as late as the eighteenth
century.[41] Furthermore, Engels reports that, among the Welsh and the Scots, the "right
of the first night" prevailed throughout the whole of the Middle Ages, with the difference
only that, due to the continuance of the gentile organization, it was not the landlord, or
his representative, but the chief of the clan, as the last representative of the one-time
husbands in common, who exercised the right, in so far as it was not redeemed.
There is, accordingly, no doubt whatever that the so-called "right of the first night"
existed, not only during the whole of the Middle Ages, but continued even down to
modern days, and played its role under the code of feudalism. In Poland, the noblemen
arrogated the right to deflower any maid they pleased, and a hundred lashes were given
him who complained. That the sacrifice of maidenly honor seems even to-day a matter of
course to landlords and their officials in the country, transpires, not only in Germany,
oftener than one imagines, but it is a frequent occurrence all over the East and South of
Europe, as is asserted by experts in countries and the peoples.
In the days of feudalism, marriage was a matter of interest to the landlord. The children
that sprang therefrom entered into the same relation of subjection to him as their parents;
the labor-power at his disposal increased in numbers, his income rose. Hence spiritual
and temporal landlords favored marriage among their vassals. The matter lay otherwise,
particularly for the Church, if, by the prevention of marriage, the prospect existed of

bringing land into the possession of the Church by testamentary bequests. This, however,
occurred only with the lower ranks of freemen, whose condition, due to the
circumstances already mentioned, became ever more precarious, and who, listening to
religious suggestions and superstition, relinquished their property to the Church in order
to find protection and peace behind the walls of a cloister. Others, again, placed
themselves under the protection of the Church, in consideration of the payment of duties,
and the rendering of services. Frequently their descendants fell on this route a prey to the
very fate which their ancestors had sought to escape. They either gradually became
Church dependents, or were turned into novices for the cloisters.
The towns, which, since the eleventh century were springing up, then had at that time a
lively interest in promoting the increase of population; settlement in them and marriage
were made as easy as possible. The towns became especially asylums for countrymen,
fleeing from unbearable oppression, and for fugitive serfs and dependents. Later,
however, matters changed. So soon as the towns had acquired power, and contained a
well-organized body of the trades, hostility arose against new immigrants, mostly
propertyless peasants, who wanted to settle as handicraftsmen. Inconvenient competitors
were scented in these. The barriers raised against immigration were multiplied. High
settlement fees, expensive examinations, limitations of a trade to a certain number of
masters and apprentices,—all this condemned thousands to pauperism, to a life of
celibacy, and to vagabondage. When, in the course of the sixteenth century, and for
reasons to be mentioned later, the flower-time of the towns was passing away, and their
decline had set in, the narrow horizon of the time caused the impediments to settlement
and independence to increase still more. Other circumstances also contributed their
demoralizing effect.
The tyranny of the landlords increased so mightily from decade to decade that many of
the vassals preferred to exchange their sorrowful life for the trade of the tramp or the
highwayman,—an occupation that was greatly aided by the thick woods and the poor
condition of the roads. Or, invited by the many violent disturbances of the time, they
became soldiers, who sold themselves where the price was highest, or the booty seemed
most promising. An extensive male and female slum-proletariat came into existence, and
became a plague to the land. The Church contributed faithfully to the general depravity.
Already, in the celibatic state of the priesthood there was a main-spring for the fostering
of sexual excesses; these were still further promoted through the continuous intercourse
kept up with Italy and Rome.
Rome was not merely the capital of Christendom, as the residence of the Papacy. True to
its antecedents during the heathen days of the Empire, Rome had become the new Babel,
the European High School of immorality; and the Papal court was its principal seat. With
its downfall, the Roman Empire had bequeathed all its vices to Christian Europe. These
vices were particularly nursed in Italy, whence, materially aided by the intercourse of the
priesthood with Rome, they crowded into Germany. The uncommonly large number of
priests, to a great extent vigorous men, whose sexual wants were intensified by a lazy and
luxurious life, and who, through compulsory celibacy, were left to illegitimate or

unnatural means of gratification, carried immorality into all circles of society. This
priesthood became a sort of pest-like danger to the morals of the female sex in the towns
and villages. Monasteries and nunneries—and their number was legion—were not
infrequently distinguishable from public houses only in that the life led in them was more
unbridled and lascivious, and in that numerous crimes, especially infanticide, could be
more easily concealed, seeing that in the cloisters only they exercised the administration
of justice who led in the wrong-doing. Often did peasants seek to safeguard wife and
daughter from priestly seduction by accepting none as a spiritual shepherd who did not
bind himself to keep a concubine;—a circumstance that led a Bishop of Constance to
impose a "concubine tax" upon the priests of his diocese. Such a condition of things
explains the historically attested fact, that during the Middle Ages—pictured to us by
silly romanticists as so pious and moral—not less than 1500 strolling women turned up in
1414, at the Council of Constance.
But these conditions came in by no means with the decline of the Middle Ages. They
began early, and gave continuous occasion for complaints and decrees. In 802 Charles the
Great issued one of these, which ran this wise: "The cloisters of nuns shall be strictly
watched; the nuns may not roam about; they shall be kept with great diligence; neither
shall they live in strife and quarrel with one another; they shall in no wise be disobedient
to their Superiors or Abbesses, or cross the will of these. Wherever they are placed under
the rules of a cloister they are to observe them throughout. Not whoring, not drunkenness,
not covetousness shall they be the ministrants of, but in all ways lead just and sober lives.
Neither shall any man enter their cloisters, except to attend mass, and he shall
immediately depart." A regulation of the year 869 provided: "If priests keep several
women, or shed the blood of Christians or heathens, or break the canonical law, they shall
be deprived of their priesthood, because they are worse than laymen." The fact that the
possession of several women was forbidden in those days only to the priests, indicates
that marriage with several wives was no rare occurrence in the ninth century. In fact,
there were no laws forbidding it.
Aye, and even later, at the time of the Minnesaenger, during the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, the possession of several wives was considered in order.[42]
The position of woman was aggravated still more by the circumstance that, along with all
the impediments which gradually made marriage and settlement harder, their number
materially exceeded that of the men. As special reasons herefor are to be considered the
numerous wars and feuds, together with the perilousness of commercial voyages of those
days. Furthermore, mortality among men was higher, as the result of habitual excesses
and drunkenness. The predisposition to sickness and death that flowed from such habits
of life, manifested itself strongly in the numerous pest-like diseases that raged during the
Middle Ages. In the interval between 1326 to 1400, there were thirty-two; from 1400 to
1500, forty-one; and from 1500 to 1600, thirty years of pestilence.[43]
Swarms of women roamed along the highways as jugglers, singers and players in the
company of strolling students and clericals; they flooded the fairs and markets; they were

to be found wherever large crowds gathered, or festivals were celebrated. In the
regiments of foot-soldiers they constituted separate divisions, with their own sergeants.
There, and quite in keeping with the guild character of the age, they were assigned to
different duties, according to looks and age; and, under severe penalties, were not
allowed to prostitute themselves to any man outside of their own branch. In the camps,
they had to fetch hay, straw and wood; fill up trenches and ponds; and attend to the
cleaning of the place along with the baggage lads. In sieges, they had to fill up the ditches
with brushwood, lumber and faggots in order to help the storming of the place. They
assisted in placing the field pieces in position; and when these stuck in the bottomless
roads, they had to give a hand in pulling them out again.[44]
In order to counteract somewhat the misery of this crowd of helpless women, so-called
"Bettinen houses" were instituted in many cities, and placed under municipal supervision.
Sheltered in these establishments, the women were held to the observance of a decent
life. But neither these establishments, nor the numerous nunneries, were able to receive
all that applied for succor.
The difficulties in the way of marriage; the tours undertaken by Princes, and by temporal
and spiritual magnates, who with their retinues of knights and bondmen, visited the cities;
even the male youth of the cities themselves, the married men not excluded, who,
buoyant with life and unaffected by scruples, sought change in pleasures;—all this
produced as early as in the Middle Ages the demand for prostitution. As every trade was
in those days organized and regulated, and could not exist without a guild, it so was with
prostitution also. In all large cities there were "houses of women"—municipal, prince or
Church regalities—the net profits of which flowed into the corresponding treasuries. The
women in these houses had a "head-mistress," elected by themselves, who was to keep
discipline and order, and whose special duty it was to diligently watch that non-guild
competitors, the "interlopers," did not injure the legitimate trade. When caught, these
were condignly punished. The inmates of one of these houses for women, located in
Nuerenberg, complained with the Magistrate, that "other inn-keepers also kept women,
who walked the streets at night, and took in married and other men, and that these plied
(the trade) to such an extent, and so much more brazenly, than they did themselves in the
municipal (guild) girls-house, that it was a pity and a shame to see such things happen in
this worthy city."[45] These "houses for women" enjoyed special protection; disturbances
of the peace in their neighborhood were fined twice as heavily. The female guild
members also had the right to take their place in the processions and festivals, at which,
as is known, the guilds always assisted. Not infrequently were they also drawn in as
guests at the tables of Princes and Municipal Councilmen. The "houses of women" were
considered serviceable for the "protection of marriage and of the honor of the
maidens,"—the identical reasoning with which State brothels were justified in Athens,
and even to-day prostitution is excused. All the same, there were not wanting violent
persecutions of the filles de joie, proceeding from the identical male circles who
supported them with their custom and their money. The Emperor Charlemagne decreed
that prostitutes shall be dragged naked to the market place and there whipped; and yet, he

himself, "the Most Christian King and Emperor," had not less than six wives at a time;
and neither were his daughters, who followed their father's example, by any means
paragons of virtue. They prepared for him in the course of their lives many an unpleasant
hour, and brought him home several illegitimate children. Alkuin, the friend and adviser
of Charlemagne, warned his pupils against "the crowned doves, who flew at night over
the palatinate," and he meant thereby the daughters of the Emperor.
The identical communities, that officially organized the brothel system, that took it under
their protection, and that granted all manner of privileges to the "priestesses of Venus,"
had the hardest and most cruel punishment in reserve for the poor and forsaken
Magdalen. The female infanticide, who, driven by desperation, killed the fruit of her
womb, was, as a rule, sentenced to suffer the most cruel death penalty; nobody bothered
about the unconscionable seducer himself. Perchance he even sat on the Judge's bench,
which decreed the sentence of death upon the poor victim. The same happens to-day.[46]
Likewise was adultery by the wife punished most severely; she was certain of the pillory,
at least; but over the adultery of the husband the mantle of Christian charity was thrown.
In Wuerzburg, during the Middle Ages, the keeper of women swore before the
Magistrate: "To be true and good to the city, and to procure women." Similarly in
Nuerenberg, Ulm, Leipsic, Cologne, Frankfurt and elsewhere. In Ulm, where the "houses
of women" were abolished in 1537, the guilds moved in 1551 that they be restored "in
order to avoid worse disorders." Distinguished foreigners were provided with filles de
joie at the expense of the city. When King Ladislaus entered Vienna in 1452, the
Magistrate sent to meet him a deputation of public girls, who, clad only in light gauze,
revealed the handsomest shapes. At his entry into Brugges, the Emperor Charles V was
likewise greeted by a deputation of naked girls. Such occurrences met not with objection
in those days.
Imaginative romancers, together with calculating people, have endeavored to represent
the Middle Ages as particularly "moral," and animated with a veritable worship for
woman. The period of the Minnesangers—from the twelfth to the fourteenth century—
contributed in giving a color to the pretence. The knightly "Minnedienst" (service of
love) which the French, Italian and German knights first became acquainted with among
the Moriscos of Spain, is cited as evidence concerning the high degree of respect in
which woman was held at that time. But there are several things to be kept in mind. In the
first place, the knights constituted but a trifling percentage of the population, and,
proportionately, the knights' women of the women in general; in the second place, only a
very small portion of the knights exercised the so-called "Minnedienst;" thirdly, the true
nature of this service is grossly misunderstood, or has been intentionally misrepresented.
The age in which the "Minnedienst" flourished was at the same time the age of the
grossest right-of-the-fist in Germany,—an age when all bonds of order were dissolved;
and the knights indulged themselves without restraint in waylaying of travelers, robbery
and incendiarism. Such days of brutal force are not the days in which mild and poetic
sentiments are likely to prevail to any perceptible extent. The contrary is true. This period
contributed to destroy whatever regard possibly existed for the female sex. The knights,

both of country and town, consisted mainly of rough, dissolute fellows, whose principal
passion, besides feuds and guzzling, was the unbridled gratification of sexual cravings.
The chronicles of the time do not tire of telling about the deeds of rapine and violence,
that the nobility was guilty of, particularly in the country, but in the cities also, where,
appearing in patrician role, the nobility held in its hands the city regiment, down to the
thirteenth, and partly even in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Nor did the wronged
have any means of redress; in the city, the squires (yunker) controlled the judges' bench;
in the country, the landlord, invested with criminal jurisdiction, was the knight, the Abbot
or the Bishop. Accordingly, it is a violent exaggeration that, amid such morals and
customs, the nobility and rulers had a particular respect for their wives and daughters,
and carried them on their hands as a sort of higher beings, let alone that they cultivated
such respect for the wives and daughters of the townsmen and peasants, for whom both
the temporal and the spiritual masters entertained and proclaimed contempt only.
A very small minority of knights consisted of sincere worshippers of female beauty, but
their worship was by no means Platonic; it pursued quite material ends. And these
material ends were pursued by those also with whom Christian mysticism, coupled with
natural sensuousness, made a unique combination. Even that harlequin among the
worshippers of "lovely women," Ulrich von Lichtenstein, of laughable memory, remained
Platonic only so long as he had to. At bottom the "Minnedienst" was the apotheosis of the
best beloved—at the expense of the own wife; a sort of hetairism, carried over into
Middle Age Christianity, as it existed in Greece at the time of Pericles. In point of fact,
during the Middle Ages, the mutual seduction of one another's wives was a
"Minnedienst" strongly in vogue among the knights, just the same as, in certain circles of
our own bourgeoisie, similar performances are now repeated. That much for the
romanticism of the Middle Ages and their regard for women.
There can be no doubt that, in the open recognition of the pleasures of the senses, there
lay in that age the acknowledgment that the natural impulses, implanted in every healthy
and ripe human being, are entitled to be satisfied. In so far there lay in the demonstration
a victory of vigorous nature over the asceticism of Christianity. On the other hand, it must
be noted that the recognition and satisfaction fell to the share of only one sex, while the
other sex, on the contrary, was treated as if it could not and should not have the same
impulses; the slightest transgression of the laws of morality prescribed by man, was
severely punished. The narrow and limited horizon, within which moved the citizen of
the Middle Ages, caused him to adopt narrow and limited measures also with respect to
the position of woman. And, as a consequence of continued oppression and peculiar
education, woman herself has so completely adapted herself to her master's habits and
system of thought, that she finds her condition natural and proper.
Do we not know that there have been millions of slaves who found slavery natural, and
never would have freed themselves, had their liberators not risen from the midst of the
class of the slave-holders? Did not Prussian peasants, when, as a result of the Stein laws,
they were to be freed from serfdom, petition to be left as they were, "because who was to
take care of them when they fell sick?" And is it not similarly with the modern Labor

Movement? How many workingmen do not allow themselves to be influenced and led
without a will of their own?
The oppressed needs the stimulator and firer, because he lacks the independence and
faculty for initiative. It was so with the modern proletarian movement; it is so also in the
struggle for the emancipation of woman, which is intimately connected with that of the
proletariat. Even in the instance of the comparatively favorably situated bourgeois of old,
noble and clerical advocates broke the way open for him to conduct his battle for
freedom.
However numerous the shortcomings of the Middle Ages, there was then a healthy
sensualism, that sprang from a rugged and happy native disposition among the people,
and that Christianity was unable to suppress. The hypocritical prudery and bashfulness;
the secret lustfulness, prevalent to-day, that hesitates and balks at calling things by their
right name, and to speak about natural things in a natural way;—all that was foreign to
the Middle Ages. Neither was that age familiar with the piquant double sense, in which,
out of defective naturalness and out of a prudery that has become morality, things that
may not be clearly uttered, are veiled, and are thereby rendered all the more harmful;
such a language incites but does not satisfy; it suggests but does not speak out. Our social
conversation, our novels and our theatres are full of these piquant equivoques,—and their
effect is visible. This spiritualism, which is not the spiritualism of the transcendental
philosopher, but that of the roue, and that hides itself behind the spiritualism of religion,
has great power to-day.
The healthy sensualism of the Middle Ages found in Luther its classic interpreter. We
have here to do, not so much with the religious reformer, as with Luther the man. On the
human side, Luther's robust primeval nature stepped forward unadulterated; it compelled
him to express his appetite for love and enjoyment forcibly and without reserve. His
position, as former Roman Catholic clergyman, had opened his eyes. By personal
practice, so to speak, had he learned the unnaturalness of the life led by the monks and
nuns. Hence the warmth with which he warred against clerical and monastic celibacy. His
words hold good to this day, for all those who believe they may sin against nature, and
imagine they can reconcile with their conceptions of morality and propriety,
governmental and social institutions that prevent millions from fulfilling their natural
mission. Luther says: "Woman, except as high and rare grace, can dispense with man as
little as she can with food, sleep, water and other natural wants. Conversely, also, neither
can man dispense with woman. The reason is this: It is as deeply implanted in nature to
beget children as to eat and drink. Therefore did God furnish the body with members,
veins, discharges and all that is needed therefor. He who will resist this, and prevent its
going as Nature wills, what else does he but endeavor to resist Nature's being Nature, that
fire burn, water wet, that man eat, drink or sleep?" And in his sermon on married life he
says: "As little as it is in my power that I be not a man, just so little is it in your power to
be without a man. For it is not a matter of free will or deliberation, but a necessary,
natural matter that all that is male must have a wife, and what is female must have a
husband." Luther did not speak in this energetic manner in behalf of married life and the

necessity of sexual intercourse only; he also turns against the idea that marriage and
Church have anything in common. In this he stood squarely on the ground of the olden
days, which considered marriage an act of free will on the part of those who engaged in
it, and that did not concern the Church. On this head he said: "Know, therefore, that
marriage is an outside affair, as any other earthly act. The same as I am free to eat, drink,
sleep, walk, ride, deal, speak and trade with a heathen, a Jew, a Turk or a heretic, likewise
am I free to enter into and remain in wedlock with one of them. Turn your back upon the
fool laws that forbid such a thing.... A heathen is a man and woman, created by God in
perfect form, as well as St. Peter and St. Paul and St. Luke; be then silent for a loose and
false Christian that you are." Luther, like other Reformers, pronounced himself against all
limitation of marriage, and he was for also allowing the re-union of divorced couples,
against which the Church was up in arms. He said: "As to the manner in which marriage
and divorce are to be conducted among us, I claim that it should be made the business of
the jurists, and placed under the jurisdiction of earthly concerns, because marriage is but
an earthly and outside matter." It was in keeping with this view that, not until the close of
the seventeenth century, was marriage by the Church made obligatory under
Protestantism. Until then so-called "conscience marriage" held good, i. e., the simple
mutual obligation to consider each other man and wife, and to mean to live in wedlock.
Such a marriage was considered by German law to be legally entered into. Luther even
went so far that he conceded to the unsatisfied party—even if that be the woman—the
right to seek satisfaction outside of the marriage bonds "in order to satisfy nature, which
cannot be crossed."[47] This conception of marriage is the same that prevailed in antiquity,
and that came up later during the French Revolution. Luther here set up maxims that will
arouse the strongest indignation of a large portion of our "respectable men and women,"
who, in their religious zeal, are so fond of appealing to him. In his treatise "On Married
Life,"[48] he says: "If an impotent man falls to the lot of a hearty woman, and she still
cannot openly take another, and does not wish to marry again, she shall say unto her
husband: 'Lo, dear husband, thou shalt not be wronged by me. Thou hast deceived me
and my young body, and hast therefore brought my honor and salvation into danger.
There is no glory to God between us two. Grant me to cohabit secretly with thy brother or
nearest friend, and thou shalt have the name, so that thy property come not to strange
heirs; and allow thyself to be, in turn, willingly deceived by me, as thou did deceive me
without thy will." The husband, Luther goes on to show, is in duty bound to grant the
request. "If he declines, then has she the right to run away from him to another, and to
woo elsewhere. Conversely, if a woman declines to exercise the conjugal duty, her
husband has the right to cohabit with another, only he should tell her so beforehand."[49]
It will be seen that these are wonderfully radical, and, in the eyes of our days, so rich in
hypocritical prudery, even downright "immoral" views, that the great Reformer develops.
Luther, however, expressed only that which, at the time, was the popular view.[50]
The passages quoted from the writings and addresses of Luther on marriage, are of
special importance for the reason that these views are in strong contradiction with those
that prevail to-day in the Church. In the struggle that it latterly has had to conduct with

the clerical fraternity, the Social Democracy can appeal with full right to Luther, who
takes on the question of marriage a stand free from all prejudice.
Luther and all the Reformers went even further in the marriage question, true enough,
only for opportunist reasons, and out of complaisance towards the Princes whose strong
support and permanent friendship they sought to secure and keep to the Reformation. The
friendly Duke of Hessen, Philip I, had, besides his legitimate wife, a sweetheart, willing
to yield to his wishes, but only under the condition that he marry her. It was a thorny
problem. A divorce from the wife, in the absence of convincing reasons, would give great
scandal; on the other hand, a marriage with two women at a time was an unheard of thing
with a Christian Prince of modern days; it would give rise to no less a scandal. All this
notwithstanding, Philip, in his passion, decided in favor of the latter step. The point was
now to establish that the act did no violence to the Bible, and to secure the approval of
the Reformers, especially of Luther and Melanchthon. The negotiations, set on foot by
the Duke, began first with Butzer, who declared himself in favor of the plan, and
promised to win over Luther and Melanchthon. Butzer justified his opinion with the
argument: To possess several wives at once was not against the evangelium. St. Paul, who
said much upon the subject of who was not to inherit the kingdom of God, made no
mention of those who had two wives. St. Paul, on the contrary, said "that a Bishop was to
have but one wife, the same with his servants; hence, if it had been compulsory that every
man have but one wife he would have so ordered, and forbidden a plurality of wives."
Luther and Melanchthon joined this reasoning, and gave their assent to double marriages,
after the Duke's wife herself had consented to the marriage with the second wife under
the condition "that he was to fulfil his marital duties towards her more than ever before."
[51]
The question of the justification of bigamy had before then—at the time when the
issue was the consenting to the double marriage of Henry VIII of England—caused many
a headache to Luther, as appears from a letter to the Chancellor of Saxony, Brink, dated
January, 1524. Luther wrote to him that, in point of principle, he could not reject bigamy
because it ran not counter to Holy Writ;[52] but that he held it scandalous when the same
happened among Christians, "who should leave alone even things that are permissible."
After the wedding of the Duke, which actually took place in March, 1540, and in answer
to a letter of acknowledgment from him, Luther wrote (April 10): "That your Grace is
happy on the score of our opinion, which we fain would see kept secret; else, even the
rude peasants (in imitation of the Duke's example) might finally produce as strong, if not
stronger, reasons, whereby we might then have much trouble on our hands."
Upon Melanchthon, the consent to the double marriage of the Duke must have been less
hard. Before that, he had written to Henry VIII "every Prince has the right to introduce
polygamy in his domains." But the double marriage of the Duke made such a great and
unpleasant sensation, that, in 1541, he circulated a treatise in which polygamy is
defended as no transgression against Holy Writ.[53] People were not then living in the
ninth or twelfth century, when polygamy was tolerated without shocking society. Social
conditions had very materially changed in the meantime; in a great measure the mark had
had to yield to the power of the nobility and the clergy; it had even extensively

disappeared, and was further uprooted after the unhappy issue of the Peasant Wars.
Private property had become the general foundation of society. Beside the rural
population, that cultivated the soil, a strong, self-conscious handicraft element had arisen,
and was dominated by the interests of its own station. Commerce had assumed large
dimensions, and had produced a merchant class, which, what with the splendor of its
outward position and its wealth, awoke the envy and hostility of a nobility that was
sinking ever deeper into poverty and licentiousness. The burghers' system of private
property had triumphed everywhere, as was evidenced by the then universal introduction
of the Roman law; the contrasts between the classes were palpable, and everywhere did
they bump against one another. Monogamy became, under such conditions, the natural
basis for the sexual relations; a step such as taken by the Duke of Hessen now did
violence to the ruling morals and customs, which, after all, are but the form of expression
of the economic conditions that happen at the time to prevail. On the other hand, society
came to terms with prostitution, as a necessary accompaniment of monogamy, and an
institution supplemental thereto;—and tolerated it.
In recognizing the gratification of the sexual impulses as a law of Nature, Luther but
uttered what the whole male population thought, and openly claimed for itself. He,
however, also contributed—through the Reformation, which carried through the abolition
of celibacy among the clergy, and the removal of the cloisters from Protestant territories
—that to hundreds of thousands the opportunity was offered to do justice to nature's
impulses under legitimate forms. True again,—due to the existing order of property, and
to the legislation that flowed therefrom,—hundreds of thousands of others continued to
remain excluded. The Reformation was the first protest of the large-propertied bourgeois
or capitalist class, then rising into being, against the restrictions imposed by feudalism in
Church, State and society. It strove after freedom from the narrow bonds of the guild, the
court and the judiciary; it strove after the centralization of the State, after the abolition of
the numerous seats of idlers, the monasteries; and it demanded their use for practical
production. The movement aimed at the abolition of the feudal form of property and
production; it aimed at placing in its stead the free property of the capitalist, i. e., in the
stead of the existing system of mutual protection in small and disconnected circles, there
was to be unchained the free individual struggle of individual efforts in the competition
for property.
On the religious field, Luther was the representative of these bourgeois aspirations. When
he took a stand for the freedom of marriage, the question could not be simply about civic
marriage, which was realized in Germany only in our own age through the civil laws and
the legislation therewith connected,—freedom to move, freedom of pursuit, and freedom
of domicile. In how far the position of woman was thereby improved will be shown later.
Meanwhile things had not matured so far at the time of the Reformation. If, through the
regulations of the Reformation many were afforded the possibility to marry, the severe
persecutions that followed later hampered the freedom of sexual intercourse. The Roman
Catholic clergy having in its time displayed a certain degree of tolerance, and even laxity,
towards sexual excesses, now the Protestant clergy, once itself was provided for, raged all

the more violently against the practice. War was declared upon the public "houses of
women;" they were closed as "Holes of Satan;" the prostitutes were persecuted as
"daughters of the devil;" and every woman who slipped was placed on the pillory as a
specimen of all sinfulness.
Out of the once hearty small property-holding bourgeois of the Middle Ages, who lived
and let live, now became a bigoted, straight-laced, dark-browed maw-worm, who "saved-
up," to the end that his large property-holding bourgeois successor might live all the more
lustily in the nineteenth century, and might be able to dissipate all the more. The
respectable citizen, with his stiff necktie, his narrow horizon and his severe code of
morals, was the prototype of society. The legitimate wife, who had not been particularly
edified by the sensuality of the Middle Ages, tolerated in Roman Catholic days, was quite
at one with the Puritanical spirit of Protestantism. But other circumstances supervened,
that, affecting, as they did, unfavorably the general condition of things in Germany,
joined in exercising in general an unfavorable influence upon the position of woman.
The revolution—effected in production, money and trade, particularly as regarded
Germany,—due to the discovery of America and the sea-route to the East Indies,
produced, first of all, a great reaction on the social domain. Germany ceased to be the
center of European traffic and commerce. Spain, Portugal, Holland, England, took
successively the leadership, the latter keeping it until our own days. German industry and
German commerce began to decline. At the same time, the religious Reformation had
destroyed the political unity of the nation. The Reformation became the cloak under
which the German principalities sought to emancipate themselves from the Imperial
power. In their turn, the Princes brought the power of the nobility under their own
control, and, in order to reach this end all the more easily, favored the cities, not a few of
which, in sight of the ever more troubled times, placed themselves, of their own free will,
under the rule of the Princes. The final effect was that the bourgeois or capitalist class,
alarmed at the financial decline of its trade, raised ever higher barriers to protect itself
against unpleasant competition. The ossification of conditions gained ground; and with it
the impoverishment of the masses.
Later, the Reformation had for a consequence the calling forth of the religious wars and
persecutions—always, of course, as cloaks for the political and economic purposes of the
Princes—that, with short interruptions, raged throughout Germany for over a century, and
ended with the country's complete exhaustion, at the close of the Thirty Years' War in
1648. Germany had become an immense field of corpses and ruins; whole territories and
provinces lay waste; hundreds of cities, thousands of villages had been partially or
wholly burnt down; many of them have since disappeared forever from the face of the
earth. In other places the population had sunk to a third, a fourth, a fifth, even to an
eighth and tenth part. Such was the case, for instance, with cities like Neurenberg, and
with the whole of Franconia. And now, at the hour of extreme need, and with the end in
view of providing the depopulated cities and villages as quickly as possible with an
increased number of people, the drastic measure was resorted to of "raising the law," and
allowing a man two wives. The wars had carried off the men; of women there was an

excess. On February 14, 1650, the Congress of Franconia, held in Nuerenberg, adopted
the resolution that "men under sixty years of age shall not be admitted to the
monasteries;" furthermore, it ordered "the priests and curates, if not ordained, and the
canons of religious establishments, shall marry;" "moreover every male shall be allowed
to marry two wives; and all and each males are earnestly reminded, and shall be often
warned, from the pulpit also, to so comport themselves in this matter; and care shall be
taken that he shall fully and with becoming discretion diligently endeavor, so that, as a
married man, to whom is granted that he take two wives, he not only take proper care of
both wives, but avoid all misunderstanding among them." At that time, we see, matters
that are to-day kept under strictest secrecy, were often discussed as of course from the
pulpit itself.
But not commerce alone was at a standstill. Traffic and industry had been extensively
ruined during this protracted period; they could recover only by little and little. A large
part of the population had become wild and demoralized, disused to all orderly
occupations. During the wars, it was the robbing, plundering, despoiling and murdering
armies of mercenaries, which crossed Germany from one end to the other, that burned
and knocked down friend and foe alike; after the wars, it was countless robbers, beggars
and swarms of vagabonds that threw the population into fear and terror, and impeded and
destroyed commerce and traffic. For the female sex, in particular, a period of deep
suffering had broken. Contempt for woman had made great progress during the times of
license. The general lack of work weighed heaviest on their shoulders; by the thousands
did these women, like the male vagabonds, infest the roads and woods, and filled the
poorhouses and prisons of the Princes and the cities. On top of all these sufferings came
the forcible ejectment of numerous peasant families by a land-hungry nobility.
Compelled, since the Reformation, ever more to bend before the might of the Princes,
and rendered ever more dependent upon these through court offices and military posts,
the nobility now sought to recoup itself double and threefold with the robbery of peasant
estates for the injury it had sustained at the hand of the Princes. The Reformation offered
the Princes the desired pretext to appropriate the rich Church estates, which they
swallowed in innumerable acres of land. The Elector August of Saxony, for instance, had
turned not less than three hundred clergy estates from their original purpose, up to the
close of the sixteenth century.[54] Similarly did his brothers and cousins, the other
Protestant Princes, and, above all, the Princes of Brandenburg. The nobility only imitated
the example by bagging peasant estates, that had lost their owners, by ejecting free as
well as serf peasants from house and home, and enriching themselves with the goods of
these. To this particular end, the miscarried peasant revolts of the sixteenth century
furnished the best pretext. After the first attempts had succeeded, never after were reasons
wanting to proceed further in equally violent style. With the aid of all manner of
chicaneries, vexations and twistings of the law—whereto the in-the-meantime naturalized
Roman law lent a convenient handle—the peasants were bought out at the lowest prices,
or they were driven from their property in order to round up the estates of noblemen.
Whole villages, the peasant homes of as much as half a province, were in this way wiped

out. Thus—so as to give a few illustrations—out of 12,543 peasant homestead appanages
of knightly houses, which Mecklenburg still possessed at the time of the Thirty Years'
War, there were, in 1848, only 1,213 left. In Pommerania, since 1628, not less than
12,000 peasant homesteads disappeared. The change in peasant economy, that took place
in the course of the seventeenth century, was a further incentive for the expropriation of
the peasant homesteads, especially to turn the last rests of the commons into the property
of the nobility. The system of rotation of crops was introduced. It provided for a rotation
in cultivation within given spaces of time. Corn lands were periodically turned into
meadows. This favored the raising of cattle, and made possible the reduction of the
number of farm-hands. The crowd of beggars and tramps grew ever larger, and thus one
decree followed close upon the heels of another to reduce, by the application of the
severest punishments, the number of beggars and vagabonds.
In the cities matters lay no better than in the country districts. Before then, women were
active in very many trades in the capacity of working women as well as of employers.
There were, for instance, female furriers in Frankfurt and in the cities of Sleswig; bakers,
in the cities of the middle Rhine; embroiderers of coats of arms and beltmakers, in
Cologne and Strassburg; strap-cutters, in Bremen; clothing-cutters in Frankfurt; tanners
in Nuerenberg; gold spinners and beaters in Cologne.[55] Women were now crowded
back. The abandonment of the pompous Roman Catholic worship alone, due to the
Protestantizing of a large portion of Germany, either injured severely a number of trades,
especially the artistic ones, or destroyed them altogether; and it was in just these trades
that many working women were occupied. As, moreover, it ever happens when a social
state of things is moving to its downfall, the wrongest methods are resorted to, and the
evil is thereby aggravated. The sad economic condition of most of the German nations
caused the decimated population to appear as overpopulation, and contributed greatly
towards rendering a livelihood harder to earn, and towards prohibitions of marriage.
Not until the eighteenth century did a slow improvement of matters set in. The absolute
Princes had the liveliest interest, with the view of raising the standard abroad of their
rule, to increase the population of their territories. They needed this, partly in order to
obtain soldiers for their wars, partly also to gain taxpayers, who were to raise the sums
needed either for the army, or for the extravagant indulgences of the court, or for both.
Following the example of Louis XIV of France, the majority of the then extraordinarily
numerous princely courts of Germany displayed great lavishness in all manner of show
and tinsel. This was especially the case in the matter of the keeping of mistresses, which
stood in inverse ratio to the size and capabilities of the realms and realmlets. The history
of these courts during the eighteenth century belongs to the ugliest chapters of history.
Libraries are filled with the chronicles of the scandals of that era. One potentate sought to
surpass the other in hollow pretentiousness, insane lavishness and expensive military
fooleries. Above all, the most incredible was achieved in the way of female excesses. It is
hard to determine which of the many German courts the palm should be assigned to for
extravagance and for a life that vitiated public morals. To-day it was this, to-morrow that
court; no German State escaped the plague. The nobility aped the Princes, and the

citizens in the residence cities aped the nobility. If the daughter of a citizen's family had
the luck to please a gentleman high at court, perchance the Serenissimus himself, in
nineteen cases out of twenty she felt highly blessed by such favor, and her family was
ready to hand her over for a mistress to the nobleman or the Prince. The same was the
case with most of the noble families if one of their daughters found favor with the Prince.
Characterlessness and shamelessness ruled over wide circles. As bad as the worst stood
matters in the two German capitals, Vienna and Berlin. In the Capua of Germany, Vienna,
true enough, the strict Maria Theresa reigned through a large portion of the century, but
she was impotent against the doings of a rich nobility, steeped in sensuous pleasures, and
of the citizen circles that emulated the nobility. With the Chastity Commissions that she
established, and in the aid of which an extensive spy-system was organized, she partly
provoked bitterness, and partly made herself laughable. The success was zero. In
frivolous Vienna, sayings like these made the rounds during the second half of the
eighteenth century: "You must love your neighbor like yourself, that is to say, you must
love your neighbor's wife as much as your own;" or "If the wife goes to the right, the
husband may go to the left: if she takes an attendant, he takes a lady friend." In how
frivolous a vein marriage and adultery were then taken, transpires from a letter of the
poet Ew. Chr. von Kleist, addressed in 1751 to his friend Gleim. Among other things he
there says: "You are already informed on the adventure of the Mark-Graf Heinrich. He
sent his wife to his country seat and intends to divorce her because he found the Prince of
Holstein in bed with her.... The Mark-Graf might have done better had he kept quiet
about the affair, instead of now causing half Berlin and all the world to talk about him.
Moreover, such a natural thing should not be taken so ill, all the more when, like the
Mark-Graf, one is not so waterproof himself. Mutual repulsion, we all know, is
unavoidable in married life: all husbands and wives are perforce unfaithful, due to their
illusions concerning other estimable persons. How can that be punished that one is
forced to?" On Berlin conditions, the English Ambassador, Lord Malmsbury, wrote in
1772: "Total corruption of morals pervades both sexes of all classes, whereto must be
added the indigence, caused, partly through the taxes imposed by the present King, partly
through the love of luxury that they took from his grandfather. The men lead a life of
excesses with limited means, while the women are harpies, wholly bereft of shame. They
yield themselves to him who pays best. Tenderness and true love are things unknown to
them."[56]
Things were at their worst in Berlin under Frederick II, who reigned from 1786 to 1796.
He led with the worst example; and his court chaplain, Zoellner, even lowered himself to
the point of marrying the King to the latter's mistress, Julie von Boss, as a second wife,
and as she soon thereupon died in childbed, Zoellner again consented to marry the King
to the Duchess Sophie of Doenhoff as a second wife by the side of the Queen.
More soldiers and more taxpayers was the leading desire of the Princes. Louis XIV, after
whose death France was entirely impoverished in money and men, set up pensions for
parents who had ten children, and the pension was raised when they reached twelve
children. His General, the Marshal of Saxony, even made to him the proposition to allow

