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Title: Woman and Socialism

Author: August Bebel

Translator: Meta Stern Lilienthal

Release date: October 30, 2014 [eBook #47244]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

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Transcriber’s Notes

This e-text is a translation of August Bebel’s Die Frau und der Sozialismus.
Table column headings that have been supplied by the transcriber are enclosed in
[square brackets].

WOMAN AND SOCIALISM
BY

AUGUST BEBEL

Jubilee Edition

AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION BY

Meta L. Stern (Hebe)

SOCIALIST LITERATURE CO.
15 Spruce Street, New York
1910

Copyright, 1910
by the
SOCIALIST LITERATURE COMPANY
New York

The Co-Operative Press, 15 Spruce St., New York

CONTENTS

Page
Introduction 3

WOMAN IN THE PAST.

Chapter I.—The Position of Woman in Primeval Society 9
1. Chief Epochs of Primeval History 9
2. Family Forms 14
3. The Matriarchate 20
Chapter II.—Conflict between Matriarchate and Patriarchate 28
1. Rise of the Patriarchate 28
2. Traces of the Matriarchate in Greek Myths and Dramas 34
3. Legitimate Wives and Courtesans in Athens 37
4. Remnants of the Matriarchate in the Customs of Various
Nations 44
5. Rise of the State—Dissolution of the Gens in Rome 50
Chapter III.—Christianity 56
Chapter IV.—Woman in the Mediaeval Age 63
1. The Position of Women among the Germans 63
2. Feudalism and the Right of the First Night 66
3. The Rise of Cities—Monastic Affairs—Prostitution 69

4. Knighthood and the Veneration of Women 75
Chapter V.—The Reformation 78
1. Luther 78
2. Results of the Reformation—The Thirty Years’ War 83
Chapter VI.—The Eighteenth Century 88
1. Court Life in Germany 88
2. Commercialism and the New Marriage Laws 90
3. The French Revolution and the Rise of Industry 93

WOMAN AT THE PRESENT DAY.

Chapter VII.—Woman as a Sex Being 96
1. The Sexual Impulse 96
2. Celibacy and the Frequency of Suicide 100
Chapter VIII.—Modern Marriage 104
1. Marriage as a Profession 104
2. Decline of the Birthrate 106
3. Mercenary Marriage and the Matrimonial Market 110
Chapter IX.—Disruption of the Family 116
1. Increase of Divorce 116
2. Bourgeois and Proletarian Marriage 124
Chapter X.—Marriage as a Means of Support 132
1. Decline of the Marriage Rate 132
2. Infanticide and Abortion 135
3. Education for Marriage 140
4. The Misery of Present Day Marriages 147
Chapter XI.—The Chances of Matrimony 153
1. The Numerical Proportion of the Sexes 153
2. Obstacles to Marriage—The Excess of Women 164

Chapter XII.—Prostitution a Necessary Social Institution of
Bourgeois Society 174
1. Prostitution and Society 174
2. Prostitution and the State 178
3. The White Slave Trade 188
4. The Increase of Prostitution—Illegitimate Motherhood
193
5. Crimes Against Morality and Sexual Diseases 204
Chapter XIII.—Woman in Industry 209
1. Development and Extension of Female Labor 209
2. Factory Work of Married Women—Sweatshop Labor and
Dangerous Occupations 222
Chapter XIV.—The Struggle of Women for Education 233
1. The Revolution in Domestic Life 233
2. The Intellectual Abilities of Women 239
3. Differences in Physical and Mental Qualities of Man and
Woman 245
4. Darwinism and the Condition of Society 253
5. Woman and the Learned Professions 258
Chapter XV.—The Legal Status of Women 272
1. The Struggle for Equality Before the Law 272
2. The Struggle for Political Equality 280

THE STATE AND SOCIETY.

Chapter XVI.—The Class-State and the Modern Proletariat 307
1. Our Public Life 307
2. Aggravation of Social Extremes 315

Chapter XVII.—The Process of Concentration in Capitalistic
Industry 319
1. The Displacement of Agriculture by Industry 319
2. Increasing Pauperization—Preponderance of Large
Industrial Establishments 323
3. Concentration of Wealth 333
Chapter XVIII.—Crisis and Competition 338
1. Causes and Effects of the Crises 338
2. Intermediate Trade and the Increased Cost of Living 343
Chapter XIX.—The Revolution in Agriculture 347
1. Transatlantic Competition and Desertion of the Country
347
2. Peasants and Great Landowners 349
3. The Contrast Between City and Country 358

THE SOCIALIZATION OF SOCIETY.

Chapter XX.—The Social Revolution 363
1. The Transformation of Society 363
2. Expropriation of the Expropriators 366
Chapter XXI.—Fundamental Laws of Socialistic Society 370
1. Duty to Work of All Able-bodied Persons 370
2. Harmony of Interests 375
3. Organization of Labor 380
4. The Growth of the Productivity of Labor 383
5. Removal of the Contrast between Mental and Manual
Work 392
6. Increase of Consumption 396
7. Equal Duty to Work for All 399
8. Abolition of Trade—Transformation of Traffic 405

Chapter XXII.—Socialism and Agriculture 407
1. Abolition of the Private Ownership of Land 407
2. The Amelioration of Land 409
3. Changed Methods of Farming 414
4. Agriculture on a Large and Small Scale—Electric
Appliances 415
5. Vine-Culture of the Future 424
6. Measures to Prevent Exhaustion of the Soil 427
7. Removal of the Contrast between City and Country 431
Chapter XXIII.—Abolition of the State 434
Chapter XXIV.—The Future of Religion 437
Chapter XXV.—The Socialist System of Education 440
Chapter XXVI.—Literature and Art in Socialistic Society 451
Chapter XXVII.—Free Development of Individuality 455
1. Freedom from Care 455
2. Changes in the Methods of Nutrition 457
3. The Communistic Kitchen 461
4. Transformation of Domestic Life 463
Chapter XXVIII.—Woman in the Future 466
Chapter XXIX.—Internationality 473
Chapter XXX.—The Question of Population and Socialism 478
1. Fear of Over-Population 478
2. Production of Over-Population 481
3. Poverty and Fecundity 484
4. Lack of Human Beings and Abundance of Food 487
5. Social Conditions and Reproductive Ability 494

Conclusion 500

Introduction.

E are living in an age of great social transformations that are
steadily progressing. In all strata of society we perceive an
unsettled state of mind and an increasing restlessness,
denoting a marked tendency toward profound and radical changes. Many
questions have arisen and are being discussed with growing interest in ever
widening circles. One of the most important of these questions and one that
is constantly coming into greater prominence, is the woman question.
The woman question deals with the position that woman should hold in
our social organism, and seeks to determine how she can best develop her
powers and her abilities, in order to become a useful member of human
society, endowed with equal rights and serving society according to her best
capacity. From our point of view this question coincides with that other
question: In what manner should society be organized to abolish
oppression, exploitation, misery and need, and to bring about the physical
and mental welfare of individuals and of society as a whole? To us then, the
woman question is only one phase of the general social question that at
present occupies all intelligent minds; its final solution can only be attained

by removing social extremes and the evils which are a result of such
extremes.
Nevertheless, the woman question demands our special consideration.
What the position of woman has been in ancient society, what her position
is to-day and what it will be in the coming social order, are questions that
deeply concern at least one half of humanity. Indeed, in Europe they
concern a majority of organized society, because women constitute a
majority of the population. Moreover, the prevailing conceptions
concerning the development of woman’s social position during successive
stages of history are so faulty, that enlightenment on this subject has
become a necessity. Ignorance concerning the position of woman, chiefly
accounts for the prejudice that the woman’s movement has to contend with
among all classes of people, by no means least among the women
themselves. Many even venture to assert that there is no woman question at
all, since woman’s position has always been the same and will remain the
same in the future, because nature has destined her to be a wife and a
mother and to confine her activities to the home. Everything that is beyond
the four narrow walls of her home and is not closely connected with her
domestic duties, is not supposed to concern her.
In the woman question then we find two contending parties, just as in the
labor question, which relates to the position of the workingman in human
society. Those who wish to maintain everything as it is, are quick to
relegate woman to her so-called “natural profession,” believing that they
have thereby settled the whole matter. They do not recognize that millions
of women are not placed in a position enabling them to fulfill their natural
function of wifehood and motherhood, owing to reasons that we shall
discuss at length later on. They furthermore do not recognize that to
millions of other women their “natural profession” is a failure, because to
them marriage has become a yoke and a condition of slavery, and they are
obliged to drag on their lives in misery and despair. But these wiseacres are

no more concerned by these facts than by the fact that in various trades and
professions millions of women are exploited far beyond their strength, and
must slave away their lives for a meagre subsistence. They remain deaf and
blind to these disagreeable truths, as they remain deaf and blind to the
misery of the proletariat, consoling themselves and others by the false
assertion that it has always been thus and will always continue to be so.
That woman is entitled, as well as man, to enjoy all the achievements of
civilization, to lighten her burdens, to improve her condition, and to
develop all her physical and mental qualities, they refuse to admit. When,
furthermore, told that woman—to enjoy full physical and mental freedom—
should also be economically independent, should no longer depend for
subsistence upon the good will and favor of the other sex, the limit of their
patience will be reached. Indignantly they will pour forth a bitter
endictment of the “madness of the age” and its “crazy attempts at
emancipation.” These are the old ladies of both sexes who cannot overcome
the narrow circle of their prejudices. They are the human owls that dwell
wherever darkness prevails, and cry out in terror whenever a ray of light is
cast into their agreeable gloom.
Others do not remain quite as blind to the eloquent facts. They confess
that at no time woman’s position has been so unsatisfactory in comparison
to general social progress, as it is at present. They recognize that it is
necessary to investigate how the condition of the self-supporting woman
can be improved; but in the case of married women they believe the social
problem to be solved. They favor the admission of unmarried women only
into a limited number of trades and professions. Others again are more
advanced and insist that competition between the sexes should not be
limited to the inferior trades and professions, but should be extended to all
higher branches of learning and the arts and sciences as well. They demand
equal educational opportunities and that women should be admitted to all
institutions of learning, including the universities. They also favor the

appointment of women to government positions, pointing out the results
already achieved by women in such positions, especially in the United
States. A few are even coming forward to demand equal political rights for
women. Woman, they argue, is a human being and a member of organized
society as well as man, and the very fact that men have until now framed
and administered the laws to suit their own purposes and to hold woman in
subjugation, proves the necessity of woman’s participation in public affairs.
It is noteworthy that all these various endeavors do not go beyond the
scope of the present social order. The question is not propounded whether
any of these proposed reforms will accomplish a decisive and essential
improvement in the condition of women. According to the conceptions of
bourgeois, or capitalistic society, the civic equality of men and women is
deemed an ultimate solution of the woman question. People are either
unconscious of the fact, or deceive themselves in regard to it, that the
admission of women to trades and industries is already practically
accomplished and is being strongly favored by the ruling classes in their
own interest. But under prevailing conditions woman’s invasion of industry
has the detrimental effect of increasing competition on the labor market,
and the result is a reduction in wages for both male and female workers. It
is clear then, that this cannot be a satisfactory solution.
Men who favor these endeavors of women within the scope of present
society, as well as the bourgeois women who are active in the movement,
consider complete civic equality of women the ultimate goal. These men
and women then differ radically from those who, in their narrow-
mindedness, oppose the movement. They differ radically from those men
who are actuated by petty motives of selfishness and fear of competition,
and therefore try to prevent women from obtaining higher education and
from gaining admission to the better paid professions. But there is no
difference of class between them, such as exists between the worker and the
capitalist.