marriages only for the term of five years. Fifty years later, in 1741, Frederick the Great
wrote, "I look upon men as a herd of deer in the zoological garden of a great lord, their
only duty is to populate and fill the park."[57]
Later, he extensively depopulated his "deer park" with his wars, and then took pains to
"populate" it again with foreign immigration.
The German multiplicity of States, that was in fullest bloom in the eighteenth century,
presented a piebald map of the most different social conditions and legislative codes.
While in the minority of the States efforts were made to improve the economic situation
by promoting new industries, by making settlement easier and by changing the marriage
laws in the direction of facilitating wedlock, the majority of the States and statelets
remained true to their backward views, and intensified the unfavorable conditions of
marriage and settlement for both men and women. Seeing, however, that human nature
will not allow itself to be suppressed, all impediments and vexations notwithstanding,
concubinage sprang up in large quantity, and the number of illegitimate children was at
no time as large as in these days when the "paternal regiment" of the absolute Princes
reigned in "Christian simplicity."
The married woman of citizen rank lived in strict seclusion. The number of her tasks and
occupations was so large that, as a conscientious housewife, she had to be at her post
early and late in order to fulfil her duties, and even that was possible to her only with the
aid of her daughters. Not only were there to be filled those daily household duties which
to-day, too, the small middle class housewife has to attend to, but a number of others also,
which the housewife of to-day is freed from through modern development. She had to
spin, weave, bleach and sew the linen and clothes, prepare soap and candles, brew beer,
—in short, she was the veriest Cinderella: her only recreation was Sunday's church.
Marriage was contracted only within the same social circles; the strongest and most
ludicrous spirit of caste dominated all relations, and tolerated no transgression. The
daughters were brought up in the same spirit; they were held under strict home seclusion;
their mental education did not go beyond the bounds of the narrowest home relations. On
top of this, an empty and hollow formality, meant as a substitute for education and
culture, turned existence, that of woman in particular, into a veritable treadmill. Thus the
spirit of the Reformation degenerated into the worst pedantry, that sought to smother the
natural desires of man, together with his pleasures in life under a confused mass of rules
and usages that affected to be "worthy," but that benumbed the soul.
Gradually, however, an economic change took place, that first seized Western Europe and
then reached into Germany also. The discovery of America, the doubling of the Cape of
Good Hope, the opening of the sea route of the East Indies, the further discoveries that
hinged on these, and finally, the circumnavigation of the earth, revolutionized the life and
views of the most advanced nations of Europe. The unthought-of rapid expansion of the
world's commerce, called to life through the opening of ever newer markets for European
industry and products, revolutionized the old system of handicraft. Manufacture arose,
and thence flowed large production. Germany—so long held back in her material

development by her religious wars and her political disintegration, which religious
differences promoted,—was finally dragged into the stream of the general progress. In
several quarters, large production developed under the form of manufacture: flax and
wool-spinning and weaving, the manufacture of cloth, mining, the manufacture of iron,
glass and porcelain, transportation, etc. Fresh labor power, female included, came into
demand. But this newly rising form of industry met with the most violent opposition on
the part of the craftsmen, ossified in the guild and medieval corporation system, who
furiously fought every change in the method of production, and saw therein a mortal
enemy. The French Revolution supervened. While casting aside the older order in France,
the Revolution also carried into Germany a fresh current of air, which the old order could
not for long resist. The French invasion hastened the downfall,—this side of the Rhine
also—of the old, worn-out system. Whatever attempt was made, during the period of re-
action after 1815, to turn back the wheels of time, the New had grown too strong, it
finally remained victorious.
The rise of machinery, the application of the natural sciences to the process of production,
the new roads of commerce and traffic burst asunder the last vestiges of the old system.
The guild privileges, the personal restrictions, the mark and jurisdictional rights, together
with all that thereby hung, walked into the lumber room. The strongly increased need of
labor-power did not rest content with the men, it demanded woman also as a cheaper
article. The conditions that had become untenable, had to fall; and they fell. The time
thereto,—long wished-for by the newly risen class, the bourgeoisie or capitalist class—
arrived the moment Germany gained her political unity. The capitalist class demanded
imperiously the unhampered development of all the social forces; it demanded this for the
benefit of its own capitalist interests, that, at that time, and, to a certain degree, were also
the interests of the large majority. Thus came about the liberty of trade, the liberty of
emigration, the removal of the barriers to marriage,—in short, that whole system of
legislation that designates itself "liberal." The old-time reactionists expected from these
measures the smash-up of morality. The late Adolph Ketteler of Mainz moaned, already
in 1865, accordingly, before the new social legislation had become general, "that the
tearing down of the existing barriers to matrimony meant the dissolution of wedlock, it
being now possible for the married to run away from each other at will." A pretty
admission that the moral bonds of modern marriage are so weak, that only compulsion
can be relied on to hold the couple together.
The circumstance, on the one hand, that the now naturally more numerous marriages
effected a rapid increase of population, and, on the other, that the gigantically developing
industry of the new era brought on many ills, never known of before, caused the spectre
of "overpopulation" to rise anew. Conservative and liberal economists pull since then the
same string. We shall show what this fear of so-called overpopulation means; we shall
trace the feared phenomenon back to its legitimate source. Among those who suffer of the
overpopulation fear, and who demand the restriction of freedom to marry, especially for
workingmen, belong particularly Prof. Ad. Wagner. According to him, workingmen marry
too early, in comparison with the middle class. He, along with others of this opinion,

forget that the male members of the higher class, marry later only in order to wed
"according to their station in life," a thing they can not do before they have obtained a
certain position. For this abstinence, the males of the higher classes indemnify
themselves with prostitution. Accordingly, it is to prostitution that the working class are
referred, the moment marriage is made difficult for, or, under certain circumstances, is
wholly forbidden to, them. But, then, let none wonder at the results, and let him not raise
an outcry at the "decline of morality," if the women also, who have the same desires as
the men, seek to satisfy in illegitimate relations the promptings of the strongest impulse
of nature. Moreover, the views of Wagner are at fisticuffs with the interests of the
capitalist class, which, oddly enough, shares his views: it needs many "hands," so as to
own cheap labor-power that may fit it out for competition in the world's market. With
such petty notions and measures, born of a near-sighted philistinism, the gigantic growing
ills of the day are not to be healed.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] Tarnowsky. "Die krankhaften Erscheinungen des Geschlechtsinnes." Berlin, August
Hirschwald.
[23] Tacitus, "Histories," Book I.
[24] Montegazza "L'Amour dans l'Humanite."
[25] Matthew, ch. 19; 11 and 12.
[26] I. Corinthians, ch. 7; 1 and 38.
[27] Peter I., ch. 3; 1.
[28] Paul: Ephesians, ch. 5; 23.
[29] Paul: I. Corinthians, ch. 11; 7.
[30] I. Timothy, ch. 2; 11 and 12.
[31] I. Corinthians, ch. 14; 34 and 35.
[32] This was a move that the parish priests of the diocese of Mainz, among others,
complained against, expressing themselves this wise: "You Bishops and Abbots possess
great wealth, a kingly table, and rich hunting equipages; we, poor, plain priests have for
our comfort only a wife. Abstinence may be a handsome virtue, but, in point of fact, it is
hard and difficult."—Yves-Guyot: "Les Theories Sociales du Christianisme."
[33] Buckle, in his "History of Civilization in England," furnishes a large number of
illustrations on this head.
[34] Engels' "Der Ursprung der Familie."

[35] The same thing happened under the rule of the muir in Russia. See Lavelaye:
"Original Property."
[36] "Eyn iglich gefurster man, der ein kindbette hat, ist sin kint eyn dochter, so mag eer
eyn wagen vol bornholzes von urholz verkaufen of den samstag. Ist iz eyn sone, so mag
he iz tun of den dinstag und of den samstag von ligenden holz oder von urholz und sal
der frauwen davon kaufen, win und schon brod dyeweile sie kintes june lit,"—G. L. v.
Maurer; "Geschichte der Markenverfassung in Deutschland."
[37] "Bettmund," "Jungfernzins," "Hemdschilling," "Schuerzenzins," "Bunzengroschen."
[38] "Aber sprechend die Holflüt, weller hie zu der helgen see kumbt, der sol einen
meyer (Gutsverwalter) laden und ouch sin frowen, da sol der meyer lien dem brütigan ein
haffen, da er wol mag ein schaff in geseyden, ouch sol der meyer bringen ein fuder holtz
an das hochtzit, ouch sol ein meyer und sin frow bringen ein viertenteyl eines
schwynsbachen, und so die hochtzit vergat, so sol der brütigan den meyer by sim wib
lassen ligen die ersten nacht, oder er sol sy lösen mit 5 schilling 4 pfenning."—I., p. 43.
[39] "History of the Abolition of Serfdom in Europe to the Middle of the 19th Century."
St. Petersburg, 1861.
[40] Memminger, Staelin and others. "Beschreibung der Wuertembergischen Aemter."
Hormayr. "Die Bayern im Morgenlande." Also Sugenheim.
[41] "Ueber Stetigung und Abloesung der baeuerlichen Grundlasten mit besonderer
Ruecksicht auf Bayern, Wuertemberg, Baden, Hessen, Preussen und Oesterreich."
Landshut, 1848.
[42] A poem of Albrecht von Johansdorf, in the collection of "Minnesang-Fruehling"
(Collection of Lachman and Moritz Haupt; Leipsic, 1857; S. Hirtel), has this passage:

"waere ez niht unstaete
der Zwein wiben wolte sin fur eigen jehen,
bei diu tougenliche? sprechet, herre, wurre ez iht?
(man sol ez den man erlouben und den vrouwen nicht.)"

The openness, with which two distinct rights, according to sex, are here considered a
matter of course, corresponds with views that are found in force even to this day.
[43] Dr. Karl Buecher, "Die Frauenfrage im Mittelalter," Tuebingen.
[44] Dr. Karl Buecher.
[45] Joh. Scherr, "Geschichte der Deutschen Frauenwelt," Leipsic, 1879.
[46] Leon Richter reports in "La Femme Libre" the case of a servant girl in Paris who
was convicted of infanticide by the father of the child himself, a respected and religious
lawyer, who sat on the jury. Aye, worse: the lawyer in question was himself the murderer,

and the mother was entirely guiltless, as, after her conviction, she herself declared in
court.
[47] Dr. Karl Hagen, "Deutschlands Literarische und Religioese Verhaeltnisse im
Reformationszeitalter." Frankfurt-on-the-Main, 1868.
[48] II., 146, Jena, 1522.
[49] Dr. Karl Hagen.
[50] Jacob Grimm informs us ("Deutsche Rechtsalterthuemer. Weisthum aus dem Amte
Blankenburg"):

"Daer ein Man were, der sinen echten wive ver frowelik recht niet gedoin konde, der
sall si sachtelik op sinen ruggen setten und draegen sie over negen erstnine und
setten sie sachtelik neder sonder stoeten, slaen und werpen und sonder enig quaed
woerd of oevel sehen, und roipen dae sine naebur aen, dat sie inne sines wives lives
noet helpen weren, und of sine naebur dat niet doen wolden of kunden, so sall be si
senden up die neiste kermisse daerbl gelegen und dat sie sik süverlik toe make und
verzere und hangen ör einen buidel wail mit golde bestikt up die side, dat sie selft
wat gewerven kunde: kumpt sie dannoch wider ungeholpen, so help ör dar der
duifel."

As appears from Grimm, the German peasant of the Middle Ages looked in marriage,
first of all, for heirs. If he was unable himself to beget these, he then, as a practical man,
left the pleasure, without special scruples, to some one else. The main thing was to gain
his object. We repeat it: Man does not rule property, property rules him.
[51] Johann Janssen, "Geschichte des Deutschen Volkes," 1525-1555, Freiburg.
[52] Which is perfectly correct, and also explainable, seeing that the Bible appeared at a
time when polygamy extended far and wide among the peoples of the Orient and the
Occident. In the sixteenth century, however, it was in strong contradiction with the
standard of morality.
[53] Johann Janssen.
[54] Johann Janssen. Vol. III.
[55] Dr. Karl Buecher, "Die Frauenfrage im Mittelalter."
[56] Johann Scherr: "Geschichte der Deutschen Frauenwelt."
[57] Karl Kautsky, "Ueber den Einfluss der Volksvermehrung auf den Fortschritt der
Gesellschaft." Vienna, 1880.

PART II

WOMAN IN THE PRESENT

CHAPTER I.
SEXUAL INSTINCTS, WEDLOCK, CHECKS AND OBSTRUCTIONS
TO MARRIAGE.

Plato thanked the gods for eight favors bestowed upon him. As the first, he took it that
they had granted him to be born a freeman, and not a slave; the second was that he was
created a man, and not a woman. A similar thought finds utterance in the morning prayer
of the Jews. They pray: "Blessed be Thou, our God and Lord of Hosts, who hast not
created me a woman;" the Jewish women, on the other hand, pray at the corresponding
place: "who hast created me after thy will." The contrast in the position of the sexes can
find no more forcible expression than it does in the saying of Plato, and in the different
wording of the prayer among the Jews. The male is the real being, the master of the
female. With the views of Plato and the Jews, the larger part of men agree, and many a
woman also wishes that she had been born a man and not a woman. In this view lies
reflected the condition of the female sex.
Wholly irrespective of the question whether woman is oppressed as a female proletarian,
as sex she is oppressed in the modern world of private property. A number of checks and
obstructions, unknown to man, exist for her, and hem her in at every step. Much that is
allowed to man is forbidden to her; a number of social rights and privileges, enjoyed by
the former, are, if exercised by her, a blot or a crime. She suffers both as a social and a
sex entity, and it is hard to say in which of the two respects she suffers more.
Of all the natural impulses human beings are instinct with, along with that of eating and
drinking, the sexual impulse is the strongest. The impulse to procreate the species is the
most powerful expression of the "Will to Live." It is implanted most strongly in every
normally developed human being. Upon maturity, its satisfaction is an actual necessity
for man's physical and mental health. Luther was perfectly right when he said: "He who
would resist the promptings of Nature, and prevent their going as Nature wills and must,
what else does he but endeavor to resist Nature's being Nature, that fire burn, water wet,
that man eat, drink or sleep?" These are words that should be graven in granite over the
doors of our churches, in which the "sinful flesh" is so diligently preached against. More
strikingly no physician or physiologist can describe the necessity for the satisfaction of
the craving for love on the part of a healthy being,—a craving that finds its expression in
sexual intercourse.
It is a commandment of the human being to itself—a commandment that it must obey if it
wishes to develop normally and in health—that it neglect the exercise of no member of
its body, deny gratification to no natural impulse. Each member must fill the function,
that it is intended for by Nature, on penalty of atrophy and disease. The laws of the
physical development of man must be studied and observed, the same as those of mental

development. The mental activity of the human being is the expression of the physiologic
composition of its organs. The complete health of the former is intimately connected with
the health of the latter. A disturbance of the one inevitably has a disturbing effect upon
the other. Nor do the so-called animal desires take lower rank than the so-called mental
ones. One set and the other are effects of the identical combined organism: the influence
of the two upon each other is mutual and continuous. This holds good for man as for
woman.
It follows that, the knowledge of the properties of the sexual organs is just as needful as
that of the organs which generate mental activity; and that man should bestow upon the
cultivation of both an equal share of care. He should realize that organs and impulses,
found implanted in every human being, and that constitute a very essential part of his
nature, aye, that, at certain periods of his life control him absolutely, must not be objects
of secrecy, of false shame and utter ignorance. It follows, furthermore, that a knowledge
of the physiology and anatomy of the sexual organs, together with their functions, should
be as general among men and women as any other branch of knowledge. Equipped with
an accurate knowledge of our physical make-up, we would look upon many a condition
in life with eyes different from those we now do. The question of removing existing evils
would then, of itself, force itself upon those before whom society, to-day, passes by in
silence and solemn bashfulness, notwithstanding these evils command attention within
the precincts of every family. In all other matters, knowledge is held a virtue, the
worthiest and most beautiful aim of human endeavor—only not knowledge in such
matters that are in closest relation with the essence and health of our own Ego, as well as
the basis of all social development.
Kant says: "Man and woman only jointly constitute the complete being: one sex
supplements the other." Schopenhauer declares: "The sexual impulse is the fullest
utterance of the will to live, hence it is the concentration of all will-power;" again: "The
affirmative declaration of the will in favor of life is concentrated in the act of generation,
and that is its most decisive expression." In accord therewith says Mainlaender: "The
center of gravity of human life lies in the sexual instinct: it alone secures life to the
individual, which is that which above all else it wants.... To nothing else does man devote
greater earnestness than to the work of procreation, and for the care of none other does he
compress and concentrate the intensity of his will so demonstratively as for the act of
procreation." Finally, and before all of these, Buddha said: "The sexual instinct is sharper
than the hook wild elephants are tamed with; it is hotter than flames; it is like an arrow,
shot into the spirit of man."[58]
Such being the intensity of the sexual impulse, it is no wonder that sexual abstinence at
the age of maturity affects the nervous system and the whole organism of man, with one
sex as well as the other, in such a manner that it often leads to serious disturbances and
manias; under certain conditions even to insanity and death. True enough, the sexual
instinct does not assert itself with equal violence in all natures, and much can be done
towards curbing it by education and self-control, especially by avoiding the excitation
resulting upon certain conversations and reading. It is thought that, in general, the

impulse manifests itself lighter with women than with men, and that the irritation is less
potent with the former. It is even claimed that, with woman, there is a certain repugnance
for the sexual act. The minority is small of those with whom physiologic and psychologic
dispositions and conditions engender such a difference. "The union of the sexes is one of
the great laws of living Nature; man and woman are subject to it the same as all other
creatures, and can not transgress it, especially at a ripe age, without their organism
suffering more or less in consequence."[59] Debay quotes among the diseases, caused by
the inactivity of the sexual organs, satyriasis, nymphomania and hysteria; and he adds
that celibacy exercises upon the intellectual powers, especially with woman, a highly
injurious effect. On the subject of the harmfulness of sexual abstinence by woman, Busch
says:[60] "Abstinence has in all ages been considered particularly harmful to woman;
indeed it is a fact that excess, as well as abstinence, affects the female organism equally
harmfully, and the effects show themselves more pronouncedly and intensively than with
the male organism."
It may, accordingly, be said that man—be the being male or female—is complete in the
measure in which, both as to organic and spiritual culture, the impulses and
manifestations of life utter themselves in the sexes, and in the measure that they assume
character and expression. Each sex of itself reached its highest development. "With
civilized man," says Klenke in his work "Woman as Wife," "the compulsion of
procreation is placed under the direction of the moral principle, and that is guided by
reason." This is true. Nevertheless, it were an impossible task, even with the highest
degree of freedom, wholly to silence the imperative command for the preservation of the
species,—a command that Nature planted in the normal, organic expression of the both
sexes. Where healthy individuals, male or female, have failed in their life-time to honor
this duty towards Nature, it is not with them an instance of the free exercise of the will,
even when so given out, or when, in self-deception, it is believed to be such. It is the
result of social obstacles, together with the consequences which follow in their wake;
they restricted the right of Nature; they allowed the organs to wilt; allowed the stamp of
decay and of sexual vexation—both in point of appearance and of character—to be
placed upon the whole organism; and, finally, brought on—through nervous distempers—
diseased inclinations and conditions both of body and of mind. The man becomes
feminine, the woman masculine in shape and character. The sexual contrast not having
reached realization in the plan of Nature, each human being remained one-sided, never
reached its supplement, never touched the acme of its existence. In her work, "The Moral
Education of the Young in Relation to Sex," Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell says: "The sexual
impulse exists as an indispensable condition of life, and as the basis of society. It is the
greatest force in human nature. Often undeveloped, not even an object of thought, but
none the less the central fire of life, this inevitable instinct is the natural protector against
any possibility of extinction."
Science agrees, accordingly, with the opinion of the philosophers, and with Luther's
healthy common sense. It follows that every human being has, not merely the right, but
also the duty to satisfy the instincts, that are intimately connected with its inmost being,

that, in fact, imply existence itself. Hindered therein, rendered impossible to him through
social institutions or prejudices, the consequence is that man is checked in the
development of his being, is left to a stunted life and retrogression. What the
consequences thereof are, our physicians, hospitals, insane asylums and prisons can tell,
—to say nothing of the thousands of tortured family lives. In a book that appeared in
Leipsic, the author is of the opinion: "The sexual impulse is neither moral nor immoral; it
is merely natural, like hunger and thirst: Nature knows nothing of morals;"[61]
nevertheless bourgeois society is far from a general acceptance of this maxim.
The opinion finds wide acceptance among physicians and physiologists that even a
defectively equipped marriage is better than celibacy. Experience agrees therewith. In
Bavaria there were, in 1858, not less than 4,899 lunatics, 2,576 (53 per cent.) of them
men, 2,323 (47 per cent.) women. The men were, accordingly, more strongly represented
than the women. Of the whole number, however, the unmarried of both sexes ran up to
81 per cent., the married only to 17 per cent., while of 2 per cent. the conjugal status was
unknown. As a mitigation of the shocking disproportion between the unmarried and the
married, the circumstance may be taken into consideration that a not small number of the
unmarried were insane from early childhood. In Hanover, in the year 1856, there was one
lunatic to every 457 unmarried, 564 widowed, 1,316 married people. Most strikingly is
the effect of unsatisfied sexual relations shown in the number of suicides among men and
women. In general, the number of suicides is in all countries considerably higher among
men than among women. To every 1,000 female suicides there were in:[62]

England from 1872-76 2,861 men
Sweden " 1870-74 3,310 "
France " 1871-76 3,695 "
Italy " 1872-77 4,000 "
Prussia " 1871-78 4,239 "
Austria " 1873-78 4,586 "

But between the ages of 21 and 30, the figures for female suicides is in all European
countries higher than for males, due, as Oettingen assumes, to sexual causes. In Prussia
the percentages of suicides between the ages of 21 to 30 were on an average:

Years. Males. Females.
1869-72 15.8 21.4
1873-78 15.7 21.5

In Saxony there were to every 1,000 suicides between the ages of 21 to 30 these
averages:

Years. Males. Females.
1854 14.95 18.64
1868 14.71 18.79

For widowed and divorced people also the percentage of suicides is larger than the
average. In Saxony there are seven times as many suicides among divorced males, and
three times as many among divorced females, as the average of suicides for males and
females respectively. Again, suicide is more frequent among divorced and widowed men
and women when they are childless. Of 491 widowed suicides in Prussia (119 males and
372 females) 353 were childless.
Taking into further consideration that, among the unmarried women, who are driven to
suicide between the ages of 21 and 30, many a one is to be found, who takes her life by
reason of being betrayed, or because she can not bear the consequences of a "slip," the
fact remains that sexual reasons play a decided role in suicide at this age. Among female
suicides, the figure is large also for those between the ages of 16 to 20, and the fact is
probably likewise traceable to unsatisfied sexual instinct, disappointment in love, secret
pregnancy, or betrayal. On the subject of the women of our days as sexual beings,
Professor V. Krafft-Ebing expresses himself: "A not-to-be-underrated source of insanity
with woman lies in her social position. Woman, by nature more prone than man to sexual
needs, at least in the ideal sense of the term, knows no honorable means of gratifying the
need other than marriage. At the same time marriage offers her the only support. Through
unnumbered generations her character has been built in this direction. Already the little
girl plays mother with her doll. Modern life, with its demands upon culture, offers ever
slighter prospects of gratification through marriage. This holds especially with the upper
classes, among whom marriage is contracted later and more rarely. While man—as the
stronger, and thanks to his greater intellectual and physical powers, together with his
social position—supplies himself easily with sexual gratification, or, taken up with some
occupation, that engages all his energies, easily finds an equivalent, these paths are closed
to single women. This leads, in the first place, consciously or unconsciously, to
dissatisfaction with herself and the world, to morbid brooding. For a while, perhaps,
relief is sought in religion; but in vain. Out of religious enthusiasm, there spring with or
without masturbation, a host of nervous diseases, among which hysteria and insanity are
not rare. Only thus is the fact explainable that insanity among single women occurs with
greatest frequency between the ages of 25 and 35, that is to say, the time when the bloom
of youth, and, along therewith, hope vanishes; while with men, insanity occurs generally
between the ages of 35 and 50, the season of the strongest efforts in the struggle for
existence.
"It certainly is no accident that, hand in hand with increasing celibacy, the question of the
emancipation of woman has come ever more on the order of the day. I would have the
question looked upon as a danger signal, set up by the social position of woman in
modern society—a position that grows ever more unbearable, due to increasing celibacy;
I would have it looked upon as the danger signal of a justified demand, made upon
modern society, to furnish woman some equivalent for that to which she is assigned by
Nature, and which modern social conditions partly deny her."[63]

And Dr. H. Plotz, in his work, "Woman in Nature and Ethnography,"[64] says in the
course of his explanation of the results of ungratified sexual instincts upon unmarried
women: "It is in the highest degree noteworthy, not for the physician only, but also for the
anthropologist, that there is an effective and never-failing means to check this process of
decay (with old maids), but even to cause the lost bloom to return, if not in all its former
splendor yet in a not insignificant degree,—pity only that our social conditions allow, or
make its application possible only in rare instances. The means consist in regular and
systematic sexual intercourse. The sight is not infrequent with girls, who lost their bloom,
or were not far from the withering point, yet, the opportunity to marry having been
offered them, that, shortly after marriage, their shape began to round up again, the roses
to return to their cheeks, and their eyes to recover their one-time brightness. Marriage is,
accordingly, the true fountain of youth for the female sex. Thus Nature has her firm laws,
that implacably demand their dues. No 'vita praeter naturam,' no unnatural life, no
attempt at accommodation to incompatible conditions of life, passes without leaving
noticeable traces of degeneration, upon the animal, as well as upon the human organism."
As to the effect that marriage and celibacy exercise upon the mind, the following figures
furnish testimony. In 1882, there were in Prussia, per 10,000 inhabitants of the same
conjugal status, 33.2 unmarried male and 29.3 female lunatics, while the percentage of
the married ones was 9.5 for men, and 9.5 for females, and of the widowed, 32.1 males,
and 25.6 females. Social conditions can not be considered healthy, that hinder a normal
satisfaction of the natural instincts, and lead to evils like those just mentioned.
The question then rises: Has modern society met the demands for a natural life, especially
as concerns the female sex? If the question is answered in the negative, this other rises:
Can modern society meet the demands? If both questions must be answered in the
negative, then this third arises: How can these demands be met?
"Marriage and the family are the foundation of the State; consequently, he who attacks
marriage and the family attacks society and the State, and undermines both"—thus cry
the defenders of the present order. Unquestionably, monogamous marriage, which flows
from the bourgeois system of production and property, is one of the most important
cornerstones of bourgeois or capitalist society; whether, however, such marriage is in
accord with natural wants and with a healthy development of human society, is another
question. We shall prove that the marriage, founded upon bourgeois property relations, is
more or less a marriage by compulsion, which leads numerous ills in its train, and which
fails in its purpose quite extensively, if not altogether. We shall show, furthermore, that it
is a social institution, beyond the reach of millions, and is by no means that marriage
based upon love, which alone corresponds with the natural purpose, as its praise-singers
maintain.
With regard to modern marriage, John Stuart Mill exclaims: "Marriage is the only form
of slavery that the law recognizes." In the opinion of Kant, man and woman constitute
only jointly the full being. Upon the normal union of the sexes rests the healthy
development of the human race. The natural gratification of the sexual instinct is a

necessity for the thorough physical and mental development of both man and woman.
But man is no animal. Mere physical satisfaction does not suffice for the full gratification
of his energetic and vehement instinct. He requires also spiritual affinity and oneness
with the being that he couples with. Is that not the case, then the blending of the sexes is a
purely mechanical act: such a marriage is immoral. It does not answer the higher human
demands. Only in the mutual attachment of two beings of opposite sexes can be
conceived the spiritual ennobling of relations that rest upon purely physical laws.
Civilized man demands that the mutual attraction continue beyond the accomplishment of
the sexual act, and that it prolong its purifying influence upon the home that flows from
the mutual union.[65] The fact that these demands can not be made upon numberless
marriages in modern society is what led Barnhagen von Ense to say: "That which we saw
with our own eyes, both with regard to contracted marriages and marriages yet to be
contracted, was not calculated to give us a good opinion of such unions. On the contrary,
the whole institution, which was to have only love and respect for its foundation, and
which in all these instances (in Berlin) we saw founded on everything but that, seemed to
us mean and contemptible, and we loudly joined in the saying of Frederick Schlegel
which we read in the fragments of the 'Atheneum': Almost all marriages are
concubinages, left-handed unions, or rather provisional attempts and distant resemblances
at and of a true marriage, whose real feature consists, according to all spiritual and
temporal laws, in that two persons become one."[66] Which is completely in the sense of
Kant.
The duty towards and pleasure in posterity make permanent the love relations of two
persons, when such really exists. A couple that wishes to enter into matrimonial relations
must, therefore, be first clear whether the physical and moral qualities of the two are fit
for such a union. The answer should be arrived at uninfluenced; and that can happen only,
first, by keeping away all other interests, that have nothing to do with the real object of
the union,—the gratification of the natural instinct, and the transmission of one's being in
the propagation of the race; secondly, by a certain degree of insight that curbs blind
passion. Seeing, however, as we shall show, that both conditions are, in innumerable
cases, absent in modern society, it follows that modern marriage is frequently far from
fulfilling its true purpose; hence that it is not just to represent it, as is done, in the light of
an ideal institution.
How large the number is of the marriages, contracted with views wholly different from
these, can, naturally, not be statistically given. The parties concerned are interested in
having their marriage appear to the world different from what it is in fact. There is on this
field a state of hypocrisy peculiar to no earlier social period. And the State, the political
representative of this society, has no interest, for the sake of curiosity, in initiating
inquiries, the result of which would be to place in dubious light the social system that is
its very foundation. The maxims, which the State observes with respect to the marrying
of large divisions of its own officials and servants, do not suffer the principle to be
applied that, ostensibly, is the basis of marriage.

Marriage—and herewith the bourgeois idealists also agree—should be a union that two
persons enter into only out of mutual love, in order to accomplish their natural mission.
This motive is, however, only rarely present in all its purity. With the large majority of
women, matrimony is looked upon as a species of institution for support, which they
must enter into at any price. Conversely, a large portion of the men look upon marriage
from a purely business standpoint, and from material view-points all the advantages and
disadvantages are accurately calculated. Even with those marriages, in which low
egotistical motives did not turn the scales, raw reality brings along so much that disturbs
and dissolves, that only in rare instances are the expectations verified which, in their
youthful enthusiasm and ardor, the couple had looked forward to.
And quite naturally. If wedlock is to offer the spouses a contented connubial life, it
demands, together with mutual love and respect, the assurance of material existence, the
supply of that measure of the necessaries of life and comfort which the two consider
requisite for themselves and their children. The weight of cares, the hard struggle for
existence—these are the first nails in the coffin of conjugal content and happiness. The
cares become heavier the more fruitful the marriage proves itself, i. e., in the measure in
which the marriage fulfils its purpose. The peasant, for instance, is pleased at every calf
that his cow brings him; he counts with delight the number of young that his sow litters;
and he communicates the event with pleasure to his neighbors. But the same peasant
looks gloomy when his wife presents him with an increase to his own brood—and large
this may never be—which he believes to be able to bring up without too much worry. His
gloom is all the thicker if the new-born child is a girl.
We shall now show how, everywhere, marriages and births are completely controlled by
the economic conditions. This is most classically exemplified in France. There, the
allotment system prevails generally in the country districts. Land, broken up beyond a
certain limit, ceases to nourish a family. The unlimited division of land, legally
permissible, the French peasant counteracts by his rarely giving life to more than two
children,—hence the celebrated and notorious "two child system," that has grown into a
social institution in France, and that, to the alarm of her statesmen, keeps the population
stationary, in some provinces even registering considerable retrogression. The number of
births is steadily on the decline in France; but not in France only, also in most of the
civilized lands. Therein is found expressed a development in our social conditions, that
should give the ruling classes cause to ponder. In 1881 there were 937,057 children born
in France; in 1890, however, only 838,059; accordingly, the births in 1890 fell 98,998
behind the year 1881. Characteristic, however, is the circumstance that the number of
illegitimate births in France was 70,079 for the year 1881; that, during the period
between 1881 and 1890, the number reached high-water mark in 1884, with 75,754; and
that the number was still 71,086 strong in 1890. Accordingly, the whole of the decline of
births fell exclusively upon the legitimate births. This decline in births, and, we may add,
in marriages also, is, as will be shown, a characteristic feature, noticeable throughout the
century. To every 10,000 French population, there were births in the years:

1801 333

1821 307
1831 303
1841 282
1851 270
1856 261
1868 269
1886 230
1890 219

This amounts to a decline of births in 1890, as against 1801, of 114 to every 10,000
inhabitants. It is imaginable that such figures cause serious headaches to the French
statesmen and politicians. But France does not stand alone in this. For a long time
Germany has been presenting a similar phenomenon. In Germany, to every 10,000
population there were births in the years:

1869 406
1876 403
1880 390
1883 358
1887 369.4
1890 357.6

Accordingly, Germany too reveals, in the space of only 21 years, a decline of 49 births to
every 10,000 inhabitants. Similarly with the other States of Europe. To every 10,000
population there were live births:

From From
States. 1865-1867. 1886-1888. Decrease. Increase.
Ireland 262 231 31 ..
Scotland 353 313 40 ..
England and Wales 353 314 39 ..
Holland 388 344 44 ..
Belgium 320 293 27 ..
Switzerland 320 278 42 ..
Austria 374 380 .. 6
Hungary 399 445 .. 46
Italy 378 371 7 ..
Sweden 320 297 23 ..
Norway 344 308 36 ..

The decline in births is, accordingly, pretty general, only that, of all European States, it is
strongest in France. Between 1886 and 1888, France had, to every 1,000 inhabitants, an
average of 23.9 births, England 32.9, Prussia 41.27, and Russia 48.8.
These facts show that the birth of a human being, the "image of God," as religious people
express it, ranks generally much cheaper than new-born domestic animals. What this fact

does reveal is the unworthy condition that we find ourselves in,—and it is mainly the
female sex which suffers thereunder. In many respects, modern views distinguish
themselves but little from those of barbarous nations. Among the latter, new-born babes
were frequently killed, and such a fate fell to the lot of girls mainly; many a half-wild
race does so to this day. We no longer kill the girls; we are too civilized for that; but they
are only too often treated like pariahs by society and the family. The stronger man crowds
them everywhere back in the struggle for existence; and if, driven by the love for life,
they still take up the battle, they are visited with hatred by the stronger sex, as
unwelcome competitors. It is especially the men in the higher ranks of society who are
bitterest against female competition, and oppose it most fiercely. That workingmen
demand the exclusion of female labor on principle happens but rarely. A motion to that
effect being made in 1877, at a French Labor Convention, the large majority declared
against it. Since then, it is just with the class-conscious workingmen of all countries, that
the principle, that working-women are beings with equal rights with themselves makes
immense progress. This was shown especially by the resolutions of the International
Labor Congress of Paris in 1889. The class-conscious workingman knows that the
modern economic development forces woman to set herself up as a competitor with man;
but he also knows that, to prohibit female labor, would be as senseless an act as the
prohibition of the use of machinery. Hence he strives to enlighten woman on her position
in society, and to educate her into a fellow combatant in the struggle for the
emancipation of the proletariat from capitalism. True enough,—due to the ever more
widespread employment of female labor in agriculture, industry, commerce and the trades
—the family life of the workingman is destroyed, and the degenerating effects of the
double yoke of work for a living, and of household duties, makes rapid progress in the
female sex. Hence the endeavor to keep women by legislative enactments, from
occupations that are especially injurious to the female organism, and by means of
protective laws to safeguard her as a mother and rearer of children. On the other hand, the
struggle for existence forces women to turn in ever larger numbers to industrial
occupations. It is married woman, more particularly, who is called upon to increase the
meager earnings of her husband with her work,—and she is particularly welcome to the
employer.[67]
Modern society is without doubt more cultured than any previous one, and woman stands
correspondingly higher. Nevertheless, the views concerning the relations of the two sexes
have remained at bottom the same. Professor L. von Stein published a book,[68]—a work,
be it said in passing, that corresponds ill with its title—in which he gives a poetically
colored picture of modern marriage, as it supposedly is. Even in this picture the subaltern
position of woman towards the "lion" man is made manifest. Stein says among other
things: "Man deserves a being that not only loves, but also understands him. He deserves
a person with whom not only the heart beats for him, but whose hand may also smooth
his forehead, and whose presence radiates peace, rest, order, a quiet command over
herself and the thousand and one things upon which he daily reverts: he wants someone
who spreads over all these things that indescribable aroma of womanhood, one who is the
life-giving warmth to the life of the house."