If the bourgeois suffragists would achieve their aim and would bring
about equal rights for men and women, they would still fail to abolish that
sex slavery which marriage, in its present form, is to countless numbers of
women; they would fail to abolish prostitution; they would fail to abolish
the economic dependence of wives. To the great majority of women it also
remains a matter of indifference whether a few thousand members of their
sex, belonging to the more favored classes of society, obtain higher learning
and enter some learned profession, or hold a public office. The general
condition of the sex as a whole is not altered thereby.
The female sex as such has a double yoke to bear. Firstly, women suffer
as a result of their social dependence upon men, and the inferior position
alloted to them in society; formal equality before the law alleviates this
condition, but does not remedy it. Secondly, women suffer as a result of
their economic dependence, which is the lot of women in general, and
especially of the proletarian women, as it is of the proletarian men.
We see, then, that all women, regardless of their social position,
represent that sex which during the evolution of society has been oppressed
and wronged by the other sex, and therefore it is to the common interest of
all women to remove their disabilities by changing the laws and institutions
of the present state and social order. But a great majority of women is
furthermore deeply and personally concerned in a complete reorganization
of the present state and social order which has for its purpose the abolition
of wage-slavery, which at present weighs most heavily upon the women of
the proletariat, as also the abolition of sex-slavery, which is closely
connected with our industrial conditions and our system of private
ownership.
The women who are active in the bourgeois suffrage movement, do not
recognize the necessity of so complete a transformation. Influenced by their
privileged social position, they consider the more radical aims of the
proletarian woman’s movement dangerous doctrines that must be opposed.

The class antagonism that exists between the capitalist and working class
and that is increasing with the growth of industrial problems, also clearly
manifests itself then within the woman’s movement. Still these sister-
women, though antagonistic to each other on class lines, have a great many
more points in common than the men engaged in the class struggle, and
though they march in separate armies they may strike a united blow. This is
true in regard to all endeavors pertaining to equal rights of woman under the
present social order; that is, her right to enter any trade or profession
adapted to her strength and ability, and her right to civic and political
equality. These are, as we shall see, very important and very far-reaching
aims. Besides striving for these aims, it is in the particular interest of
proletarian women to work hand in hand with proletarian men for such
measures and institutions that tend to protect the working woman from
physical and mental degeneration, and to preserve her health and strength
for a normal fulfillment of her maternal functions. Furthermore, it is the
duty of the proletarian woman to join the men of her class in the struggle
for a thorough-going transformation of society, to bring about an order that
by its social institutions will enable both sexes to enjoy complete economic
and intellectual independence.
Our goal then is, not only to achieve equality of men and women under
the present social order, which constitutes the sole aim of the bourgeois
woman’s movement, but to go far beyond this, and to remove all barriers
that make one human being dependent upon another, which includes the
dependence of one sex upon the other. This solution of the woman question
is identical with the solution of the social question. They who seek a
complete solution of the woman question must, therefore, join hands with
those who have inscribed upon their banner the solution of the social
question in the interest of all mankind—the Socialists.
The Socialist Party is the only one that has made the full equality of
women, their liberation from every form of dependence and oppression, an

integral part of its program; not for reasons of propaganda, but from
necessity. For there can be no liberation of mankind without social
independence and equality of the sexes.
All Socialists will probably agree with the fundamental principles herein
expressed. But the same cannot be said in regard to the manner in which we
picture the realization of our ultimate aims, that is, in regard to the
particular form that institutions should take to bring about that desired
independence and equality for all. As soon as we forsake the firm
foundation of reality, and begin to depict the future, there is a wide field for
speculation. A difference of opinion immediately arises as to what is
probable or improbable. Whatever, therefore, is stated in this book
concerning future probabilities, must be regarded as the personal opinion of
the author, and eventual attacks must be directed against his person, because
he assumes full responsibility for his statements. Attacks, that are honestly
meant and are objective in character, will be welcome; those that distort the
contents of this book or are founded upon an untruthful interpretation of
their meaning, will be ignored. It remains to be said, that in the following
chapters all conclusions should be drawn which become necessary for us to
draw, as a result of our investigation of facts. To be unprejudiced is the first
requirement for a recognition of the truth, and only by expressing without
reserve that which is and that which is to be, can we attain our ends.

Woman in the Past.

CHAPTER I.

The Position of Woman in Primeval Society.

1.—Chief Epochs of Primeval History.

T is the common lot of woman and worker to be oppressed. The
forms of oppression have differed in successive ages and in
various countries, but the oppression itself remained. During the
course of historic development the oppressed ones have frequently
recognized their oppression, and this recognition has led to an amelioration
of their condition; but it remained for our day to recognize the fundamental
causes of this oppression, both in regard to the woman and in regard to the
worker. It was necessary to understand the true nature of society and the
laws governing social evolution, before an effective movement could
develop for the purpose of abolishing conditions that had come to be
regarded as unjust. But the extent and profoundness of such a movement
depend upon the amount of insight prevailing among those strata of society

affected by the unjust conditions, as also upon the freedom of action
possessed by them. In both respects woman, owing to custom, education
and lack of freedom, is less advanced than the worker. Moreover, conditions
that have prevailed for generations finally become a habit, and heredity as
well as education make them appear “natural” to both parties concerned.
That explains why women accept their inferior position as a matter of
course, and do not recognize that it is an unworthy one, and that they should
strive to obtain equal rights with men, and to become equally qualified
members of society.
But whatever similarities exist between the position of woman and that
of the workingman, woman has one precedence over the workingman. She
is the first human being which came into servitude. Women were slaves
before men.
All social dependence and oppression is rooted in the economic
dependence of the oppressed upon the oppressor. Woman—so we are taught
by the history of human development—has been in this position since an
early stage.
Our understanding of this development is comparatively recent. Just as
the myth of the creation of the world, as taught by the Bible, could not be
maintained in face of innumerable and indisputable facts founded upon
modern, scientific investigation, it also became impossible to maintain the
myth of the creation and development of man. Not all phases of the history
of evolution have as yet been elucidated. Difference of opinion still exists
among scientists in regard to one or another of the natural phenomena and
their relation to each other; but, on the whole, clearness and a general
consension of opinion prevails. It is certain that man has not made his
appearance upon the earth as a civilized being—as the Bible asserts of the
first human pair—but that in the long course of ages he gradually evolved
from a mere animal condition, and that he passed through various stages

during which his social relations as well as the relations between man and
woman experienced many transformations.
The convenient assertion that is resorted to daily by ignorant or dishonest
people, both in regard to the relation between man and woman as also in
regard to the relation between the rich and the poor—the assertion that it
has always been thus and will always continue to be so—is utterly false,
superficial and contrary to the truth in every respect.
A cursory description of the relations of the sexes since primeval days is
of special importance for the purpose of this book. For it seeks to prove
that, if in the past progress of human development, these relations have
been transformed as a result of the changing methods of production and
distribution, it is obvious that a further change in the methods of production
and distribution must again lead to a new transformation in the relation of
the sexes. Nothing is eternal, either in nature or in human life; change is the
only eternal factor.
As far as we can look backward along the line of human evolution, we
see the horde[1] representing the first human community. Only when the
horde increased in numbers to such an extent that it became difficult to
obtain the necessary means of subsistence, which originally consisted of
roots, seeds and fruit, a disbanding of the members resulted, and new
dwelling places were sought for.
We have no written records of this almost animal-like stage, but studies
of the various stages of civilization among extinct and living savages prove
that such a stage has at one time existed. Man has not stepped into life as a
highly civilized being, upon a command from the Creator, but has passed
through a long, infinitely slow process of evolution, and in the ups and
downs of wavering periods of development, and in a constant process of
differentiation, in all climes and in all quarters of the globe, has passed

through many stages until finally climbing the height of his present
civilization.
And while in some parts of the globe great nations represent the most
advanced stage of civilization, we find other peoples in various places
representing varied stages of development. These present to us a vivid
picture of our own past, and point out to us along which roads humanity has
traveled in its long course of evolution. If we shall at some time succeed in
establishing general and definite aspects according to which sociological
investigations shall be conducted, an abundance of facts will result,
destined to cast a new light upon the relations of men in the past and the
present. Events will then seem comprehensible and natural, that at present
are quite beyond our comprehension, and that superficial critics frequently
condemn as irrational, sometimes even as immoral. Scientific researches,
commenced by Backofen, and since continued by a considerable number of
learned men as Taylor, MacLennon, Lubbock and others, have gradually
lifted the veil from the earliest history of our race. These investigations
were elaborated by Morgan’s able book, and to this again Frederick Engels
has added a number of historic facts, economic and political in character.
Recently these researches have been partly confirmed and partly corrected
by Cunow.[2]
The clear and vivid descriptions given by Frederick Engels in his
splendid work, that is founded upon Morgan’s investigations, have cast a
flood of light upon many factors in the histories of peoples representing
various stages of development; factors that until that time had seemed
irrational and incomprehensible. They have enabled us to obtain an insight
into the gradual upbuilding of the social structure. As a result of such
insight we perceive that our former conceptions in regard to marriage,
family and state, have been founded upon utterly false premises. But
whatever has been proven concerning marriage, family and state, is equally
true in regard to the position of woman, which, in the various stages of

social development, has differed radically from what is supposed to be
woman’s “eternal” position.
Morgan divides the history of mankind—and this division is also adopted
by Engels—into three chief epochs: savagery, barbarism and civilization.
Each of the two earlier periods he subdivides into a lower, a medium and a
higher stage, because these stages differ in regard to fundamental
improvements in the method of obtaining the means of subsistence. Those
changes which occur from time to time in the social systems of nations as a
result of improved methods of production, Morgan considers one of the
chief characteristics in the progress of civilization, which is quite in keeping
with the materialistic conception of history as laid down by Karl Marx and
Frederick Engels. Thus the lowest stage in the period of savagery represents
the childhood of mankind. During this stage men still were tree-dwellers,
and fruit and roots constituted their chief nourishment; but even then
articulated language began to take form. The medium stage of savagery
begins with the consumption of small animals such as fish, crabs, etc., for
food, and with the discovery of fire. Men begin to manufacture weapons,
clubs and spears made of wood and stone, and this means the inception of
the hunt and probably also of war among neighboring hordes, who
contended with one another for the sources of nourishment and the most
desirable dwelling places and hunting grounds. At this stage also
cannibalism appears, which is still met with among some tribes in Africa,
Australia and Polynesia. The higher stage of savagery is characterized by
the invention of the bow and arrow; the invention of the art of weaving; the
making of mats and baskets from bast and reeds, and the manufacture of
stone implements.
As the beginning of the lowest stage of barbarism, Morgan denotes the
invention of pottery. Man learns the domestication of wild animals with the
resultant production of meat and milk, and thereby obtains the use of hides,
horns and furs for the most varied purposes. Hand in hand with the

domestication of animals, agriculture begins to develop. In the western part
of the world corn is cultivated; in the eastern part, almost all kinds of grain,
with the exception of corn, is grown. During the medium stage of barbarism
we find an increasing domestication of useful animals in the East, and in the
West we find an improved cultivation of nourishing plants with the aid of
artificial irrigation. The use of stones and sun-dried bricks for building
purposes is also originated at this time. Domestication and breeding favor
the formation of herds and flocks and lead to a pastoral life, and the
necessity of producing larger quantities of nourishment for both men and
animals leads to increased agriculture. The result is a more sedentary mode
of life with an accompanying increase in provisions and greater diversity of
same, and gradually cannibalism disappears.
The higher stage of barbarism has been reached with the smelting of iron
ore and the invention of alphabetical writing. The invention of the iron
plough gives a new impetus to agriculture; the iron axe and spade and hoe
make it easier to clear the forest and to cultivate the soil. With the forging of
iron a number of new activities set in, giving life a different shape. Iron
tools simplify the building of houses, ships and wagons. The malleation of
metals furthermore leads to mechanical art, to an improvement in the
manufacture of arms, and to the building of walled cities. Architecture is
developed, and mythology, poetry and history are conserved and
disseminated by means of alphabetical writing.
The Oriental countries and those situated about the Mediterranean Sea—
Egypt, Greece and Italy—are the ones in which this mode of life was
especially developed, and here the foundation was laid to later social
transformations that have had a decisive influence upon the development of
civilization in Europe and, in fact, in all the countries of the globe.

[1]“The theory of natural rights and the doctrine of the social contract,
which places an isolated human being at the beginnings of human

development, is an invention utterly foreign to reality, and is therefore
worthless for the theoretical analysis of human institutions as it is for a
knowledge of history. Man should, on the contrary, be classed with
gregarious animals; that is, with those species whose individuals are
combined into permanent groups.”—(Edw. Meyer: “The Origin of the
State, in Its Relation to Tribal and National Association.” 1907.)
[2] Backofen’s book was published in 1861. It was entitled, “The
Matriarchate; Studies of the Gynocratic Customs of the Old World in Their
Religious and Legal Aspects.” Publishers, Krais & Hoffmann, Stuttgart.
Morgan’s fundamental work, “Ancient Society, or Researches in the Lines
of Human Progress from Savagery Through Barbarism to Civilization,” was
published in 1877 by Henry Holt & Co. “The Origin of the Family,” by
Frederick Engels, founded upon Morgan’s investigations, was published by
J. H. W. Dietz, Stuttgart, as was also “Relationship Organizations of the
Australian Negro; a Contribution to the History of the Family,” by Henry
Cunow, which appeared in 1894.

2.—Family Forms.

The periods of savagery and barbarism were characterized by singular
social and sex relations, that differ considerably from those of later times.
Backofen and Morgan have thoroughly investigated these relations.
Backofen carried on his investigations by a profound study of ancient
writings, with the purpose of gaining an understanding of various
phenomena presented in mythology and ancient history, that impress us
strangely and yet show similarity with facts and occurrences of later days,
even down to the present time. Morgan carried on his investigations by
spending decades of his life among the Iroquois Indians in the State of New
York, whereby he made new and unexpected observations of the modes of
family life and system of relationship prevailing among them, and these
observations served as a basis to place similar observations, made
elsewhere, in the proper light.
Backofen and Morgan discovered, independently from one another, that
in primeval society the relations of the sexes differed vastly from those
prevalent during historic times and among modern, civilized nations.
Morgan discovered, furthermore, as a result of his long sojourn among the
Iroquois of North America, and his comparative studies to which these
observations led him, that all existing primitive peoples have family
relations and systems of relationship that differ markedly from our own, but
which must have prevailed generally among all peoples at a remote period
of civilization.
At the time when Morgan lived among the Iroquois, he found that among
them existed a monogamous marriage, easily dissolved by either side,
termed by him the “pairing family.” But he also found that the terms of
relationship as father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, although there

could be no doubt in our minds as to whom such terms should apply, were
not used in their ordinary sense. The Iroquois addresses as sons and
daughters not only his own children, but also those of all his brothers, and
these—his brothers’ children—call him father. On the other hand, the
Iroquois woman does not only call her own children sons and daughters, but
also those of all her sisters, and again all her sisters’ children call her
mother. But the children of her brothers she calls nephews and nieces, and
these call her aunt. Children of brothers call one another brothers and
sisters, and so do children of sisters. But the children of a woman and her
brother call each other cousins. The curious fact then presents itself that the
terms of relationship are not determined by the actual degrees of
relationship, but the sex of the relative.
This system of kinship is not only fully accepted by all American Indians
as well as by the aborigines of India, the Dravidian tribes of Deckan and the
Gaura tribes of Hindostan, but similar systems must have existed
everywhere primarily, as has been proven by investigations that were
undertaken since those of Backofen. When these established facts shall be
taken as a basis for further investigations among living savage or barbaric
tribes, similar to the investigations made by Backofen among various
peoples of the ancient world, by Morgan among the Iroquois and by Cunow
among the Australian Negroes, it will be shown that social and sex relations
constituted the foundation for the development of all nations of the world.
Morgan’s investigations have revealed still other interesting facts. While
the “pairing family” of the Iroquois is in contradiction to the terms of
relationship employed by them, it was shown that in the Sandwich Islands
(Hawaii) there existed up to the first half of the nineteenth century a family
form which actually corresponded to that system of kinship that among the
Iroquois existed only in name. But the Hawaiian system of kinship again
did not agree with the family form prevailing there at the time, but pointed
to another form of the family, still more remote, and no longer in existence.

There all the children of brothers and sisters, without exception, were
regarded as brothers and sisters, and were considered the common children,
not only of their mother’s and her sisters’ or their father’s and his brothers’,
but of all the brothers and sisters of both their parents.
The Hawaiian system of kinship then corresponded to a degree of
development that was still lower than the prevailing family form. We are
thus confronted by the peculiar fact, that in Hawaii as among the North
American Indians, two different systems of kinship were employed that no
longer corresponded to existing conditions, but had been superseded by a
higher form. Morgan expresses himself on this phenomenon in the
following manner: “The family is the active element; it is never stationary,
but progresses from a lower to a higher form in the same measure in which
society develops from a lower to a higher stage. But the systems of kinship
are passive. Only in long intervals they register the progress made by the
family in course of time, and only then are they radically changed when the
family has done so.”
The prevalent conception that the present family form has existed since
times immemorial and must continue to exist lest our entire civilization be
endangered—a conception that is vehemently defended by the upholders of
things as they are—has been proven faulty and untenable by the researches
of these scientists. The study of primeval history leaves no doubt as to the
entirely different relation of the sexes at an early period of human
development from their present relation, and when viewed in the light of
our present-day conceptions, they seem a monstrosity, a mire of immorality.
But as each stage in social development has its own methods of production,
thus each stage also has its own code of morals, which is only a reflection
of its social conditions. Morals are determined by custom, and customs
correspond to the innermost nature, that is, to the social necessities of any
given period.

Morgan arrives at the conclusion that in the lowest stage of savagery
unrestricted sexual intercourse existed within the tribe, so that all the
women belonged to all the men and all the men belonged to all the women;
that is, a condition of promiscuity. All men practice polygamy, and all
women practice polyandry; there is a common ownership of wives and
husbands as also a common ownership of the children. Strabo relates
(66 B. C.) that among the Arabs brothers have sexual intercourse with their
sisters and sons with their mothers. Incest was originally a requirement to
make it possible for human beings to multiply. This explanation must
especially be resorted to if we accept the biblical story of the origin of man.
The Bible contains a contradiction in regard to this delicate subject. It
relates that Cain, having killed his brother Abel, fled from the presence of
the Lord and lived in the land of Nod. There Cain knew his wife and she
conceived and bore a son unto him.
But whence came his wife? Cain’s parents were the first man and
woman. According to the Hebrew tradition, two sisters were born to Cain
and Abel, with whom they begot children. The Christian translators of the
Bible appear to have suppressed this unpleasant fact. That promiscuity
prevailed in a prehistoric stage, that the primeval horde was characterized
by unrestricted sexual intercourse, is also shown in the Indian myth that
Brama wedded his own daughter Saravasti. The same myth is met with
among the Egyptians and in the Norse “Edda.” The Egyptian god Ammon
was the husband of his mother and boasted of the fact, and Odin, according
to the “Edda” was the husband of his own daughter Frigga.[3] Dr. Adolf
Bastian relates: “In Swaganwara the daughters of the Rajah enjoyed the
privilege of freely choosing their husbands. Four brothers who settled in
Kapilapur made Priya, the eldest of their five sisters, queen mother and
married the others.”[4]
Morgan assumes that from the state of general promiscuity, a higher form
of sexual relation gradually developed, the consanguine family. Here the

marriage groups are arranged by generations; all the grandfathers and
grandmothers within a certain family are mutually husbands and wives;
their children constitute another cycle of husbands and wives, and again the
children of these when they have attained the proper age. In differentiation
then from the promiscuity prevailing at the lowest stage, we here find one
generation excluded from sexual intercourse with another generation. But
brothers and sisters and cousins of the first, second and more remote grades
are all brothers and sisters and also husbands and wives. This family form
corresponds to the system of kinship that during the first half of the last
century still existed in Hawaii in name but no longer in fact. According to
the American and Indian system of kinship, brother and sister can never be
father and mother to the same child, but according to the Hawaiian system
they may. The consanguine family also prevailed at the time of Herodotus
among the Massagetes. Of these he wrote: “Every man marries a woman
but all are permitted to have intercourse with her.”[5] Similar conditions
Backofen proves to have existed among the Lycians, Etruscans, Cretans,
Athenians, Lesbians and Egyptians.
According to Morgan, the consanguine family is succeeded by a third,
higher form of family relations, which he calls the “Punaluan
family”—“punaluan” meaning “dear companion.”
Morgan’s conception that the consanguine family, founded upon the
formation of marriage classes according to generations, which preceded the
Punaluan family, was the original form of family life, is opposed by Cunow
in his book referred to above. Cunow does not consider the consanguine
family the most primitive form of sexual intercourse discovered, but deems
it an intermediary stage leading to the true gentile organization, in which
stage the generic classification in strata of different ages belonging to the
so-called consanguine family, runs parallel for a while with the gentile
order.[6] Cunow says, furthermore: The class division—every man and
every woman bearing the name of their class and their totem—does not

prevent sexual intercourse among relations on collateral lines, but it does
prevent it among relations of preceding and succeeding lines, parents and
children, aunts and nephews, uncles and nieces. Terms as uncle, aunt, etc.,
denote entire groups.
Cunow furnishes proof in regard to the points in which he differs from
Morgan. But though he differs from Morgan in many respects, he clearly
defends him against the attacks of Westermarck and others. He says:
“Although some of Morgan’s theories may be proven to be incorrect, and
others partly so, to him still is due the credit of having been the first to
discover the identity existing between the totem-groups of the North
American Indians and the gentile organizations of the Romans. He,
furthermore, was the first to show that our present family form and system
of relationship is the outcome of a lengthy process of evolution. We,
therefore, are indebted to him for having made further research possible, for
having laid the foundation upon which we may continue to build.” In the
introduction to his book he also states explicitly that his work is partly a
supplement to Morgan’s book on ancient society.
Westermarck and Starcke, to whom Dr. Ziegler especially refers, will
have to accept the fact that the origin and evolution of the family are not in
keeping with their bourgeois prejudices. Cunow’s refutations should
enlighten the most fanatical opponents of Morgan as to the value of their
opposition.