In this song of praise of woman lies concealed her own degradation, and along therewith,
the low egotism of man. The professor depicts woman as a vaporous being, that,
nevertheless, shall be equipped with the necessary knowledge of practical arithmetic;
know how to keep the balance between "must" and "can" in the household; and, for the
rest, float zephyr-fashion, like sweet spring-tide, about the master of the house, the
sovereign lion, in order to spy every wish from his eyes, and with her little soft hand
unwrinkle the forehead, that he, "the master of the house," perchance himself crumpled,
while brooding over his own stupidity. In short, the professor pictures a woman and a
marriage such as, out of a hundred, hardly one is to be found, or, for that matter, can
exist. Of the many thousand unhappy marriages; of the large number of women who
never get so far as to wed; and also of the millions, who, like beasts of burden beside
their husbands, have to drudge and wear themselves out from early morn till late to earn a
bit of bread for the current day,—of all of these the learned gentleman knows nothing.
With all these wretched beings, hard, raw reality wipes off the poetic coloring more easily
than does the hand the colored dust of the wings of a butterfly. One look, cast by the
professor at those unnumbered female sufferers, would have seriously disturbed his
poetically colored picture, and spoiled his concept. The women, whom he sees, make up
but a trifling minority, and that these stand upon the plane of our times is to be doubted.
An oft-quoted sentence runs: "The best gauge of the culture of a people is the position
which woman occupies." We grant that; but it will be shown that our so much vaunted
culture has little to brag about. In his work, "The Subjection of Woman,"—the title is
typical of the opinion that the author holds regarding the modern position of woman—
John Stuart Mill says: "The lives of men have become more domestic, growing
civilization lays them under more obligations towards women." This is only partly true.
In so far as honorable conjugal relations may exist between husband and wife, Mill's
statement is true; but it is doubtful whether the statement applies to even a strong
minority. Every sensible man will consider it an advantage to himself if woman step
forward into life out of the narrow circle of domestic activities, and become familiar with
the currents of the times. The "chains" he thereby lays upon himself do not press him. On
the other hand, the question arises whether modern life does not introduce into married
life factors, that, to a higher degree than formerly, act destructively upon marriage.
Monogamous marriage became, from the start, an object of material speculation. The
man who marries endeavors to wed property, along with a wife, and this was one of the
principal reasons why daughters, after being at first excluded from the right to inherit,
when descent in the male line prevailed, soon again reacquired the right. But never in
earlier days was marriage so cynically, in open market, so to speak, an object of
speculation; a money transaction, as it is to-day. To-day trading in marriage is frequently
conducted among the property classes—among the propertyless the practice has no sense
—with such shamelessness, that the oft-repeated phrase concerning the "sanctity" of
marriage is the merest mockery. This phenomenon, as everything else, has its ample
foundation. At no previous period was it, as it is to-day, hard for the large majority of
people to raise themselves into a condition of well-being, corresponding to the then

general conceptions; nor was at any time the justified striving for an existence worthy of
human beings so general as it is to-day. He who does not reach the goal, feels his failure
all the more keenly, just because all believe to have an equal right to enjoyment.
Formally, there are no rank or class distinctions. Each wishes to obtain that which,
according to his station, he considers a goal worth striving for, in order to come at
fruition. But many are called and few are chosen. In order that one may live comfortably
in capitalist society, twenty others must pine; and in order that one may wallow in all
manner of enjoyment, hundreds, if not thousands, of others must renounce the happiness
of life. But each wishes to be of that minority of favored ones, and seizes every means,
that promise to take him to the desired goal, provided he does not compromise himself
too deeply. One of the most convenient means, and, withal, nearest at hand, to reach the
privileged social station, is the money-marriage. The desire, on the one hand, to obtain as
much money as possible, and, on the other, the aspiration after rank, titles and honor thus
find their mutual satisfaction in the so-called upper classes of society. There, marriage is
generally considered a business transaction; it is a purely conventional bond, which both
parties respect externally, while, for the rest, each often acts according to his or her own
inclination. Marriage for political reasons, practiced in the higher classes, need here to be
mentioned only for the sake of completeness. With these marriages also, as a rule, the
privilege has tacitly existed—of course, again, for the husband to a much higher degree
than for the wife—that the parties keep themselves scathless, outside of the bonds of
wedlock, according as their whims may point, or their needs dictate. There have been
periods in history when it was part of the bon ton with a Prince to keep mistresses: it was
one of the princely attributes. Thus, according to Scherr, did Frederick William I. of
Prussia (1713-1740), otherwise with a reputation for steadiness, keep up, at least for the
sake of appearances, relations with a General's wife. On the other hand, it is a matter of
public notoriety that, for instance, August the Strong, King of Poland and Saxony, gave
life to 300 illegitimate children; and Victor Emanuel of Italy, the re galantuomo, left
behind 32 illegitimate children. There is still extant a romantically located little German
residence city, in which are at least a dozen charming villas, that the corresponding
"father of his country" had built as places of recreation for his resigned mistresses. On
this head thick books could be written: as is well known, there is an extensive library on
these piquant matters.
The inside history of most of the German princely courts and noble families is to the
informed an almost uninterrupted chronique scandaleuse, and not infrequently has it been
stained with crimes of blackest dye. In sight of these facts, it certainly is imperative upon
the sycophantic painters of history, not only to leave untouched the question of the
"legitimacy" of the several successive "fathers and mothers of their country," but also to
take pains to represent them as patterns of all virtues, as faithful husbands and good
mothers. Not yet has the breed of the augurs died out; they still live, as did their Roman
prototypes, on the ignorance of the masses.
In every large town, there are certain places and days when the higher classes meet,
mainly for the purpose of match-making. These gatherings are, accordingly, quite fitly

termed "marriage exchanges." Just as on the exchanges, speculation and chaffer play here
the leading role, nor are deception and swindle left out. Officers, loaded with debts, but
who can hold out an old title of nobility; roues, broken down with debauchery, who seek
to restore their ruined health in the haven of wedlock, and need a nurse; manufacturers,
merchants, bankers, who face bankruptcy, not infrequently the penitentiary also, and wish
to be saved; finally, all those who are after money and wealth, or a larger quantity
thereof, government office-holders among them, with prospects of promotion, but
meanwhile in financial straits;—all turn up as customers at these exchanges, and ply the
matrimonial trade. Quite often, at such transactions, it is all one whether the prospective
wife be young or old, handsome or ugly, straight or bent, educated or ignorant, religious
or frivolous, Christian or Jew. Was it not a saying of a celebrated statesman: "The
marriage of a Christian stallion with a Jewish mare is to be highly recommended"?[69]
The figure, characteristically borrowed from the horse-fair, meets, as experience teaches,
with loud applause from the higher circles of our society. Money makes up for all defects,
and outweighs all vices. The German penal code punishes[70] the coupler with long terms
of imprisonment; when, however, parents, guardians and relatives couple their children,
wards or kin to a hated man or woman only for the sake of money, of profit, of rank, in
short, for the sake of external benefits, there is no District Attorney ready to take charge,
and yet a crime has been committed. There are numerous well organized matrimonial
bureaus, with male and female panders of all degrees, out for prey, in search of the male
and female candidates for the "holy bonds of matrimony." Such business is especially
profitable when the "work" is done for the members of the upper classes. In 1878 there
was a criminal trial in Vienna of a female pander on the charge of poisoning, and ended
with her being sentenced to fifteen years in the penitentiary. At the trial it was established
that the French Ambassador in Vienna, Count Bonneville, had paid the pander 12,000
florins for procuring his own wife. Other members of the high aristocracy were likewise
highly compromised through the trial. Evidently, certain Government officials had left
the woman to pursue her dark and criminal practices for many years. The "why" thereof
is surely no secret. Similar stories are told from the capital of the German Empire. During
recent years, it is the daughters and heirs of the rich American capitalist class, who, on
their side, aspire after rank and honors, not to be had in their own American home, that
have become a special subject of matrimonial trading for the needy noblemen of Europe.
Upon these particular practices characteristic light is thrown by a series of articles that
appeared in the fall of 1889 in a portion of the German press. According thereto, a
chevalier d'industry nobleman, domiciled in California, had recommended himself as a
matrimonial agent in German and Austrian papers. The offers that he received amply
betray the conception concerning the sanctity of marriage and its "ethical" side prevalent
in the corresponding circles. Two Prussian officers of the Guards, both, as they say
themselves, belonging to the oldest nobility of Prussia, declared that they were ready to
enter into negotiations for marriage because, as they frankly confessed, they owed
together 60,000 marks. In their letter to the pander they say literally: "It is understood that
we shall pay no money in advance. You will receive your remuneration after the wedding
trip. Recommend us only to ladies against whose families no objections can be raised. It

is also very desirable to be introduced to ladies of attractive appearance. If demanded, we
shall furnish, for discreet use, our own pictures to your agent, after he shall have given us
the details, and shown us the pictures, etc. We consider the whole affair strictly
confidential and as a matter of honor (?), and, of course, demand the same from you. We
expect a speedy answer through your agent in this place, if you have one. Berlin,
Friedrichstrasse 107, December 15, 1889. Baron v. M——, Arthur v. W——."
An Austrian nobleman also, Karl Freiherr v. M—— of Goeding in Moravia, seized the
opportunity to angle for a rich American bride, and to this end sent to the swindle-bureau
the following letter:
"According to a notice in the papers of this place, you are acquainted with American
ladies who wish to marry. In this connection I place myself at your service, but must
inform you that I have no fortune whatever. I am of very old noble stock (Baron), 34
years old, single, was a cavalry officer and am at present engaged in building railroads. I
should be pleased to inspect one or more pictures, which, upon my word of honor, I shall
return. Should you require my picture, I shall forward same to you. I also request you to
give me fuller information. Expecting a speedy answer in this matter, I remain, very
respectfully, your Karl Freiherr v. M——, Goeding, Moravia, Austria, November 29,
1889."
A young German nobleman, Hans v. H——, wrote from London that he was 5 feet 10
tall, of an old noble family, and employed in the diplomatic service. He made the
confession that his fortune had been greatly reduced through unsuccessful betting at the
horse races, and hence found himself obliged to be on the lookout for a rich bride, so as
to be able to cover his deficit. He was, furthermore, ready to undertake a trip to the
United States forthwith.
The chevalier d'industry in question claimed that, besides several counts, barons, etc.,
three Princes and sixteen dukes had reported to him as candidates for marriage. But not
noblemen only, bourgeois also longed for rich American women. An architect, Max W
—— of Leipsic, demanded a bride who should possess not only money, but beauty and
culture also. From Kehl on the Rhine, a young mill-owner, Robert D——, wrote that he
would be satisfied with a bride who had but 400,000 marks, and he promised in advance
to make her happy.
But why look so far, when at hand the quarry is rich! A very patriotic-conservative
Leipsic paper, which plumes itself very particularly upon its Christianity, contained in the
spring of 1894 an advertisement, that ran thus: "A cavalry officer of the Guards, of large,
handsome build, noble, 27 years of age, desires a financial marriage. Please address,
Count v. W. I., Post Office General Delivery, Dresden." In comparison with the fellow
who makes so cynical an offer, the street-walker, who, out of bitter necessity, plies her
trade, is a paragon of decency and virtue. Similar advertisements are found almost every
day in the papers of all political parties—except the Social Democratic. A Social
Democratic editor or manager, who would accept such or similar advertisements for his

paper, would be expelled from his party as dishonorable. The capitalist press is not
troubled at such advertisements: they bring in money: and it is of the mind of the
Emperor Vespasian,—non olet, it does not smell. Yet all that does not hinder that same
press from going rabid mad at "the marriage-undermining tendencies of Socialism."
Never yet was there an age more hypocritical than the one we are living in. With the view
to demonstrate the fact once more, the above instances were cited.
Bureaus of information for marriage,—that's what the advertisement pages of most of the
newspapers of our day are. Whosoever, be it male or female, finds near at hand nothing
desirable, entrusts his or her heart's wants to the pious-conservative or moral-liberal
press, that, in consideration of cash and without coaxing, sees to it that the kindred souls
meet. With illustrations, taken on any one day from a number of large newspapers, whole
pages, could be filled. Off and on the interesting fact also crops out that even clergymen
are sought for husbands, and, vice versa, clergymen angle for wives, with the aid of
advertisements. Occasionally, the suitors also offer to overlook a slip, provided the
looked-for woman be rich. In short, the moral turpitude of certain social circles of our
society can be pilloried no better than by this sort of courtship.
State and Church play in such "holy matrimony" a by no means handsome role. Whether
the civil magistrate or clergyman, on whom may devolve the duty to celebrate the
marriage, be convinced that the bridal couple before him has been brought together by
the vilest of practices; whether it be manifest that, neither in point of age nor that of
bodily or mental qualities, the two are compatible with each other; whether, for instance,
the bride be twenty and the bridegroom seventy years old, or the reverse; whether the
bride be young, handsome and joyful, and the bridegroom old, ridden with disease and
crabbed;—whatever the case, it concerns not the representative of the State or the
Church; it is not for them to look into that. The marriage bond is "blessed,"—as a rule,
blessed with all the greater solemnity in proportion to the size of the fee for the "holy
office."
When, later, such a marriage proves a most unfortunate one—as foreseen by everybody,
by the ill-starred victim, in most instances the woman, herself,—and either party decides
to separate, then, State and Church,—who never first inquire whether real love and
natural, moral impulses, or only naked, obscene egotism tie the knot—now raise the
greatest difficulties. At present, moral repulsion is but rarely recognized a sufficient
ground for separation; at present, only palpable proofs, proofs that always dishonor or
lower one of the parties in public esteem, are, as a rule, demanded; separation is not
otherwise granted. That the Roman Catholic Church does not allow divorces,—except by
special dispensation of the Pope, which is hard to obtain, and, at best, only from board
and bed—only renders all the worse the conditions, under which all Catholic countries
are suffering. Germany has the prospect of receiving, in the not too far distant future, a
civil code that shall embrace the whole Empire. It is, therefore, a side-light upon our
times that, although even the superficial observer must reach the conclusion that at no
previous period have unhappy marriages been so numerous as now—a natural
consequence of our whole social development—the new draft for a civil code still renders

divorce materially difficult. It is but a fresh instance of the old experience,—a social
system, in the throes of dissolution, seeks to keep itself up by artificial means and
compulsion, and to deceive itself upon its actual state. In declining Rome, marriage and
births were sought to be promoted by premiums: in the German Empire, whose social
order stands under a constellation similar with that of the decaying Empire of the
Caesars, it is now sought to prevent the ever more frequent desire for the dissolution of
marriage by means of forcible constraints.
Thus people remain against their will chained to each other through life. One party
becomes the slave of the other, compelled to submit out of "conjugal duty" to that other's
most intimate embraces, which, perhaps, it abhors worse than insult or ill-treatment.
Fully justified is Montegazza's dictum:[71] "There is probably no worse torture than that
which compels a human being to put up with the caresses of a person it does not love."
We ask, Is such a marriage—and their number is infinite—not worse than prostitution?
The prostitute has, to a certain degree, the freedom to withdraw from her disgraceful
pursuit; moreover, she enjoys the privilege, if she does not live in a public house, to reject
the purchase of the embraces of him who, for whatever reason, may be distasteful to her.
But a sold married woman must submit to the embraces of her husband, even though she
have a hundred reasons to hate and despise him.
When in advance, and with the knowledge of both parties, marriage is contracted as a
marriage for money or rank, then, as a rule, matters lie more favorably. The two
accommodate themselves mutually, and a modus vivendi is established. They want no
scandal, and regard for their children compels them to avoid any, although it is the
children who suffer most under a cold, loveless life on the part of their parents, even if
such a life does not develop into enmity, quarrel and dissension. Often accommodation is
reached in order to avoid material loss. As a rule it is the husband, whose conduct is the
rock against which marriage is dashed. This appears from the actions for divorce. In
virtue of his dominant position, he can indemnify himself elsewhere when the marriage is
not pleasing to him, and he can not find satisfaction in it. The wife is not so free to step
on side-roads, partly because, as the receiving sex, such action is, for physiologic
reasons, a much more risky one on her part; then, also, because every infraction of
conjugal fidelity is imputed a crime to her, which neither the husband nor society
pardons. Woman alone makes a "slip"—be she wife, widow or maid; man, at worst, has
acted "incorrectly." One and the same act is judged by society with wholly different
standards, according as it be committed by a man or a woman. And, as a rule, women
themselves judge a "fallen" sister most severely and pitilessly.[72]
As a rule, only in cases of crassest infidelity or maltreatment, does the wife decide upon
divorce. She is generally in a materially dependent position, and compelled to look upon
marriage as a means of support: moreover, as a divorced wife, she finds herself socially
in no enviable situation: unless special reasons render intercourse with her desirable, she
is considered and treated by society as a neuter, so to speak. When, despite all this, most
actions for divorce proceed from wives, the circumstance is an evidence of the heavy

moral torture that they lie under. In France, even before the new divorce law came into
effect (1884), by far the more numerous actions for separation from bed and board came
from women. For an absolute divorce they could apply only if the husband took his
concubine into the married home, against the will of his wife. Actions for separations
from bed and board occurred:[73]:

Average Per Average Per Year
Years. Year by Wives. by Husbands.
1856-1861 1729 184
1861-1866 2135 260
1866-1871 2591 330

But not only did women institute by far the larger number of actions; the figures show
that these increased from period to period. Furthermore, so far as reliable information
before us goes, it appears that actions for absolute divorce also proceed preponderatingly
from wives. In the Kingdom of Saxony, during the period of 1860-1868, there were
instituted, all told, 8,402 actions for divorce; of these, 3,537 (42 per cent.) were by men,
4,865 (58 per cent.) by wives.

In the period from 1871 to 1878, there were actions for divorce in Saxony[74]:

Year. By Husbands. By Wives.
1871 475 574
1872 576 698
1873 553 673
1874 643 697
1875 717 752
1876 722 839
1877 746 951
1878 754 994
———— ————
Total 5,186 6,178

The fact that divorce, as a rule, hurts women more, did not restrain them in Saxony either
from instituting most of the actions. The total actions for divorce increased, however, in
Saxony, as in France, much faster than population. In Switzerland, during the year 1892,
there were granted 1,036 applications for divorce. Of these, wives had instituted 493,
husbands 229, and both parties 314.
Statistics teach us, however, not alone that wives institute the larger number of actions for
divorce; they also teach us that the number of divorces is in rapid increase. In France,
divorce has been regulated anew by law since 1884. Since then, divorces have greatly
increased from year to year. The number of divorces, and years they fell in, were as
follows:

1884 1,657
1885 2,477
1886 2,950
1887 3,636
1888 4,708
1889 4,786
1890 5,457

In Vienna there were, from 1870 to 1871, 148 divorces; they increased from year to year;
from 1878 to 1879 they ran up to 319 cases.[75] But in Vienna, being a preponderatingly
Catholic city, divorce is hard to obtain. That notwithstanding, about the year 1885 a
Vienna Judge made the remark: "Complaints on the ground of broken marriage vows are
as frequent as complaints for broken window-panes." In England and Wales there was, in
1867, 1 divorce to every 1,378 marriages, but in 1877 there was 1 to every 652
marriages; and in 1886, 1 to as few as 527. In the United States the number of divorces
for 1867 was 9,937, and for 1886 as many as 25,535. The total number of divorces in the
United States between 1867 and 1886 was 328,716, and the fault fell in 216,176 cases
upon the husband, in 112,540 upon the wife.
Relatively speaking, the largest number of divorces occurs in the United States. The
proportion between marriages and divorces during the period of 1867 to 1886 stood for
those States in which an accurate record is kept:

Marriages
to Every One
States. Marriages. Divorces. Divorce.
Connecticut 96,737 11.32 21.77
Columbia 24,065 1,105 21.77
Massachusetts 308,195 9,853 31.28
Ohio 544,362 26,367 20.65
Rhode Island 49,593 4,462 11.10
Vermont 54,913 3,238 19.95

In the other States of the Union, from which less accurate returns are at hand, the
proportion seems to be the same. The reasons why in the United States divorces are more
frequent than in any other country, may be sought in the circumstance, first, that divorce
is there more easily obtained than elsewhere; secondly, that women occupy in the United
States a far freer position than in any other country, hence are less inclined to allow
themselves to be tyrannised by their marital lords.[76]
In Germany there was, by judicial decision, 1 dissolution of marriage—

In the Years To Population. To Marriages.
1881-1885 8,410 1,430
1886 7,585 1,283

1887 7,261 1,237
1888 6,966 1,179
1889 7,155 1,211

According to Dr. S. Wernicke, there were to every 1,000 marriages, divorces in:

Years. Belgium. Sweden. France.
1841-1845 0.7 4.2 2.7
1846-1850 0.9 4.4 2.8
1851-1855 1.0 4.4 4.0
1856-1860 1.4 4.3 4.9
1861-1865 1.6 4.8 6.0
1866-1870 1.9 5.0 7.6
1871-1875 2.8 5.8 6.5
1876-1880 4.2 7.1 9.0

It would be an error to attempt to arrive at any conclusion touching the different
conditions of morality, by deductions from the large discrepancy between the figures for
the different countries cited above. No one will dare assert that the population of Sweden
has more inclination or cause for divorce than that of Belgium. First of all must the
legislation on the subject be kept in mind, which in one country makes divorce difficult,
in another easier, more so in some, less in others. Only in the second instance does the
condition of morality come into consideration, i. e., the average reasons that, now the
husbands, then the wives, consider determining factors in applying for separation. But all
these figures combine in establishing that divorces increase much faster than population;
and that they increase while marriages decline. About this, more later.
On the question how the actions for divorce distribute themselves among the several
strata of society, there is only one computation at our disposal, from Saxony, but which is
from the year 1851.[77] At that time, to each 100,000 marriages, there were actions for
divorce from the stratum of

Domestic servants 289 or 1 application to 346 marriages
Day laborers 324 or 1 application to 309 marriages
Government employes 337 or 1 application to 289 marriages
Craftsmen and merchants 354 or 1 application to 283 marriages
Artists and scientists 485 or 1 application to 206 marriages

Accordingly, the actions for divorce were at that period in Saxony 50 per cent. more
frequent in the higher than in the lower social strata.
The increasing number of divorces signifies that, in general, the marriage relations are
becoming ever more unfavorable, and that the factors multiply which destroy marriage.
On the other hand, they also furnish evidence that an ever larger number of spouses,
women in particular, decide to shake off the unbearable oppressing yoke.

But the evils of matrimony increase, and the corruption of marriage gains ground in the
same measure as the struggle for existence waxes sharper, and marriage becomes ever
more a money-match, or be it, marriage by purchase. The increasing difficulty, moreover,
of supporting a family determines many to renounce marriage altogether; and thus the
saying that woman's activity should be limited to the house, and that she should fill her
calling as housewife and mother, becomes ever more a senseless phrase. On the other
hand, the conditions can not choose but favor the gratification of sexual intercourse
outside of wedlock. Hence the number of prostitutes increases, while the number of
marriages decreases. Besides that, the number increases of those who suffer from
unnatural gratification of the sexual instinct.
Among the property classes, not infrequently the wife sinks, just as in old Greece, to the
level of a mere apparatus for the procreation of legitimate offspring, of warder of the
house, or of nurse to a husband, wrecked by debauchery. The husbands keep for their
pleasure and physical desires hetairae—styled among us courtesans or mistresses—who
live in elegant abodes, in the handsomest quarters of the city. Others, whose means do not
allow them to keep mistresses, disport themselves, after marriage as before, with
Phrynes, for whom their hearts beat stronger than for their own wives. With the Phrynes
they amuse themselves; and quite a number of the husbands among the "property and
cultured classes" is so corrupt that it considers these entertainments in order.[78]
In the upper and middle classes of society, the money matches and matches for social
position are the mainspring of the evils of married life; but, over and above that, marriage
is made rank by the lives these classes lead. This holds good particularly with regard to
the women, who frequently give themselves over to idleness or to corrupting pursuits.
Their intellectual food often consists in the reading of equivocal romances and obscene
literature, in seeing and hearing frivolous theatrical performances, and the fruition of
sensuous music; in exhilarating nervous stimulants; in conversations on the pettiest
subjects, or scandals about the dear fellow mortals. Along therewith, they rush from one
enjoyment into another, from one banquet to another, and hasten in summer to the baths
and summer retreats to recover from the excesses of the winter, and to find fresh subjects
for talk. The chronique scandaleuse recruits itself from this style of life: people seduce
and are seduced.
In the lower classes money-matches are unknown, as a rule, although they occasionally
do play a role. No one can wholly withdraw himself from the influence of the society he
lives in,—and the existing social conditions exercise a particularly depressing influence
upon the circumstances of the lower classes. As a rule, the workingman weds out of
inclination, but there is no lack of causes to disturb his marriage. A rich blessing of
children brings on cares and troubles; but too often want sets in. Sickness and death are
frequent guests in the workingman's family. Lack of work drives misery to its height.
Many a circumstance pares off the worker's earnings, or temporarily robs him wholly of
it. Commercial and industrial crises throw him out of work; the introduction of new
machinery, or methods of work, casts him as superfluous on the sidewalk; wars,
unfavorable tariffs and commercial treaties, the introduction of the new indirect taxes,

disciplinary acts on the part of the employer in punishment for the exercise of his
convictions, etc., destroy his existence, or seriously injure it. Now one thing, then another
happens, whereby, sometimes for a shorter, sometimes for a longer period, he becomes an
unemployed, i. e., a starving being. Uncertainty is the badge of his existence. When such
blows of fortune happen, they at first produce dissatisfaction and bitterness, and in the
home life this mood finds its first expression when daily, every hour, demands are made
by wife and children for the most pressing needs, needs that the husband can not satisfy.
Out of despair, he visits the saloon, and seeks comfort in bad liquor. The last penny is
spent. Quarrel and dissension break out. The ruin of both marriage and the family is
accomplished.
Let us take up another picture. Both—husband and wife—go to work. The little ones are
left to themselves, or to the care of older brothers and sisters, themselves in need of care
and education. At noon, the so-called lunch is swallowed down in hot haste,—supposing
that the parents have at all time to rush home, which, in thousands of cases is impossible,
owing to the shortness of the hour of recess, and the distance of the shop from the home.
Tired out and unstrung, both return home in the evening. Instead of a friendly, cheerful
home, they find a narrow, unhealthy habitation, often lacking in light and air, generally
also in the most necessary comforts. The increasing tenement plague, together with the
horrible improprieties that flow therefrom, is one of the darkest sides of our social order,
and leads to numerous evils, vices and crimes. Yet the plague increases from year to year
in all cities and industrial regions, and it draws within the vortex of its evils ever new
strata of society: small producers, public employes, teachers, small traders, etc. The
workingman's wife, who reaches home in the evening tired and harassed, has now again
her hands full. She must bestir herself at breakneck speed in order but to get ready the
most necessary things in the household. The crying and noisy children are hurried off to
bed; the wife sits up, and sews, and patches deep into the night. The so-much-needed
mental intercourse and encouragement are absent. The husband is often uneducated and
knows little, the wife still less; the little they have to say to each other is soon got through
with. The husband goes to the saloon, and seeks there the entertainment that he lacks at
home; he drinks; however little that be that he spends, for his means it is too much. At
times he falls a prey to gambling, which, in the upper circles of society also, claims many
victims, and he loses more than he spends in drink. The wife, in the meantime, sits at
home and grumbles; she must work like a dray-horse; for her there is no rest or
recreation; the husband avails himself of the freedom that accident gives him, of having
been born a man. Thus disharmony arises. If, however, the wife is less true to duty, she
seeks in the evening, after she has returned home tired, the rest she is entitled to; but then
the household goes back, and misery is twice as great. Indeed, we live "in the best world
possible."
Through these and similar circumstances, marriage is shattered ever more among the
working class also. Even favorable seasons of work exert their destructive influence: they
compel him to work Sundays and overtime: they take from him the hours he still had left
for his family. In many instances he has to travel hours to reach the shop; to utilize the

noon recess for going home is an impossibility; he is up in the morning at the very
earliest, when the children are still sound asleep, and returns home late, when they are
again in the same condition. Thousands, especially those engaged in the building trades
in the cities, remain away from home all week, owing to the vastness of the distance, and
return only on Saturdays to their family. And yet it is expected of family life that it thrive
under such circumstances. Moreover, female labor is ever on the increase, especially in
the textile industry, whose thousands of steam weaving and spinning looms are served by
cheap woman and children's hands. Here the relations of sex and age have been reversed.
Wife and child go into the mill, the now breadless husband sits at home and attends to
household duties. In the United States, that, due to its rapid large-capitalist development,
produces all the evils of European industrial States in much larger dimensions, a
characteristic name has been invented for the state of things brought on by such
conditions. Industrial places that employ women mainly, while the husbands sit at home,
are called "she-towns."
The admission of women to all the manual trades is to-day conceded on all hands.
Capitalist society, ever on the hunt for profit and gain, has long since recognized what an
excellent subject for exploitation is woman—more docile and submissive, and less
exacting woman—in comparison with man. Hence the number of trades and occupations,
in which women are finding employment increases yearly. The extension and
improvement of machinery, the simplification of the process of production through the
ever minuter subdivision of labor, the intenser competition of capitalists among
themselves, together with the competitive battle in the world's market among rival
industrial countries,—all these continue to favor the ever further application of female
labor. It is a phenomenon noticeable in all industrial countries alike. But in the same
measure that the number of working-women increases, competition among the
workingmen is thereby intensified. One branch of industry after another, one branch of
work after the other, is being taken by working-women, who are ever more displacing the
men. Numerous passages in the reports of factory inspectors, as well as in the statistical
figures on the occupation of working-women, go to confirm the fact.
The condition of the women is worst in the industrial branches in which they
preponderate, for instance, the clothing and underwear industry, those branches, in
general, in which work can be done at home. The inquiry into the condition of the
working-women in the underwear and confectionery industries, ordered in 1886 by the
Bundesrath, has revealed the fact that the wages of these working-women are often so
miserable that they are compelled to prostitute their bodies for a side-source of income. A
large number of the prostitutes are recruited from the strata of ill-paid working-women.
Our "Christian" Government, whose Christianity, as a rule, is looked for in vain there
where it should be applied, and is found where the same is superfluous and harmful,—
this Christian Government acts exactly like the Christian capitalists, a fact that does not
astonish him who knows that the Christian Government is but the agent of our Christian
capitalists. The Government only with difficulty decides in favor of laws to limit woman-
labor to a normal measure, or to wholly forbid child-labor;—on the same principle that

that Government denies many of its own employes both the requisite Sunday rest and
normal hours of work, and in that way materially disturbs their family life. Post Office,
railroad, penitentiary and other Government employes often must perform their functions
far beyond the time limit, and their salaries stand in inverse ratio to their work. That,
however, is, to-day, the normal condition of things, still considered quite in order by the
majority.
Seeing, furthermore, that rent, in comparison to the wages and earnings of the
workingmen, the lower Government employes and the small men included, is much too
high, these must exert themselves to the utmost. Lodgers are taken into these homes, only
males in some, females in others, often both. The young and the old live together in
narrow quarters, without separating the sexes, and are crowded together even during the
most private acts. How the sense of shame, or morality fares thereby, horrifying facts
proclaim. The increasing brutalization of the youth, so extensively discussed, is due
mainly to the conditions prevalent in our industrial system, with which the wretchedness
of the home is closely connected. And, as to the children, what must be upon them the
effect of industrial labor! The very worst imaginable, both physically and morally.
The ever increasing industrial occupation of married women also is accompanied with
fatal results. Especially is this the case in connection with pregnancy and child-birth, as
also during the early life of the child when it depends upon the nourishment of the
mother. A number of ailments arise during pregnancy that affect destructively both the
fruit and the organism of the woman, and cause premature and still-born births, upon all
of which more later. After the child is born, the mother is compelled to return as quickly
as possible to the factory, lest her place be taken by a competitor. The inevitable results to
the little ones are: neglected care, improper or total lack of nourishment. They are
drugged with opiates to keep them quiet. The further results are: a vast mortality, or
stunted development; in short, the degeneration of the race. The children often grow up
without having enjoyed true motherly and fatherly love, or having on their part, felt filial
affection. Thus is the proletariat born, thus does it live and die. And the "Christian"
Government, this "Christian" society wonders that rudeness, immorality and crime
cumulate.
When, in the early sixties of last century, due to the American Civil War for the
emancipation of the negroes, many thousands of workingmen in the English cotton
industries were out of work, physicians made the remarkable discovery that, despite great
want among the population, mortality among children had declined. The cause was
simple. The children now enjoyed the mother's nourishment and better care than they had
ever had during the best seasons of work. The same fact was attested by physicians
during the crisis of the seventies in the United States, especially in New York and
Massachusetts. The general lack of employment compelled the women to rest from labor,
and left them time for the care of their children. Similar observations were also made by
Dr. v. Recherberg during the inquiry into the condition of the weavers of the region of
Zittau in Saxony, as shown by him in a work that he wrote during the summer of 1890.

In the home-industries, which romantic economists love to represent as idyllic, conditions
are no better. Here the wife is chained to her husband, at work early and late into the
night, and the children are from an early age hitched on. Crowded into the narrowest
space imaginable, husband, wife and family, boys and girls, live together, along with the
waste of materials, amidst the most disagreeable dusts and odors, and without the
necessary cleanliness. The bedrooms are of a piece with the sitting and working rooms:
generally dark holes and without ventilation, they would be sufficiently unsanitary if they
housed but a part of the people huddled into them. In short, the conditions of these places
are such as to cause the skin to creep of anyone accustomed to a life worthy of a human
being.
The ever harder struggle for existence often also compels women and men to commit
actions and tolerate indignities that, under other circumstances, would fill them with
disgust. In 1877 it was authentically established in Munich that, among the prostitutes,
registered by and under the surveillance of the police, there were not less than 203 wives
of workingmen and artisans. And how many are not the married women, who, out of
distress, prostitute themselves without submitting to a police control that deeply lacerates
the sense of shame and dignity!
But we have wandered somewhat from our subject. It was shown that the number of
actions for divorce is on the increase in all countries of civilization, and that the majority
of these actions proceed from wives. This steadily rising figure of actions for divorce is a
sign of the decay of bourgeois marriage, which is answering its purpose ever less. But a
still much worse sign of its decay is the circumstance that, simultaneously, the number of
marriages is in almost all these countries steadily on the decline. Experience tells that
high prices for corn in one single year have an unfavorable effect both upon the number
of marriages and that of births. Long industrial crises, and increasing deterioration of the
general economic condition must, accordingly, have a lasting evil effect. This is
confirmed by the statistics of marriages for almost all countries in civilization.
In France, marriages between 1881-1890 cast the following picture on the canvas.
Marriages were contracted in—

1881 282,079
1882 281,060
1883 284,519
1884 289,555
1885 283,170
1886 283,208
1887 277,060
1888 276,848
1889 272,934
1890 269,332

There is, accordingly, a considerable decrease of marriages.