[3] Dr. Ziegler, professor of zoology at the university of Freiburg,
ridicules the idea of attaching any historical importance to myths. This
conception only proves the biased judgment of the scientist. The myths
contain a profound meaning, for they have sprung from the soul of the
people and are founded upon ancient customs and traditions that have
gradually disappeared but continue to survive in the myths glorified by the

halo of religion. If facts are met with that explain the myth, there is good
ground for attaching historical importance to the same.
[4] Dr. Adolf Bastian, “Travels in Singapore, Batavia, Manila and
Japan.”
[5] Backofen: “The Matriarchate.”
[6] In the gentile order each gens has its totem, as lizard, opossum, emu,
wolf, bear, etc., from which the gens derives its name. The totem animal is
held sacred, and members of the gens may not kill it or eat its flesh. The
significance of the totem was similar to that of the patron saint among the
medieval guilds.

3.—The Matriarchate.

According to Morgan, the Punaluan family begins with the exclusion of
brothers and sisters on the mother’s side. Wherever a woman has several
husbands, it becomes impossible to determine paternity. Paternity becomes
a mere fiction. Even at present, with the institution of monogamous
marriage, paternity—as Goethe said in his “Apprenticeship,” “depends
upon good faith.” But if paternity is dubious in monogamous marriage
even, it is surely beyond the possibility of determination where polyandry
prevails. Only descent from the mother can be shown clearly and
undeniably; therefore, children, during the term of the matriarchate, were
termed “spurii,” seed. As all social transformations are consummated
infinitely slow upon a low stage of development, thus also the transition
from the consanguine family to the Punaluan family must have extended
through a great length of time, and many retrogressions must undoubtedly
have occurred that could still be perceived in later days. The immediate,
external cause for the development of the Punaluan family may have the
necessity of dividing the greatly increased group for the purpose of finding
new soil for agricultural purposes and for the grazing of herds. But it is also
probable that with increasing development, people gradually came to
understand the harmfulness and the impropriety of sexual intercourse
between brother and sister and close relatives, and that this recognition led
to a different arrangement of marriage relations. That this was the case is
shown by a pretty legend that, as Cunow tells us, was related to Gason
among the Dieyeris, a tribe of Southern Australia. This legend describes the
origin of the “Murdu,” the gentile organization, in the following manner:
“After the creation fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and other closely
related persons married indiscriminately among themselves, until the evil

consequences of such marriages were clearly seen. Thereupon the leaders
held a council to consider what could be done, and finally they begged
Muramura, the great spirit, to bid them what to do. Muramura bade them
divide the tribe into many branches and to name these after animals and
inanimate objects to distinguish them from one another; for instance,
Mouse, Emu, Lizzard, Rain, etc. The members of each group should not be
permitted to marry among themselves, but should choose their mates from
another group. Thus the son of an Emu should not marry the daughter of an
Emu, but he might marry the daughter of a Mouse, a Lizard, a Rain, or any
other family.” This tradition is more plausible than the biblical one, and
shows the origin of gentile organization in the simplest manner.
Paul Lafargue showed in an article published in the German periodical,
“Neue Zeit,” that names like Adam and Eva did not originally denote
individual persons, but were the names of gentes in which the Jews were
constituted in prehistoric days. By his argumentation Lafargue elucidates a
number of otherwise obscure and contradictory points in the first book of
Moses. In the same periodical M. Beer calls attention to the fact that among
the Jews a superstition still prevails according to which a man’s mother and
his fiancee must not have the same name, lest misfortune, disease and death
be brought upon the family. This is a further proof of the correctness of
Lafargue’s conception. Gentile organization prohibited marriage between
persons belonging to the same gens. According to the gentile conception,
then, the fact that a man’s mother and his fiancee had the same name,
proved their belonging to the same gens. Of course, present-day Jews are
ignorant of the connection existing between their superstition and the
ancient gentile organization which prohibited such marriages. These
prohibitory laws had the purpose of avoiding the evils resulting from close
intermarriage, and though gentile organization among the Jews has gone out
of existence thousands of years ago, we still see traces of the ancient

tradition preserved. Early experiences in the breeding of animals may have
led to a recognition of the dangers of inbreeding.
How far such experiences had been developed may be seen from the first
book of Moses, chapter 30, 32 stanza, where it is told how Jacob cheated
his father-in-law Laban by providing for the birth of spotted lambs and
goats that were to be his, according to Laban’s promise. Thus ancient
Israelites were applying Darwin’s theories in practice long before Darwin’s
time.
Since we are discussing conditions that existed among the ancient Jews,
it will be well to quote a few further facts which prove that in antiquity
maternal law actually prevailed among them. Although in the first book of
Moses, 3, 16, is written in regard to woman: “And thy desire shall be to thy
husband and he shall rule over thee,” in the first book of Moses, 2, 24, we
find the lines: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and
shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh.” The same wording is
repeated in Matthew, 19, 5; Mark, 10, 7, and in the epistle to the
Ephesians, 5, 31. This command then is rooted in maternal law, for which
interpreters of the Bible had no explanation and, therefore, presented it
incorrectly.
Maternal law is likewise shown to have existed in the fourth book of
Moses, 32, 41. There it is said that Jair had a father of the tribe of Juda, but
his mother came from the tribe of Manasseh, and Jair is explicitly called the
son of Manasseh and became heir to that tribe. In Nehemiah, 7, 63, we find
still another example of maternal law among the ancient Jews. There the
children of a priest who married one of the daughters of Barzillai, a Jewish
clan, are called the children of Barzillai. They are, accordingly, not called
by their father’s but by their mother’s name.
In the Punaluan family, according to Morgan, one or more series of
sisters of one family group married one or more series of brothers of

another family group. A number of sisters or cousins of the first, second and
more remote degrees were the common wives of their common husbands,
who were not permitted to be their brothers. A number of brothers or
cousins of various degrees were the common husbands of their common
wives, who were not permitted to be their sisters. As inbreeding was
thereby prohibited, this new form of marriage was favorable to higher and
more rapid development, and gave those tribes that had adopted this family
form an advantage over those who maintained the old form of sex relations.
The following system of kinship resulted from the Punaluan family: The
children of my mother’s sisters are her children, and the children of my
father’s brothers are his children, and all are my brothers and sisters. But
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 all are my
cousins. The husbands of my mother’s sisters are still her husbands and the
wives of my father’s brothers are still his wives, but the sisters of my father
and the brothers of my mother are excluded from the family group, and
their children are my cousins.[7]
With increasing civilization sexual intercourse among brothers and
sisters is put under the ban, and this is gradually extended to all collateral
relatives on the mother’s side. A new consanguine family, the gens, is
evolved that originally consists of natural and remote sisters and their
children, together with their natural or remote brothers on the mother’s side.
The gens has a common ancestress to whom the groups of female
generations trace their descent. The men do not belong to the gens of their
wives, but to the gens of their sisters. But the children of these men belong
to the gens of their mothers, because descent is traced from the mother. The
mother is considered the head of the family. Thus the matriarchate was
evolved that for a long time constituted the foundation of family relations
and inheritance. While the maternal law prevailed, women had a voice and
vote in the councils of the gens, they helped to elect the sachems and

leaders and to depose them. When Hannibal formed an alliance with the
Gauls against the Romans, he decided that in case disputes should arise
among the allies, the Gallic matrons should be intrusted with the mission of
arbitrating; so great was his confidence in their impartiality.
Of the Lycians who recognized maternal law Herodotus tells us: “Their
customs are partly Cretan and partly Carian. But they have one custom that
distinguishes them from all other nations in the world. If you ask a Lycian
who he is, he will tell you his name, his mother’s name, and so on in the
line of female descent. Moreover, when a free woman marries a slave, her
children remain free citizens. But if a man marries a foreign woman or
takes unto himself a concubine, his children are deprived of all civic rights,
even though he be the most eminent man in the state.”
At that time “matrimonium” was spoken of instead of “patrimonium,”
“mater familias” was said instead of “pater familias,” and one’s native
country was referred to as the motherland. Just as the earlier family forms,
the gens was founded on the common ownership of property, that is, it was
a communistic form of society. Woman was the leader and ruler in this
kinship organization and was highly respected, her opinion counting for
much in the household as well as in the affairs of the tribe. She is
peacemaker and judge, and discharges the duties of religious worship as
priestess.
The frequent appearance of queens and women rulers in antiquity, and
the power wielded by them even when their sons were the actual rulers,
which was the case in Egypt, for instance, was an outcome of the
matriarchate. During that period mythological characters are chiefly
feminine, as seen from the goddesses Astarte, Demeter, Ceres, Latona, Isis,
Frigga, Freya, Gerda, and many others. Woman is invulnerable; matricide is
deemed the most dreadful crime that calls upon all men for vengeance. It is
the common duty of all the men of the tribe, to avenge an injury inflicted
upon any member of their kinship by a member of any other tribe. Defense

of the women incites the men to highest bravery. Thus the influence of the
matriarchate was perceived in all social relations of the ancient peoples,
among the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Greeks before the
heroic age, the Italic tribes before the founding of Rome, the Scythians, the
Gauls, the Iberians, the Cantabrians, the Germans, and others. At that time
woman held a position in society as she has never held since. Tacitus says
in his “Germania”: “The Germans believe that within every woman dwells
something holy and prophetic; therefore they honor woman’s opinion and
follow her advice.” Diodorus, who lived at the time of Cæsar, was quite
indignant over the position of women in Egypt. He had heard that in Egypt
not sons but daughters supported their aged parents. He therefore spoke
disparagingly of the hen-pecked men at the Nile, who granted rights and
privileges to the weaker sex that seemed outrageous to a Greek or a Roman.
Under maternal law comparatively peaceful conditions prevailed. Social
relations were simple and narrow and the mode of life was a primitive one.
The various tribes kept aloof from one another and respected each other’s
domain. If one tribe was attacked by another the men took up arms for
defense and were ably supported by the women. According to Herodotus,
the women of the Scythians took part in battles; virgins—so he claims—
were not permitted to marry until they had slain an enemy. Taken all in all,
the physical and mental differences between man and woman were not
nearly as great in primeval days as they are at present. Among almost all
savage and barbarian tribes, the differences in the size and weight of brains
taken from male and female individuals, are smaller than among civilized
nations. Also the women of these tribes are not inferior to the men in
physical strength and skill. Proof of this is furnished not only by the writers
of antiquity in regard to peoples living under maternal law, but also by the
Amazon regiments of the Ashantis and the King of Dahome in Western
Africa, that excel in ferocity and courage. What Tacitus relates in regard to
the women of the ancient Germans, and Cæsar’s opinion of the women of

the Iberians and the Scots, furnish additional proof. Columbus was attacked
near Santa Cruz by a troop of Indians in a small sloop in which the women
fought as bravely as the men. This conception is furthermore confirmed by
Havelock Ellis: “Among the Andombies on the Congo, according to
Mr. H. H. Johnstone, the women, though working very hard as carriers and
as laborers in general, lead an entirely happy existence; they are often
stronger than the men and more finely developed, some of them, he tells us,
having really splendid figures. And Parke, speaking of the Manyuema of the
Arruwimi in the same region, says that they are fine animals and the women
very handsome; they carry loads as heavy as those of the men and do it
quite as well. In North America again an Indian chief said to Hearne:
Women were made for labor; one of them can carry or haul as much as two
men can do. Schellong, who has carefully studied the Papuans in the
German protectorate of New Guinea from the anthropological point of
view, considers that the women are more strongly built than the men. In
Central Australia again, the men occasionally beat the women through
jealousy, but on such occasions it is by no means rare for the woman,
single-handed, to beat the man severely. At Cuba, the women fought beside
the men and enjoyed great independence. Among some races of India, the
Pueblos of North America, the Patagonians, the women are as large as the
men. So among the Afghans, with whom the women in certain tribes enjoy
a considerable amount of power. Even among the Arabs and Druses it has
been noted that the women are nearly as large as the men. And among
Russians the sexes are more alike than among the English or French.”[8]
In the gens women sometimes ruled with severity, and woe to the man
who was too lazy or too clumsy to contribute his share to the common
sustenance. He was cast out and was obliged either to return to his own
gens, where he was not likely to be received kindly, or to gain admission
into another gens where he was judged less harshly.

That this form of matrimony has been maintained by the natives of
Central Africa to this very day was experienced by Livingstone, to his great
surprise, as related by him in his book, “Missionary Travels and Researches
in Southern Africa.” At the Zambesi he encountered the Balonda, a strong
and handsome Negro tribe, engaged in agricultural pursuits, and was soon
able to confirm the reports made to him by Portugiese, which he had at first
declined to believe, that the women held a superior position among them.
They are members of the tribal council. When a young man marries, he
must migrate from his village into the one in which his wife resides. He
must at the same time pledge himself to provide his mother-in-law with
kindling wood for lifetime. The woman, in turn, must provide her husband’s
food. Although minor quarrels between man and wife occasionally
occurred, Livingstone found that the men did not rebel against female
supremacy. But he found, on the other hand, that when men had insulted
their wives, they were severely punished—by their stomachs. The man—so
Livingstone relates—comes home to eat, but is sent from one woman to
another and is not given anything. Tired and hungry, he finally climbs upon
a tree in the most populous part of the village and exclaims, with a woe-
begone voice: “Hark, hark! I thought I had married women, but they are
witches! I am a bachelor; I have not a single wife! Is that just and fair to a
lord like myself?!”

[7] Frederick Engels: “Origin of the Family.”
[8] Havelock Ellis: “Man and Woman.”

CHAPTER II.

Conflict between Matriarchate and Patriarchate.

1.—Rise of the Patriarchate.

With the increase in population a number of sister gentes arose that again
brought forth several daughter gentes. The mother gens was distinguished
from these as the phratry. A number of phratries constituted the tribe. So
strong was this social organization that it still constituted the unit of military
organization in the states of antiquity, when the old gentile constitution had
already been abandoned. The tribe was subdivided into several branches, all
having a common constitution and in each of which the old gens could be
recognized. But as the gentile constitution prohibited intermarriage among
remote relatives even on the mother’s side, it undermined its own existence.
A social and economic development made the relation of the various gentes
to one another more and more complicated, the interdict of marriage
between certain groups became untenable and ceased to be observed. While
production of the necessities of life was at its lowest stage of development,
and destined to satisfy only the simplest demands, the activities of men and
women were essentially the same. But with increasing division of labor
there resulted not only a diversity of occupations, but a diversity of
possessions as well. Fishing, hunting, cattle-breeding and agriculture, and
the manufacture of tools and implements, necessitated special knowledge,
and these became the special province of the men. Man took the lead along
these lines of development and accordingly became master and owner of
these new sources of wealth.

Increasing population and the desire for an extensive ownership of land
for agricultural and pastoral purposes, led to struggles and battles over the
possession of such land; it also led to a demand for labor-power. An
increase in labor-power meant greater wealth in produce and flock. To
procure such labor-power the rape of women was at first resorted to, and
then the enslavement of vanquished men, who had formerly been killed.
Thus two new elements were introduced into the old gentile constitution
that were incompatible with its very nature.
Still another factor came into play. The division of labor and the growing
demand for tools, implements, weapons, etc., led to a development of
handicraft along distinct lines apart from agriculture. A special class of
craftsmen arose, whose interests in regard to the ownership and inheritance
of property diverged considerably from those of the agricultural class.
As long as descent was traced from female lineage, members of the gens
became heirs to their deceased relatives on the mother’s side. All property
remained within the gens. Under the changed conditions the father had
become owner of flocks and slaves, weapons and produce, but being a
member of his mother’s gens he could not will his property to his children,
but had to leave same to his brothers and sisters or to his sisters’ children.
His own children were disinherited. A strong desire for changing this state
of affairs therefore began to manifest itself, and it was changed accordingly.
Polygamy and polyandry gave way to the pairing family. A certain man
lived with a certain woman, and the children born from this relation were
their children. These pairing families developed gradually, being hampered
by the marriage interdicts of the gentile constitution, but favored by the
above enumerated economic causes. The old household communities were
not in keeping with the idea of private property. Class and occupation
became determining factors in the choice of a place of residence. An
increased production of commodities gave rise to commerce among
neighboring and more widely separated nations and necessitated the

development of finance. Man was the one to conduct and control this
development. His private interests, therefore, were no longer harmonious to
the old gentile organization; on the contrary, they were frequently
diametrically opposed to it. Therefore this organization became of less and
less importance, and finally all that remained of the gens was the
conducting of a number of religious rites within the family group. The
economic significance was lost and the final dissolution of the gentile
constitution only remained a question of time.
With the breaking up of the old gentile organization the power and
influence of woman rapidly declined. The matriarchate disappeared and the
patriarchate took its place. Man, being an owner of private property, had an
interest in having legitimate children to whom he could will his property,
and he, therefore, forced upon woman the prohibition of intercourse
with other men.
But for himself he reserved the right of maintaining as many concubines
as his means would permit beside his legitimate wife or wives, and their
offspring were regarded as legitimate children. The Bible furnishes
important evidence on this subject in two instances. In the first book of
Moses, 16, 1 and 2, it says: “Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children; and
she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said
unto Abram: Behold now, the Lord hath 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 noteworthy evidence is
found in the first book of Moses, 30, 1; it reads as follows: “And when
Rachel saw that she bore 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 has withheld
from thee the fruit of the womb? And she said: Behold my maid, Billah, go
in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees that I may also have children

by her. And she gave him Billah, her handmaid, to wife, and Jacob went in
unto her.”
Thus Jacob was not only married to two sisters, the daughters of Laban,
but both also gave him their handmaids to wives, a custom that was not
immoral according to the moral conceptions of the time. His two chief
wives he had married by purchase, having served their father Laban seven
years for each of them. At that time it was the general custom among the
Jews to purchase wives, but besides they carried on a widespread robbery of
women from nations conquered by them. Thus, for instance, the Benjamites
robbed the daughters of Shiloh. The captured woman became a slave, a
concubine. But she could be raised to the position of a legitimate wife, upon
fulfillment of the following command: She had to cut her hair and nails and
exchange the garments in which she was captured with others given to her
by her captors. Thereupon she had to mourn for her father and mother
during an entire month, her mourning being destined to signify that her
people were dead to her. These regulations having been complied with, she
could enter into wedlock. The greatest number of women were owned by
King Solomon, who, according to the first book of Kings, chapter 11, had
no less than 700 wives and 300 concubines.
As soon as the patriarchate, that is, paternal descent, was established in
the gentile organization of the Jews, the daughters were excluded from
inheritance. Later this rule was modified in cases when a father left no sons.
This is shown in the fourth book of Moses, 27, 2–8. There it is told that
when Zelophehad died without leaving sons, his daughters complained
bitterly that they should be excluded from their father’s inheritance that was
to pass to the tribe of Joseph. Moses decides that in this case the daughters
should be heirs to their father. But when, according to an old custom, they
decide to choose husbands from another tribe, the tribe of Joseph complain
that thereby they are losing an heritage. Thereupon Moses decides that the
heiresses may choose freely, but that they must make their choice from

among the men in their father’s tribe. So it was in behalf of property that the
old marriage laws were annulled. As a matter of fact, in the days of the old
Testament, i. e., in historical times, the patriarchal system was prevalent
among the Jews, and the clan and tribal organization were founded on
descent in the male line, as was the case with the Romans. According to this
system the daughters were excluded from inheritance. Thus we read in the
first book of Moses, 31, 14 and 15, the complaint of Lea and Rachel,
daughters of Laban: “Is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our
father’s house? Are we not counted of him strangers? For he hath sold us
and hath quite devoured also our money.”
Among the ancient Jews, as among all other nations where the
matriarchate was succeeded by the patriarchate, women were utterly devoid
of rights. Marriage was a purchase of the woman. Absolute chastity was
demanded of her; but not so of the man, who moreover was entitled to have
several wives. If the man had cause to believe that the woman had lost her
virginity prior to marriage, he was not only entitled to cast her off, she
might also be stoned to death. The same punishment was meted out to the
adulteress; but the man was subjected to the same punishment only then
when he committed adultery with a Jewish matron. According to the first
book of Moses, 24, 1–4, a man was entitled to cast off a woman he had just
married if she found no favor in his eyes, even though his displeasure be
only a whim. Then he might write her a bill of divorcement, give it in her
hand and send her out of his house. A further proof of the degraded position
of woman among the Jews may be gathered from the fact that to this day
women attend services in the synagogue in a space separated from the men,
and are not included in the prayer.[9] According to the Jewish conception,
woman is not a member of the congregation; in religion and politics she is a
mere cipher. When ten men are assembled they may hold services, but
women are not permitted to do so, no matter how many of them are
assembled.