In the German Empire, the number of marriages was highest after the close of the war
between Germany and France, during which they had stood still. In 1872 there were
423,900 marriages contracted, but in 1876 they numbered only 366,912, and during the
worst year of the crisis, the year 1879, they dropped to 335,113. They have since risen
again slowly, and numbered in

1882 350,457
1886 372,326
1889 389,339
1892 398,775

Although in the year 1892 the population of Germany was larger by 8,000,000 heads than
in 1872, the number of marriages was not even as large as in 1874 when it amounted to
400,282. In the period between 1871-1880, there were, to an average of 1,000 inhabitants
in Germany, 8.6 marriages; in the period between 1881-1888, only 7.8.
In Prussia, to the average 10,000 inhabitants, there married—

Between 1831-35 1,849
Between 1866-70 1,605
Between 1871-75 1,896
Between 1881-85 1,529
And in 1888 1,624

A similar, partly even more unfavorable picture than in Germany, is furnished by the
statistical tables for other European countries.
Out of every 10,000 persons, there married—

Years Holland Switzerland Austria France Italy Belgium England
1873 171 152 188 178 159 156 176
1874 168 166 181 167 153 152 170
1875 167 179 171 164 168 145 167
1876 165 162 165 158 163 142 166
1877 162 157 150 150 154 149 157
1878 155 147 152 151 142 135 152
1879 153 138 155 152 150 136 144
1880 150 137 152 149 140 141 149
1881 146 136 160 150 162 142 151
1882 143 135 164 149 157 140 155
1883 142 136 157 150 161 136 154
1884 144 136 157 153 164 136 151
1885 139 138 152 149 158 136 144
1886 139 137 155 149 158 134 141
——— ——— ——— ——— ——— ——— ———
Average 153 147 161 155 156 141 156

Years Scotland Ireland Denmark Norway Sweden Hungary
1873 155 96 162 145 146 226
1874 152 92 164 153 145 214
1875 148 91 170 157 140 218
1876 150 99 171 154 141 198
1877 144 93 161 151 137 182
1878 134 95 148 146 129 187
1879 128 87 147 135 126 205
1880 132 78 152 133 126 182
1881 139 85 156 128 124 198
1882 140 86 154 134 127 203
1883 140 85 154 132 128 205
1884 135 91 156 137 131 201
1885 129 86 151 133 133 ...
1886 124 84 142 131 ... ...
——— ——— ——— ——— ——— ———
Average 139 89 156 141 133 202

These figures are interesting in more respects than one. In the first place, they prove that,
in all the countries named, the number of marriages declines. Like Germany, all these
countries show the highest frequency of marriage in the beginning of 1872, and then
follows a drop in most of them. Hungary comes out best; Ireland, on the contrary, worst,
showing the smallest figures of all. The ejectment of the Irish population from their lands,
and the ever greater concentration of the same in the hands of the large landlords, express
themselves clearly in the figures given.[79]
Industrial conditions have a marked effect upon the number of marriages. As the former
has, on an average, become ever more unfavorable since the middle of the seventies, the
decline in marriages is not astonishing. But not the industrial conditions only, also the
manner in which the property relations develop affects marriages in a high degree, as just
seen in Ireland. The Year-Book of Schmoller for 1885, section 1, gives information on the
statistics of population of the Kingdom of Wuertemberg, from which it appears strikingly
that with the increase of large age declines, while the number of unmarried men between
the ages of 40 and 50 rises:

Percentage of
Males.
Percentage of
Married Unmarried
Landed
of the of the
Property by
Age of Age of
Hectares.
Up to
Districts. 5-20. Over 20. 25-30. 40-50.
5.
Upper Neurenburg 79.6 20.4 0.0 63.6 4.4
East of Stuttgart 78.9 17.7 3.4 51.3 8.1
South of Stuttgart 67.6 24.8 7.6 48.6 8.7

North of Stuttgart 56.5 34.8 8.8 50.0 10.0
Schwarzwald 50.2 42.2 7.6 48.6 10.1
Upper Neckar 43.6 40.3 16.1 44.3 10.8
Eastward 39.5 47.6 12.8 48.7 10.0
Northeast, except north of
22.2 50.1 27.7 38.8 10.6
Hall
Swabian Alb 20.3 40.8 38.3 38.8 7.5
North Upper Swabia 19.7 48.0 32.3 32.5 9.7
From Hall eastward 15.5 50.0 34.5 32.5 13.8
Bodensee district 14.2 61.4 24.4 23.5 26.4
Middle and South Upper
12.6 41.1 46.3 30.0 19.1
Swabia

There can be no doubt: small landed property favors marriages: it makes a living possible
for a larger number of families, although the living be modest. Large landed property, on
the contrary, works directly against marriage, and promotes celibacy. All the figures here
quoted prove, accordingly, that, not morals, but purely material causes are the
determining factor. The number of marriages, like the moral conditions of a
commonwealth, depends upon its material foundations.
The fear of want, the mental worry lest the children be not educated up to their station,—
these are further causes that drive the wives, in particular, of all ranks to actions that are
out of keeping with nature, and still more so with the criminal code. Under this head
belong the various means for the prevention of pregnancy, or, when, despite all care, this
does set in, then the removal of the unripe fruit—abortion. It were an error to claim that
these measures are resorted to only by heedless, unconscionable women. Often, rather, it
is conscientious women, who wish to limit the number of children, in order to escape the
dilemma of either having to deny themselves their husbands, or of driving them to paths
that they are naturally inclined to. It often is such women who prefer to undergo the
dangers of abortion. Besides these, there are other women, especially in the higher walks
of life, who, in order to conceal a "slip," or out of aversion for the inconveniences of
pregnancy, of child-birth and of nursing, perhaps, out of fear of sooner losing their
charms, and then forfeiting their standing with either husband or male friends, incur such
criminal acts, and, for hard cash, find ready medical and midwife support.
To conclude from diverse indications, artificial abortion is coming ever more into
practice; nor is the practice new. Artificial abortion was in frequent use among the ancient
peoples, and is, to this day, from the most civilized down to the barbarous. According to
Jules Roget,[80] the women of Rome took recourse to abortion for several reasons: They
either sought to destroy the evidence of illicit relations—a reason that even to-day is
often at its bottom; or they wished to be able to indulge their excesses without
interruption. There were also other reasons: they wished to avoid the changes that
pregnancy and child-birth work upon woman's physique. Among the Romans, a woman
was old from twenty-five years to thirty. Accordingly, she sought to avoid all that might
impair her charms. In the Middle Ages, abortion was punishable with severe bodily

chastisement, often even with death; the free woman, guilty thereof, became a serf. At
present, abortion is especially in use in the United States. In all large cities of the Union,
there are institutions in which girls and women are prematurely delivered: many
American papers contain the advertisements of such places: abortion is talked of there
almost as freely as of a regular birth. In Germany and Europe, opinion on the subject is
different: the German criminal code, for instance, makes the act of both the principal and
the accessory a penitentiary offense.[81]
Abortion is, in many cases, accompanied by the most serious results. The operation is
dangerous; death not infrequently occurs; often the result is a permanent impairment of
health. "The troubles of troublesome pregnancy and child-birth are infinitely less than the
sufferings consequent upon artificial abortion."[82] Barrenness is one of its most common
consequences. All that, notwithstanding, abortion is practiced also in Germany, ever more
frequently, and for the reasons given. Between 1882-1888, the number of cases in Berlin,
of which the criminal courts took cognizance, rose 155 per cent. The chronique
scandaleuse of the last years dealt frequently with cases of abortion, that caused great
sensation, due to the circumstance that reputable physicians and women, prominent in
society, played a role in them. Furthermore, to judge from the rising number of
announcements in our newspapers, the institutions and places increase in which married
and unmarried women of the property class are offered an opportunity to await the results
of a "slip" in perfect secrecy.
The dread of a large increase of children—due to the smallness of means, and the cost of
bringing up—has, among all classes and even peoples, developed the use of preventatives
into a system, that here and yonder has grown into a public calamity. It is a generally
known fact that, in all strata of French society, the "two-child system" is in force. In few
countries of civilization are marriages relatively as numerous as in France, and in no
country is the average number of children so small, and the increase of population so
slow. The French capitalist, like the small-holder and allotment peasant, pursues the
system; the French workingman follows suit. In many sections of Germany the special
situation of the peasants seems to have led to similar conditions. We know a charming
region in Southwest Germany, where, in the garden of every peasant, there stands the so-
called "Sevenbaum," whose properties are applied to abortive purposes. In another
district of the same country the regular two-child system prevails among the peasants:
they do not wish to divide the places. Moreover, striking is the measure in which
literature, that treats with and recommends the means of "facultative sterility," increases
in Germany both in volume and demand,—of course, always under the colors of science,
and in allusion to the alleged threatening danger of over-population.
Along with abortion and the artificial prevention of conception, crime plays its role. In
France, the murder of children and their exposure is perceptibly on the increase, both
promoted by the provision of the French civil code that forbids all inquiry after the
paternity of the child. Section 340 of the Code Civil decrees: "La recherche de la
paternite est interdite;" on the other hand, Section 314 provides: "La recherche de la

maternite est admise." To inquire after the paternity of a child is forbidden, but is allowed
after its maternity,—a law that glaringly brings out the injustice contemplated towards the
seduced woman. The men of France are free to seduce as many women and girls as they
are able to; they are free from all responsibility; they owe no support to the child. These
provisions were instituted under the pretext that the female sex should be frightened
against seducing the men. As you see, everywhere it is the weak man, this limb of the
stronger sex, who is seduced, but never seduces. The result of Section 340 of the Code
Civil was Section 312, which provides: "L'enfant conçu pendant le marriage a pour pere
le mari."[83] Inquiry after the paternity being forbidden, it is logical that the husband,
crowned with horns, rest content with having the child, that his wife received from
another, considered his own. Inconsistency, at any rate, can not be charged to the French
capitalist class. All attempts to amend Section 340 have so far failed. Lately, February,
1895, the Socialist deputies in the French Chamber of Deputies presented a bill intended
to put an end to the disfranchised position of the seduced or betrayed woman. Whether
the attempt will be crowned with success is doubtful.
On the other hand, the French capitalist class—sensible of the cruelty it committed in so
framing the law as to make it impossible for the deceived woman to turn for support to
the father of her child—sought to make up for its sins by establishing foundling asylums.
According to our famous "morals," there is no paternal feeling towards the illegitimate
child; that exists only for "legitimate heirs." Through the foundlings' asylums the mother
also is taken from the new-born child. According to the French fiction, foundlings are
orphans. In this way, the French capitalist class has its illegitimate children brought up, at
the expense of the State, as "children of the fatherland." A charming arrangement. In
Germany, things bid fair to be switched on the French track. The provisions in the bill for
a civil code for the German Empire contain maxims on the legal status of illegitimate
children, strongly in contrast with the humane law still in force.
According to the bill, a dishonored girl—even if blameless, or seduced with the promise
of subsequent marriage, or induced to consent to coition through some criminal act—has
no claim against the seducer except as indemnity for the costs of delivery, and for support
during the first six weeks after the birth of the child, and then only within the bounds of
what is strictly necessary. Only in some of the cases of the worst crimes against morality,
can a slight money indemnity be granted to the seduced girl, at the discretion of the court,
and without the necessity of proving actual damages. The illegitimate child has no claim
upon the seducer of his mother, except for the merest necessaries of life, and then only
until its fourteenth year. All claims of the child on its father are, however, barred if,
within pregnancy, any other man cohabit with its mother. The plaintiff child has,
moreover, to prove that its mother has not accepted the embraces of any other man.

Menger, the expositions in whose treatise[84] we here follow, justly raises against the bill
the serious charge that it only accrues to the advantage of the well-to-do, immoral men,
seducers of ignorant girls, often girls who sin through poverty, but leaves these fallen
girls, together with their wholly guiltless children, entirely unprotected, aye, pushes them

only deeper into misery and crime. Menger cites, in this connection, the provisions of the
Prussian law. According thereto, an unmarried woman or widow of good character, who
is made pregnant, is to be indemnified by the man according to his means. The indemnity
shall, however, not exceed one-fourth of his property. An illegitimate child has a claim
upon its father for support and education, regardless of whether his mother is a person of
good character: the expenditure, however, shall be no higher than the education of a
legitimate child would cost to people of the peasant or of ordinary citizen walks of life. If
the illicit intercourse occurred under promise of future marriage, then, according to the
further provisions of Prussian law, the Judge is duly to award the woman, pronounced
innocent and a wife, the name, standing and rank of the man, together with all the rights
of a divorced woman. The illegitimate child has, in such cases, all the rights of children
born in wedlock. We may await with curiosity to see whether the provisions of this bill,
so hostile to woman, will acquire the force of a civil code of law in Germany. But
retrogression is the key-note in our legislation.

Between the years of 1830-1880, there were 8,563 cases of infanticide before the
French court of assizes, the figures rising from 471 in 1831, to 980 in 1880. During
the same period, 1,032 cases of abortion were tried, 41 in 1831, and in 1880 over
100. Of course, only a small part of the abortions came to the knowledge of the
criminal court; as a rule, only when followed by serious illness or death. In the
cases of infanticide, the country population contributed 75 per cent., in the cases of
abortion the cities 65 per cent. In the city, the women have more means at
command to prevent normal birth; hence, the many cases of abortion and the small
number of infanticides. It is the reverse in the country.
Such is the composition of the picture presented by modern society in respect to its
most intimate relations. The picture differs wide from that that poets and poetically
doused phantasists love to paint it. Our picture, however, has this advantage,—it is
true. And yet the picture still calls for several strokes of the brush to bring out its
character in full.
In general, there can be no difference of opinion touching the present and average
mental inferiority of the female sex to the male. True enough, Balzac, by no means
a woman-lover, claims: "The woman, who has received a male education, possesses
in fact the most brilliant and fruitful qualities for the building of her own happiness
and that of her husband;" and Goethe, who knew well both the men and women of
his times, expresses himself in Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (confessions of a
pure soul): "Learned women were ridiculed, and also the educated ones were
disliked, probably because it was considered impolite to put so many ignorant men
to shame." We agree with both. Nevertheless, the fact is no wise altered that, in
general, women stand intellectually behind the men. This difference is compulsory,
because woman is that which man, as her master, has made her. The education of
woman, more so than that of the working class, has been neglected since time
immemorial; nor are latter-day improvements adequate. We live in days when the
aspiration after exchange of thought grows in all circles, in the family also; and
there the neglected education of woman is felt as a serious fault, and it avenges
itself upon the husband.
The object of the education of man—at least it is so claimed, although due to the
mistaken methods, the object is often missed, perchance, also, is not meant to be
reached—aims at the development of the intellect, the sharpening of the powers of
thought, the broadening of the field of practical knowledge, and the invigoration of
the will-power, in short, at the cultivation of the functions of the mind. With
woman, on the contrary, education, so far as at all attended to in a higher degree, is
mainly aimed at the intensification of her feelings, at formality and polite culture—
music, belles-letters, art, poetry—all of which only screw her nervous sensitiveness

and phantasy up to a higher pitch. This is a mistaken and unhealthy policy. In it the
fact transpires that the powers, which determine the measure of woman's education,
are guided only by their ingrained prejudices regarding the nature of the female
character, and also by the cramped position of woman. The object must not be to
develop still further the sentimental and imaginative side of woman, which would
only tend to heighten her natural inclination to nervousness; neither should her
education be limited to etiquette and polite literature. The object, with regard to her
as to man, should be to develop their intellectual activity and acquaint them with
the phenomena of practical life. It would be of greatest benefit to both sexes if, in
lieu of a superfluity of sentiment, that often becomes positively uncanny, woman
possessed a good share of sharpened wit and power for exact reasoning; if, in lieu
of excessive nervous excitation and timidity, she possessed firmness of character
and physical courage; in lieu of conventional, literary refinement, in so far as she at
all has any, she had a knowledge of the world, of men and of the powers of Nature.
Generally speaking, what is termed the feeling and spirituality of woman has
hitherto been nurtured without stint, while her intellectual development has, on the
contrary, been grossly neglected and kept under. As a consequence, she suffers of
hypertrophy of feeling and spirituality, hence is prone to superstition and miracles,
—a more than grateful soil for religious and other charlataneries, a pliant tool for
all reaction. Blockish men often complain when she is thus affected, but they bring
no relief, because often they are themselves steeped up to the ears in prejudices.
By reason of woman's being almost generally as here sketched, she looks upon the
world differently from man. Hence, again, a strong source of contrariety between
the two sexes.
Participation in public life is to-day one of the most essential duties of a man; that
many men do not yet understand this does not alter the fact. Nevertheless, the
number of those is ever increasing who realize that public institutions stand in
intimate connection with the private lot of the individual; that his success or failure,
together with that of his family, depend infinitely more upon the condition of public
affairs than upon his own personal qualities and actions. The fact is beginning to
receive recognition that the greatest efforts of the individual are powerless against
evils that lie in the very condition of things, and that determine his state. On the
other hand, the struggle for existence now requires much greater efforts than
before. Demands are now made upon man that engage ever more his time and
strength. The ignorant, indifferent wife stands dumb before him, and feels herself
neglected. It may be even said that, the mental difference between man and woman
is to-day greater than formerly, when the opportunities for both were slight and
limited, and lay more within the reach of her restricted intellect. Furthermore, the
handling of public affairs occupies to-day a large number of men to a degree before

unknown; this widens their horizon; but it also withdraws them ever more from the
mental sphere of their homes. The wife deems herself set back, and thus another
source of friction is started. Only rarely does the husband know how to pacify his
wife and convince her. When he does that, he has escaped a dangerous rock. As a
rule the husband is of the opinion that what he wants does not concern his wife, she
does not understand it. He takes no pains to enlighten her. "You don't understand
such matters," is his stereotyped answer, the moment the wife complains that she is
neglected. Lack of information on the part of wives is promoted by lack of sense on
the part of most husbands. More favorable relations between husband and wife
spring up in the rank of the working class in the measure that both realize they are
tugging at the same rope, and that there is but one means towards satisfactory
conditions for themselves and their family,—the radical reformation of society that
shall make human beings of them all. In the measure that such insight gains ground
among the wives of the proletariat, then, despite want and misery, their married life
is idealized: both now have a common aim, after which they strive; and they have
an inexhaustible source of mutual encouragement in the mutual interchange of
views, whereto their joint battle leads them. The number of proletarian women who
reach this insight is every year larger. Herein lies a movement, that is in process of
development, and that is fraught with decisive significance for the future of
mankind.
In other social strata, the differences in education and views—easily overlooked at
the beginning of married life, when passion still predominates—are felt ever more
with ripening years. Sexual passion cools off, and its substitution with harmony of
thought is all the more needful. But, leaving aside whether the husband has any
idea of civic duties and attends to the same, he, at any rate, thanks to his occupation
and constant intercourse with the outer world, comes into continuous touch with
different elements and opinions, on all sorts of occasions, and thus floats into an
intellectual atmosphere that broadens his horizon. As a rule, and in contrast with his
wife, he finds himself in a state of intellectual molting, while she, on the contrary,
due to her household duties, which engage her early and late, is robbed of leisure
for further education, and, accordingly, becomes mentally stunted and soured.
The domestic wretchedness in which the majority of wives live to-day, is correctly
depicted by the bourgeois-minded Gerhard von Amyntor in his "Marginal Notes to
the Book of Life."[85] In the chapter entitled "Deadly Gnat-bites" he says among
other things:
"Not the shocking events, that none remain unvisited by, and that bring, here the
death of a husband, yonder the moral downfall of a beloved child; that lie, here in a
long and serious illness, yonder in the wrecking of a warmly nursed plan;—not
these undermine her (the housewife's) freshness and strength. It is the small, daily-

recurring marrow and bone-gnawing cares.... How many millions of brave little
house-mothers cook and scour away their vigor of life, their very cheeks and
roguish dimples, in attending to domestic cares until they become crumpled, dried
and broke-up mummies. The ever-recurring question, what shall be cooked to-day?
the ever-recurring necessity of sweeping, and beating, and brushing, and dusting is
the continuously falling drop that slowly, but surely, wears away mind and body.
The kitchen-hearth is the place where the saddest balances are drawn up between
income and expense, where the most depressing observations are forced upon the
mind on the rising dearness of the necessaries of life, and on the ever increasing
difficulty to earn the needed cash. On the flaming altar, where the soup kettle
bubbles, youth and mental ease, beauty and good humor are sacrificed; and who
recognizes in the old care-bent cook, the one-time blooming, overbearing, coy-
coquette bride in the array of her myrtle crown? Already in antiquity the hearth was
sacred, near it were placed the Lares and patron deities. Let us also hold sacred the
hearth at which the dutiful German bourgeois house-wife dies a slow death, in
order to keep the house comfortable, the table covered and the family in health."
Such is the consolation offered in bourgeois society to the wife, who, under the
present order of society, is miserably going to pieces.
Those women, who, thanks to their social condition, find themselves in a freer
state, have, as a rule, a one-sided, superficial education, that, combined with
inherited female characteristics, manifests itself with force. They generally have a
taste for mere superficialities; they think only about gew-gaws and dress; and thus
they seek their mission in the satisfaction of a spoiled taste, and the indulgence of
passions that demand their pay with usury. In their children and the education of
these they have hardly any interest: they give them too much trouble and
annoyance, hence are left to the nurses and servants, and are later passed on to the
boarding-schools. At any rate their principal task is to raise their daughters as show-
dolls, and their sons as pupils for the jeunesse dore (gilded youth) out of which
dudedom recruits its ranks—that despicable class of men that may be fairly put
upon a level with procurers. This jeunesse dore furnishes the chief contingent to the
seducers of the daughters of the working class. They look upon idleness and
squandering as a profession.

FOOTNOTES:

[58] Mainlaender, "Philosophie der Erlösung," Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1886, E.
Koenitzer.
[59] D. A. Debay, "Hygiene et Physiologue du Marriage," Paris, 1884. Quoted in
"Im Freien Reich" by Ioma v. Troll-Borostyani, Zurich, 1884.

[60] "Das Geschlechtsleben des Weibes, in physiologischer, pathologischer und
therapeutischer Hinsicht dargestellt."
[61] "Die Prostitution vor dem Gesetz," by Veritas. Leipsic, 1893.
[62] V. Oettingen, "Moralstatistik." Erlangen, 1882.
[63] "Lehrbuch der Psychiatrie," Vol. I, Stuttgart, 1883.
[64] Vol. II. Leipsic, 1887.
[65] "The moods and feelings in and which husband and wife approach each other,
exercise, without a doubt, a definite influence upon the result of the sexual act, and
transmit certain characteristics to the fruit." Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, "The Moral
Education of the Young In Relation to Sex." See also Goethe's "Elective Affinities,"
where he sketches clearly the influence exerted by the feelings of two beings who
approach each other for intimate intercourse.
[66] "Denkwuerdigkeiten," Vol. I, p. 239, Leipsic, F. A. Brockhaus.
[67] "Mr. E., a manufacturer ... informed me that he employed females exclusively,
at his power-looms ... gives a decided preference to married females, especially
those who have families at home dependent on them for support; they are attentive,
docile, more so than unmarried females, and are compelled to use their utmost
exertions to procure the necessities of life. Thus are the virtues, the peculiar virtues
of the female character to be perverted to her injury—thus all that is most dutiful
and tender in her nature is made a means of her bondage and suffering." Speech of
Lord Ashley, March 15, 1884, on the Ten Hour Factory Bill. Marx's "Capital."
[68] "Die Frau auf dem Gebiete der Nationaloekonomie."
[69] See "Fuerst Bismarck und seine Leute," Von Busch.
[70] Sections 180 and 181.
[71] "The Physiology of Love."
[72] Alexander Dumas says rightly, In "Monsieur Alfonse:" "Man has built two
sorts of morals; one for himself, one for his wife; one that permits him love with all
women, and one that, as indemnity for the liberty she has forfeited forever, permits
her love with one man only."
[73] L. Bridel, "La Puissance Maritale," Lausanne. 1879.
[74] v. Oettingen, "Moralstatistik," Erlangen, 1882.

[75] v. Oettingen, "Moralstatistik."
[76] [According to the census of 1900, there were in the United States 198,914
divorced persons: males 84,237, females 114,677. The percentage of divorced to
married persons was 0.7. The census warns, however, that "divorced persons are apt
to be reported as single, and so the census returns in this respect should not be
accepted as a correct measure of the prevalence of divorce throughout the
country."—The Translator.]
[77] v. Oettingen, "Moralstatistik."
[78] In his work frequently cited by us, "Die Frauenfrage im Mittelalter," Buecher
laments the decay of marriage and of family life; he condemns the increasing
female labor in industry, and demands a "return" to the "real domain of woman,"
where she alone produces "values" in the house and the family. The endeavors of
the modern friends of woman appear to him as "dilettanteism" and he hopes finally
"that the movement may be switched on the right track," but he is obviously unable
to point to a successful road. Neither is that possible from the bourgeois standpoint.
The marriage conditions, like the condition of woman in general, have not been
brought about arbitrarily. They are the natural product of our social development.
But the social development of peoples does not cut capers, nor does it perpetrate
any such false reasonings in a circle; it takes its course obedient to imminent laws.
It is the mission of the student of civilization to discover these laws, and, planted
upon them, to show the way for the removal of existing evils.
[79] "Neue Zeit," Jahrgang 1888, p. 239.
[80] "Etudes Medicales sur l'Ancienne Rome," Paris, 1859.
[81] The above account of the United States, concerning the contrast between it and
Europe, is incorrect. At the time in the nation's history when material conditions
were easy, theoretically, the thought of abortion, let alone its execution, could not
spring up; and it did not. All the reports of that time, not forgetting Washington
Irving's humorous account of the custom of "bundling," confirm the fact. Births
were numerous, families large.
Subsequently, when conditions became less easy, and in the measure that the
country entered increasingly into the sphere of the material hardships implied in
advancing capitalism, theoretically, again, the thought of abortion, and, along with
it, the deed, must be expected to have sprung up; and so they did. But the same
development that carried the country into the material sphere of capitalism, also,
and at the same time, carried its people into the sphere of capitalist affectation of
morality and measuredness of language; in short, of hypocrisy. The being, that will

commit the crimes of a higher civilization with the plain-spokenness of the
barbarian, is a monstrosity. Capitalist United States is abreast of, and moves in even
step with, capitalist Europe, not in the practice only of crime, but in the Pharisees of
its condemnation and the severity of its punishment also.—The Translator.
[82] "Geschichte und Gefahren der Fruchtabtreibung," Dr. Ed. Reich, Leipsic,
1893.
[83] "The child conceived during marriage has the husband for father."
[84] "Das buergerliche Recht und die besitzlosen Klassen," Tuebingen, 1890.
[85] Sam. Lucas, Elberfeld.

CHAPTER II.
FURTHER CHECKS AND OBSTRUCTIONS TO MARRIAGE—
NUMERICAL PROPORTION OF THE SEXES—ITS CAUSES AND
EFFECTS.

Cast in the mold of the conditions above described, many a feature of woman's
character took shape, and they reached ever fuller development from generation to
generation. On these features men love to dwell with predilection, but they forget
that they are themselves the cause thereof, and have promoted with their conduct
the defects they now make merry about, or censure. Among these widely censured
female qualities, belong her dreaded readiness of tongue, and passion for gossip;
her inclination to endless talk over trifles and unimportant things; her mental bent
for purely external matters, such as dress, and her desire to please, together with a
resulting proneness to all the follies of fashion; lastly, her easily arousable envy and
jealousy of the other members of her sex.
These qualities, though in different degrees, manifest themselves generally in the
female sex from early childhood. They are qualities that are born under the pressure
of social conditions, and are further developed by heredity, example and education.
A being irrationally brought up, can not bring up others rationally.
In order to be clear on the causes and development of good or bad qualities,
whether with the sexes or with whole peoples, the same methods must be pursued
that modern natural science applies in order to ascertain the formation and
development of life according to genus and species, and to determine their
qualities. They are the laws that flow from the material conditions for life, laws that
life demands, that adapt themselves to it, and finally became its nature.
Man forms no exception to that which holds good in Nature for all animate
creation. Man does not stand outside of Nature: looked at physiologically, he is the
most highly developed animal,—a fact, however, that some would deny. Thousands
of years ago, although wholly ignorant of modern science, the ancients had on
many matters affecting man, more rational views than the moderns; above all, they
gave practical application to the views founded on experience. We praise with
enthusiastic admiration the beauty and strength of the men and women of Greece;
but the fact is overlooked that, not the happy climate, nor the bewitching nature of a
territory that stretched along the bay-indented sea, but the physical culture and
maxims of education, consistently enforced by the State, thus affected both the

being and the development of the population. These measures were calculated to
combine beauty, strength and suppleness of body with wit and elasticity of mind,
both of which were transmitted to the descendants. True enough, even then, in
comparison with man, woman was neglected in point of mental, but not of corporal
culture.[86] In Sparta, that went furthest in the corporal culture of the two sexes,
boys and girls went naked until the age of puberty, and participated in common in
the exercises of the body, in games and in wrestling. The naked exposure of the
human body, together with the natural treatment of natural things, had the
advantage that sensuous excitement—to-day artificially cultivated by the separation
of the sexes from early childhood—was then prevented. The corporal make-up of
one sex, together with its distinctive organs, was no secret to the other. There, no
play of equivocal words could arise. Nature was Nature. The one sex rejoiced at the
beauty of the other. Mankind will have to return to Nature and to the natural
intercourse of the sexes; it must cast off the now-ruling and unhealthy spiritual
notions concerning man; it must do that by setting up methods of education that fit
in with our own state of culture, and that may bring on the physical and mental
regeneration of the race.
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.
Experienced physicians maintain that the larger part of married women, in the cities
especially, are in a more or less abnormal condition. According to the degree of the
evil and the character of the couple, such unions can not choose but be unhappy,
and, they give the husband the right, in public opinion, to allow himself freedoms
outside of the marriage bed, the knowledge of which throws the wife into the most
wretched of moods. Furthermore the, at times, very different sexual demands of one
party or the other give occasion to serious friction, without the so much wished-for
separation being possible. A great variety of considerations render that, in most
cases, out of all question.
Under this head the fact may not be suppressed that a considerable number of
husbands are themselves responsible for certain serious physical ailments of their
wives, ailments that these are not infrequently smitten with in marriage. As
consequences of the excesses indulged in during bachelorship, a considerable
number of men suffer of chronic sexual diseases, which, seeing these cause them no
serious inconvenience, are taken lightly. Nevertheless, through sexual intercourse
with the wife, these diseases bring upon her disagreeable, even fatal troubles of the
womb, that set in, soon after marriage, and often develop to the point of rendering
her unable to conceive or to give birth. The wretched woman usually has no idea of
the cause of the sickness, that depresses her spirits, embitters her life, and uproots
the purpose of marriage. She blames herself, and accepts blame for a condition, that
the other party is alone responsible for. Thus many a blooming wife falls, barely
married, a prey to chronic malady, unaccountable to either herself or her family.
"As recent investigations have proved, this circumstance—that, as a result of
gonorrhea, the male sperm no longer contains any seed-cells, and the man is,
consequently, incapacitated for life from begetting children—is a comparatively
frequent cause of matrimonial barrenness, in contradiction to the old and
convenient tradition of the lords of creation, who are ever ready to shift to the
shoulder of the wife the responsibility for the absence of the blessing of children."
[91]

Accordingly, a large number of causes are operative in preventing modern married
life, in the large majority of instances, from being that which it should be:—a union
of two beings of opposite sexes, who, out of mutual love and esteem, wish to
belong to each other, and, in the striking sentence of Kant, mean, jointly, to
constitute the complete human being. It is, therefore, a suggestion of doubtful value

—made even by learned folks, who imagine thereby to dispose of woman's
endeavors after emancipation—that she look to domestic duties, to marriage,—to
marriage, that our economic conditions are ever turning into a viler caricature, and
that answers its purpose ever less!
The advice to woman that she seek her salvation in marriage, this being her real
calling,—an advice that is thoughtlessly applauded by the majority of men—sounds
like the merest mockery, when both the advisers and their claqueurs do the
opposite. Schopenhauer, the philosopher, has of woman only the conception of the
philistine. He says: "Woman is not meant for much work. Her characteristicon is
not action but suffering. She pays the debt of life with the pains of travail, anxiety
for the child, subjection to man. The strongest utterances of life and sentiment are
denied her. Her life is meant to be quieter and less important than man's. Woman is
destined for nurse and educator of infancy, being herself infant-like, and an infant
for life, a sort of intermediate stage between the child and the man, who is the real
being.... Girls should be trained for domesticity and subjection.... Women are the
most thorough-paced and incurable Philistines."
In the same spirit as Schopenhauer, who, of course, is greatly quoted, is cast
Lombroso and Ferrerro's work, "Woman as a Criminal and a Prostitute." We know
no scientific work of equal size—it contains 590 pages—with such a dearth of valid
evidence on the theme therein treated. The statistical matter, from which the bold
conclusions are drawn, is mostly meager. Often a dozen instances suffice the joint
authors to draw the weightiest deductions. The matter that may be considered the
most valuable in the work is, typically enough, furnished by a woman,—Dr.
Tarnowskaja. The influence of social conditions, of cultural development, is left
almost wholly on one side. Everything is judged exclusively from the physiologico-
psychologic view-point, while a large quantity of ethnographic items of information
on various peoples is woven into the argument, without submitting these items to
closer scrutiny. According to the authors, just as with Schopenhauer, woman is a
grown child, a liar par excellence, weak of judgment, fickle in love, incapable of
any deed truly heroic. They claim the inferiority of woman to man is manifest from
a large number of bodily differences. "Love, with woman, is as a rule nothing but a
secondary feature of maternity,—all the feelings of attachment that bind woman to
man arise, not from sexual impulses, but from the instincts of subjection and
resignation, acquired through habits of conformancy." How these "instincts" were
acquired and "conformed" themselves, the joint authors fail to inquire into. They
would then have had to inquire into the social position of woman in the course of
thousands of years, and would have been compelled to find that it is that that made
her what she now is. It is true, the joint authors describe partly the enslaved and
dependent position of woman among the several peoples and under the several
periods of civilization; but as Darwinians, with blinkers to their eyes, they draw all

that from physiologic and psychologic, not from social and economic reasons,
which affected in strongest manner the physiologic and psychologic development
of woman.
The joint authors also touch upon the vanity of woman, and set up the opinion that,
among the peoples who stand on a lower stage of civilization, man is the vain sex,
as is noticeable to-day in the New Hebrides and Madagascar, among the peoples of
the Orinoco, and on many islands of the Polynesian archipelago, as also among a
number of African peoples of the South Sea. With peoples standing on a higher
plane, however, woman is the vain sex. But why and wherefor? To us the answer
seems plain. Among the peoples of a lower civilization, mother-right conditions
prevail generally, or have not yet been long overcome. The role that woman there
plays raises her above the necessity of seeking for the man, the man seeks her, and
to this end, ornaments himself and grows vain. With the people of a higher grade,
especially with all the nations of civilization, excepting here and there, not the man
seeks the woman, but the woman him. It happens rarely that a woman openly takes
the initiative, and offers herself to the man; so-called propriety forbids that. In point
of fact, however, the offering is done by the manner of her appearance; by means of
the beauty of dress and luxury, that she displays; by the manner in which she
ornaments herself, and presents herself, and coquets in society. The excess of
women, together with the social necessity of looking upon matrimony as an
institute for support, or as an institution through which alone she can satisfy her
sexual impulse and gain a standing in society, forces such conduct upon her. Here
also, we notice again, it is purely economic and social causes that call forth, one
time with man, another with woman, a quality that, until now, it was customary to
look upon as wholly independent of social and economic causes. Hence the
conclusion is justified, that so soon as society shall arrive at social conditions,
under which all dependence of one sex upon another shall have ceased, and both
are equally free, ridiculous vanity and the folly of fashion will vanish, just as so
many other vices that we consider to-day uneradicable, as supposedly inherent in
man. Schopenhauer, as a philosopher, judges woman as one-sidedly as most of our
anthropologists and physicians, who see in her only the sexual, never the social,
being. Schopenhauer was never married. He, accordingly, has not, on his part,
contributed towards having one more woman pay the "debt of life" that he debits
woman with. And this brings us to the other side of the medal, which is far from
being the handsomer.
Many women do not marry, simply because they cannot. Everybody knows that
usage forbids woman to offer herself. She must allow herself to be wooed, i. e.,
chosen. She herself may not woo. Is there no wooer to be had, then she enters the
large army of those poor beings who have missed the purpose of life, and, in view
of the lack of safe material foundation, generally fall a prey to want and misery, and

but too often to ridicule also. But few know what the discrepancy in numbers
between the two sexes is due to; many are ready with the hasty answer: "There are
too many girls born." Those who make the claim are wrongly informed, as will be
shown. Others, again, who admit the unnaturalness of celibacy, conclude from the
fact that women are more numerous than men in most countries of civilization, that
polygamy should be allowed. But not only does polygamy do violence to our
customs, it, moreover, degrades woman, a circumstance that, of course, does not
restrain Schopenhauer, with his underestimation of and contempt for women, from
declaring: "For the female sex, as a whole, polygamy is a benefit."
Many men do not marry because they think they cannot support a wife, and the
children that may come, according to their station. To support two wives is,
however, possible to a small minority only, and among these are many who now
have two or more wives,—one legitimate and several illegitimate. These few,
privileged by wealth, are not held back by anything from doing what they please.
Even in the Orient, where polygamy exists for thousands of years by law and
custom, comparatively few men have more than one wife. People talk of the
demoralizing influence of Turkish harem life; but the fact is overlooked that this
harem life is possible only to an insignificant fraction of the men, and then only in
the ruling class, while the majority of the men live in monogamy. In the city of
Algiers, there were, at the close of the sixties, out of 18,282 marriages, not less than
17,319 with one wife only; 888 were with two; and only 75 with more than two.
Constantinople, the capital of the Turkish Empire, would show no materially
different result. Among the country population in the Orient, the proportion is still
more pronouncedly in favor of single marriages. In the Orient, exactly as with us,
the most important factor in the calculation are the material conditions, and these
compel most men to limit themselves to but one wife. If, on the other hand,
material conditions were equally favorable to all men, polygamy would still not be
practicable,—for want of women. The almost equal number of the two sexes,
prevalent under normal conditions, points everywhere to monogamy.
As proof of these statements, we cite the following tables, that Buecher published
in an essay.[92]
In these tables the distinction must be kept in mind between the enumerated and the
estimated populations. In so far as the population was enumerated, the fact is
expressly stated in the summary for the separate main divisions of the earth. The
sexes divide themselves in the population of several divisions and countries as
follows:

1. EUROPE.

Females
for
Every
Census 1,000
Countries. Year. Males. Females. Population. Men.
Great Britain
1891 18,388,756 19,499,397 37,888,153 1,060
and Ireland
Denmark and
1890 1,065,447 1,119,712 2,185,159 1,052
Faror
Norway 1891 951,496 1,037,501 1,988,997 1,090
Sweden 1890 2,317,105 2,467,570 4,784,675 1,065
Finland 1889 1,152,111 1,186,293 2,338,404 1,030
Russia 1886 42,499,324 42,895,885 85,395,209 1,009
Poland 1886 3,977,406 4,279,156 8,256,562 1,076
German Empire 1890 24,231,832 25,189,232 49,421,064 1,039
Austria 1880 10,819,737 11,324,507 22,144,244 1,047
Hungary 1880 7,799,276 7,939,192 15,738,468 1,019
Liechtenstein 1886 4,897 4,696 9,593 959
Luxemburg 1890 105,419 105,669 211,088 1,002
Holland 1889 2,228,487 2,282,925 4,511,415 1,024
Belgium 1890 3,062,656 3,084,385 6,147,041 1,007
Switzerland 1888 1,427,377 1,506,680 2,934,057 1,055
France 1886 18,900,312 19,030,447 37,930,759 1,007
Spain and the
Canary 1887 8,608,532 8,950,776 17,559,308 1,039
Islands
Gibraltar
(Civil 1890 9,201 9,326 18,527 1,013
population)
Portugal 1878 2,175,829 2,374,870 4,550,699 1,091
Italy 1881 14,265,383 14,194,245 28,459,628 995
Bosnia and
1885 705,025 631,066 1,336,091 895
Herzegovina
Servia 1890 1,110,731 1,052,028 2,162,759 947
Bulgaria 1881 1,519,953 1,462,996 2,982,949 962
Roumania 1860 2,276,558 2,148,403 4,424,961 944
Greece 1889 1,133,625 1,053,583 2,187,208 929
Malta 1890 82,086 83,576 165,662 1,018
——————————— ——————————— ——————————— —————
Total 170,818,561 174,914,119 345,732,680 1,024

2. AMERICA.

Females
for
Every
Census 1,000
Countries. Year. Males. Females. Population. Men.
Danish
1888 4,838 5,383 10,221 1,060
Greenland
British
North 1881 2,288,196 2,229,735 4,517,931 974
America
United
States of
1880 25,518,820 24,636,963 50,155,783 965
North
America
Bermuda
1890 7,767 8,117 15,884 1,046
Islands
Mexico 1882 5,072,054 5,375,920 10,447,974 1,060
——————————— ——————————— ——————————— —————
North
America and 32,891,675 32,256,118 65,147,793 981
Islands

Nicaragua 1883 136,249 146,591 282,845 1,076
British
1881 14,108 13,344 27,452 946
Honduras
Cuba 1877 850,520 671,164 1,521,684 789
Porto Rico 1877 369,054 362,594 731,648 983
British West
1881 589,012 624,132 1,213,144 1,060
Indies
French West
1885 176,364 180,266 356,630 1,022
Indies
Danish
1880 14,889 18,874 33,763 1,263
Possessions
Dutch Colony
1889 20,234 25,565 45,799 1,263
Curacao
——————————— ——————————— ——————————— —————
Central
America and
2,170,430 2,042,530 4,212,965 941
the West
Indies

British
1891 151,759 126,569 278,328 834
Guiana
French
1885 15,767 10,735 26,502 681
Guiana
Dutch Guiana 1889 30,187 28,764 58,951 953
Brazil 1872 5,123,869 4,806,609 9,930,478 938

Chili 1885 1,258,616 1,268,353 2,526,969 1,008
Falkland
1890 1,086 703 1,789 647
Islands
——————————— ——————————— ——————————— —————
South
America 6,581,284 6,241,733 12,823,017 949
total
——————————— ——————————— ——————————— —————
Population
41,643,389 40,540,386 82,183,775 973
of America

3. ASIA.

Females
for
Every
Census 1,000
Countries. Year. Males. Females. Population. Men.
Russian
1885 3,876,868 3,407,699 7,284,567 879
Caucasia
Siberia,
minus Amur 1885 2,146,411 2,002,879 4,149,290 933
and Sachalin
Province
1885 263,915 263,686 527,601 999
Uralsk
General
Province of 1885 926,246 781,626 1,707,872 844
the Prairies
Province
1885 365,461 350,672 716,133 959
Fergana
Province
1885 335,530 305,616 641,146 911
Samarkand
——————————— ——————————— ——————————— —————
Russian
Possessions, 7,914,431 7,112,178 15,026,609 899
total

British India
(immediate 1891 112,150,120 108,313,980 220,464,100 966
possessions)
Tributary
States (so 1891 31,725,910 29,675,150 61,401,060 935
far known)
Hong Kong 1889 138,033 56,449 194,482 409
Ceylon 1881 1,473,515 1,290,469 2,763,984 876
Ceylon 1881 1,473,515 1,290,469 2,763,984 876

Of the French
Possessions:
Cambodscha ? 392,383 422,371 814,754 1,076
Cochinchina 1889 944,146 932,543 1,876,689 988
Philippines
1877 2,796,174 2,762,846 5,559,020 988
(partly)
Japan 1888 20,008,445 19,598,789 39,607,234 979
Cyprus 1891 104,887 104,404 209,291 995
——————————— ——————————— ——————————— —————
Total
population in 177,648,044 170,269,179 347,917,223 958
Asia

4. AUSTRALIA AND POLYNESIA.

Females
for
Every
Census 1,000
Countries. Year. Males. Females. Population. Men.
Australia,
New Zealand
1891 2,059,594 1,772,472 3,832,066 861
(1890) and
Tasmania
Fiji Islands 1890 67,902 57,780 125,682 851
French
Possessions
(Tahiti, 1889 11,589 10,293 21,882 888
Marquesas,
etc.)
Hawaii 1890 58,714 31,276 89,990 533
——————————— ——————————— ——————————— —————
Total 2,197,799 1,871,821 4,069,620 852

5. AFRICA.

Females
for
Every
Census 1,000
Year. Males. Females. Population. Men.
Countries.

Egypt 1882 3,401,498 3,415,767 6,817,265 1,004
Algeria
(minus 1886 2,014,013 1,791,671 3,805,684 889
Sahara)
Senegal 1889 70,504 76,014 146,518 1,078
Gambia 1881 7,215 6,935 14,150 961
Sierra
1881 31,201 29,345 60,546 940
Leone
Lagos 1881 37,665 39,605 75,270 998
St. Helena 1881 2,020 2,202 4,222 1,090
Capeland 1890 766,598 759,141 1,525,739 990
Natal 1890 268,062 275,851 543,913 1,029
Orange Free
State:
White 1890 40,571 37,145 77,716 915
Black 1890 67,791 61,996 129,787 914
Republic:
White 1890 66,498 52,630 119,128 791
Black 1890 115,589 144,045 259,634 1,246
Reunion 1889 94,430 71,485 165,915 757
Mayotte 1889 6,761 5,509 12,270 815
St. Marie
de 1888 3,648 4,019 7,667 1,102
Madagascar
——————————— ——————————— ——————————— —————
Total 6,994,064 6,771,360 [93] 968
13,765,424

Probably the result of this presentation will be astonishing to many. With the
exception of Europe, where, on an average, there are 1,024 women to every 1,000
men, the reverse is the case everywhere else. If it is further considered that in the
foreign divisions of the earth, and even there where actual enumeration was had,
information upon the female sex is particularly defective—a fact that must be
presumed with regard to all the countries of Mohammedan population, where the
figures for the female population are probably below the reality—it stands pat that,
apart from a few European nations, the female sex nowhere tangibly exceeds the
male. It is otherwise in Europe, the country that interests us most. Here, with the
exception of Italy and the southeast territories of Bosnia, Herzegovina, Servia,
Bulgaria, Roumania and Greece, the female population is everywhere more
strongly represented than the male. Of the large European countries, the
disproportion is slightest in France—1,002 females to every 1,000 males; next in
order is Russia, with 1,009 females to every 1,000 males. On the other hand,
Portugal, Norway and Poland, with 1,076 females to every 1,000 males, present the
strongest disproportion. Next to these stands Great Britain,—1,060 females to every

1,000 males. Germany and Austria lie in the middle: they have, respectively, 1,039
and 1,047 females to every 1,000 males.
In the German Empire, the excess of the female over the male population,
according to the census of December 1, 1890, was 957,400, against 988,376,
according to the census of December 1, 1885. A principal cause of this
disproportion is emigration, inasmuch as by far more men emigrate than women.
This is clearly brought out by the opposite pole of Germany, the North American
Union, which has about as large a deficit in women as Germany has a surplus. The
United States is the principal country for European emigration, and this is mainly
made up of males. A second cause is the larger number of accidents to men than to
women in agriculture, the trades, the industries and transportation. Furthermore,
there are more males than females temporarily abroad,—merchants, seamen,
marines, etc. All this transpires clearly from the figures on the conjugal status. In
1890 there were 8,372,486 married men to 8,398,607 married women in Germany,
i. e., 26,121 more of the latter. Another phenomenon, that statistics establish and
that weigh heavily in the scales, is that, on an average, women reach a higher age
than men: at the more advanced ages there are more women than men. According to
the census of 1890 the relation of ages among the two sexes were these:

Excess Excess of
Males. Females. of Males. Females.
Below ten years 5,993,681 5,966,226 27,455 .......
10 to 20 years 5,104,751 5,110,093 ...... 5,342
20 to 30 years 3,947,324 4,055,321 ...... 107,997
30 to 40 years 3,090,174 3,216,704 ...... 126,530
40 to 50 years 2,471,617 2,659,609 ...... 187,992
50 to 60 years 1,826,951 2,041,377 ...... 214,426
60 to 70 years 1,177,142 1,391,227 ...... 214,085
70 and up 619,192 757,081 ...... 137,889
————————— ————————— —————— ————————
24,230,832 25,197,638 27,455 994,261

This table shows that, up to the tenth year, the number of boys exceeds that of girls,
due merely to the disproportion in births. Everywhere, there are more boys born
than girls. In the German Empire, for instance,[94] there were born:—

In the year 1872 to 100 girls 106.2 boys
In the year 1878 to 100 girls 105.9 boys
In the year 1884 to 100 girls 106.2 boys
In the year 1888 to 100 girls 106.0 boys
In the year 1891 to 100 girls 106.2 boys

But the male sex dies earlier than the female, and from early childhood more boys
die than girls. Accordingly, the table shows that, between the ages of 10 to 20 the
female sex exceeds the male.

To each 100 females, there died, males:—[95]

In 1872 107.0
In 1878 110.5
In 1884 109.2
In 1888 107.9
In 1891 107.5

The table shows, furthermore, that at the matrimonial age, proper, between the ages
of 20 and 50, the female sex exceeds the male by 422,519, and that at the age from
50 to 70 and above, it exceeds the male by 566,400. A very strong disproportion
between the sexes appears, furthermore, among the widowed.
According to the census of 1890, there were:—

Widowers 774,967
Widows 2,154,870
—————————
Excess of widows over widowers 1,382,903

Of these widowed people, according to age, there were:—

Age. Males. Females.
40-60 222,286 842,920
60 and over 506,319 1,158,712

The number of divorced persons was, in 1890: Males, 25,271; females, 49,601.
According to age, they were distributed:—

Age. Males. Females.
40-60 13,825 24,842
60 and over 4,917 7,244

These figures tell us that widows and divorced women are excluded from
remarriage, and at the fittest age for matrimony, at that; there being of the age of
15-40, 46,362 widowers and 156,235 widows, 6,519 divorced men and 17,515
divorced women. These figures furnish further proof of the injury that divorce
entails to married women.

In 1890, there were unmarried:—[96]

Age. Males. Females.
15-40 5,845,933 5,191,453
40-60 375,881 503,406
60 and over 130,154 230,966

Accordingly, among the unmarried population between the ages of 15 and 40, the
male sex is stronger by 654,480 than the female. This circumstance would seem to
be favorable for the latter. But males between the ages of 15 and 21 are, with few
exceptions, not in condition to marry. Of that age there were 3,590,622 males to
3,774,025 females. Likewise with the males of the age of 21-25, a large number are
not in a position to start a family: we have but to keep in mind the males in the
army, students, etc. On the other side, all women of this age period are
marriageable. Taking further into consideration that for a great variety of reasons,
many men do not marry at all—the number of unmarried males of 40 years of age
and over alone amounted to 506,035, to which must be added also the widowed and
divorced males, more than two million strong—it follows that the situation of the
female sex with regard to marriage is decidedly unfavorable. Accordingly, a large
number of women are, under present circumstances, forced to renounce the
legitimate gratification of their sexual instincts, while the males seek and find
solace in prostitution. The situation would instantaneously change for women with
the removal of the obstacles that keep to-day many hundreds of thousands of men
from setting up a married home, and from doing justice to their natural instincts in a
legitimate manner. For that the existing social system must be upturned.
As already observed, emigration across the seas is, in great part, responsible for the
disproportion in the number of the sexes. In the years 1872-1886, on an average,
more than 10,000 males left the country in excess of females. For a period of fifteen
years, that runs up to 150,000 males, most of them in the very vigor of life. Military
duties also drive abroad many young men, and the most vigorous, at that. In 1893,
according to the report officially submitted to the Reichstag on the subject of
substitutes in the army, 25,851 men were sentenced for emigrating without leave,
and 14,522 more cases were under investigation on the same charge. Similar
figures recur from year to year. The loss in men that Germany sustains from this
unlawful emigration is considerable in the course of a century. Especially strong is
emigration during the years that follow upon great wars. That appears from the
figures after 1866 and between 1871 and 1874. We sustain, moreover, severe losses
in male life from accidents. In the course of the years 1887 to 1892, the number of
persons killed in the trades, agriculture, State and municipal undertakings, ran up to
30,568,[97] of whom only a small fraction were women. Furthermore, another and

considerable number of persons engaged in these occupations are crippled for life
by accidents, and are disabled from starting a family; others die early and leave
their families behind in want and misery. Great loss in male life is also connected
with navigation. In the period between 1882-1891, 1,485 ships were lost on the
high seas, whereby 2,436 members of crews—with few exceptions males—and 747
passengers perished.
Once the right appreciation of life is had, society will prevent the large majority of
accidents, particularly in navigation; and such appreciation will touch its highest
point under Socialist order. In numberless instances human life, or the safety of
limb, is sacrificed to misplaced economy on the part of employers, who recoil
before any outlay for protection; in many others the tired condition of the workman,
or the hurry he must work in, is the cause. Human life is cheap; if one workingman
goes to pieces, three others are at hand to take his place.
On the domain of navigation especially, and aided by the difficulty of control, many
unpardonable wrongs are committed. Through the revelations made during the
seventies by Plimsoll in the British Parliament, the fact has become notorious that
many shipowners, yielding to criminal greed, take out high insurances for vessels
that are not seaworthy, and unconscionably expose them, together with their crews,
to the slightest weather at sea,—all for the sake of the high insurance. These are the
so-called "coffin-ships," not unknown in Germany, either. The steamer
"Braunschweig," for instance, that sank in 1881 near Helgoland, and belonged to
the firm Rocholl & Co., of Bremen, proved to have been put to sea in a wholly
unseaworthy condition. The same fate befell, in 1889, the steamer "Leda" of the
same firm; hardly out at sea, she went to the bottom. The boat was insured with the
Russian Lloyd for 55,000 rubles; the prospect of 8,500 rubles were held out to the
captain, if he took her safe to Odessa; and the captain, in turn, paid the pilot the
comparatively high wage of 180 rubles a month. The verdict of the Court of
Admiralty was that the accident was due to the fact that the "Leda" was
unseaworthy and unfit to be taken to Odessa. The license was withdrawn from the
captain. According to existing laws, the real guilty parties could not be reached. No
year goes by without our Court of Admiralty having to pass upon a larger number
of accidents at sea, to the effect that the accident was due to vessels being too old,
or too heavily loaded, or in defective condition, or insufficiently equipped;
sometimes to several of these causes combined. With a good many of the lost ships,
the cause of accident can not be established: they have gone down in midocean, and
no survivor remains to tell the tale. Likewise are the coast provisions for the saving
of shipwrecked lives both defective and insufficient; they are dependent mainly
upon private charity. The case is even more disconsolate along distant and foreign
coasts. A commonwealth that makes the promotion of the well-being of all its
highest mission will not fail to so improve navigation, and provide it with

protective measures that these accidents would be of rare occurrence. But the
modern economic system of rapine, that weighs men as it weighs figures, to the end
of whacking out the largest possible amount of profit, not infrequently destroys a
human life if thereby there be in it but the profit of a dollar. With the change of
society in the Socialist sense, immigration, in its present shape, also would drop;
the flight from military service would cease; suicide in the Army would be no more.
The picture drawn from our political and economic life shows that woman also is
deeply interested therein. Whether the period of military service be shortened or
not; whether the Army be increased or not; whether the country pursues a policy of
peace or one of war; whether the treatment allotted to the soldier be worthy or
unworthy of human beings; and whether as a result thereof the number of suicides
and desertions rise or drop;—all of these are questions that concern woman as
much as man. Likewise with the economic and industrial conditions and in
transportation, in all of which branches the female sex, furthermore, steps from year
to year more numerously as working-women. Bad conditions, and unfavorable
circumstances injure woman as a social and as a sexual being; favorable conditions
and satisfactory circumstances benefit her.
But there are still other momenta that go to make marriage difficult or impossible.
A considerable number of men are kept from marriage by the State itself. People
pucker up their brows at the celibacy imposed upon Roman Catholic clergymen;
but these same people have not a word of condemnation for the much larger
number of soldiers who also are condemned thereto. The officers not only require
the consent of their superiors, they are also limited in the choice of a wife: the
regulation prescribes that she shall have property to a certain, and not insignificant,
amount. In this way the Austrian corps of officers, for instance, obtained a social
"improvement" at the cost of the female sex. Captains rose by fully 8,000 guilders,
if above thirty years of age, while the captains under thirty years of age were
thenceforth hard to be had, in no case for a smaller dower than 30,000. "Now a
'Mrs. Captain,'" it was thus reported in the "Koelnische Zeitung" from Vienna,
"who until now was often a subject of pity for her female colleagues in the
administrative departments, can hold her head higher by a good deal; everybody
now knows that she has wherewith to live. Despite the greatly increased
requirements of personal excellence, culture and rank, the social status of the
Austrian officer was until then rather indefinite, partly because very prominent
gentlemen stuck fast to the Emperor's coat pocket; partly because many poor
officers could not make a shift to live without humiliation, and many families of
poor officers often played a pitiful role. Until then, the officer who wished to marry
had, if the thirty-year line was crossed, to qualify in joint property to the amount of
12,000 guilders, or in a 600-guilder side income, and even at this insignificant
income, hardly enough for decency, the magistrates often shut their eyes, and

granted relief. The new marriage regulations are savagely severe, though the heart
break. The captain under thirty must forthwith deposit 30,000 guilders; over thirty
years of age, 20,000 guilders; from staff officers up to colonels, 16,000 guilders.
Over and above this, only one-fourth of the officers may marry without special
grace, while a spotless record and corresponding rank is demanded of the bride.
This all holds good for officers of the line and army surgeons. For other military
officials with the rank of officer, the new marriage regulations are milder; but for
officers of the general staff still severer. The officer who is detailed to the captain of
the general staff may not thereafter marry; the actual captain of the staff, if below
thirty, is required to give security in 36,000 guilders, and later 24,000 more." In
Germany and elsewhere, there are similar regulations. Also the corps of under-
officers is subject to hampering regulations with regard to marriage, and require
besides the consent of their superior officers. These are very drastic proofs of the
purely materialistic conception that the State has of marriage.
In general, public opinion is agreed that marriage is not advisable for men under
twenty-four or twenty-five years of age. Twenty-five is the marriageable age for
men fixed by the civil code, with an eye to the civic independence that, as a rule, is
not gained before that age. Only with persons who are in the agreeable position of
not having to first conquer independence—with people of princely rank—does
public opinion consider it proper when occasionally the men marry at the age of
eighteen or nineteen, the girls at that of fifteen or sixteen. The Prince is declared of
age with his eighteenth year, and considered capable to govern a vast empire and
numerous people. Common mortals acquire the right to govern their possible
property only at the age of twenty-one.
The difference of opinion as to the age when marriage is desirable shows that
public opinion judges by the social standing of the bride and bridegroom. Its
reasons have nothing to do with the human being as a natural entity, or with its
natural instincts. It happens, however, that Nature's impulses do not yoke
themselves to social conditions, nor to the views and prejudices that spring from
them. So soon as man has reached maturity, the sexual instincts assert themselves
with force; indeed, they are the incarnation of the human being, and they demand
satisfaction from the mature being, at the peril of severe physical and mental
suffering.
The age of sexual ripeness differs according to individuals, climate and habits of
life. In the warm zone it sets in with the female sex, as a rule, at the age of eleven to
twelve years, and not infrequently are women met with there, who, already at that
age, carry offspring on their arms; but at their twenty-fifth or thirtieth year, these
have lost their bloom. In the temperate zone, the rule with the female sex is from
the fourteenth to the sixteenth year, in some cases later. Likewise is the age of

puberty different between country and city women. With healthy, robust country
girls, who move much in the open air and work vigorously, menstruation sets in
later, on the average, than with our badly nourished, weak, hypernervous, ethereal
city young ladies. Yonder, sexual maturity develops normally, with rare
disturbances; here a normal development is the exception: all manner of illnesses
set in, often driving the physician to desperation. How often are not physicians
compelled to declare that, along with a change of life, the most radical cure is
marriage. But how apply such a cure? Insuperable obstacles rise against the
proposition.
All this goes to show where the change must be looked for. In the first place, the
point is to make possible a totally different education, one that takes into
consideration the physical as well as the mental being; in the second place, to
establish a wholly different system of life and of work. But both of these are,
without exception, possible for all only under wholly different social conditions.
Our social conditions have raised a violent contradiction between man, as a natural
and sexual being, on the one hand, and man as a social being on the other. The
contradiction has made itself felt at no period as strongly as at this; and it produces
a number of diseases into whose nature we will go no further, but that affect mainly
the female sex: in the first place, her organism depends, in much higher degree than
that of man, upon her sexual mission, and is influenced thereby, as shown by the
regular recurrence of her periods; in the second place, most of the obstacles to
marriage lie in the way of women, preventing her from satisfying her strongest
natural impulse in a natural manner. The contradiction between natural want and
social compulsion goes against the grain of Nature; it leads to secret vices and
excesses that undermine every organism but the strongest.
Unnatural gratification, especially with the female sex, is often most shamelessly
promoted. More or less underhandedly, certain preparations are praised, and they
are recommended especially in the advertisements of most of the papers that
penetrate into the family circle as especially devoted to its entertainment. These
puffs are addressed mainly to the better situated portion of society, seeing the prices
of the preparations are so high that a family of small means can hardly come by
them. Side by side with these shameless advertisements are found the puffs—meant
for the eyes of both sexes—of obscene pictures, especially of whole series of
photographs, of poems and prose works of similar stripe, aimed at sexual incitation,
and that call for the action of police and District Attorneys. But these gentlemen are
too busy with the "civilization, marriage and family-destroying" Socialist
movement to be able to devote full attention to such machinations. A part of our
works of fiction labors in the same direction. The wonder would be if sexual

excesses, artificially incited, besides, failed to manifest themselves in unhealthy and
harmful ways, and to assume the proportions of a social disease.
The idle, voluptuous life of many women in the property classes; their refined
measures of nervous stimulants; their overfeeding with a certain kind of artificial
sensation, cultivated in certain lines on the hothouse plan, and often considered the
principal topic of conversation and sign of culture by that portion of the female sex
that suffers of hypersensitiveness and nervous excitement;—all this incites still
more the sexual senses, and naturally leads to excesses.
Among the poor, it is certain exhausting occupations, especially of a sedentary
nature, that promotes congestion of blood in the abdominal organs, and promotes
sexual excitation. One of the most dangerous occupations in this direction is
connected with the, at present, widely spread sewing machine. This occupation
works such havoc that, with ten or twelve hours' daily work, the strongest organism
is ruined within a few years. Excessive sexual excitement is also promoted by long
hours of work in a steady high temperature, for instance, sugar refineries,
bleacheries, cloth-pressing establishments, night work by gaslight in overcrowded
rooms, especially when both sexes work together.
A succession of further phenomena has been here unfolded, sharply illustrative of
the irrationableness and unhealthiness of modern conditions. These are evils deeply
rooted in our social state of things, and removable neither by the moral
sermonizings nor the palliatives that religious quacks of the male and female sexes
have so readily at hand. The axe must be laid to the root of the evil. The question is
to bring about a natural system of education, together with healthy conditions of
life and work, and to do this in amplest manner, to the end that the normal
gratification of natural and healthy instincts be made possible for all.
As to the male sex, a number of considerations are absent that are present with the
female sex. Due to his position as master, and in so far as social barriers do not
hinder him, there is on the side of man the free choice of love. On the other hand,
the character of marriage as an institution for support, the excess of women,
custom;—all these circumstances conspire to prevent woman from manifesting her
will; they force her to wait till she is wanted. As a rule, she seizes gladly the
opportunity, soon as offered, to reach the hand to the man who redeems her from
the social ostracism and neglect, that is the lot of that poor waif, the "old maid."
Often she looks down with contempt upon those of her sisters who have yet
preserved their self-respect, and have not sold themselves into mental prostitution
to the first comer, preferring to tread single the thorny path of life.
On the other hand, social considerations tie down the man, who desires to reach by
marriage the gratification of his life's requirements. He must put himself the

question: Can you support a wife, and the children that may come, so that pressing
cares, the destroyers of your happiness, may be kept away? The better his marital
intentions are, the more ideally he conceives them, the more he is resolved to wed
only out of love, all the more earnestly must he put the question to himself. To
many, the affirmative answer is, under the present economic conditions, a matter of
impossibility: they prefer to remain single. With other and less conscientious men,
another set of considerations crowd upon the mind. Thousands of men reach an
independent position, one in accord with their wants, only comparatively late. But
they can keep a wife in a style suitable to their station only if she has large wealth.
True enough, many young men have exaggerated notions on the requirements of a
so-called life "suitable to one's station." Nevertheless, they can not be blamed—as a
result of the false education above described, and of the social habits of a large
number of women,—for not guarding against demands from that quarter that are far
beyond their powers. Good women, modest in their demands, these men often
never come to know. These women are retiring; they are not to be found there
where such men have acquired the habit of looking for a wife; while those whom
they meet are not infrequently such as seek to win a husband by means of their
looks, and are intent, by external means, by show, to deceive him regarding their
personal qualities and material conditions. The means of seduction of all sorts are
plied all the more diligently in the measure that these ladies come on in years, when
marriage becomes a matter of hot haste. Does any of these succeed in conquering a
husband, she has become so habituated to show, jewelry, finery and expensive
pleasures, that she is not inclined to forego them in marriage. The superficial nature
of her being crops up in all directions, and therein an abyss is opened for the
husband. Hence many prefer to leave alone the flower that blooms on the edge of
the precipice, and that can be plucked only at the risk of breaking their necks. They
go their ways alone, and seek company and pleasure under the protection of their
freedom. Deception and swindle are practices everywhere in full swing in the
business life of capitalist society: no wonder they are applied also in contracting
marriage, and that, when they succeed, both parties are drawn into common
sorrows.
According to E. Ansell, the age of marriage among the cultured and independent
males of England was, between 1840-1871, on an average 29.25 years. Since then
the average has risen for many classes, by at least one year. For the different
occupations, the average age of marriage, between 1880-1885, was as follows:—

Occupations. Age.
Miners 23.56
Textile workers 23.88
Shoemakers and tailors 24.42
Skilled laborers 24.85

Day laborers 25.06
Clerks 25.75
Retailers 26.17
Farmers and their sons 28.73
Men of culture and men of independent means 30.72

These figures give striking proof of how social conditions and standing affect
marriage.
The number of men who, for several reasons, are kept from marrying is ever on the
increase. It is especially in the so-called upper ranks and occupations that the men
often do not marry, partly because the demands upon them are too great, partly
because it is just the men of these social strata who seek and find pleasure and
company elsewhere. On the other hand, conditions are particularly unfavorable to
women in places where many pensionaries and their families, but few young men,
have their homes. In such places, the number of women who cannot marry rises to
20 or 30 out of every 100. The deficit of candidates for marriage affects strongest
those female strata that, through education and social position, make greater
pretensions, and yet, outside of their persons, have nothing to offer the man who is
looking for wealth. This concerns especially the female members of those
numerous families that live upon fixed salaries, are considered socially
"respectable," but are without means. The life of the female being in this stratum of
society is, comparatively speaking, the saddest of all those of her fellow-sufferers.
It is out of these strata that is mainly recruited the most dangerous competition for
the working-women in the embroidering, seamstress, flower-making, millinery,
glove and straw hat sewing; in short, all the branches of industry that the employer
prefers to have carried on at the homes of the working-women. These ladies work
for the lowest wages, seeing that, in many cases, the question with them is not to
earn a full livelihood, but only something over and above that, or to earn the outlay
for a better wardrobe and for luxury. Employers have a predilection for the
competition of these ladies, so as to lower the earnings of the poor working-woman
and squeeze the last drop of blood from her veins: it drives her to exert herself to
the point of exhaustion. Also not a few wives of government employes, whose
husbands are badly paid, and can not afford them a "life suitable to their rank,"
utilize their leisure moments in this vile competition that presses so heavily upon
wide strata of the female working class.
The activity on the part of the bourgeois associations of women for the abolition of
female labor and for the admission of women to the higher professions, at present
mainly, if not exclusively, appropriated by men, aims principally at procuring a
position in life for women from the social circles just sketched. In order to secure
for their efforts greater prospects of success, these associations have loved to place

themselves under the protectorate of higher and leading ladies. The bourgeois
females imitate herein the example of the bourgeois males, who likewise love such
protectorates, and exert themselves in directions that can bring only small, never
large results. A Sisyphus work is thus done with as much noise as possible, to the
end of deceiving oneself and others on the score of the necessity for a radical
change. The necessity is also felt to do all that is possible in order to suppress all
doubts regarding the wisdom of the foundations of our social and political
organization, and to prescribe them as treasonable. The conservative nature of these
endeavors prevents bourgeois associations of women from being seized with so-
called destructive tendencies. When, accordingly, at the Women's Convention of
Berlin, in 1894, the opinion was expressed by a minority that the bourgeois women
should go hand and hand with the working-women, i. e., with their Socialist
citizens, a storm of indignation went up from the majority. But the bourgeois
women will not succeed in pulling themselves out of the quagmire by their own
topknots.
How large the number is of women who, by reason of the causes herein cited, must
renounce married life, is not accurately ascertainable. In Scotland, the number of
unmarried women of the age of twenty years and over was, towards the close of the
sixties, 43 per cent. of the female population, and there were 110 women to every
100 men. In England, outside of Wales, there lived at that time 1,407,228 more
women than men of the age of 20 to 40, and 359,966 single women of over forty
years of age. Of each 100 women 42 were unmarried.
The surplus of women that Germany owns is very unevenly distributed in point of
territories and age. According to the census of 1890, it stood:—[98]

To Every 1,000 Males, Females
of
the Age of
Under Over
Divisions. 15-40. 40-60.
15. 60.
Berlin 1,014 1,056 1,108 1,666
Kingdom of Saxony 1,020 1,032 1,112 1,326
Kingdom of Bavaria, on the right of
1,022 1,040 1,081 1,155
the Rhine
On the left of the Rhine 986 1,024 1,065 1,175
Wurtemberg 1,021 1,076 1,135 1,175
Baden 1,006 1,027 1,099 1,175
Hamburg 1,003 967 1,042 1,522
Province of Brandenburg 986 981 1,085 1,261
Province of Pommern 984 1,053 1,126 1,191
Province of Rhineland 984 990 1,010 1,087

————— ————— ————— —————
German Empire 995 1,027 1,094 1,196

Accordingly, of marriageable age proper, 15-40, the surplus of women in the
German Empire amounts to 27 women to every 1,000 men. Seeing that, within
these age periods, there are 9,429,720 male to 9,682,454 female inhabitants, there is
a total female surplus of 252,734. In the same four age periods, the proportion of
the sexes in other countries of Europe and outside of Europe stood as follows:—[99]

To Every 1,000 Males, Females of
the Age of
60 and
Countries. Under 15. 15-40. 40-60. Over.
Belgium (1890) 992 984 1,018 1,117
Bulgaria (1888) 950 1,068 837 947
Denmark (1890) 978 1,080 1,073 1,179
France (1886) 989 1,003 1,006 1,063
England and Wales (1891) 1,006 1,075 1,096 1,227
Scotland (1891) 973 1,073 1,165 1,389
Ireland (1891) 966 1,036 1,109 1,068
Italy (1881) 963 1,021 1,005 980
Luxemburg (1891) 996 997 1,004 1,042
Holland (1889) 990 1,022 1,035 1,154
Austria (1890) 1,005 1,046 1,079 1,130
Hungary (1890) 1,001 1,040 996 1,000
Sweden (1890) 975 1,062 1,140 1,242
Switzerland (1888) 999 1,059 1,103 1,148
Japan (1891) 978 962 951 1,146
Cape of Good Hope (1891) 989 1,008 939 1,019

It is seen that all countries of the same or similar economic structure reveal the
identical conditions with regard to the distribution of the sexes according to ages.
According thereto, and apart from all other causes already mentioned, a
considerable number of women have in such countries no prospect of entering
wedded life. The number of unmarried women is even still larger, because a large
number of men prefer, for all sorts of reasons, to remain single. What say hereto
those superficial folks, who oppose the endeavor of women after a more
independent, equal-righted position in life, and who refer them to marriage and
domestic life? The blame does not lie with the women that so many of them do not
marry; and how matters stand with "conjugal happiness" has been sufficiently
depicted.

What becomes of the victims of our social conditions? The resentment of insulted
and injured Nature expresses itself in the peculiar facial lines and characteristics
whereby so-called old maids, the same as old ascetic bachelors, stamp themselves
different from other human beings in all countries and all climates; and it gives
testimony of the mighty and harmful effect of suppressed natural love.
Nymphomania with women, and numerous kinds of hysteria, have their origin in
that source; and also discontent in married life produces attacks of hysteria, and is
responsible for barrenness.
Such, in main outlines, is our modern married life and its effects. The conclusion is:
Modern marriage is an institution that is closely connected with the existing social
condition, and stands or falls with it. But this marriage is in the course of
dissolution and decay, exactly as capitalist society itself,—because, as
demonstrated under the several heads on the subject of marriage:
1. Relatively, the number of births declines, although population increases on the
whole,—showing that the condition of the family deteriorates.
2. Actions for divorce increase in numbers, considerably more than does
population, and, in the majority of cases, the plaintiffs are women, although, both
economically and socially, they are the greatest sufferers thereunder,—showing that
the unfavorable factors, that operate upon marriage, are on the increase, and
marriage, accordingly, is dissolving and falling to pieces.
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.
[90] Dr. F. B. Simon: "Die Gesundheitspflege des Weibes," Stuttgart, 1893, F. J.
Dietz.
[91] Dr. F. B. Simon. Simon devotes extensive consideration to this theme, together
with that akin thereto,—why so many married women take sick shortly after
marriage without knowing why; and he holds up the mirror to the men.
[92] Karl Buecher: "Ueber die Vertheilung der beiden Geschlechter auf der Erde,"
"Allgemeines Statistisches Archiv," Tuebingen, 1892.
[93] Besides 550,430 children without specification of sex.

[94] "Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer das Deutsche Reich." Jahrgang 1893.
[95] Ibidem.
[96] "Statistik des Deutschen Reiches," 1890.
[97] "Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich," 1889-1894.
[98] "Statistik des Deutschen Reiches."
[99] "Statistik des Deutschen Reiches."

CHAPTER III.
PROSTITUTION A NECESSARY SOCIAL INSTITUTION OF THE
CAPITALIST WORLD.

Marriage presents one side of the sexual life of the capitalist or bourgeois world;
prostitution presents the other. Marriage is the obverse, prostitution the reverse of
the medal. If men find no satisfaction in wedlock, then they usually seek the same
in prostitution. Those men, who, for whatever reason, renounce married life, also
usually seek satisfaction in prostitution. To those men, accordingly, who, whether
out of their free will or out of compulsion, live in celibacy, as well as to those
whom marriage does not offer what was expected of it, conditions are more
favorable for the gratification of the sexual impulse than to women.
Man ever has looked upon the use of prostitution as a privilege due him of right. All
the harder and severer does he keep guard and pass sentence when a woman, who is
no prostitute, commits a "slip." That woman is instinct with the same impulses as
man, aye, that at given periods of her life (at menstruation) these impulses assert
themselves more vehemently than at others,—that does not trouble him. In virtue of
his position as master, he compels her to violently suppress her most powerful
impulses, and he conditions both her character in society and her marriage upon her
chastity. Nothing illustrates more drastically, and also revoltingly, the dependence
of woman upon man than this radically different conception regarding the
gratification of the identical natural impulse, and the radically different measure by
which it is judged.
To man, circumstances are particularly favorable. Nature has devolved upon
woman the consequences of the act of generation: outside of the enjoyment, man
has neither trouble nor responsibility. This advantageous position over against
woman has promoted that unbridled license in sexual indulgence wherein a
considerable part of men distinguish themselves. Seeing, however, that, as has been
shown, a hundred causes lie in the way of the legitimate gratification of the sexual
instinct, or prevent its full satisfaction, the consequence is frequent gratification,
like beasts in the woods.
Prostitution thus becomes a social institution in the capitalist world, the same as
the police, standing armies, the Church, and wage-mastership.
Nor is this an exaggeration. We shall prove it.