In Athens, Solon decreed that a widow should marry her nearest relation
on her father’s side, even if both belong to the same gens, although such
marriages were forbidden by an earlier law. Solon likewise decreed that a
person holding property need not will it to his gens but might, in case he
were childless, will it to whomsoever he pleased. We see, then, that man,
instead of ruling his property, is being ruled by it.
With the established rule of private property the subjugation of woman
by man was accomplished. As a result of this subjugation, woman came to
be regarded as an inferior being and to be despised. The matriarchate
implied communism and equality of all. The rise of the patriarchate
implied the rule of private property and the subjugation and
enslavement of woman. The conservative Aristophanes recognized this
truth in his comedy, “The Popular Assembly of Women,” for he has the
women introduce communism as soon as they have gained control of the
state, and then proceeds to caricature communism grossly in order to
discredit the women.
It is difficult to show how the details of this great transformation were
accomplished. This first great revolution that took place in human society
was not accomplished simultaneously among all the civilized nations of
antiquity, and has probably not developed everywhere along the same lines.
Among the tribes of Greece, the new order of things attained validity
primarily in Athens.
Frederick Engels holds the opinion that this great transformation was
brought about peaceably, and that, all preliminary conditions making such a
change desirable being given, a mere vote on the matter in the gentes
sufficed to put the patriarchal system in place of the matriarchal system.
Backofen, on the other hand, believes—his opinion founded on ancient
writers—that the women vehemently opposed this social transformation. He
considers many myths of the Amazon kingdoms that are met with in the

histories of Oriental countries, in South America and China, proofs of the
struggle and opposition of women against the new order.
With the rise of male supremacy the women were deprived of their
former position in the community. They were excluded from the council
and lost their determining influence. Men compelled women to be faithful
in marriage without recognizing a similar duty on their part. When a woman
is faithless, she commits the worst deception to which a citizen of the new
order can fall a victim; she brings another man’s children into his house to
become the heirs of his property. That is why among all the ancient peoples
adultery, when committed by a woman, was punishable by death or slavery.

[9] In the oldest quarter of Prague is an old synagogue, built during the
sixth century, the oldest synagogue in Germany. Upon descending about
seven steps into the dusky chamber, the visitor beholds a row of small loop-
holes on the opposite wall leading into an utterly dark room. Upon inquiry
we are told by the guide that this is the woman’s room, where the women
attended services. Modern synagogues are less gloomy, but the separation
of men and women is still maintained.

2.—Traces of the Matriarchate in Greek Myths and Dramas.

Although the women were thus deprived of their former influential
position, the customs connected with the ancient cults continued to
dominate the minds for centuries; only their deeper meaning was gradually
lost, and it remained for the present time to investigate them. Thus it was
customary in Greece that women appealed for advice and help to the
goddesses only. The annual celebration of the Thesmophoria clearly derived
its origin from matriarchal times. Even in later days Greek women still
celebrated this festival in honor of Demeter, which lasted for five days, and
in which no man was allowed to participate. A festival of the same character
was held annually in Rome in honor of Ceres. Demeter and Ceres were the
goddesses of fecundity. In Germany, similar festivals were observed up to
the Christian middle ages. These were consecrated to Frigga, the ancient
German goddess of fecundity, and here also men were excluded from
participation.
In Athens, the matriarchate had to make way to the patriarchate at an
early period, but apparently not without strong opposition on the part of the
women. The tragedy of the transformation is pathetically presented in the
“Eumenides” by Aeschylus. The following is a synopsis of the story:
Agamemnon, King of Mycenae, husband of Klytaemnestra, on his
expedition to Troy, sacrifices his daughter Iphigeneia, in obedience to a
command of the oracle. The mother is enraged over the sacrifice of her
child that, in accordance with natural law, does not belong to her husband,
and during Agamemnon’s absence she accepts Aeghistus as her husband,
thereby not committing any objectionable act according to the ancient laws.
When Agamemnon returns to Mycenae, after an absence of many years, he
is murdered by Aeghistus, whom Klytaemnestra has incited to this deed.

Orestes, son of Agamemnon and Klytaemnestra, upon a command from
Apollo and Minerva, avenges his father’s death by killing his mother and
Aeghistus. The Eumenides, representing the old maternal law, prosecute
Orestes for the murder of his mother. Apollo and Minerva—the latter,
according to the myth, not having been born by a mother, since she sprang
from the head of Zeus in full armor—defend Orestes, for they represent the
new paternal law. The case is brought before the areopagus and the
following dialogue ensues in which the two conflicting views are
expressed:

Eumenides: The prophet (Apollo) bade thee then become a matricide?
Orestes: Aye; and I never yet my destiny regretted.
Eumenides: When judgment will be given thou wilt not speak thus.
Orestes: Perhaps. But from his grave my father will send aid.
Eumenides: What hopest from the dead thou, who hast killed thy
mother?
Orestes: She had been guilty of a double, bloody crime.
Eumenides: How so? Explain unto the judges what you mean.
Orestes: She killed her husband and she thereby killed my father.
Eumenides: Her crime she expiated now, but you still live.
Orestes: Why did you fail to prosecute her while she lived?
Eumenides: She was no blood relation to the man she killed.
Orestes: But I, so you assert, am of my mother’s blood.
Eumenides: Did she, thou bloody one, not bear thee ’neath her heart?
Wouldst thou thy mother’s sacred blood deny?

The Eumenides accordingly do not recognize the right of the father and
husband. They proclaim maternal law. That Klytaemnestra caused the
murder of her husband seems unimportant to them, for he was a stranger to
her. But they demand punishment of the matricide, for by killing his

mother, Orestes committed the most unpardonable crime that could be
committed under the dominance of the gentile organization. Apollo, on the
other hand, holds the opposite point of view. Upon a command from Zeus
he has induced Orestes to murder his own mother to avenge the patricide,
and before the judges he thus defends the deed:

Then say I, listen ye unto my word of justice:
The mother is not procreatrix to her child;
She only the awakened life doth keep and bear.
The father is the procreator; she but keeps
The forfeit for her friend, unless a god destroy it
I will submit a proof that cannot be denied.
For one can have a father, yet no mother have.
Minerva, daughter of the great Olympian Zeus,
Within the darkness of a mother’s womb ne’er rested,
And yet no goddess e’er gave birth to fairer offspring.

According to Apollo, then, procreation gives the father a superior right,
while the view that had prevailed until then proclaimed the mother, who
gives life to the child by her own blood, the child’s sole possessor, and
deemed the child’s father a mere stranger to her. Therefore, the Eumenides
reply to the views of Apollo:

Thou overthrowest forces of remotest days....
Thou, the young god, wouldst us, the ancient ones, dethrone.

The judges prepare to pronounce their verdict; half of them favor the old
law and the other half favor the new, giving an equal number of votes to
both sides. There Minerva seizes a ballot from the altar and casting it into
the urn she exclaims:

Mine is the right to utter final judgment here,
And for Orestes I cast in the urn this stone;
For unto me no mother was who gave me birth,
Therefore with all my heart all manly things I praise
Excepting marriage. For I am my father’s quite.
Less criminal I deem the murder of this woman,
Because her husband she has killed, the home’s maintainer.
Though even be the vote, Orestes is victorious.

Another myth depicts the fall of the matriarchate in the following
manner: During the rule of Cecrops, a double miracle occurred.
Simultaneously an olive-tree sprang from the earth at one place, and a well
at another. The frightened king sent a messenger to Delphi to question the
oracle concerning the meaning of these miracles. The reply was: The olive-
tree represents Minerva, the water represents Neptune, and the citizens may
decide after whom of the two deities they choose to name their city.
Cecrops summoned the popular assembly, in which both men and women
were entitled to vote. The men voted for Neptune, and the women for
Minerva, and since the women had a majority of one vote, Minerva was
victorious. Thereupon Neptune became infuriated and let the sea flood the
lands of the Athenians. To appease the fury of the god, the Athenians then
inflicted threefold punishment upon their women. They were to be
disfranchised, their children were no longer to bear their mother’s name,
and they themselves should no longer be called Athenians.[10]
Thus the new order was established. The father became the head of the
family. The patriarchate conquered the matriarchate.

[10] Backofen: “The Matriarchate.”

3.—Legitimate Wives and Courtesans in Athens.

Just as the transition from the matriarchate to the patriarchate was
accomplished in Athens, it was accomplished elsewhere as soon as a similar
degree of development had been attained. Woman was restricted to her
home and isolated in special rooms, known as “gynacontis,” in which she
dwelt. She even was excluded from social intercourse with the men who
visited the house; in fact, this was the special object of her isolation. In the
Odyssee we find this change in customs expressed. Thus Telemachus
forbids his mother to be present among her suitors, and utters this
command:

But go now to the home, and attend to thy household affairs;
To the spinning wheel and the loom, and bid thy maids be assiduous
At the task that to them were allotted. To speak is the privilege of men,
And mine is especially this privilege, for I am the lord of the house![11]

This was the prevailing conception in Greece at the time. Even widows
were subjected to the rulership of their nearest male relatives, and were not
even free to choose a husband. Weary of the long waiting imposed upon
them by the clever Penelope, the suitors send to Telemachus their
spokesman, Antonioos, who thus voices their demand:

See now, the suitors inform thee that thou in thy heart mayest know it
And that all the Achæans may of the fact be informed.
Send thy mother hence, and command her to take as her husband
Whom she chooses to take, and whom her father selects.[12]

At this period woman’s freedom has come to an end. When she leaves
the house she must veil her face—not to waken the desires of some other
man. In the Oriental countries where sexual passions are stronger, as a
result of the hot climate, this method of isolation is still carried to the
extreme. Among the ancients, Athens served as a pattern of the new order.
The woman shares the man’s bed, but not his table. She does not address
him by his name, but calls him master; she is his servant. She was not
allowed to appear in public anywhere, and when walking upon the streets
was always veiled and plainly dressed. When she committed adultery she
was, according to Solon’s law, condemned to pay for her sin either with her
life, or with her liberty. Her husband was entitled to sell her as a slave.
The position of Greek women of those days is powerfully expressed in
Medea’s lamentation:

“Of all creatures that have soul and life
We women are indeed the very poorest.
By our dowery we’re obliged to purchase
A husband—and what then is far worse still,
Henceforward our body is his own.
Great is the danger; will his nature be
Evil or good? Divorce is to the woman
A deep disgrace. Yet she may not say nay
Unto the man who was betrothed to her.
And when she comes to lands with unknown customs,
She has to learn—for no one teaches her—
To understand the nature of her husband.
And when we have succeeded in all this,
And our loved one gladly with us dwells,
Then our lot is fair. But otherwise
I’d rather far be dead.—Not so the man.
If in his home he is not satisfied,
He finds outside the home what pleases him,
With friends and with companions of his age;
But we must always seek to please but one.
They say that we in peace and safety dwell,
While they must go forth to the battlefield.
Mistaken thought! I rather thrice would fight,
Than only once give birth unto a child!”