We have told how the ancient world looked upon prostitution, and considered it
necessary, aye, had it organized by the State, as well in Greece as in Rome. What
views existed on the subject during the Middle Ages has likewise been described.
Even St. Augustine, who, next to St. Paul, must be looked upon as the most
important prop of Christendom, and who diligently preached asceticism, could not
refrain from exclaiming: "Suppress the public girls, and the violence of passion will
knock everything of a heap." The provincial Council of Milan, in 1665, expressed
itself in similar sense.
Let us hear the moderns:

Dr. F. S. Huegel says:[100] "Advancing civilization will gradually drape prostitution
in more pleasing forms, but only with the end of the world will it be wiped off the
globe." A bold assertion; yet he who is not able to project himself beyond the
capitalist form of society, he who does not realize that society will change so as to
arrive at healthy and natural social conditions,—he must agree with Dr. Huegel.
Hence also did Dr. Wichern, the late pious Director of the Rauhen House near
Hamburg, Dr. Patton of Lyon, Dr. William Tait of Edinburg, and Dr. Parent-
Duchatelet of Paris, celebrated through his investigations of the sexual diseases and
prostitution, agree in declaring: "Prostitution is ineradicable because it hangs
together with the social institutions," and all of them demanded its regulation by the
State. Also Schmoelder writes: "Immorality as a trade has existed at all times and in
all places, and, so far as the human eye can see, it will remain a constant
companion of the human race."[101] Seeing that the authorities cited stand, without
exception, upon the ground of the modern social order, the thought occurs to none
that, with the aid of another social order, the causes of prostitution, and,
consequently, prostitution itself, might disappear; none of them seeks to fathom the
causes. Indeed, upon one and another, engaged in this question, the fact at times
dawns that the sorry social conditions, which numerous women suffer under, might
be the chief reason why so many women sell their bodies; but the thought does not
press itself through to its conclusion, to wit, that, therefore, the necessity arises of
bringing about other social conditions. Among those who recognize that the
economic conditions are the chief cause of prostitution belong Th. Bade, who
declares:[102] "The causes of the bottomless moral depravity, out of which the
prostitute girl is born, lie in the existing social conditions.... It is the bourgeois
dissolution of the middle classes and of their material existence, particularly of the
class of the artisans, only a small fraction of which carries on to-day an
independent occupation as a trade." Bade closes his observations, saying: "Want for
material existence, that has partly worn out the families of the middle class and will
yet wear them out wholly, leads also to the moral ruin of the family, especially of

the female sex." In fact, the statistical figures, gathered by the Police Department of
Berlin, between 1871-1872, on the extraction of 2,224 enrolled prostitutes, show:

Number. Per Cent. Father's Occupation.

1,015 47.9 Artisans
467 22.0 Millhands
305 14.4 Small office-holders
222 10.4 Merchants and railroad workers
87 4.1 Farmers
26 1.2 Military service

Of 102 the father's occupation was not ascertainable.
Specialists and experts rarely take up investigations of a deeper nature; they accept
the facts that lie before them, and judge in the style of the "Wiener Medizinische
Wochenschrift," that writes in its No. 35, for the year 1863: "What else is there left
to the large majority of willing and unwilling celibates, in order to satisfy their
natural wants, than the forbidden fruit of the Venus Pandemos?" The paper is,
accordingly, of the opinion that, for the sake of these celibates, prostitution is
necessary, because what else, forsooth, are they to do in order to satisfy their sexual
impulse? And it closes, saying: "Seeing that prostitution is necessary, it has the
right to existence, to protection, and to immunity from the State." And Dr. Huegel
declares himself in his work, mentioned above, in accord with this view. Man,
accordingly, to whom celibacy is a horror and a martyrdom, is the only being
considered; that there are also millions of women living in celibacy is well known;
but they have to submit. What is right for man, is, accordingly, wrong for women;
is in her case immorality and a crime.

The Leipsic Police Doctor, Dr. J. Kuehn, says:[103] "Prostitution is not merely an
evil that must be tolerated, it is a necessary evil, because it protects the wives from
infidelity, [which only the husbands have the right to be guilty of] and virtue also
[female virtue, of course, the husbands have no need of the commodity] from being
assailed [sic.] and, therefore, from falling." These few words of Dr. Kuehn typify, in
all its nakedness, the crass egoism of male creation. Kuehn takes the correct stand
for a Police Doctor, who, by superintending prostitution, sacrifices himself, to the
end of saving the men from disagreeable diseases. In the same sense with him did
his successor, Dr. Eckstein, utter himself at the twelfth convention of the German
Associations of House and City Real Estate Owners, held in Magdeburg in the
summer of 1890. The honorable house-owners wished to know how they could
prevent the numerous instances of prostitutes occupying their houses, and how to
protect themselves against fines in case prostitutes are caught living in them. Dr.

Eckstein lectured them on this head to the effect that prostitution was a "necessary
evil," never absent from any people or religion. Another interesting gentleman is
Dr. Fock, who in a treatise, entitled "Prostitution, in Its Ethical and Sanitary
Respects," in the "Deutschen Vierteljahrschrift fuer offentliche Gesundheitspflege,"
vol. xx, No. 1, considers prostitution "an unenviable corollary of our civilized
arrangements." He fears an over-production of people if all were to marry upon
reaching the age of puberty; hence he considers important to have prostitution
"regulated" by the State. He considers natural that the State supervise and regulate
prostitution, and thereby assume the care of providing for the supply of girls that
are free from syphilis. He pronounces himself in favor of the most rigid inspection
of "all women, proven to lead an abandoned life;"—also when ladies of "an
abandoned life" belong to the prominent classes? It is the old story. That in all logic
and justice also those men should be held under surveillance who hunt up
prostitutes, maintain them and make their existence possible,—of that no one
thinks. Dr. Fock also demands the taxing of the prostitutes, and their concentration
in given streets. In other words, the Christian State is to procure for itself a revenue
out of prostitution, and, at the same time, organize and place prostitution under its
protection for the benefit of male creation. What was it that the Emperor Vespasian
said at a somewhat similar juncture? "Non olet!"—it smells not.
Did we exaggerate when we said: Prostitution is to-day a necessary social
institution just as the police, standing armies, the Church and wage-mastership?
In the German Empire, prostitution is not, like in France, organized and
superintended by the State; it is only tolerated. Official public houses are forbidden
by law, and procuring is severely punishable. But that does not prevent that in a
large number of German cities public houses continue to exist, and are winked at by
the police. This establishes an incomprehensible state of things. The defiance of the
law implied in such a state of things dawned even upon our statesmen and they
bestirred themselves to remove the objection by legislative enactments. The
German Criminal Code makes also the lodging of a prostitute a penal offense. On
the other hand, however, the police are compelled to tolerate thousands of women
as prostitutes, and, in a measure, to privilege them in their trade, provided they
enter themselves as prostitutes on the Police Register, and submit to the Police
regulations,—for instance, periodically recurring examinations by a physician. It
follows, however, that, if the Government licenses the prostitute, and thereby
protects the exercise of her trade, she must also have a habitation. Aye, it is even in
the interest of public health and order that they have such a place to ply their trade
in. What contradictions! On the one hand, the Government officially acknowledges
that prostitution is necessary; on the other, it prosecutes and punishes the prostitute
and the pimp. But it is out of contradictions that bourgeois society is put together.
Moreover, the attitude of the Government is an avowal that prostitution is a Sphinx

to modern society, the riddle which society can not solve: it considers necessary to
tolerate and superintend prostitution in order to avoid greater evils. In other words,
our social system, so boastful of its morality, its religiousness, its civilization and
its culture, feels compelled to tolerate that immorality and corruption spread
through its body like a stealthy poison. But this state of things betrays something
else, besides the admission by the Christian State that marriage is insufficient, and
that the husband has the right to demand illegitimate gratification of his sexual
instincts. Woman counts with such a State in so far only as she is willing, as a
sexual being, to yield to illegitimate male desires, i. e., become a prostitute. In
keeping herewith, the supervision and control, exercised by the organs of the State
over the registered prostitutes, do not fall upon the men also, those who seek the
prostitute. Such a provision would be a matter of course if the sanitary police
control was to be of any sense, and even of partial effect,—apart from the
circumstance that a sense of justice would demand an even-handed application of
the law to both sexes. No; "supervision and control" fall upon woman alone.
This protection by the State of man and not woman, turns upside down the nature
of things. It looks as if men were the weaker vessel and women the stronger; as if
woman were the seducer, and poor, weak man the seduced. The seduction-myth
between Adam and Eve in Paradise continues to operate in our opinions and laws,
and it says to Christianity: "You are right; woman is the arch seductress, the vessel
of iniquity." Men should be ashamed of such a sorry and unworthy role; but this
role of the "weak" and the "seduced" suits them;—the more they are protected, all
the more may they sin.
Wherever men assemble in large numbers, they seem unable to amuse themselves
without prostitution. This was shown, among other instances of the kind, by the
occurrences at the German Schuetzenfest, held in Berlin in the summer of 1890,
which caused 2,300 women to express themselves as follows in a petition addressed
to the Mayor of the German capital: "May it please your Honor to allow us to bring
to your knowledge the matters that have reached the provinces, through the press
and other means of communication, upon the German shooting matches, held at
Pankow from the 6th to the 13th of July of this year. The reports of the matter, that
we have seen with indignation and horror, represent the programme of that festival
with the following announcements, among others: 'First German Herald, the
Greatest Songstress of the World;' 'A Hundred Ladies and Forty Gentlemen:'
Besides these smaller cafes chantants and shooting galleries, in which importunate
women forced themselves upon the men. Also a 'free concert,' whose gaily-clad
waitresses, seductively smiling, brazenly and shamelessly invited the gymnasium
students and the fathers of families, the youths and the grown men alike, to the
'shooting retreats.'... The barely dressed 'lady' who invited people to the booth of
'The Secrets of Hamburg, or a Night in St. Pauli,' should have been enough to

justify her removal by the police. And then the shocking announcement, almost
incredible of the much boasted about Imperial capital, and hardly to be believed by
plain male and female citizens in the provinces, to the effect that the managers of
the festival had consented to the employment, without pay, of 'young women' in
large numbers, as bar-maids, instead of the waiters who applied for work.... We,
German women, have thousands of occasions, as wives, mothers and as sisters, to
send our husbands, children, daughters and brothers to Berlin in the service of the
fatherland; we, consequently, pray to your Honor in all humbleness and in the
confident expectation that, with the aid of the overpowering influence, which, as
the chief magistrate of the Imperial capital, lies in your hand, you may institute
such investigations of those disgraceful occurrences, or adopt such other measures
as to your Honor may seem fit, to the end that a recurrence of those orgies may not
have to be apprehended at the pending Sedan festival, for instance...." (!!)
During the session of the Reichstag, from 1892 to 1893, the united Governments
made an effort to put an end to the contradiction that governmental practice, on the
one hand, and the Criminal Code on the other, find themselves in with regard to
prostitution. They introduced a bill that was to empower the police to designate
certain habitations to prostitutes. It was admitted that prostitution could not be
suppressed, and that, therefore, the most practical thing was to tolerate the thing in
certain localities, and to control it. The bill—upon that all minds were agreed—
would, if it became a law, have called again to life the brothels that were officially
abolished in Prussia about 1845. The bill caused a great uproar, and it evoked a
number of protests in which the warning was raised against the State's setting itself
up as the protector of prostitution, and thereby favoring the idea that the use of
prostitution was not in violation of good morals, or that the trade of the prostitute
was such that the State could allow and approve of. The bill, which met with the
strongest opposition both on the floor of the Reichstag and in the committee, was
pigeon-holed, and dared not again come into daylight. That, nevertheless, such a
bill could at all take shape reveals the embarrassment that society is in.
The administrative regulation of prostitution raises in the minds of men not only the
belief that the State allows the use of prostitution, but also that such control protects
them against disease. Indeed, this belief greatly promotes indulgence and
recklessness on the part of men. Brothels do not reduce sexual diseases, they
promote the same: the men grow more careless and less cautious.
Experience has taught that neither the establishment of houses of prostitution,
controlled by the police, nor the supervision and medical inspection, ordered by the
police, afford the slightest guarantee against contagion. The nature of these diseases
is frequently such that they are not to be easily or immediately detected. If there is
to be any safety, the inspection would have to be held several times a day. That,

however, is impossible in view of the number of women concerned, and also of the
costs. Where thirty or forty prostitutes must be "done" in an hour, inspection is
hardly more than a farce; moreover, one or two inspections a week is wholly
inadequate. The success of these measures also suffers shipwreck in the
circumstance that the men, who transmit the germs of disease from one woman to
another, remain free from all official annoyance. A prostitute, just inspected and
found healthy, may be infected that same hour by a diseased man, and she transmits
the virus to other patrons, until the next inspection day, or until she has herself
become aware of the disease. The control is not only illusory: These inspections,
made at command, and conducted by male, instead of female physicians, hurt most
deeply the sense of shame; and they contribute to its total ruination. This is a
phenomenon confirmed by many physicians. Even the official report of the Berlin
Police Department admits the fact by stating: "It may also be granted that
registration causes the moral sense of the prostitute to sink still lower."[104]
Accordingly, the prostitutes try their utmost to escape this control. A further
consequence of these police measures is that they make it extraordinarily difficult,
even impossible, for the prostitute ever again to return to a decent trade. A woman,
that has fallen under police control, is lost to society; she generally goes down in
misery within a few years. Accurately and exhaustively did the fifth Congress at
Geneva for Combatting Immorality utter itself against the police regulation of
prostitutes, by declaring: "The compulsory medical inspection of prostitutes is an
all the more cruel punishment to the woman, seeing that, by destroying the
remnants of shame, still possible within even the most abandoned, such inspection
drags down completely into depravity the wretched being that is subjected thereto.
The State, that means to regulate prostitution with the police, forgets that it owes
equal protection to both sexes; it demoralizes and degrades women. Every system
for the official regulation of prostitution has police arbitrariness for its
consequence, as well as the violation of civic guaranties that are safeguarded to
every individual, even to the greatest criminal, against arbitrary arrest and
imprisonment. Seeing this violation of right is exercised to the injury of woman
only, the consequence is an inequality, shocking to nature, between her and man.
Woman is degraded to the level of a mere means, and is no longer treated as a
person. She is placed outside of the pale of law."
Of how little use police control is, England furnishes a striking illustration. In the
year 1866 a law was enacted on the subject for places in which soldiers and marines
were garrisoned. Now, then, while from 1860 to 1866, without the law, the lighter
cases of syphilis had declined from 32.68 to 24.73 per cent., after a six years'
enforcement of the new law, the percentage of diseased in 1872 was still 24.26. In
other words, it was not one-half per cent. lower in 1872 than in 1866; but the
average for these six years was 1-16 per cent. higher than in 1866. In sight of this, a

special Commission, appointed in 1873, to investigate the effect of that law, arrived
at the unanimous conclusion that "the periodical inspection of the women who
usually have sexual intercourse with the personnel of the army and navy, had, at
best, not occasioned the slightest diminution in the number of cases," and it
recommended the suspension of periodical inspections.
The effects of the Act of Inspection on the women subjected thereto were, however,
quite different from those on the troops. In 1866, there were, to every 1,000
prostitutes, 121 diseases; in 1868, after the law had been in force two years, there
were 202. The number then gradually dropped, but, nevertheless, still exceeded in
1874 the figure for 1866 by 16 cases. Under the Act, deaths also increased
frightfully among the prostitutes. In 1865 the proportion was 9.8 to every 1,000
prostitutes, whereas, in 1874 it had risen to 23. When, towards the close of the
sixties, the English Government made the attempt to extend the Act of Inspection to
all English cities, a storm of indignation arose from the women. The law was
considered an affront to the whole sex. The Habeas Corpus Act,—that fundamental
law, that protects the English citizen against police usurpation—would, such was
the sentiment, be suspended for women: any brutal policeman, animated by revenge
or any other base motive, would be free to seize any decent woman on the
suspicion of her being a prostitute, whereas the licentiousness of the men would
remain unmolested, aye, would be protected and fed, by just such a law.
Although this intervention in behalf of the outcasts of their sex readily exposed the
English women to misrepresentation and degrading remarks from the quarter of
narrow-minded men, the women did not allow themselves to be held back from
energetically opposing the introduction of the law that was an insult to their sex. In
newspaper articles and pamphlets the "pros" and "cons" were discussed by men and
women; in Parliament, the extension of the law was, first, prevented; its repeal
followed later. The German police is vested with a similar power, and cases that
have forced themselves into publicity from Berlin, Leipsic and other cities, prove
that its abuse—or be it "mistakes" in its exercise—is easy; nevertheless, of an
energetic opposition to such regulations naught is heard. Even in middle class
Norway, brothels were forbidden in 1884; in 1888 the compulsory registration of
the prostitutes and the inspection connected therewith were abolished in the capital,
Christiania; and in January, 1893, the enactment was made general for the whole
country. Very rightly does Mrs. Guillaume-Schack remark upon the "protective"
measures adopted by the State in behalf of the men: "To what end do we teach our
sons to respect virtue and morality if the State pronounces immorality a necessary
evil; and if, before the young man has at all reached mental maturity, the State leads
woman to him stamped by the authorities as a merchandise, as a toy for his
passion?"

Let a sexually diseased man, in his unbridled career of licentiousness, contaminate
ever so many of these poor beings—who, to the honor of woman be it said, are
mostly driven by bitter want or through seduction to ply their disgraceful trade,—
the scurvy fellow remains unmolested. But woe to the woman who does not
forthwith submit to inspection and treatment! The garrison cities, university towns,
etc., with their congestion of vigorous, healthy men, are the chief centers of
prostitution and of its dangerous diseases, that are carried thence into the remotest
corners of the land, and everywhere spread infection. The same holds with the sea
towns. What the moral qualifications are with a large number of our students the
following utterance in a publication for the promotion of morality may give an idea
of: "With by far the larger number of students, the views entertained upon matters
of morality are shockingly low, aye, they are downright unclean."[105] And these are
the circles—boastful of their "German breed," and "German morals"—from which
our administrative officers, our District Attorneys and our Judges are in part
recruited.
"Thy sins shall be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation."
This Bible sentence falls upon the dissipated and sexually diseased man in the
fullest sense of the word, unhappily also upon the innocent woman. "Attacks of
apoplexy with young men and also women, several manifestations of spinal debility
and softening of the brains, all manner of nervous diseases, affections of the eyes,
cariosity, inflammation of the intestines, sterility and atrophy, frequently proceed
from nothing else than chronic and neglected, and, often for special reasons,
concealed syphilis.... As things now are, ignorance and lightheadedness also
contribute towards turning blooming daughters of the land into anaemic, listless
creatures, who, under the burden of a chronic inflammation of the pelvis, have to
atone for the excesses committed by their husbands before and after marriage."[106]
In the same sense does Dr. Blaschke utter himself:[107] "Epidemics like cholera and
smallpox, diphtheria and typhus, whose visible effects are, by reason of their
suddenness, realized by all, although hardly equal to syphilis in point of virulence,
and, in point of diffusion, not to be compared therewith, yet are they the terror of
the population ... while before syphilis society stands, one feels inclined to say, with
frightful indifference." The fault lies in the circumstance that it is considered
"improper" to talk openly of such things. Did not even the German Reichstag stop
short before a resolution to provide by law that sexual diseases, as well as all
others, shall be treated by Sick-Benefit Associations?
The syphilitic virus is in its effects the most tenacious and hardest poison to stamp
out. Many years after an outbreak has been overcome, and the patient believes
every trace to be wiped out, the sequels frequently crop up afresh in the wife or the
new-born child;[108] and a swarm of ailments among wives and children trace their

causes back, respectively, to marital and parental venereal diseases. With some who
are born blind, the misfortune is due to the father's sins, the consequences of which
transmitted themselves to the wife, and from her to the child. Weak-minded and
idiotic children may frequently ascribe their infirmity to the same cause. Finally,
what dire disaster may be achieved through vaccination by an insignificant drop of
syphilitic blood, our own days can furnish crass illustrations of.
In the measure that men, willingly or otherwise, renounce marriage, and seek the
gratification of natural impulses through illegitimate channels, seductive
allurements increase also. The great profits yielded by all undertakings that cater to
immorality, attract numerous and unscrupulous business men, who spare no artifice
of refinement to draw and keep customers. Account is taken of every demand,
according to the rank and position of the custom, also of its means and readiness to
bleed. If some of these "public houses" in our large cities were to blab out their
secrets, the fact would appear that their female tenants—mostly of low extraction,
without either culture or education, often unable to write their own names, but
possessed of all the mere physical charms—stand in the most intimate relations
with "leaders of society," with men of high intelligence and culture. There would be
found among these Cabinet Ministers, high military dignitaries, Councillors,
members of Legislatures, Judges, etc., going in and out, and side by side with
representatives of the aristocracy of birth, of finance, of commerce and of industry,
—all of them, who, by day and in society, strut about with grave and dignified mien
as "representatives and guardians of morality, of order, of marriage, and of the
family," and who stand at the head of the Christian charity societies and of societies
for the "suppression of prostitution." Modern capitalist society resembles a huge
carnival festival, at which all seek to deceive and fool one another. Each carries his
official disguise with dignity, in order later, unofficially and with all the less
restraint, to give a loose to his inclinations and passions. All the while, public life is
running over with "Morality," "Religion" and "Propriety." In no age was there
greater hypocrisy than in ours. The number of the augurs swells daily.
The supply of women for purposes of lust rises even more rapidly than the demand.
Our increasingly precarious social conditions—want, seduction, the love for an
externally brilliant and apparently easy life—furnish the female candidates from all
social strata. Quite typically does a novel of Hans Wachenhusen[109] depict the state
of things in the capital of the German Empire. The author expresses himself on the
purpose of his work in these words: "My book deals mainly with the victims of the
female sex and its steady depreciation, due to the unnatural plight of our social and
civic state, through its own fault, through neglect of education, through the craving
of luxury and the increasing light-headed supply in the market of life. It speaks of
this sex's increasing surplus, which renders daily more hopeless the new-born ones,

more prospectless those that grow up.... I wrote much in the same way as the
District Attorney puts together the past life of a criminal, in order to establish
therefrom the measure of his guilt. Novels being generally considered works of
fiction, permissible opposites of Truth, the following is, in that sense, no novel, but
a true picture of life, without coloring." In Berlin, things are no better and no worse
than in other large cities. Whether Greek-Orthodox St. Petersburg or Catholic
Rome, Germanic-Christian Berlin or heathen Paris, puritanic London or gay
Vienna, approach nearer to Babylon of old is hard to decide. "Prostitution possesses
its written and its unwritten laws, its resources, its various resorts, from the poorest
cottage to the most splendid palace, its numberless grades from the lowest to the
most refined and cultivated; it has its special amusements and public places of
meeting, its police, its hospitals, its prisons and its literature."[110] "We no longer
celebrate the festival of Osiris, the Bacchanalia and the Indian orgies of the spring
month; but in Paris and other large cities, under the black cloak of night, behind the
walls of 'public' and 'private' houses, people give themselves over to orgies and
Bacchanalia that the boldest pen dare not describe."[111]
Under such conditions, the traffic in female flesh has assumed mammoth
proportions. It is conducted on a most extensive scale, and is most admirably
organized in the very midst of the seats of civilization and culture, rarely attracting
the notice of the police. A swarm of brokers, agents, carriers, male and female, ply
the trade with the same unconcern as if they dealt in any other merchandise. Birth
certificates are forged, and bills of lading are drawn up with accurate descriptions
of the qualifications of the several "articles," and are handed over to the carriers as
directions for the purchasers. As with all merchandise, the price depends upon the
quality, and the several categories are assorted and consigned, according to the taste
and the requirements of the customers in different places and countries. The slyest
manipulations are resorted to in order to evade the snares and escape the vigilance
of the police; not infrequently large sums are used to shut the eyes of the guardians
of the law. A number of such cases have been established, especially in Paris.
Germany enjoys the sorry fame of being the woman market for half the world. The
innate German migratory disposition seems to animate also a portion of the women.
In larger numbers than those of any other people, the Austrian excepted, do they
furnish their contingent to the supply of international prostitution. German women
populate the harems of the Turks, as well as the public houses of central Siberia,
and as far away as Bombay, Singapore, San Francisco and Chicago. In a book of
travels,[112] the author, W. Joest, speaks as follows on the German trade in girls:
"People so often grow warm in our moral Germany over the slave trade that some
African negro Prince may be carrying on, or over conditions in Cuba and Brazil,
but they should rather keep in mind the beam in their own eyes: in no country is

there such a trade with white female slaves, from no country is the export of this
living merchandise as large as it is from Germany and Austria. The road that these
girls take can be accurately followed. From Hamburg they are shipped to South
America; Bahia and Rio de Janeiro receive their quotas; the largest part is destined
for Montevideo and Buenos Ayres, while a small rest goes through the Straits of
Magellan as far as Valparaiso. Another stream is steered via England, or direct to
North America, where, however, it can hold its own only with difficulty against the
domestic product, and, consequently, splits up down the Mississippi as far as New
Orleans and Texas, or westward to California. Thence, the coast is supplied as far
south as Panama; while Cuba, the West Indies and Mexico draw their supplies from
New Orleans. Under the title of "Bohemians," further droves of German girls are
exported over the Alps to Italy and thence further south to Alexandria, Suez,
Bombay, Calcutta and Singapore, aye, even to Hongkong and as far as Shanghai.
The Dutch Indies and Eastern Asia, Japan, especially, are poor markets, seeing that
Holland does not allow white girls of this kind in its colonies, while in Japan the
daughters of the soil are themselves too pretty and cheap. American competition
from San Francisco also tends to spoil the otherwise favorable chances. Russia is
provided from East Prussia, Pomerania and Poland. The first station is usually Riga.
Here the dealers from St. Petersburg and Moscow supply themselves, and ship their
goods in large quantities to Nischni-Novgorod and beyond the Ural Mountains to
Irbit and Krestofsky, aye as far as the interior of Siberia. I found, for instance, a
German girl in Tschita who had been traded in this way. This wonderful trade is
thoroughly organized, it is attended to by agents and commercial travelers. If ever
the Foreign Department of the German Empire were to demand of its consuls
reports on this matter, quite interesting statistical tables could be put together."
This trade flourishes to this day at its fullest, as proved in the autumn of 1893 by a
Social Democratic delegate to the German Reichstag.
The number of prostitutes is hard to estimate; accurately it can not be at all given.
The police can state approximately the number of women whose principal
occupation is prostitution; but it can not do this with regard to the much larger
number of those who resort to it as a side means of income. All the same, the
figures approximately known are frightfully high. According to v. Oettingen, the
number of prostitutes in London was, as early as the close of the sixties, estimated
at 80,000. In Paris the number of registered prostitutes in 1892 was 4,700, but fully
one-third escape police control. In all Paris, there were, in 1892, about sixty
brothels, with 600 to 700 prostitutes, and the number of brothels is steadily on the
decline. On the other hand, based upon an investigation, instituted by the Municipal
Council of Paris, in 1889, the number of women who prostitute themselves is
placed at the enormous figure of 120,000. In Berlin, the number of prostitutes,
registered with the police, was:—

1886 3,006
1887 3,063
1888 3,392
1889 3,703
1890 4,039

In 1890, there were six physicians employed, whose duty it was to devote two
hours a day to inspection.[113] Since then the number of physicians has been
increased. The prostitutes, registered with the police, constitute, however, in Berlin
also, only a very small portion of the total. Expert sources estimate it at not less
than 50,000. In the year 1890 alone, there were in 9,024 liquor saloons 2,022 bar-
maids, almost all of whom yield to prostitution. Furthermore, the, from year to year,
rising number of girls, arrested for disorderly conduct, shows that prostitution in
Berlin is steadily on the increase. The numbers of these arrests were:—

1881 10,878
1884 11,157
1887 13,358
1890 16,605

Of the 16,605 girls, arrested in 1890, there were 9,162 carried for sentence before
the Judge. There were, accordingly, 30 of these at every session of the court, and
128 of them were placed under the police by judicial decree. Already in 1860, it
was calculated in Hamburg that every ninth woman was a prostitute. Since then the
proportion has become greatly worse.
In Germany, the number of prostitutes probably runs up to 180,000. Accordingly,
we here have to do with a large female army, that considers prostitution as a means
of livelihood; and the number of victims, whom disease and death claim, is in
proportion.[114]
Tait calculates for Edinburg that the average life of the prostitute is 22 to 25 years.
According to him, year in and year out, every fourth aye, every third prostitute
seeks to take her own life, and every twelfth actually succeeds in killing herself. A
truly shocking state of things. The majority of prostitutes are heartily tired of their
way of living; aye, that they are disgusted thereat, is an experience admitted by all
experts. But once fallen into prostitution, only to very few is the opportunity ever
offered to escape.
And yet the number of prostitutes increases in the same measure that does that of
the women engaged as female labor in the various branches of industry and trade,
and that are paid off with wages that are too high to die, and too low to live on.

Prostitution is, furthermore, promoted by the industrial crises that have become a
necessity of the capitalist world, that commence to become chronic, and that carry
want and misery into hundreds and thousands of families. According to a letter of
the Chief Constable of Bolton, October 31, 1865, to a Factory Inspector, the
number of young prostitutes had increased more during the English cotton famine,
consequent upon the North American war for the emancipation of the slaves, than
during the previous twenty-five years.[115] But it is not only the working-women,
who, through want, fall a prey to prostitution. Prostitution also finds its recruiting
grounds in the higher walks of life. Lombroso and Ferrero quote Mace,[116] who
says of Paris that "a governess certificate, whether of high or low degree, is not so
much a draft upon bread, as upon suicide, theft and prostitution."
Parent-Duchatelet made out in his time a statistical table, according to which, out of
5,000 prostitutes there were 1,440 who took to the occupation out of want and
misery; 1,250 were orphaned and without support; 80 prostituted themselves in
order to feed poor parents; 1,400 were concubines left by their keepers; 400 were
girls whom officers and soldiers had seduced and dragged to Paris; 280 had been
deserted by their lovers during pregnancy. These figures speak for themselves.
They need no further explanation. Mrs. Butler, the zealous champion of the poorest
and most wretched of her sex in England, says on the subject of prostitution:
"Fortuitous circumstances, the death of a father, of a mother, lack of work,
insufficient wages, misery, false promises, snares, have led them to sin." Instructive
also is the information given by K. Schneidt[117] on the causes, that lead the Berlin
bar-maids so often into the arms of prostitution. Shockingly large is the number of
female servants that become barmaids, and that almost always means prostitutes.
The answers that Schneidt received on his schedules of questions addressed to bar-
maids, ran like this: "Because I got a child from my master and had to earn my
living;" or "Because my book was spoiled;" or "Because with sewing shirts and the
like too little is made;" or "Because I was discharged from the factory and could get
no more work;" or "Because my father died, and there were four other little ones."
That, particularly, servant girls, after they fall a prey to seduction by their masters,
furnish a large contingent to the prostitutes, is a known fact. On the subject of the
shockingly large number of seductions of servant girls by their masters or by the
sons of these, Dr. Max Taude expresses himself reproachfully.[118] When, however,
the upper classes furnish their quota to prostitution, it is not want but seduction and
the inclination for an easy life, for dress and for pleasures. On that subject a certain
work[119] utters itself this wise:
"Cold with horror and dismay, many a staid citizen, many a parson, teacher, high
official, high military dignitary, etc., learns that his daughter has secretly taken to
prostitution. Were it allowable to mention all these daughters by name, either a

social revolution would take place on the spot, or the popular ideas concerning
honor and virtue would be seriously damaged."
It is especially the finer prostitutes, the haute volee among the prostitutes, that are
recruited from these circles. Likewise do a large portion of actresses, whose
wardrobe outlays alone stand in crass disproportion to their salaries, depend upon
such unclean sources of revenue.[120] The same with numerous girls, engaged as
sales-ladies, and in similar capacities. There are employers dishonorable enough to
justify the low wages that they pay by referring their female employes to the aid of
"friends." For instance: In 1889 the "Sachsische Arbeiter Zeitung" of Dresden
published a notice that ran as follows: "A cultured young lady, long time out of
work on account of lung troubles, looked, upon her recovery, for work of any sort.
She was a governess. Nothing fit offered itself quickly, and she decided to accept
the first job that came along, whatever it was. She first applied to Mr.——. Seeing
she spoke readily several languages, she was acceptable; but the 30 marks a month
wages seemed to her too small to get along with. She stated to Mr.——, and his
answer was that most of his girls did not get even that much, but from 15 to 20
marks at most, and they all pulled through quite well, each having a 'good friend,'
who helped along. Another gentleman, Mr. ——, expressed himself in the same
sense. Of course, the lady accepted a place in neither of the two establishments."
Seamstresses, female tailors, milliners, factory girls by the hundreds of thousands
find themselves in similar plight. Employers and their subalterns—merchants, mill
owners, landlords, etc.,—who keep female hands and employes, frequently
consider it a sort of privilege to find these women handy to administer to their lusts.
Our pious and conservative folks love to represent the rural districts as truly idyllic
in point of morality, compared with the large cities and industrial centers. Everyone
acquainted with the actual state of things knows that it is not so; and the fact was
evidenced by the address, delivered by a baronial landlord of Saxony in the fall of
1889, reported as follows in the papers of the place:
"Grimma.—Baron Dr. v. Waechter of Roecknitz, recently delivered an address,
before a diocese meeting that took place here, upon the subject of 'Sexual
Immorality in Our Rural Communities.' Local conditions were not presented by
him in a rosy color. The speaker admitted with great candor that employers, even
married ones, are frequently in very intimate relations with their female domestics,
the consequences of which were either cancelled with cash, or were removed from
the eyes of the world through a crime. The fact could, unfortunately, not be cloaked
over, that immorality was nursed in these communities, not alone by girls, who, as
nurses in cities, had taken in the poison, or by fellows, who made its acquaintance
in the military service, but that, sad to say, also the cultured classes, through the
stewards of manorial estates, and through the officers on the occasions of field

manoeuvres, carried lax principles of morality into the country districts. According
to Dr. v. Waechter, there are actually here in the country few girls who reach the
age of seventeen without having fallen." The open-hearted speaker's love of truth
was answered with a social boycott, placed upon him by the officers who felt
insulted. The jus primae noctis of the medieval feudal lord continues in another
form in these very days of ours.
The majority of prostitutes are thrown into the arms of this occupation at a time
when they can hardly be said to have arrived at the age of discretion. Of 2,582 girls,
arrested in Paris for the secret practice of prostitution, 1,500 were minors; of 607
others, 487 had been deflowered under the age of twenty. In September, 1894, a
scandal of first rank took the stage in Buda-Pest. It appeared that about 400 girls of
from twelve to fifteen years fell prey to a band of rich rakes. The sons of our
"property and cultured classes" generally consider it an attribute of their rank to
seduce the daughters of the people, whom they then leave in the lurch. Only too
readily do the trustful daughters of the people, untutored in life and experience, and
generally joyless and friendless, fall a prey to the seduction that approaches them in
brilliant and seductive guise. Disillusion, then sorrows, finally crime,—such are the
sequels. Of 1,846,171 live births in Germany in 1891, 172,456 were illegitimate.
Only conjure up the volume of worry and heartaches prepared for a great number of
these mothers, by the birth of their illegitimate children, even if allowance is made
for the many instances when the children are legitimatized by their fathers! Suicide
by women and infanticide are to a large extent traceable to the destitution and
wretchedness in which the women are left when deserted. The trials for child
murder cast a dark and instructive picture upon the canvas. To cite just one case, in
the fall of 1894, a young girl, who, eight days after her delivery, had been turned
out of the lying-in institute in Vienna and thrown upon the streets with her child and
without means, and who, in her distress and desperation, killed the infant, was
sentenced to be hanged by a jury of Krems in Lower Austria. About the scamp of a
father nothing was said. And how often do not similar instances occur! The seduced
and outrageously deserted woman, cast helpless into the abyss of despair and
shame, resorts to extreme measures: she kills the fruit of her womb, is dragged
before the tribunals, is sentenced to penitentiary or the gallows. The
unconscionable, and actual murderer,—he goes off scott-free; marries, perchance,
shortly after, the daughter of a "respectable and honest" family, and becomes a
much honored, upright man. There is many a gentleman, floating about in honors
and distinctions, who has soiled his honor and his conscience in this manner. Had
women a word to say in legislation, much would be otherwise in this direction.
Most cruel of all, as already indicated, is the posture of French legislation, which
forbids inquiry after the child's paternity, and, instead, sets up foundling asylums.
The resolution on the subject, by the Convention of June 28, 1793, runs thus: "The

nation takes charge of the physical and moral education of abandoned children.
From that moment they will be designated only by the term of orphans. No other
designation shall be allowed." Quite convenient for the men, who, thereby, shifted
the obligation of the individual upon the collectivity, to the end of escaping
exposure before the public and their wives. In all the provinces of the land, orphan
and foundling asylums were set up. The number of orphans and foundlings ran up,
in 1893, to 130,945, of which it was estimated that each tenth child was legitimate,
but not wanted by its parents. But no particular care was taken of these children,
and the mortality among them was, accordingly, great. In that year, fully 59 per
cent., i. e., more than one-half died during the first year of their lives; 78 per cent.
died twelve years of age and under. Accordingly, of every 100 only 22 reached the
age of twelve years and over. It is claimed that matters have in the meantime
improved in those establishments.
In Austria and Italy also foundling asylums were established, and their support
assumed by the State. "Ici on fait mourir les enfants" (Here children are killed) is
the inscription that a certain King is said to have recommended as fit for foundling
asylums. In Austria, they are gradually disappearing; there are now only eight of
them left; also the treatment and care of the children has considerably improved to
what it was. In 1888, there were 40,865 children cared for in Austria, including
Galicia; of these 10,466 were placed in public institutions, 30,399 under private
care, at a joint cost of 1,817,372 florins. Mortality was slighter among the children
in the public institutions than among those placed under private care. This was
especially the case in Galicia. There, 31.25 per cent. of the children died during the
year 1888 in the public establishments, by far more than in the public
establishments of other countries; but of those under private care, 84.21 per cent.
died,—a veritable mass-assassination. It almost looks as though the Polish
slaughterhouse system aimed at killing off these poor little worms as swiftly as
possible. It is a generally accepted fact that the percentage of deaths among
children born out of wedlock is far higher than among those born in wedlock. In
Prussia there died, early in the sixties, during the first year of their lives 18.23 per
cent. of children born in wedlock, and 33.11 per cent. of children born out of
wedlock, accordingly twice as many of the latter. In Paris there died, 100 children
born in wedlock to every 139 born out of wedlock, and in the country districts 215.
Italian statistics throw up this picture: Out of every 10,000 live-births, there died—

Legitimate children: 1881. 1882. 1883. 1884. 1885.
One month old 751 741 724 698 696
Two to twelve months 1,027 1,172 986 953 1,083
Illegitimate children:
One month old 2,092 2,045 2,139 2,107 1,813

Two to twelve months 1,387 1,386 1,437 1,437 1,353

The difference in the mortality between legitimate and illegitimate children is
especially noticeable during the first month of life. During that period, the mortality
of children born out of wedlock is on an average three times as large as that of
those born in wedlock. Improper attention during pregnancy, weak delivery and
poor care afterwards, are the very simple causes. Likewise do maltreatment and the
infamous practice and superstition of "making angels" increase the victims. The
number of still-births is twice as large with illegitimate than with legitimate
children, due, probably, mainly to the efforts of some of the mothers to bring on the
death of the child during pregnancy. The illegitimate children who survive revenge
themselves upon society for the wrong done them, by furnishing an extraordinary
large percentage of criminals of all degrees.
Yet another evil, frequently met, must also be shortly touched upon. Excessive
sexual indulgence is infinitely more harmful than too little. A body, misused by
excess, will go to pieces, even without venereal diseases. Impotence, barrenness,
spinal affections, insanity, at least intellectual weakness, and many other diseases,
are the usual consequences. Temperance is as necessary in sexual intercourse as in
eating and drinking, and all other human wants. But temperance seems difficult to
youth. Hence the large number of "young old men," in the higher walks of life
especially. The number of young and old roues is enormous, and they require
special irritants, excess having deadened and surfeited them. Many, accordingly,
lapse into the unnatural practices of Greek days. The crime against nature is to-day
much more general than most of us dream of: upon that subject the secret archives
of many a Police Bureau could publish frightful information. But not among men
only, among women also have the unnatural practices of old Greece come up again
with force. Lesbian love, or Sapphism, is said to be quite general among married
women in Paris; according to Taxal,[121] it is enormously in practice among the
prominent ladies of that city. In Berlin, one-fourth of the prostitutes are said to
practice "tribady;" but also in the circles of our leading dames there are not wanting
disciples of Sappho. Still another unnatural gratification of the sexual instinct
manifests itself in the violation of children, a practice that has increased greatly
during the last thirty years. In France, during 1851-1875, 17,656 cases of this nature
were tried. The colossal number of these crimes in France is intimately connected
with the two-child system, and with the abstinence of husbands towards their
wives. To the German population also we find people recommending
Malthusianism, without stopping to think what the sequels will be. The so-called
"liberal professions," to whom belong mainly the members of the upper classes,
furnish in Germany about 5.6 per cent. of the ordinary criminals, but they furnish
13 per cent. of the criminals indicted for violation of children; and this latter

percentage would be still higher were there not in those circles ample means to
screen the criminals, so that, probably, the majority of cases remain undiscovered.
The revelations made in the eighties by the "Pall Mall Gazette" on the violation of
children in England, are still fresh in the public memory.
The moral progress of this our best of all possible worlds is recorded in the below
tables for England, the "leading country in civilization." In England there were:—

Immoral Acts Deaths from
Year. of Violence. Syphilis. Insane.
1861 280 1,345 39,647
1871 315 1,995 56,755
1881 370 2,334 73,113
1882 466 2,478 74,842
1883 390 ..... 76,765
1884 510 ..... ......
Increase since 1861 82 per cent. 84 per cent. 98 per cent.

A frightful increase this is of the phenomena that point to the rising physical and
moral ruin of English society.
The best statistical record of venereal diseases and their increase is kept by
Denmark, Copenhagen especially. Here venereal diseases, with special regard to
syphilis, developed as follows:—

Venereal Of these,
Year. Population. Diseases. Syphilis.
1874 196,000 5,505 836
1879 227,000 6,299 934
1885 290,000 9,325 1,866

Among the personnel of the navy in Copenhagen, the number of venereal diseases
increased 1224 per cent. during the period mentioned; in the army and for the same
period, 227 per cent.[122] And how stands it in Paris? From the year 1872 to the year
1888, the number of persons treated for venereal diseases in the hospitals Du Midi,
de Lourcine and de St. Louis was 118,223, of which 60,438 suffered of syphilis and
57,795 of other venereal affections. Besides these, of the number of outside
persons, who applied to the clinics of the said three hospitals, there was a yearly
average of 16,385 venereals.[123]
We have seen how, as a result of our social conditions, vice, excesses, wrongs and
crimes of all sorts are bred. All society is kept in a state of unrest. Under such a
state of things woman is the chief sufferer.

Numerous women realize this and seek redress. They demand, first of all, economic
self-support and independence; they demand that woman be admitted, as well as
man, to all pursuits that her physical and mental powers and faculties qualify her
for; they demand, especially, admission to the occupations that are designated with
the term "liberal professions." Are the efforts in these directions justified? Are they
practical? Would they mend matters? These are questions that now crowd forward.

FOOTNOTES:

[100] "Geschichte, Statistik und Regelung der Prostitution in Wien."
[101] "Die Bestrafung und polizelliche Behaundlung der gewerbsmässigen
Unzucht."
[102] "Ueber Gelegenheitsmacherei und öffentliches Tanzvergnügen."
[103] "Die Prostitution im 19. Jahrhundert vom sanitätspolizeilichen
Standpunkt."
[104] Zweiter Verwaltungsbericht des Königl. Polizei-Präsidiums von
Berlin für die Jahre 1881-1890; pp. 351-359
[105] "Korrespondenzblatt zur Bekämpfung der öffentlichen
Sittenlosigkeit," August 15, 1893.
[106] "Die gesundheitschädliche Tragweite der Prostitution," Dr. Oskar
Lassar.
[107] "Die Behandlung der Geschlechtskrankheiten in Krankenkassen und
Heilanstalten."
[108] In the English hospitals, during 1875, fully 14 per cent. of the
children under treatment were suffering of inherited venereal diseases. In
London, there died of these diseases 1 man out of every 190 cases of death;
in all England, 1 out of every 159 cases; in the poor-houses of France, 1 out
of 160.5.
[109] "Was die Strasse verschlingt."
[110] Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, "The Moral Education."
[111] Montegazza, "L'Amour dans l'Humanite."
[112] "Aus Japan nach Deutschland durch Sibirien."
[113] "Zweiter Verwaltungsbericht des Kgl. Polizei-Präsidiums von Berlin
vom Jahre 1881-1890."

[114] In the large trades union sick-benefit associations of Berlin the
number of syphilitic diseases increased from 4326 in 1881 to 9420 in 1890.
Dr. A. Blaschko, ubi supra.
[115] Karl Marx, "Capital," p. 461, Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1896.
[116] Ubi supra.
[117] "Das Kellnerinnen-Elend In Berlin," Berlin, 1893.
[118] Dr. Max Taube, "Der Schutz der unehelichen Kinder," Leipsic, 1893.
[119] "Die gefallenen Mädchen und die Sittenpolizei," Wilh. Issleib, Berlin,
1889.
[120] In a work, "Kapital und Presse," Berlin, 1891, Dr. F. Mehring proves
that a by no means indifferent actress was engaged at a well known theater
at a salary of 100 marks a month, and that her outlay for wardrobe alone ran
up to 1000 marks a month. The deficit was covered by a "friend."
[121] Lombroso and Ferrero, ubi supra.
[122] "Die venerischen Krankheiten in Dänemark," Dr. Giesing.
[123] Report of the Sanitary Commission on the organization of sanitation
relative to prostitution in Paris, addressed to the Municipal Council of Paris,
1890.

CHAPTER IV.
WOMAN'S POSITION AS A BREADWINNER; HER
INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES; DARWINISM AND THE
CONDITION OF SOCIETY.

The endeavor of woman to secure economic self-support and personal
independence has, to a certain degree, been recognized as legitimate by
bourgeois society, the same as the endeavor of the workingman after greater
freedom of motion. The principal reason for such acquiescence lies in the
class interests of the bourgeoisie itself. The bourgeoisie, or capitalist class,
requires the free and unrestricted purveyance of male and female labor-
power for the fullest development of production. In even tempo with the
perfection of machinery, and technique; with the subdivision of labor into
single acts requiring ever less technical experience and strength; with the
sharpening of the competitive warfare between industry and industry, and
between whole regions—country against country, continent against
continent—the labor-power of woman comes into ever greater demand.
The special causes, from which flows this ever increasing enlistment of
woman in ever increasing numbers, have been detailed above in extenso.
Woman is increasingly employed along with man, or in his place, because
her material demands are less than those of man. A circumstance predicated
upon her very nature as a sexual being, forces woman to proffer herself
cheaper. More frequently, on an average, than man, woman is subject to
physical derangements, that cause an interruption of work, and that, in view
of the combination and organization of labor, in force to-day in large
production, easily interfere with the steady course of production. Pregnancy
and lying-in prolong such pauses. The employer turns the circumstance to
advantage, and recoups himself doubly for the inconveniences, that these
disturbances put him to, with the payment of much lower wages.
Moreover—as may be judged from the quotation on page 90, taken from
Marx's "Capital"—the work of married women has a particular fascination
for the employer. The married woman is, as working-woman, much more

"attentive and docile" than her unmarried sister. Thought of her children
drives her to the utmost exertion of her powers, in order to earn the needed
livelihood; accordingly, she submits to many an imposition that the
unmarried woman does not. In general, the working-woman ventures only
exceptionally to join her fellow-toilers in securing better conditions of
work. That raises her value in the eyes of the employer; not infrequently she
is even a trump card in his hands against refractory workingmen. Moreover,
she is endowed with great patience, greater dexterity of fingers, a better
developed artistic sense, the latter of which renders her fitter than man for
many branches of work.
These female "virtues" are fully appreciated by the virtuous capitalist, and
thus, along with the development of industry, woman finds from year to
year an ever wider field for her application—but, and this is the determining
factor, without tangible improvement to her social condition. If woman
labor is employed, it generally sets male labor free. The displaced male
labor, however, wishes to live; it proffers itself for lower wages; and the
proffer, in turn, re-acts depressingly upon the wages of the working-woman.
The reduction of wages thus turns into an endless screw, that, due to the
constant revolutions in the technique of the labor-process, is set rotating all
the more swiftly, seeing that the said technical revolutions, through the
savings of labor-power, set also female labor free,—all of which again
increases the supply of hands. New industries somewhat counteract the
constant supply of relatively superfluous labor-power, but are not strong
enough to establish lasting improvement. Every rise of wages above a
certain measure causes the employer to look to further improvements in his
plant, calculated to substitute will-less, automatic mechanical devices for
human hands and human brain. At the start of capitalist production, hardly
any but male labor confronted male labor in the labor-market; now sex is
played against sex, and, further along the line, age against age. Woman
displaces man, and, in her turn, woman is displaced by younger folks and
child-labor. Such is the "Moral Order" in modern industry.
The endeavor, on the part of employers, to extend the hours of work, with
the end in view of pumping more surplus values out of their employes, is
made easier to them, thanks to the slighter power of resistance possessed by
women. Hence the phenomenon that, in the textile industries, for instance,
in which women frequently constitute far more than one-half of the total

labor employed, the hours of work are everywhere longest. Accustomed
from home to the idea that her work is "never done," woman allows the
increased demands to be placed upon her without resistance. In other
branches, as in the millinery trade, the manufacture of flowers, etc., wages
and hours of work deteriorate through the taking home of extra tasks, at
which the women sit till midnight, and even later, without realizing that
they thereby only compete against themselves, and, as a result, earn in a
sixteen-hour workday what they would have made in a regular ten-hour
day.[124] In what measure female labor has increased in the leading
industrial countries may appear from the below sets of tables. We shall start
with the leading industrial country of Europe,—England. The last census
furnishes this picture:

Total Persons
Year. Employed. Males. Females.
1871 11,593,466 8,270,186 3,323,280
1881 11,187,564 7,783,646 3,403,918
1891 12,898,484 8,883,254 4,016,230

Accordingly, within twenty years, the number of males employed increased
613,068, or 7.9 per cent.; the number of females, however, by 692,950, or
20.9 per cent. It is especially to be observed in this table that, in 1881, a
year of crisis, the number of males employed fell off by 486,540, and the
number of females increased by 80,638. The increase of female at the cost
of male persons employed is thus emphatically brought to light. But within
the increasing number of female employes itself a change is going on:
younger forces are displacing the older. It transpired that in England,
during the years 1881-1891, female labor-power of the age 10 to 45 had
increased, while that above 45 had decreased.
Industries in which female exceeded considerably the number of male labor,
were mainly the following:

Industries. Females. Males.
Manufacture of woman's clothing 415,961 4,470
Cotton industry 332,784 213,231
Manufacture of worsted goods 69,629 40,482
Manufacture of shirts 52,943 2,153

Manufacture of hosiery 30,887 18,200
Lace industry 21,716 13,030
Tobacco industry 15,880 13,090
Bookbinding 14,249 11,487
Manufacture of gloves 9,199 2,756
Teachers 144,393 50,628

Again the wages of women are, in almost all branches, considerably lower
than the wages of men for the same hours. In the year 1883, the wages in
England were for men and women as follows, per week:—

Industries. Males. Females.
Flax and jute factories 26 Marks 10-11 Marks
Manufacture of glass 38 " 12 "
Printing 32-36 " 10-12 "
Carpet factories 29 " 15 "
Weaving 26 " 16 "
Shoemaking 29 " 15 "
Dyeing 25-29 " 12-13 "

Similar differences in wages for men and women are found in the Post
Office service, in school teaching, etc. Only in the cotton industry in
Lancashire did both sexes earn equal wages for equal hours of work in the
tending of power looms.
In the United States, according to the census of 1890, there were 2,652,157
women, of the age of ten years and over engaged in productive occupations:
—594,510 in agriculture, 631,988 in manufacture, 59,364 in trade and
transportation, and 1,366,235 in personal service, of whom 938,910 were
servants. Besides that, there were 46,800 female farmers and planters, 5,135
Government employes, 155,000 school teachers, 13,182 teachers of music,
2,061 artists.[125] In the city of New York, 10,961 working-women
participated in strikes during the year 1890, a sign that working-women in
the United States, like their European fellow-female wage slaves,
understand the class distinctions that exist between Capital and Labor. In
what measure women are displacing the men in a number of industries in
the United States also, is indicated by the following item from the "Levest.
Journ." in 1893:

"One of the features of the factory towns of Maine is a class of men that
may be termed 'housekeepers.' In almost every town, where much factory
work is done, these men are to be found in large numbers. Whoever calls
shortly before noon will find them, with aprons tied in front, washing
dishes. At other hours of the day they can be seen scrubbing, making the
beds, washing the children, tidying up the place, or cooking. Whether any
of them attend to the sewing and mending of the family we are not quite
sure. These men attend to the household for the simple reason that their
wives can earn more in the factory than they, and it means a saving of
money if the wife goes to work."[126]
The closing sentence should read: "Because the women work for wages that
the men can no longer work for, and the employer therefore prefers
women,"—which happens in Germany also. The towns here described are
the so-called "she-towns," already more fully referred to.
In France, there were, in 1893, not less than 15,958 women engaged in the
railroad service (in the offices and as ticket agents); in the provincial Post
Office there were 5,383 women employed; as telegraphers and telephonists,
9,805; and in the State Savings Banks 425. Altogether the number of
women in France engaged in gainful occupations, inclusive of agriculture
and personal service, was, in 1893, in round figures 4,415,000. Of 3,858
decisions, rendered by the trades courts of Paris, not less than 1,674
concerned women.
To what extent female labor was applied in the industries of Switzerland as
early as 1886, is told by the following figures of the "Bund":

Industries. Males. Females.
Silk industry 11,771 51,352
Cotton industry 18,320 23,846
Linen and half-linen industry 5,553 5,232
Embroidery 15,724 21,000

Altogether, there were then in the textile industries, 103,452 women
engaged, besides 52,838 men; and the "Bund" expressly declares that there
is hardly an occupation in Switzerland in which women are not found.

In Germany, according to the census of occupations of 1882, of the
7,340,789 persons engaged in gainful occupations, 1,506,743 were women;
or 20.6 per cent. The proportions were, among others, these:—

Per
Industries. Males. Females. Cent.

Commercial occupations 536,221 181,286 25.2
Service and restaurants 172,841 141,407 45.0
Messengers and day laborers 9,212 3,265 26.2
Spinning 69,272 100,459 60.0
Weaving 336,400 155,396 32.0
Embroidery 42,819 31,010 42.0
Lace and crochet work 5,676 30,204 84.0
Lace manufacture 13,526 17,478 56.4
Bookbinding and paste-board box-
31,312 10,409 25.0
making
Paper manufacture 37,685 20,847 35.6
Tobacco working 64,477 48,919 43.1
Clothes-making, etc. 279,978 440,870 61.2

To these must be added 2,248,909 women engaged in agriculture, 1,282,400
female servants, also school teachers, artists, Government office-holders,
etc.
According to the census of occupations for 1875-1882, the following was
the result. There were employed in industrial occupations in the German
Empire:—

Total Total Persons Employed.
In the Small In the Large
Persons Employed.
Trades. Trades.
Year. Males. Females. Males. Females. Males. Females.
1875 5,463,856 1,116,095 3,453,357 705,874 2,010,499 410,221
1882 5,815,039 1,506,743 3,487,073 989,422 2,327,966 514,321
————————— ————————— ————————— ——————— ————————— ———————
Increase
351,183 390,648 33,716 283,548 317,966 107,100
in 1882
or 6.4 or 35 or 1 or 40.2 or 15.8 or 26.1

per per per per per
per cent.
cent. cent. cent. cent. cent.

According to these figures, not only did female labor increase by 35 per
cent. during the period of 1875-1882, while male labor increased only by
6.4 per cent., but the great increase of female labor, especially in small
industries, tells the tale that only by dint of a strong application of female
labor, with its correspondingly low wages, can small production keep itself
afloat, for a while.
In 1882, there were to every 1,000 persons engaged in industry 176 women;
in commerce and transportation, 190; in agriculture, 312.
In 1892, the number of women, employed in the factories of Germany, were
of the following ages:

Number
Age. Employed.
12-14 3,897
14-16 68,735
16-21 223,538
Over 21 337,499
Besides (for Reuss younger line without designation
6,197
of ages)
———————
639,866

In the Kingdom of Saxony, notedly the most industrial portion of Germany,
the number of working-women employed in the factories was:—

Year. 16 Years and Over. 12 to 16.
1883 72,716 8,477
1892 110,555 13,333
——————— ——————
Increase 37,839 4,856
52 per cent. 57 per cent.

As a result of the new factory regulations, which limited the hours of
female labor, between the ages of 14 to 16, to 10 a day, and wholly forbade
factory work to children of school age, the number of working-women

between the ages of 14 to 16 sank to 6,763, and of girls between the ages of
12 to 14, sank by 6,334. The strongest increase in the number of working-
women, as far as we are informed, took place in the tobacco industry of
Baden. According to the reports of the Baden Factory Inspector, Dr.
Woerishoffer, the number of persons engaged in the said industry and their
subdivisions by sexes; was as follows:

Total Number
Year. Employed. Males. Females.
1882 12,192 5,193 6,999
1892 24,056 7,932 16,124
——————— —————— ——————
Increase 11,864 2,739 9,125
or 52.8 or 130
per cent. per cent.

This increase in the number of female tobacco workers, denotes the
sharpening competitive struggle, that has developed during the last ten
years in the German tobacco as well as many other industries, and which
compels the ever intenser engagement of the cheaper labor of woman.
And, as in the rest of Germany, so likewise in Baden the industrial
development in general shows a larger increase of female than of male
workers. Within a year, it recorded the following changes:—

Year. Males. Females.
1892 79,218 35,598
1893 84,470 38,557
—————— ——————
Increase 5,252 2,959
or 6.6 or 8.3
per cent. per cent.

Of the working-women over 16 years of age, 28.27 were married. In the
large ammunition factory at Spandau, there were, in 1893, 3,000 women out
of a total of 3,700 employes.
As in England, in Germany also, female labor is paid worse than male.
According to the report of the Leipsic Chamber of Commerce for the year

1888, the weekly wage for equal hours were:—

Males. Females.
Industries. Marks. Marks.
Lace manufacture 20 —35 7 —15
Cloth glove manufacture 12 —30 6 —25
Linen and jute weaving 12 —27 5 —10
Wool-carding 15 —27 7.20—10.20
Sugar refinery 10.50—31 7.50—10
Leather and leather goods 12 —28 7 —18
Chemicals 8.50—25 7.50—10
Rubber fabrics 9 —28 6 —17
One factory of paper lanterns 16 —22 7.50—10

In an investigation of the wages earned by the factory hands of Mannheim
in 1893, Dr. Woerishoffer divided the weekly earnings into three classes:
one, the lowest, in which the wages reached 15 marks; one from 15 to 24;
and the last and highest in which wages exceeded 24 marks. According to
this subdivision, wages in Mannheim presented the following picture:—

Low. Medium. High.
Both sexes 29.8 per cent. 49.8 per cent. 20.4 per cent.
Males 20.9 per cent. 56.2 per cent. 22.9 per cent.
Females 99.2 per cent. 0.7 per cent. 0.1 per cent.

The working-women earned mostly veritable starvation wages. They
received per week:—

Percentage
Marks. of Females.
Under 5 4.62
5— 6 5.47
6— 8 43.96
8—10 27.45
10—12 12.38
12—15 5.38
Over 15 0.74

In the Thüringer Wald district, in 1891, the workingmen engaged in the
slate works received 2.10 marks a day; the women 0.70. In the spinning
establishments, the men received 2 marks, the women from 0.90 to 1 mark.
Worst of all are the earnings in the tenement industry, for men as well as for
women, but for the women it is still more miserable than for the men. In
this branch, hours of work are unlimited; when the season is on, they
transcend imagination. Furthermore, it is here that the sweating system is
generally in vogue, i. e., work given out by middlemen (contractors) who,
in recompense for their irksome labor of superintendence, keep to
themselves a large part of the wages paid by the principal. Under this
system, women are also expected to submit to indignities of other nature.
How miserably female labor is paid in the tenement industries, the
following figures on Berlin conditions may indicate. Men's colored shirts,
paid for in 1889 with from 2 marks to 2.50, the employer got in 1893 for 1
mark 50 pfennig. A seamstress of average skill must work from early till
late if she means to make from 6 to 8 of these shirts. Her earnings for the
week are 4 or 5 marks. An apron-maker earns from 2 marks 50 pfennig to 5
marks a week; a necktie-maker, 5 to 6 marks; a skilled blouse-maker, 6
marks; a very skilled female operator on boys' clothing, 8 to 9 marks; an
expert jacket-maker, 5 to 6 marks. A very swift seamstress on men's shirts
may, in the good season, and working from 5 in the morning to 10 at night,
make as much as 12 marks. Millinery workers, who can copy patterns
independently, make 30 marks a month. Quick trimmers, with years of
experience, earn from 50 to 60 marks a month during the season. The
season usually lasts five months. An umbrella-maker, working twelve hours
a day, makes 6 to 7 marks. Such starvation wages force the working-women
into prostitution: even with the very plainest wants, no working-women can
live in Berlin on less than 8 or 9 marks a week.
According to a statistical report on wages, ordered by the Chamber of
Commerce of Reichenberg for its own district, 91 per cent. of all the
working-women came under the wage category of from 2 to 5 guilders a
week. Upon the enforcement in Austria of the law on sick insurance, the
authorities discovered that in 116 districts (21.6 per cent. of all) the
working-women earned at most 30 kreuzer a day, 90 guilders a year; and in
428 districts (78.4 per cent. of the total) from 30 to 50 kreuzer, or from 90

to 150 guilders a year. The young working-women, under 16 years of age,
earned in 173 districts (30.9 per cent.) 20 kreuzer a day at the most, or at the
most 60 guilders a year; and in 387 districts (69.1 per cent.) from 20 to 30
kreuzer, or from 60 to 90 guilders a year.
Similar differences between the wages of male and female labor exist in all
countries on earth. According to the report on Russian industry at the
Chicago Exposition in 1893, a workingman made in cotton weaving 66
marks a month, a working-woman 18; a male cotton spinner 66 marks, a
female 14. In the lace industry men earned up to 130 marks, women 26; in
cloth manufacture, with the power loom, a working man made 90 marks, a
working-woman 26 a month.
These facts show that woman is increasingly torn from family life by
modern developments. Marriage and the family, in the bourgeois sense, are
undermined by this development, and dissolved. From the view point
afforded by this fact also, it is an absurdity to direct women to a domestic
life. That can be done only by such people, who thoughtlessly walk the path
of life; who fail to see the facts that shape themselves all around, or do not
wish to see them, because they have an interest in plying the trade of
optimism. Facts furnish a very different picture from that presented by such
gentlemen.
In a large number of industries women are employed exclusively; in a larger
number they constitute the majority; and in most of the others women are
more or less numerously found. Their number steadily increases, and they
crowd into ever newer occupations, that they had not previously engaged in.
Finally, the working-woman is not merely paid worse than the working
man; where she does as much as a man, her hours are, on an average,
longer.
The German factory ordinances of the year 1891 fixed a maximum of
eleven hours for adult working-women. The same is, however, broken
through by a mass of exceptions that the authorities are allowed to make.
Nightwork also is forbidden for working-women in factories, but here also
the Government can make exceptions in favor of factories where work is
continuous, or for special seasons; in sugar refineries, for instance. German
legislation has not yet been able to rise to the height of really effective

measures for the protection of working-women; consequently, these are
exploited by inhumanly long hours, and physically wrecked in the small
factories, especially in the tenement house industry. Their exploitation is
made all the easier to the employer through the circumstance that, until
now, a small minority excepted, the women have not realized that, the same
as the men, they must organize in their trades, and, there where also men
are employed, they must organize jointly with them, in order to conquer for
themselves better conditions of work. The ever stronger influx of women in
industrial pursuits affects, however, not those occupations only that their
correspondingly weaker physique especially fits them for, but it affects also
all occupations in which the modern system of exploitation believes it can,
with their aid, knock off larger profits. Under this latter head belong both
the physically exhausting and the most disagreeable and dangerous
occupations. Thus the fantastic pretence of seeing in woman only a tender,
finely-strung being, such as poets and writers of fiction love to depict for
the delectation of men, a being, that, if it exists at all exists only as an
exception, is again reduced to its true value.
Facts are obstinate things, and it is only they that concern us. They alone
preserve us from false conclusions, and sentimental twaddle. These facts
teach us that to-day we find women engaged in the following occupations,
among others:—in cotton, linen and woolen weaving; in cloth and flannel
making; in mechanical spinning, calico printing and dyeing; in steel pen
and pin making; in the preparation of sugar, chocolate and cocoa; in
manufacturing paper and bronzes; in making glass and porcelain and in
glass painting; in the manufacture of faience, majolica and earthen ware; in
making ink and preparing paints; making twine and paper bags; in
preparing hops and manure and chemical disinfectants; in spinning and
weaving silk and ribbons; in making soap, candles and rubber goods; in
wadding and mat making; in carpet weaving; portfolio and cardboard
making; in making lace and trimmings, and embroidering; making wall-
paper, shoes and leather goods; in refining oil and lard and preparing
chemicals of all sorts; in making jewelry and galvanoplastic goods; in the
preparation of rags and refuse and bast; in wood carving, xylography and
stone coloring; in straw hat making and cleaning; in making crockery,
cigars and tobacco products; in making lime and gelatine fabrics; in making
shoes; in furriery; in hat making; in making toys; in the flax, shoddy and

hair industries; in watchmaking and housepainting; in the making of spring
beds, pencils and wafers; in making looking-glasses, matches and
gunpowder preparations; in dipping phosphorus match-sticks and preparing
arsenic; in the tinning of iron; in the delicacy trade; in book printing and
composition; in the preparation of precious stones; in lithography,
photography, chromo-lithography and metachromotype, and also in the
founding of types; in tile making, iron founding and in the preparation of
metals generally; in the construction of houses and railroads; in electrical
works; in book-binding, wood-carving and joining; in the making of
footwear and clothing; file making; the making of knives and brass goods;
in manufacturing combs, buttons, gold thread and gas implements; in the
making of tanned goods and trunks; in making starch and chicory
preparations; in metallurgy, wood-planing, umbrella making and fish
manufacturing; the preservation of fruit, vegetables and meat; in the making
of china buttons and fur goods; in mining above ground—in Belgium also
underground after the women are 21 years old; in the natural oil and wax
production; in slate making and stone breaking; in marble and granite
polishing; in making cement; the transportation of barges and canal boats.
Also in the wide field of horticulture, agriculture and cattle-breeding, and
all that is therewith connected. Lastly, in the various industries in which
they have long been considered to have the right of way: in the making of
linen and woman's clothing, in the several branches of fashion, also as
saleswomen, and more recently as clerks, teachers, kindergarten trainers,
writers, artists of all sorts. Thousands upon thousands of women of the
middle class are being utilized as slaves in the shops and in the markets, and
are thereby withdrawn from all domestic functions, the training of children
in particular. Finally, there is one occupation to be mentioned, in which
young, especially pretty, girls are ever more in demand, to the great injury
of their physical and moral development: it is the occupation in public
resorts of all sorts as bar-maids, singers, dancers, etc., to attract men in
quest of pleasure. This is a field in which impropriety runs riot, and the
holders of white slaves lead the wildest orgies.
Among the occupations mentioned, not a few are most dangerous.
Dangerous, for instance, are the sulphuric and alkaline gases in the
manufacturing and cleaning of straw hats; so is the inhalation of chlorine
gases in the bleaching of vegetable materials; the danger of poisoning is

imminent in the manufacture of colored paper, colored wafers and artificial
flowers; in the preparation of metachromotype, poisons and chemicals; in
the painting of leaden soldiers and leaden toys. The on-laying of looking-
glasses with quicksilver is simply deadly to the fruit of pregnant women. If,
of the live-births in Prussia, 22 per cent. on an average die during the first
year, there die, according to Dr. Hirt, 65 per cent. of the live-births of
female on-layers of quicksilver, 55 per cent. of those of female glass-
polishers, 40 per cent. of those of female lead-makers. In 1890, out of 78
lying-in women, who had been occupied in the type foundries of the district
of Wiesbaden, only 37 had a normal delivery. Furthermore, according to Dr.
Hirt, the manufacture of colored paper and artificial flowers, the so-called
powdering of Brussels lace with white lead, the preparation of
decalcomania pictures, the on-laying of mirrors, the manufacture of rubber
goods, in short, all occupations at which the working-women are exposed to
the inhalation of carbonic acid gases, are especially dangerous from the
second half of pregnancy onward. Highly dangerous is also the manufacture
of phosphorus matches and work in the shoddy mills. According to the
report of the Baden Trades Inspector for 1893, the yearly average of
premature births with women engaged in industry rose from 1,039 in the
years 1882-1886, to 1,244 in the years 1887-1891. The number of births
that had to be aided by an operation averaged for the period of 1882-1886
the figures of 1,118 a year, and for the period of 1886-1891 it averaged
1,385. Facts much graver than any of these would come to light if similar
investigations were held also in the more industrially developed countries
and provinces of Germany. As a rule the Inspectors are satisfied with stating
in their reports: "No specially injurious effects were discovered in the
employment of women in the factories." How could they discover any, with
their short visits and without drawing upon medical advice? That,
moreover, there are great dangers to life and limb, especially in the textile
industry, in the manufacture of explosives and in work with agricultural
machinery, is an established fact. Even a glance at the above and quite
incomplete list will tell every reader that a large number of these
occupations are among the hardest and most exhausting even to men. Let
people say as they please, this work or that is not suitable for woman; what
boots the objection if no other and more suitable occupation is furnished
her?

Among the branches of industry, or special occupations in the same, that Dr.
Hirt[127] considers girls should not be at all employed in, by reason of the
danger to health, especially with an eye to their sexual functions, are: The
preparation of bronze colors, of velvet and glazed paper, hat making, glass
grinding, lithography, flax combing, horsehair twisting, fustian pulling, iron
tinning, and work in the flax and shoddy mill.
In the following trades, young girls should be occupied only when the
necessary protective measures (ventilation, etc.) are properly provided for:
The manufacture of paper matting, china ware, lead pencils, shot lead,
etherial oils, alum, blood-lye, bromium, chinin, soda, paraffin and
ultramarine (poisonous) colored paper, wafers that contain poison,
metachromotypes, phosphorous matches, Schweinfurt green and artificial
flowers. Also in the cutting and sorting of rags, sorting and coloring of
tobacco leaf, cotton beating, wool and silk carding, cleaning of bed feathers,
sorting pencil hairs, washing (sulphur) straw hats, vulcanizing and melting
rubber, coloring and printing calico, painting lead soldiers, packing snuff,
wire netting, on-laying of mirrors, grinding needles and steel pens.
Truly, it is no inspiring sight to see women, and even pregnant ones, at the
construction of railroads, pushing heavily laden wheelbarrows in
competition with men; or to watch them as helpers, mixing mortar and
cement or carrying heavy loads of stone at the construction of houses; or in
the coal pits and iron works. All that is womanly is thereby rubbed off from
woman, her womanliness is trodden under foot, the same as, conversely, all
manly attributes are stripped from the men in hundreds of other
occupations. Such are the sequels of social exploitation and of social war.
Our corrupt social conditions turn things topsy-turvy.
It is, accordingly, easy to understand that, considering the extent to which
female labor now prevails, and threatens to make still further inroads in all
fields of productive activity, the men, highly interested in the development,
look on with eyes far from friendly, and that here and there the demand is
heard for the suppression of female labor and its prohibition by law.
Unquestionably, with the extension of female labor, the family life of the
working class goes ever more to pieces, the dissolution of marriage and the
family is a natural result, and immorality, demoralization, degeneration,
diseases of all natures and child mortality increase at a shocking pace.