Very different was the man’s lot. While the man compelled the woman to
abstain absolutely from relations with other men, for the purpose of
insuring the legitimacy of his heirs, he was not inclined to abstain from
relations with other women. Courtesanship developed. Women noted for
their beauty and intellect, usually foreigners, preferred a free life in the

most intimate association with men to the slavery of marriage. Nor was
their life deemed a loathsome one. The name and the fame of these
courtesans who associated with the foremost men of Greece and took part
in their intellectual discussions and in their banquets, have come down to us
through history, while the names of the legitimate wives are lost and
forgotten. One of these was Aspasia, the friend of the famous Pericles, who
later made her his wife. Phryne had intimate relations with Hyperides, and
served Praxiteles, one of the foremost sculptors of Greece, as a model for
his statue of Venus. Danae was the mistress of Epicure, Archæanassa was
Plato’s. Lais of Corynth, Gnethanea and others were equally famous
courtesans. Every one of the famous Greeks had intercourse with these
courtesans. It was part and parcel of their life. The great orator
Demosthenes in his oration against Neaera thus characterized the sexual
relations of Athenian men: “We marry women to have legitimate children
and to have faithful guardians of our homes, we maintain concubines for
our daily service and comfort, and courtesans for the enjoyment of love.”
The wife was only destined to bear offspring and, like a faithful dog, to
guard her master’s house. But the master himself lived to suit his pleasure.
In many cases it is so still.
To satisfy the demand for mercenary women, especially among the
younger men, prostitution developed, an institution that had not been
known during the dominance of the matriarchate. Prostitution differs from
free sexual intercourse by the fact that the woman yields her body in return
for material gain, be it to one man or to a number of men. Prostitution exists
wherever a woman makes the selling of her charms a trade. Solon, who
formulated the new laws for Athens and is famed as the founder of these
laws, introduced the public brothel, the “deikterion.” He decreed that the
price should be the same to all visitors. According to Philemon this was one
obolus, about 6 cents in American money. The “deikterion” was a place of
absolute safety, like the temples in Greece and Rome and the Christian

churches in the middle ages. It was under the immediate protection of the
public authorities. Until about 150 B. C. the temple in Jerusalem was the
general rallying-point of the prostitutes.
For the boon bestowed upon Athenian men by his founding of the
“deikterion,” one of Solon’s contemporaries thus sings his praise: “Solon,
be praised! For thou didst purchase public women for the welfare of the
city, to preserve the morals of the city that is full of strong, young men,
who, without thy wise institution, would indulge in the annoying pursuit of
the better class women.” We will see that in our own day exactly the same
arguments are being advanced to justify the existence of prostitution and its
maintenance as an institution sanctioned by the state. Thus the state laws
approved of deeds committed by men as being their natural right, while the
same deeds were branded as criminal and despicable when committed by
women. It is a well-known fact that even to-day there are a great many men
who prefer the company of a pretty offendress to the company of their wife
and who, nevertheless, enjoy the reputation of being “pillars of society” and
guardians of those sacred institutions, the family and the home. To be sure,
the Greek women frequently seem to have taken vengeance upon their
husbands for their oppression. If prostitution is the complement of
monogamic marriage on the one hand, adultery of wives and cuckoldom of
husbands are its complements on the other. Among the Greek dramatists,
Euripides seems to have been the most pronounced woman-hater, since in
his dramas he preferably holds up the women to ridicule and scorn. What
accusations he hurls at them can best be seen from a passage in “The
Thesmophoria” by Aristophanes,[13] where a Greek woman assails him in
the following manner:

With what calumny doth he (Euripides) not vilify us women?
When e’er hath silent been the slanderer’s tongue?
Where there’s an audience, tragedy and chorus,
We are described as man-mad traitoresses,
Fond of the cup, deceitful, talkative.
We’re wholly bad, to men a tribulation.
Therefore, when from the play our husbands come,[14]
They look distrustfully at us and search about
If somewhere not a lover is concealed,
And henceforth we no longer are permitted
To do what harmlessly we did before.
Such wicked things he tells the men about us,
That when a woman only makes a garland,
They think she is in love; or when at home
She works about and dropping something, breaks it,
The husband promptly asks: “For whom this broken glass?
Quite evidently for the guest from Corinth.”

It is not surprising that the eloquent Greek woman thus serves the
defamer of her sex. But Euripides could hardly have made such accusations
nor would they have found belief among the men, had it not been well
known that they were justified. Judging by the final sentences of the above
quoted harangue it seems that the custom, well known in Germany and
other countries, whereby the master of the house honors his guest by
placing his own wife or daughter at the guest’s disposal, did not prevail in
Greece. Of this custom, that was still observed in Holland in the fifteenth
century, Murner says: “It is the custom in the Netherlands that whosoever
hath a dear guest, unto him he giveth his wife in good faith.”[15]
The increasing class struggle in the Greek states and the deplorable
conditions that existed in many of these small communities led Plato to an

investigation of the best constitution of the state and its institutions. In his
“State,” that he conceives as an ideal one, he demands that among the
highest class of citizens, the guardians, women should hold a position of
absolute equality. Like the men, they should take part in military exercises
and should perform all civic duties, only should the lighter tasks be alloted
to them on account of the weakness of their sex. He holds that the natural
abilities are the same with both sexes, that woman is only weaker than man.
He further demands that the women should belong to all the men in
common as should also the children, so that no father might know his child
nor a child its father.[16]
The views of Aristoteles are more in keeping with the bourgeois
conceptions. According to his “Politics,” every woman should have the
right of freely choosing her husband. She should be subservient to him, yet
she should have the privilege of giving him good advice. Thucydides
expresses a view that meets with the approval of all Philistines. He says:
“To that wife is due the highest praise of whom one speaks neither well nor
ill outside of her home.”
While such views prevailed women were bound to sink lower and lower
in the esteem of men. A fear of excess of population even led men to avoid
intimate intercourse with women. An unnatural satisfaction of sexual
desires was the result. The Greek states consisted mainly of cities having
very limited landed property, and it therefore was impossible to maintain
the population at their accustomed nourishment beyond a given number.
This fear of excess of population caused Aristotle to advice the men to shun
their wives and to indulge in sodomy instead. Before him Socrates had
already extolled sodomy as a mark of superior culture. Finally the foremost
men of Greece indulged in this unnatural passion. The esteem of woman
sank to its lowest level. Bawdy houses containing male prostitutes were
maintained, beside those containing female prostitutes. It was in such a
social atmosphere that Thucydides could say of woman that she was worse

than the sea raging in storm, worse than the fire’s fierce glow and the
mountain torrent’s rushing stream. “If it is a god who invented woman,
whoever he be, let him know that he is the nefarious originator of the
greatest evil.”
While the men of Greece practiced sodomy, the women drifted into the
opposite extreme, indulging in the love of their own sex. This was
especially the case among the inhabitants of the island of Lesbos, wherefore
this aberration was called Lesbian love and is still called so, since it is by no
means extinct but continues to exist among us. The chief representative of
this “love” was the celebrated poetess Sapho, “the Lesbian nightinggale,”
who lived about 600 B. C. Her passion is fervently expressed in her Ode to
Venus:

“Thou who rulest all, upon flowers enthroned,
Daughter of Zeus born of foam, o thou artful one,
Hark to my call!
Not in anguish and bitter suffering, O goddess,
Let me perish!—”

Still more passionate is the sensuality expressed in the ode to the
beautiful Athis.
While in Athens and other Greek states the patriarchal system prevailed,
in Sparta, Athens’ greatest rival, we still find the matriarchate, a condition
which had become entirely foreign to most Greeks. Tradition has it that one
day a Greek asked a Spartan how the crime of adultery was punished in
Sparta; whereupon the Spartan replied: “Stranger, there are no adulterers in
our midst.” “But if there should be one?” quoth the stranger. “Then,” said
the Spartan mockingly, “his penalty would be to give an ox, so tall that he
could stretch his neck across the Taygetus and drink from the Eurotas.”
Upon the astonished query of the stranger how an ox could be so tall, the

Spartan laughingly replied: “How can there be an adulterer in Sparta?!” The
dignified self-consciousness of the Spartan women finds expression in the
reply given to a stranger by the wife of Leonidas. The stranger said to her:
“You Lacedemonian women are the only ones who rule over men.” To this
she replied: “And we are the only women who bring forth men.”
The freedom enjoyed by women during the matriarchate heightened their
beauty and increased their pride, their dignity and their self-reliance. There
is a uniformity of opinion among ancient writers that these attributes were
highly developed in women during the matriarchal period. The condition of
servitude that followed naturally had a deteriorating influence. The change
is manifested even in the difference of dress that marks the two periods. The
dress of the Doric woman hung loosely from her shoulders, leaving her
arms and the lower part of her legs uncovered. It is the dress worn by Diana
as she is represented in our museums, a free and daring figure. But the Ionic
dress covers the figure completely and restrains the motions. The manner in
which women dress was and is to this day a proof of their dependence and a
cause of their helplessness to a far greater extent than is generally assumed.
The style of dress worn by women to this day makes them clumsy and gives
them a feeling of weakness that is expressed in their carriage and their
character. The Spartan custom of permitting girls to go about naked until
maturity—a custom that was made possible by the climate of the country—
had the effect, so an ancient writer tells us, of teaching them simplicity of
taste and regard for the care of their bodies. According to the views of the
time, this custom did not shock the sense of decency or arouse physical
passions. The girls also took part in all physical exercises just like the boys.
Thus a strong, self-respecting race was reared, conscious of their worth, as
is shown in the reply given to the stranger by the wife of Leonidas.

[11] Homer’s “Odyssee.”
[12] Homer’s “Odyssee.”

[13] “Comedies by Aristophanes.”
[14] The theatre, to which Greek women were not admitted.
[15]“German History of Manners and Civilization,” by Johann Scherr.
Sudermann deals with the same subject in his drama, “Honor.”
[16] Plato: “The State.”

4.—Remnants of the Matriarchate in the Customs of Various
Nations.

Certain customs are closely linked with the vanished matriarchate that
modern writers have erroneously termed “prostitution.” In Babylon, for
instance, it was a religious duty for young girls upon reaching maturity to
go to the temple of Mylitta and there yield to some man, making a sacrifice
of their virginity. Similar customs were observed in the Serapis of
Memphis, in honor of the goddess Anaitis in Armenia, in Tyrus and Sydon
in honor of Astarte or Venus. The Egyptian festivals of Isis were
accompanied by the same religious rites. This sacrifice of virginity was
deemed an atonement to the goddess for the exclusiveness of surrender to
one man in marriage. “For woman is not endowed with all the beauties
nature has bestowed upon her, to fade in the arms of a single man. The law
of substance condemns all restrictions, hates all fetters, and considers
exclusiveness a crime against its divinity.”[17] The continued good will of
the goddess must be purchased by this sacrifice of virginity to a stranger. In
conformity with this conception the Libyan maidens earned their dowery by
their surrender. According to the matriarchate they enjoyed sexual liberty
before marriage, and the men, far from taking offense at this pursuit, in
choosing a wife gave preference to the girl who had been most desired. The
same condition existed among the Thracians at the time of Herodotus.
“They do not guard the maidens, but give them complete freedom to have
relations with whomever they choose. But the married women are closely
guarded. They buy them from their parents for a large portion.” The
Hierodules in the temple of Venus in Corynth were far famed. There more
than a thousand girls were assembled, constituting the chief attraction for
Greek men. Of the daughter of King Cheops of Egypt the legend relates,