According to the statistics of population of the Kingdom of Saxony, child
mortality has greatly increased in all those cities that became genuine
manufacturing places during the last 25 or 30 years. During the period
1880-1885 there died in the cities of Saxony, on an average, 28.5 per cent.
of the live-births during the first year of life. In the period of 1886-1890,
45.0 of the live-births died in Ernsthal during the first year of their lives,
44.5 in Stolling, 40.4 in Zschopau, 38.9 in Lichtenstein, 38.3 in Thum, 38.2
in Meerane, 37.7 in Crimmitschau, 37.2 in Burgstaedt, 37.1 in Werdau, 36.5
in Ehrenfriedersdorf, 35.8 in Chemnitz, 35.5 in Frankenberg, 35.2 in
Buchholz, 35.1 in Schneeberg, 34.7 in Lunzenau, 34.6 in Hartha, 34.5 in
Geithaim, etc.[128] Worse yet stood things in the majority of the large
factory villages, quite a number of whom registered a mortality of 40 to 50
per cent. Yet, all this notwithstanding, the social development, productive of
such sad results, is progress,—precisely such progress as the freedom to
choose a trade, freedom of emigration, freedom to marry, and the removal
of all other barriers, thus promoting the development of capitalism on a
large scale, but thereby also giving the death-blow to the middle class and
preparing its downfall.
The working class is not inclined to help the small producer, should he
attempt the re-establishment of restrictions to the freedom to choose a trade
and of emigration, or the restoration of the guild and corporation
restrictions, contemplated with the end in view of artificially keeping
dwarf-production alive for a little while longer,—more than that is beyond
their power. As little is a return possible to the former state of things with
regard to female labor, but that does not exclude stringent laws for the
prevention of the excessive exploitation of female and child labor, and of
children of school age. In this the interests of the working class coincides
with the interests of the State, of humanity, in general, and of civilization.
When we see the State compelled to lower the minimum requirements for
military service—as happened several times during the last decades, the last
time in 1893, when the army was to be further increased—and we see such
lowering of the minimum requirements resorted to for the reason that, as a
result of degenerating effects of our economic system, the number of young
men unfit for military service becomes ever larger,—when we see that,
then, forsooth, all are interested in protective measures. The ultimate aim
must be to remove the ills, that progress—such as machinery, improved

means of production and the whole modern system of labor—has called
forth, while at the same time causing the enormous advantages, that such
progress is instinct with for man, and the still greater advantages it is
capable of, to accrue in full measure to all the members of society, by
means of a corresponding organization of human labor.[129]
It is an absurdity and a crying wrong that the improvements and conquests
of civilization—the collective product of all—accrue to the benefit of those
alone who, in virtue of their material power, are able to appropriate them to
themselves, while, on the other hand, thousands of diligent workingmen are
assailed with fear and worry when they learn that human genius has made
yet another invention able to multiply many fold the product of manual
labor, and thereby opening to them the prospect of being thrown as useless
and superfluous upon the sidewalks. Thus, that which should be greeted
with universal joy becomes an object of hostility, that in former years
occasioned the storming of many a factory and the demolition of many a
new machine. A similar hostile feeling exists to-day between man and
woman as workers. This feeling also is unnatural. The point, consequently,
is to seek to establish a social condition in which the full equality of all
without distinction of sex shall be the norm of conduct.
The feat is feasible—the moment all the means of production become the
property of society; when collective labor, by the application of all technical
and scientific advantages and aids in the process of production, reaches the
highest degree of fertility; and when the obligation lies upon all, capable of
work, to furnish a certain measure of labor to society, necessary for the
satisfaction of social wants, in exchange whereof society guarantees to each
and all the means requisite for the development of his faculties and for the
enjoyment of life.
Woman shall be like man, a productive and useful member of society,
equal-righted with him. Precisely like man, she shall be placed in position
to fully develop all her physical and mental faculties, to fulfil her duties,
and to exercise her rights. A free being and the peer of man, she is safe
against degradation.
We shall point out how modern developments in society run out into such a
state of things, and that it is these very crass and monstrous ills in modern

development that compel the establishment of the New Order.
Although the development of the position of woman, as above
characterized, is palpable, is tangible to the sight of all who have eyes to
see, the twaddle about the "natural calling" of woman is heard daily,
assigning her to domestic duties and the family. The phrase is heard loudest
there where woman endeavors to penetrate into the sphere of the so-called
higher professions, as for instance, the higher departments of instruction
and of the civil service, the medical or legal careers, and the pursuit of the
natural sciences. The most laughable and absurd objections are fetched up,
and are defended with the air of "learning." Gentlemen, who pass for
learned, appeal, in this as in so many other things, to science in order to
defend the most absurd and untenable propositions. Their chief trump card
is that woman is inferior to man in mental powers and that it is folly to
believe she could achieve aught of importance in the intellectual field.
These objections, raised by the "learned," fit so well with the general
prejudices entertained by men on the calling and faculties of woman that,
whoever makes use of them can count upon the applause of the majority.
New ideas will ever meet with stubborn opposition so long as general
culture and knowledge continue at so low an ebb as at present, especially if
it lies in the interest of the ruling classes to confine culture and knowledge
as much as possible to their own ranks. Hence new ideas will at the start
win over but a small minority, and this will be scoffed at, maligned and
persecuted. But if these new ideas are good and sound, if they are born as
the necessary consequence of existing conditions, then will they spread, and
the one-time minority finally becomes a majority. So has it been with all
new ideas in the course of history: the idea of establishing the complete
emancipation of woman presents the same experience.
Were not one time the believers in Christianity a small minority? Did not
the Protestant Reformers and modern bourgeoisdom once face
overpowering adversaries? And yet they triumphed. Was the Social
Democracy crippled because gagged and pinioned by exclusion laws, so
that it could not budge? Never was its triumph more assured than when it
was thought to have been killed. The Social Democracy overcame the
exclusion laws; it will overcome quite other obstacles besides.

The claim regarding the "natural calling of woman," according whereto she
should be housekeeper and nurse, is as unfounded as the claim that there
will ever be kings because, since the start of history, there have been such
somewhere. We know not where the first king sprang up, as little as we
know where the first capitalist stepped upon the scene. This, however, we
do know: Kingship has undergone material changes in the course of the
centuries, and the tendency of development is to strip it ever more of its
powers, until a time comes, no longer far away, when it will be found
wholly superfluous. As with the kingship, so with all other social and
political institutions; they are all subject to continuous changes and
transformations, and to final and complete decay. We have seen, in the
course of the preceding historic sketch, that the form of marriage, in force
to-day, like the position of woman, was by no means such "eternally"; that,
on the contrary, both were the product of a long process of development,
which has by no means reached its acme, and can reach it only in the future.
If 2,400 or 2,300 years ago Demosthenes could designate the "bringing
forth of legitimate children and officiating as a faithful warder of the house"
as the only occupation of woman, to-day we have traveled past that point.
Who, to-day, would dare uphold such a position of woman as "natural"
without exposing himself to the charge of belittling her? True enough, there
are even to-day such sots, who share in silence the views of the old
Athenian; but none dare proclaim publicly that which 2,300 years ago one
of the most eminent orators dared proclaim frankly and openly as natural.
Therein lies the great advance made.
If, on the one hand, modern development, especially in industrial life, has
wrecked millions of marriages, it, on the other hand, promoted favorably
the development itself of marriage. Only a few decades ago, and it was a
matter of course in every citizen's or peasant's house not only that woman
sewed, knitted and washed—although even this has now extensively gone
out of fashion—but she also baked the bread, spun, wove, bleached, brewed
beer, boiled soap, made candles. To have a piece of wearing apparel made
out of the house was looked upon as unutterable waste. Water-pipes,
gaslight, gas and oil cooking ranges—to say nothing of the respective
electric improvements—together with numberless others, were wholly
unknown to the women of former times. Antiquated conditions exist even
to-day, but they are the exception. The majority of women have

discontinued many an occupation, formerly considered of course, the same
being attended to in factory and shop better, more expeditiously and
cheaper than the housewife could, whence, at least in the cities, all domestic
requirements for them are wanting. Thus, in the period of a few decades, a
great revolution for them has been accomplished within our family life, and
we pay so little attention to the fact because we consider it a matter of
course. Phenomena, that develop, so to speak, under the very eyes of man,
are not noticed by him, unless they appear suddenly and disturb the even
tenor of events. He bristles up, however, against new ideas that threaten to
lead him out of the accustomed ruts.
The revolution thus accomplished in our domestic life, and that progresses
ever further, has altered the position of woman in the family, in other
directions besides. Woman has become freer, more independent. Our
grandmothers, if they were honest masters' wives, would not have dared,
and, indeed the thought never crossed their minds, to keep their working
people and apprentices from the table, and visiting, instead, the theatres,
concerts and pleasure resorts, by day at that. Which of those good old
women dared think of occupying her mind with public affairs, as is now
done by many women? To-day they start societies for all manner of objects,
establish papers, call conventions. As working-women they assemble in
trades unions, they attend the meetings and join the organizations of men,
and here and there—we are speaking of Germany—they have had the right
of electing boards of labor arbitration, a right that the backward majority of
the Reichstag took away again from them in the year of grace one thousand
eight hundred and ninety.
What sot would seek to annul the changes just described, although the fact
is not to be gainsaid that, there are also dark sides to the bright sides of the
picture, consequent upon our seething and decaying conditions? The bright
sides, however, predominate. Women themselves, however conservative
they are as a body, have no inclination to return to the old, narrow,
patriarchal conditions of former times.
In the United States society still stands, true enough, on bourgeois
foundations; but it is forced to wrestle neither with old European prejudices
nor with institutions that have survived their day. As a consequence
American society is far readier to adopt new ideas and institutions that

promise advantage. For some time the position of woman has been looked
upon from a viewpoint different than ours. There, for instance, the idea has
long taken hold that it is not merely troublesome and improper, but not even
profitable to the purse, for the wife to bake bread and brew beer, but that it
is unnecessary for her to cook in her own kitchen. The private kitchen is
supplanted by co-operative cooking, with a large central kitchen and
machinery. The women attend to the work by turns, and the meals generally
come out cheaper, taste better, offer a greater variety, and give much less
trouble. Our army officers, who are not decried as Socialists and
Communists, act on a similar plan. They establish in their casinos a co-
operative kitchen; appoint a steward, who attends to the supply of victuals
on a large scale; the bill of fare is arranged in common; and the food is
prepared in the steam kitchen of the barracks. They live much cheaper than
in a hotel, and fare at least as well. Furthermore, thousands of the rich
families live the whole year, or part of the year, in boarding-houses or
hotels, without in any way missing the private kitchen. On the contrary,
they consider it a great convenience to be rid of it. The aversion of
especially well-to-do women towards all matters connected with the kitchen
does not seem to indicate that this function either belongs to the category of
the "natural calling" of woman. On the contrary, the circumstance that
princely and other prominent families do like the hotels, and all of them
engage male cooks for the preparation of their food, would rather indicate
that cooking is a male occupation.—All of which is stated for the benefit of
those people who are unable to picture to themselves a woman not
brandishing a kitchen ladle.
It is but a step to set up, beside the central kitchen, also the central laundry
and corresponding steaming arrangements for public use—as already
established in all large cities by rich private persons or speculators, and
found highly profitable. With the central kitchen may also be connected
central heating, warm water along with cold water pipes, whereby a number
of bothersome and time-consuming labors are done away with. Large
hotels, many private houses, hospitals, schools, barracks, etc., have now
these and many other such arrangements, such as electric light and baths.
The only fault to find is that only public establishments and the well-to-do
classes enjoy these advantages. Placed within the reach of all, an enormous
amount of time, trouble, labor and material could be saved, and the standard

of life and the well-being of all raised considerably. In the summer of 1890,
the papers published a description of the progress made in the United States
in the matter of centralized heating and ventilation. It was there stated:
"The recent attempts, made especially in North America, to effect the
heating of whole blocks of houses or city wards from one place have to
record no slight success. From the constructive point of view, they have
been carried out so carefully and effectively that, in view of the favorable
results and the financial advantages which they offer, their further extension
may be confidently expected. More recently the attempt is being made to
furnish from central locations not heat alone, but also fresh air, either warm
or cool, to certain extensive but not too wide areas of the city. These plans
are found in execution in the so-called Timby System, which, according to
the central organ of the Department of Buildings, gathered from a report of
the technical attaché in Washington, Government Architect Petri, has
recently been thoroughly explained in Washington by the 'National Heating
and Ventilating Company.' The said company originally planned to supply
50,000 people from one place. The difficulties presented by the requisite
speed of transit and the size of the pneumatic machines, have, however,
caused a limitation to 0.8 kilometers, and in instances of specially closely
built business quarters, the building of a special central power place."
What was then only projected, has since been in great part executed.
Philistine narrowness in Germany lives to shrug its shoulders at these and
such like schemes, although in Germany also we find ourselves just now in
the midst of one of those technical revolutions, that render the private
kitchen, together with a number of other occupations, hitherto appertaining
to the household, as superfluous as handicraft has been rendered by
machinery and modern technique. In the early days of the nineteenth
century, Napoleon pronounced insane the idea of constructing a ship that
could be set in motion by steam. The idea of building a railroad was
declared silly by many folks who passed for sensible: nobody, it was
argued, could remain alive on such a conveyance: the rapidity of motion
would deprive the passengers of breath. Identical treatment is to-day
accorded to a number of new ideas. He who sixty years ago would have
made to our women the proposition of replacing the carrying of water with
water-pipes, would have been exposed to the charge of trying to lead
women and servants into idleness.

Nevertheless the great revolution in technique is in full march on all fields;
nothing can any longer hold it back; and bourgeois society, having conjured
the same into life, has the historic mission of also carrying the revolution to
perfection, and to promote on all fields the budding of the germs for radical
transformations, which a social order, built on new foundations, would only
have to generalize on a large scale, and make common property.
The trend, accordingly, of our social life is not to banish woman back to the
house and the hearth, as our "domestic life" fanatics prescribe, and after
which they lust, like the Jews in the Desert after the fleshpots of Egypt. On
the contrary, the whole trend of society is to lead woman out of the narrow
sphere of strictly domestic life to a full participation in the public life of the
people—a designation that will not then cover the male sex only—and in
the task of human civilization. Laveleye fully recognized this when he
wrote:[130] "In the measure that what we are in the habit of designating as
civilization advances, the sentiments of piety and the family bonds weaken,
and they exercise a decreasing influence upon the actions of men. This fact
is so general that a law of social development may be recognized therein."
Not only has the position of woman changed, but also the relation of son
and daughter to the family, who have gradually attained a degree of
independence unknown in former days,—a fact noticeable especially in the
United States, where the self-dependent and independent education of the
individual is carried on much further than with us. The dark sides that to-
day accompany also this form of development, are not necessarily
connected with it; they lie in the social conditions of our times. Capitalist
society evokes no beneficent phenomenon unaccompanied with a dark side:
as Fourier long ago pointed out with great perspicacity, capitalist society is
in all its progressive steps double-faced and ambiguous.
With Laveleye, Schaeffle also detects in the changed character of the family
of our days the effect of social development. He says:[131] "It is true that the
tendency described in Chapter II, to reduce and limit the family to its
specific functions is traceable throughout history. The family relinquishes
one provisional and temporary function after the other. In so far as it
officiated only in a surrogate and gap-filling capacity it makes way to
independent institutions for law, order, authority, divine service, education,
technique, etc., as soon as these institutions take shape."

Women are pressing even further, though as yet only in a minority, and only
a fraction of these with clear aims. They aspire to measure their power with
men, not on the industrial field alone; they aspire not only after a freer and
more independent position in the family; they also aspire at turning their
mental faculties to the higher walks of life. The favorite objection raised
against them is that they are not fit for such pursuits, not being intended
therefor by Nature. The question of engaging in the higher professional
occupations concerns at present only a small number of women in modern
society; it is, however, important in point of principle. The large majority of
men believe in all seriousness that, mentally as well, woman must ever
remain subordinate to them, and, hence, has no right to equality. They are,
accordingly, the most determined opponents of woman's aspirations.
The self-same men, who raise no objection whatever to the employment of
woman in occupations, many of which are very exhausting, often
dangerous, threaten the impairment of her feminine physique and violently
compel her to sin against her duties as a mother,—these self-same men
would exclude her from pursuits in which these obstacles and dangers are
much slighter, and which are much better suited to her delicate frame.
Among the learned men, who in Germany want to hear nothing of the
admission of women to the higher studies, or who will yield only a
qualified assent, and express themselves publicly on the subject are Prof. L.
Bischoff, Dr. Ludwig Hirt, Prof. H. Sybel, L. von Buerenbach, Dr. E. Reich,
and many others. Notedly has the livelier agitation, recently set on foot, for
the admission of women to the Universities, incited a strong opposition
against the plan in Germany. The opposition is mainly directed against
woman's qualifications for the study of medicine. Among the opponents are
found Pochhammer, Fehling, S. Binder, Waldeyer, Hegar, etc. Von
Buerenbach is of the opinion that both the admission to and the fitness of
woman for science can be disposed of with the argument that, until now, no
genius has arisen among woman, and hence woman is manifestly unfit for
philosophic studies. It seems the world has had quite enough of its male
philosophers: it can, without injury to itself, well afford to dispense with
female. Neither does the objection that the female sex has never yet
produced a genius seem to us either to hold water, or to have the weight of a
demonstration. Geniuses do not drop down from the skies; they must have
opportunity to form and mature. This opportunity woman has lacked until

now, as amply shown by our short historic sketch. For thousands of years
she has been oppressed, and she has been deprived or stunted in the
opportunity and possibility to unfold her mental faculties. It is as false to
reason that the female sex is bereft of genius, by denying all spark of genius
to the tolerably large number of great women, as it would be to maintain
that there were no geniuses among the male sex other than the few who are
considered such. Every village schoolmaster knows what a mass of
aptitudes among his pupils never reach full growth, because the possibilities
for their development are absent. Aye, there is not one, who, in his walk
through life, has not become acquainted, some with more, others with fewer
persons of whom it had to be said that, had they been able to mature under
more favorable circumstances, they would have been ornaments to society,
and men of genius. Unquestionably the number of men of talent and of
genius is by far larger among the male sex than those that, until now, have
been able to reveal themselves: social conditions did not allow the others to
develop. Precisely so with the faculties of the female sex, a sex that for
centuries has been held under, hampered and crippled, far worse than any
other subject beings. We have absolutely no measure to-day by which to
gauge the fullness of mental powers and faculties that will develop among
men and women so soon as they shall be able to unfold amid natural
conditions.
It is with mankind as in the vegetable kingdom. Millions of valuable seeds
never reach development because the ground on which they fall is
unfavorable, or is taken up by weeds that rob the young and better plant of
air, light and nourishment. The same laws of Nature hold good in human
life. If a gardener or planter sought to maintain with regard to a given plant
that it could not grow, although he made no trial, perhaps even hindered its
growth by wrong treatment, such a man would be pronounced a fool by all
his intelligent neighbors. Nor would he fare any better if he declined to
cross one of his female domestic animals with, a male of higher breed, to
the end of producing a better animal.
There is no peasant in Germany to-day so ignorant as not to understand the
advantage of such treatment of his trees or animals—provided always his
means allow him to introduce the better method. Only with regard to human
beings do even men of learning deny the force of that which with regard to
all other matters, they consider an established law. And yet every one, even

without being a naturalist, can make instructive observations in life.
Whence comes it that the children of peasants differ from city children? It
comes from the difference in their conditions of life and education.
The one-sidedness, inherent in the education for one calling, stamps man
with a peculiar character. A clergyman or a schoolmaster is generally and
easily recognized by his carriage and mien; likewise an officer, even when
in civilian dress. A shoe maker is easily told from a tailor, a joiner from a
locksmith. Twin brothers, who closely resembled each other in youth, show
in later years marked differences if their occupations are different, if one
had hard manual work, for instance, as a smith, the other the study of
philosophy for his duty. Heredity, on one side, adaptation on the other, play
in the development of man, as well as of animals, a decisive role. Indeed,
man is the most bending and pliable of all creatures. A few years of changed
life and occupation often suffice to make quite a different being out of the
same man. Nowhere does rapid external change show itself more strikingly
than when a person is transferred from poor and reduced, to materially
improved circumstances. It is in his mental make-up that such a person will
be least able to deny his antecedents, but that is due to the circumstance
that, with most of such people, after they have reached a certain age, the
desire for intellectual improvement is rarely felt; neither do they need it.
Such an upstart rarely suffers under this defect. In our days, that look to
money and material means, people are far readier to bow before the man
with a large purse, than before a man of knowledge and great intellectual
gifts, especially if he has the misfortune of being poor and rankless.
Instances of this sort are furnished every day. The worship of the golden
calf stood in no age higher than in this,—whence it comes that we are living
"in the best possible world."
The strongest evidence of the effect exercised upon man by radically
different conditions of life is furnished in our several industrial centers. In
these centers employer and employe present externally such a contrast as if
they belonged to different races. Although accustomed to the contrast, it
struck us almost with the shock of a surprise on the occasion of a campaign
mass meeting, that we addressed in the winter of 1877 in an industrial town
of the Erzgebirge region. The meeting, at which a debate was to be held
between a liberal professor and ourselves, was so arranged that both sides
were equally represented. The front part of the hall was taken by our

opponents,—almost without exception, healthy, strong, often large figures;
in the rear of the hall and in the galleries stood workingmen and small
tradesmen, nine-tenths of the former weavers,—mostly short, thin, shallow-
chested, pale-faced figures, with whom worry and want looked out at every
pore. One set represented the full-stomached virtue and solvent morality of
bourgeois society; the other set, the working bees and beasts of burden, on
the product of whose labor the gentlemen made so fine an appearance. Let
both be placed for one generation under equally favorable conditions, and
the contrast will vanish with most; it certainly is blotted out in their
descendants.
It is also evident that, in general, it is harder to determine the social
standing of women than of men. Women adapt themselves more readily to
new conditions; they acquire higher manners more quickly. Their power of
accommodation is greater than that of more clumsy man.
What to a plant are good soil, light and air, are to man healthy social
conditions, that allow him to unfold his powers. The well known saying:
"Man is what he eats," expresses the same thought, although somewhat one-
sidedly: The question is not merely what man eats; it embraces his whole
social posture, the social atmosphere in which he moves, that promotes or
stunts his physical and mental development, that affects, favorably or
unfavorably, his sense of feeling, of thought, and of action. Every day we
see people, situated in favorable material conditions, going physically and
morally to wreck, simply because, beyond the narrower sphere of their own
domestic or personal surroundings, unfavorable circumstances of a social
nature operate upon them, and gain such overpowering ascendency that
they switch them on wrong tracks. The general conditions under which a
man lives are even of far greater importance than those of the home and the
family. If the conditions for social development are equal to both sexes, if to
neither there stand any obstacles in the way, and if the social state of society
is a healthy one, then woman also will rise to a point of perfection in her
being, such as we can have no full conception of, such conditions having
hitherto been absent in the history of the development of the race. That
which some women are in the meantime achieving, leaves no doubt upon
this head: these rise as high above the mass of their own sex as the male
geniuses do above the mass of theirs. Measured with the scale usually
applied to Princes, women have, on an average, displayed greater talent

than men in the ruling of States. As illustrations, let Isabella and Blanche of
Castile be quoted; Elizabeth of Hungary; Catharine Sforza, the Duchess of
Milan and Imola; Elizabeth of England; Catharine of Russia; Maria
Theresa, etc. Resting upon the fact that, in all races and all parts of the
world, women have ruled with marked ability, even over the wildest and
most turbulent hordes, Burbach makes the statement that, in all probability,
women are fitter for politics than men.[132] For the rest, many a great man in
history would shrink considerably, were it only known What he owes to
himself, and what to others. Count Mirabeau, for instance, is described by
German historians, von Sybel among them, as one of the greatest lights of
the French Revolution: and now research has revealed the fact that this light
was indebted for the concept of almost all of his speeches to the ready help
of certain scholars, who worked for him in secret, and whom he understood
to utilize. On the other hand, apparitions like those of a Sappho, a Diotima
of the days of Socrates, a Hypatia of Alexander, a Madame Roland,
Madame de Stael, George Sand, etc., deserve the greatest respect, and
eclipse many a male star. The effect of women as mothers of great men is
also known. Woman has achieved all that was possible to her under the, to
her, as a whole, most unfavorable circumstances; all of which justifies the
best hopes for the future. As a matter of fact, only the second half of the
nineteenth century began to smooth the way for the admission of women in
large numbers to the race with men on various fields; and quite satisfactory
are the results attained.
But suppose that, on an average, women are not as capable of higher
development as men, that they cannot grow into geniuses and great
philosophers, was this a criterion for men when, at least according to the
letter of the law, they were placed on a footing of equality with "geniuses"
and "philosophers?" The identical men of learning, who deny higher
aptitudes to woman, are quite inclined to do the same to artisans and
workingmen. When the nobility appeals to its "blue" blood and to its
genealogical tree, these men of learning laugh in derision and shrug their
shoulders; but as against the man of lower rank, they consider themselves
an aristocracy, that owes what it is, not to more favorable conditions of life,
but to its own talent alone. The same men who, on one field, are among the
freest from prejudice, and who hold him lightly who does not think as
liberally as themselves, are, on another field,—the moment the interests of

their rank and class, or their vanity and self-esteem are concerned—found
narrow to the point of stupidity, and hostile to the point of fanaticism. The
men of the upper classes look down upon the lower; and so does almost the
whole sex upon woman. The majority of men see in woman only an article
of profit and pleasure; to acknowledge her an equal runs against the grain of
their prejudices:—woman must be humble and modest; she must confine
herself exclusively to the house and leave all else to the men, the "lords of
creation," as their domain: woman must, to the utmost, bridle her own
thoughts and inclinations, and quietly accept what her Providence on earth
—father or husband—decrees. The nearer she approaches this standard, all
the more is she praised as "sensible, modest and virtuous," even though, as
the result of such constraint, she break down under the burden of physical
and moral suffering. What absurdity is it not to speak of the "equality of all"
and yet seek to keep one-half of the human race outside of the pale!
Woman has the same right as man to unfold her faculties and to the free
exercise of the same: she is human as well as he: like him, she should be
free to dispose of herself as her own master. The accident of being born a
woman, makes no difference. To exclude woman from equality on the
ground that she was born female and not male—an accident for which man
is as little responsible as she—is as inequitable, as would be to make rights
and privileges dependent upon the accident of religion or political bias; and
as senseless as that two human beings must look upon each other as
enemies on the ground that the accident of birth makes them of different
stock and nationality. Such views are unworthy of a truly free being. The
progress of humanity lies in removing everything that holds one being, one
class, one sex, in dependence and in subjection to another. No inequality is
justified other than that which Nature itself establishes in the differences
between one individual and another, and for the fulfillment of the purpose of
Nature. The natural boundaries no sex can overstep: it would thereby
destroy its own natural purpose.
The adversaries of full equality for woman play as their trump card the
claim that woman has a smaller brain than man, and that in other qualities,
besides, she is behind man, hence her permanent inferiority (subordination)
is demonstrated. It is certain that man and woman are beings of different
sexes; that they are furnished with different organs, corresponding to the
sex purpose of each; and that, owing to the functions that each sex must fill

to accomplish the purpose of Nature, there are a series of other differences
in their physiologic and psychic conditions. These are facts that none can
deny and none will deny; nevertheless, they justify no distinction in the
social and political rights of man and woman. The human race, society,
consists of both sexes; both are indispensable to its existence and progress.
Even the greatest male genius was born of a mother, to whom frequently he
is indebted for the best part of himself. By what right can woman be refused
equality with man?
Based upon information furnished us by a medical friend, we shall here
sketch with a few strokes the essential differences, that, according to
leading authorities, manifest themselves in the physical and mental qualities
of man and woman. The bodily size of man and woman stands, on an
average, in the relation of 100 to 93.2. The bones of woman are shorter and
thinner, the chest smaller, wider, deeper and flatter. Other differences
depend directly upon the sex purpose. The muscles of woman are not as
massive. The weight of the heart is 310 grains in man, 255 in woman.
The composition of the blood in man and woman is as follows: Water, man,
77.19; woman, 79.11. Solid matter, man, 22.10; woman, 20.89. Blood
corpuscles, man, 14.10; woman, 12.79. Number of blood corpuscles in a
cubic millimeter of blood, man, 4½ to 5 millions; woman, 4 to 4½ millions.
According to Meynert, the weight of the brain of man is from 1,018 to
1,925 grams; of woman, from 820 to 1,565; or in the relation of 100 to
90.93. LeBon and Bischoff agree that, while weight of brain corresponds
with size of body, nevertheless short people have relatively larger brains.
With woman, the smaller size of the heart, the narrower system of blood
vessels and probably also the larger quantity of blood, has a lower degree of
nourishment for its effect.[133] That, however, the larger skulls of larger
persons, coupled with the quantitative changes occasioned by the size of the
skull promote the vigor of the several sections of the brain is a matter that
cannot be asserted.[134]
Of 107 mentally healthy men and 148 women of the ages of 20 to 59, the
weight of the brain per thousand was:

Average
Medulla Length in
Sex. Oblongata. Cerebellum. Pons. Centimeters.
Men 790 107.5 102 166.5
Women 787 110.0 103 156.0

The absolute and relative excess in the weight of the cerebellum of woman
has an enormous significance. With animals that run immediately upon
birth, the cerebellum is much more powerfully developed than with animals
that are born blind, are helpless, and that learn to walk with difficulty.
Accordingly, and in consequence of its connection with the cerebrum,
subcortical center and the spinal cord, the cerebellum is a station of the
muscular and of the chief nervous system, by means of both of which
qualities we keep our equilibrium. The more massive cerebellum with
woman, together with the comparative shortness and tenderness of her
bones, explains her comparative quickness and easiness of motion, her
quicker and higher co-ordination of the muscles for their functions, and her
knack of quickly sizing up a situation, and finding her way in the midst of a
confusion of associations. Woman is furthermore aided in the latter faculty
through the greater excitability of her cerebral cortex. Meynert says:—
1. All structural anomalies associated with anaemia of the blood—including
also a small heart and narrow arteries—should be considered as subject
structural defects. Upon this depends not only the ready exhaustibility of
the cortex, but also the phenomena of irritability, named by Meynert,
localized irritable weakness.
2. The branches of blood vessels, supplying the subcortical centers from the
base, are short, thick, straight, palisade-like, while those on the surface of
the brain, supplying the cortex, run in long tortuous lines. And it is because
of that, since with the increased length of the blood vessels the resistance to
the propulsive force of the heart is increased, that the subcortical centers,
the moment fatigue supervenes, are better supplied with blood than the
cortex, they are less readily fatigued than the more readily exhaustible
cerebrum.
3. Because of this and because of the more watery character of woman's
blood and great extent of subcortical centers in woman in comparison with
cerebrum, the physical equilibrium of woman is more unstable than of man.

4. All nerves (except the optic and olfactory, which spread out directly in
the cortex, save some of their filaments terminating in the subcortical
centers) terminate in the subcortical center; the cortex of the cerebrum acts
as a checking organ for the subcortical center; as the cerebral cortex in
woman, as already stated, is at a disadvantage not only from the anatomical
standpoint, but also in the quality of its blood supply, woman is not only
more easily fatigued, but also more readily excitable (irritable, nervous).
These facts explain, on the one hand, what is called the superior endowment
of woman, and, on the other, her inclination to sudden changes of opinion,
as well as to hallucinations and illusions. This state of unstable equilibrium
between the dura mater and the pons becomes particularly normal during
menstruation, pregnancy, lying-in, and at her climacteric. As a result of her
physical organization, woman is more inclined to melancholy than man, and
likewise is the inclination to mental derangement stronger with her; on the
other hand, the male sex excels her in the number of cases of megalomania.
Such, in substance, is the information furnished us by the authority whom
we have been quoting.
As a matter of course, in so far as the cited differences depend upon the
nature of the sex-distinctions, they can not be changed; in how far these
differences in the make-up of the blood and the brain may be modified by a
change of life (nourishment, mental and physical gymnastics, occupation,
etc.) is a matter that, for the present, lies beyond all accurate calculation.
But this seems certain: modern woman differs more markedly from man
than primitive woman, or than the women of backward peoples, and the
circumstance is easily explained by the social development that the last
1,000 or 1,500 years forced upon woman among the nations of civilization.
According to Lombroso and Ferrero, the mean capacity of the female skull,
the male skull being assumed at 1,000, is as follows:—

Negro 984
Australian 967
Hindoo 944
Italian 921
Hollander 919 (Tiedemann)
Hollander 883 (Davis)

Slav 903
Gipsy 875
Chinese 870
German 838-897
Englishman 860
Parisian 858

The contradictory findings for Hollanders and Germans show that the
measurements were made on very different quantitative and qualitative
materials, and, consequently, are not absolutely reliable. One thing,
however, is evident from the figures: Negro, Australian and Hindoo women
have a considerably larger brain capacity than their German, English and
Parisian sisters, and yet the latter are all more intelligent. The comparisons
established in the weight of the brain of deceased men of note, reveal
similar contradictions and peculiarities. According to Prof. Reclam, the
brain of the naturalist Cuvier weighed 1,861 grams, of Byron 1,807, of the
mathematician Dirichlet 1,520, of the celebrated mathematician Gauss
1,492, of the philologist Hermann 1,358, of the scientist Hausmann 1,226.
The last of these had a brain below the average weight of that of women,
which, according to Bischoff, weighs 1,250 grams. But a special irony of
fate wills it that the brain of Prof. Bischoff himself, who died a few years
ago in St. Petersburg, weighed only 1,245 grams, and Bischoff it was who
most obstinately grounded his claim of woman's inferiority on the fact that
woman, on the average, had 100 grams less brain than man. The brain of
Gambetta also weighed considerably below the average female brain, it
weighed only 1,180 grams, and Dante, too, is said to have had a brain
below the average weight for men. Figures of the same sort are found in Dr.
Havelock Ellis' work. According thereto, an every day person, whose brain
Bischoff weighed, had 2,222 grams; the poet Turgeniew 2,012; while the
third heaviest brain on the list belonged to an idiot of the duchy of Hants.
The brain of a common workingman, also examined by Bischoff, weighed
1,925 grams. The heaviest woman's brains weighed 1,742 and 1,580 grams,
two of which were of insane women.
The conclusion is, accordingly, justified that as little as size of body
justifies inferences as to strength of body, so little does the weight of the
brain-mass warrant inferences as to mental powers. There are very small
animals (ants, bees) that, in point of intelligence, greatly excel much larger

ones (sheep, cows), just as men of large body are often found far behind
others of smaller or unimposing stature. Accordingly, the important factor is
not merely the quantity of brain matter, but more especially the brain
organization, and, not least of all, the exercise and use of the brain power.
The brain, if it is to fully develop its powers, must be diligently exercised,
the same as any other organ, and also correspondingly fed. Where this is not
done, or where the training is turned into wrong channels, instead of the
sections of the understanding being developed, those are developed in
which imagination has its seat. In such cases, not only is the organ stunted,
but even crippled. One section is developed at the expense of another.
No one, approximately familiar with the history of the development of
woman, will deny that, for thousands of years, woman has been and
continues to be sinned against in that direction. When Prof. Bischoff objects
that woman could have trained her brain and intelligence as well as man
did, he reveals unpardonable and unheard of ignorance on the subject. The
sketch, drawn in this work, of the position of woman in the course of the
progress of civilization, explains fully how the thousands of years of
continued male supremacy over woman are mainly responsible for the great
differences in the mental and physical development of the two sexes.
Our naturalists should recognize that the laws of their science are applicable
to man also, and to his evolution. The laws of evolution, of heredity, of
adaptation, hold good with human beings as with all other creatures of
nature. Seeing that man is no exception in nature, the law of evolution must
be applied to him also: forthwith light is shed upon what otherwise remains
confused and dark, and, as such, becomes the fit subject for scientific
mysticism, or mystic science.
The training of the brain took its course with the different sexes wholly in
conformity with the difference in the education of the two—if such a term
as "education" is at all allowable, with regard to woman in particular,
during long stretches of the past, and the term "bringing up" is not the
correcter. Physiologists are agreed that the organs of thought are located in
the front part of the brain, and those especially of feeling and sentiment are
to be looked for in the middle of the head. With man the front, with woman
the middle of the head is more developed. The ideal of beauty, male and

female, shaped itself accordingly. According to the Greek ideal, which is
standard to this day, woman has a narrow, man a high and, particularly,
broad forehead,—and this ideal an expression of their own degradation, is
so stamped on their minds, that our women bewail a forehead that exceeds
the average, as a deformity in their appearance, and seek to improve nature
by art, drawing their hair over the sinning forehead, to make it look lower.
In a polemic in Nos. 39 and 40 of the "Sozialdemokrat" for 1890, which
appeared in London, Sophie Nadejde had two articles in which she sought
to refute the charges concerning the great inferiority of woman. She says
therein that Broca, a well known Parisian physiologist, measured the cubic
contents of 115 skulls from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and got an
average of 1,426 cubic centimeters. The measurements of 125 skulls from
the eighteenth century gave, however, an average of 1,462 cubic
centimeters. According to this, the conclusion would be that, in the course
of a few centuries, the brain had grown considerably. A measurement by
Broca of skulls from the Stone Age resulted, however, in an average of
1,606 cubic centimeters for the skulls of men, and 1,581 for the skulls of
women,—accordingly, both considerably larger than those of the eleventh,
twelfth and eighteenth centuries. Mrs. Nadejde concluded therefrom that
Herbert Spencer was right when he claimed in his physiology that brain
weight depended upon the amount of motion and the variety of motions.
The lady furthermore emphasized the point that it depends a deal less on the
brain-mass than on the proportion in the two sexes of the brain-weight to
the weight of the body. Proceeding from these premises, it appeared that the
female brain was heavier than the male. The argument on this head, Mrs.
Nadejde presents in these words:
"Let us compare the average weights of the bodies, and let us take, as the
difference between man and woman only 8 kilograms, although many
naturalists, among them Gay, whom Delaunay quotes, takes 11 kilograms.
According to the average weights of 9,157 American soldiers: 64.4
kilograms (average weight of the male body): 56 kilograms (average weight
of the female body) = 1,141 or 1.14, i. e., the average weight of woman
being taken as 100, that of man is represented by 114. According to the
average weights of 12,740 Bavarians: 65.5 kilograms (average for males):
57.5 (average for females) = 1,139 or 1.14 as above. Assuming the average