that she had a pyramid built from the proceeds obtained by the
abandonment of her charms.
We still find similar conditions in existence in the Marquesas Islands, in
the Philippines and Polynesia, and, according to Waitz, among various
African tribes. Another custom, which was maintained on the Balearic
Islands up to recent times and that expressed the right of all men to every
woman, was that in the bridal night all the men related to the bride, were
admitted to her successively in accordance with their ages. The groom came
last. Among other peoples this custom has been changed to that effect, that
one man representing the others, the high priest or chieftain of the tribe,
exercises this privilege with the bride. The Claimars in Malabar engage
putamares (priests) to deflour their wives. It is the duty of the chief priest
(namburi) to render this service to the king (zamorin) upon his marriage,
and the king pays for it with fifty pieces of gold.[18] In India and on
various islands of the Pacific either the priests or the tribal chiefs (kings)
perform this office.[19] It is the same in Senegambia, where the tribal chief
practices the defloration of virgins as one of his official duties and receives
presents in return. Among other peoples the defloration of the virgin—
sometimes even of female babies—is accomplished by idols constructed for
this purpose. We may assume that the “jus primae noctis” (right of the first
night), which was in practice in Europe until far into the middle ages,
derived its origin from the same tradition. The landlord, considering himself
master over his serfs, practiced the right of the tribal chief that had come
down to him. We will return to this subject later on.
Remnants of the matriarchate are also seen in a peculiar custom of South
American tribes, that has likewise been met with among the Basques, a
people that have preserved many ancient customs and practices. Here the
father takes to his bed, instead of the mother, after the birth of a child,
feigns being in labor-pain, and lets the woman care for him. The custom
designates that the father recognizes the newly born child as his own. The

same custom is said to exist among several tribes of mountaineers in China,
and it existed until a recent date in Corsica.
In the records of German colonies submitted to parliament (during its
session 1904–05) there is a report of the South-West-African region that
contains the following passage: “The tribal chief in a Herero village cannot
decide upon the slightest matter without the advice of his council, and not
only the men but generally the women also give their advice.” In the report
of the Marshall Islands it says: “Rulership over all the islands of the
Marshall groups was never concentrated upon a single chief.... but as there
is no female member of this class (The Irody) living, and the child
inherits nobility and station from the mother only, The Irodies will
become extinct with the death of their chiefs.” The manner of expression
and description used by the informants shows how utterly foreign the
conditions they describe are to them and that they fail to understand
them.[20]
Dr. Henry Weislocky, who for many years lived among the Gypsies of
Transylvania and finally was adopted into one of their tribes, reports,[21]
that two of the four tribes in whose midst he lived, the Ashani and the
Ishale, observed maternal law. If the migratory Gipsy marries, he enters the
clan of his wife, and to her belong all the furnishings of the Gipsy
household. Whatever wealth she has belongs to her and to her clan, the man
is a stranger. In accordance with maternal law the children also remain in
their mother’s clan. Even in modern Germany remnants of the matriarchate
survive. The “Westdeutsche Rundschau” (published in Westphalia) reports
in the issue of June 10, 1902, that in the parish of Haltern the laws of
inheritance were still subject to the old maternal law of the gentes. The
children inherit from their mother. Until now all attempts at reforming this
antiquated custom had failed.
How little the present family form and monogamic marriage can be
regarded as eternal or exceedingly ancient, can furthermore be gathered

from the wide-spread existence of marriage by purchase, marriage by rape,
polygamy and polyandry. In Greece, too, woman became an article of
purchase. As soon as she entered the house of her lord and master she
ceased to exist for her family. This was symbolically expressed by burning
before her husband’s house the gaily decorated carriage that had brought
her there. Among the Ostiaks in Siberia the father still sells his daughter and
bargains with the envoys of the groom over the sum that is to be paid.
Among several African tribes the custom still exists—as in Jacob’s day—
that a man wooing a maiden enters the service of his prospective mother-in-
law. Marriage by purchase still exists in our very midst, in fact, in bourgeois
society it is more generally established than at any other time. The money
marriages, so prevalent among our propertied classes, are nothing more
than marriage by purchase. As a symbol of the purchase whereby the
woman becomes the man’s property, the bridal gift, which it is customary
for the man to give his fiancee, may also be regarded.
Beside marriage by purchase we find marriage by rape. Robbery of
women was practiced not only by the ancient Jews, but practically by all
nations of antiquity. The best-known historical example is the rape of the
Sabines, by the Romans. Robbery of women became the custom quite
naturally wherever women were scarce or where polygamy existed, as
everywhere in the Orient. There especially this custom was wide-spread
during the duration of the Arabian realm from the seventh to the twelfth
century before Christ.
In a symbolical way marriage by rape is still practised among the
Araucanians in the southern part of Chile. While the would-be bridegroom’s
friends bargain with the girl’s father, the man himself slinks about the house
and tries to catch the girl. As soon as he has grasped her he lifts her on his
horse and carries her away toward the forest. Thereupon men, women and
children set up a loud clamor and try to prevent the flight. But as soon as
the man has succeeded in reaching the shelter of the forest the woman is

considered his wife. This is the case even if the robbery was perpetrated
against the parents’ will. Similar customs are met with among Australian
tribes.
Among civilized nations the custom of wedding journeys still serves as a
reminder of the ancient rape of women; the bride is abducted from her
paternal hearth. In the same way the exchange of wedding rings is a symbol
of the old submissiveness of woman and her being chained to the man. This
custom originated in Rome. The bride received an iron ring from her
husband to signify that she was chained to him. Later on this ring was made
of gold, and much later still the exchange of rings was introduced to signify
the mutual bond.
Polygamy has existed and still exists among the Orientals; but owing to
the limited number of women that are at a man’s disposal, and owing to the
expense of their maintenance, it is at present practised only by the
privileged and propertied classes. The counter-part of polygamy is
polyandry. This is found especially among the mountaineers of Thibet, the
Garras living at the boundary of India and China, the Baigas in Godwana,
the Nairs in the southernmost part of India, and also among the Eskimos
and Aleuts. Descent is determined on the mother’s side—as must needs be
the case—and the children belong to her. The woman’s husbands usually
are brothers. If an oldest brother marries, the other brothers thereby become
husbands to his wife. But she has the right to take other husbands beside
these. The men also are entitled to several wives. From what conditions
polyandry sprang is as yet unexplained. As the tribes practising polyandry
without exception live either in mountainous regions of a high altitude or in
the frigid zone, polyandry may perhaps be explained by a phenomenon that
Tarnowsky has pointed out.[22] Tarnowsky was told by reliable travelers
that a lengthy sojourn on high altitudes greatly diminishes sexual desire,
which reawakens with renewed vigor upon descending. This diminution of
sexual desire, so Tarnowsky believes, might explain the slow increase in

population in mountainous regions, and by becoming hereditary might be
one of the symptoms of degeneration leading to perversity.
Continuous living in high altitudes or in frigid zones might in the same
manner signify that polyandry did not make extraordinary demands on
women. Women themselves are influenced accordingly by their nature,
since among Eskimo girls menstruation, as a rule, does not set in until the
nineteenth year, while in the torrid zone it sets in with the ninth or tenth
year, and in the temperate zone between the fourteenth and sixteenth year. It
is generally known that hot countries have a stimulating effect upon sexual
desire; that is why polygamy is especially prevalent in hot countries. In the
same way cold lands, and high altitudes having a similar climate, may have
a restrictive influence. It is also a matter of experience that conception is
less frequent when a woman has cohabitation with several men. The
increase in population is, therefore, weak where polyandry exists, and is
adapted to the difficulty of obtaining food in cold climes and high altitudes.
This goes to show that even in regard to this strange custom of polyandry,
the relations of the sexes are in the last instance determined by the methods
of production. It still remains to be investigated whether the frequent killing
of female infants is practised among the tribes living in mountainous
regions or in the frigid zone, as has been reported of Mongolian tribes
living in the mountainous regions of China.

[17] Backofen: “The Matriarchate.”
[18] K. Kautsky: “Origin of Marriage and the Family.” Kosmos, 1883.
[19] Mantagazza: “Love in Human Society.”
[20] Similar conditions are still met with in Camerun and in other parts of
Western Africa. A German naval surgeon who studied the land and people
from his own observations sends us the following information: “Among a
great many tribes the right of inheritance is founded on maternity. Paternity

is a matter of indifference, only children of the same mother consider one
another brothers and sisters. A man does not will his property to his own
children, but to his sisters’ children, his nephews and nieces, who can be
shown to be his nearest blood relations. A chief of the Way tribe explained
to me in broken English: ‘My sister and I surely are blood relations, for we
are children of the same mother. My sister again surely is the blood relation
of her son. So her son is my heir, and when I die he will be king of my
town.’ ‘And your father?’ I asked. ‘I do not know what that is, my father,’
he replied. When I then went on to ask him whether he had no children of
his own, he was convulsed with laughter and replied that with them not men
but only women had children. I can assure you,” our informant goes on to
say, “that even the heir of King Bell in Camerun is not his son, but his
nephew. The children of Bell, many of whom are being trained in German
cities, are but the children of his wives, while their fathers are unknown.
One of them I might lay claim to myself.”—How are the people who deny
the existence of maternal law impressed by this description of present-day
conditions?! Our informant is a keen observer who goes to the bottom of
things. But few who live among these savages do so. Therefore we are
given such false descriptions of the alleged “immorality” of the natives.
[21] H. v. Weislocky: “Sketches of the Life of the Transylvanian
Gypsies.”
[22] Tarnowsky: “Pathological Phenomena of Sexual Desire.”

5.—Rise of the State.—Dissolution of the Gens in Rome.

After the dissolution of the matriarchal gens, the patriarchal gens took its
place with considerably diminished functions. The chief function of the
patriarchal gens was the strict observation of common religious and funeral
rites and mutual aid and protection. It entailed the right, and sometimes the
duty, to marry within the gens; the latter being the case especially in regard
to rich heiresses and orphans. The gens also controlled all the remaining
common property.
With the rise of private property and the right of inheritance connected
with it, class distinctions and class antagonism came into existence. In the
course of time the propertied members made common cause against the
propertyless ones. The former sought to gain control of the administrative
positions and to make them hereditary. Finance had become a necessity and
entailed conditions of indebtedness that had previously been unknown.
Struggles against external enemies, internal conflicts of interest, and the
varied interests and relations created by agriculture, industry and trade,
necessitated a complicated system of laws and the formation of public
bodies destined to keep the social machine in orderly motion and to settle
disputes. The same was true concerning the relations of masters and slaves,
debtors and creditors. Thus a power was needed to control all these
relations, to conduct, regulate, arbitrate, protect and punish. The state came
into existence as a necessary product of the new social order based on
conflicting interests. Its direction naturally was assumed by those who had
the greatest interest in its founding and who, thanks to their social power,
were most influential: the propertied classes. Thus aristocracy of wealth
and democracy opposed one another, even where complete equality of
political rights was maintained.

During the old matriarchal system no written law existed. Conditions
were simple and custom was hallowed. In the new, far more complicated
order, written law became one of the urgent necessities and special officials
were needed for its administration. But as the legal relations became more
and more complicated, a special class of persons arose, devoted exclusively
to the study of law and having a special interest in still further complicating
them. The jurists, the lawyers, came into existence, and owing to the
importance of the law to the body social, they soon became one of the most
influential estates. The new civic jurisprudence in the course of time found
its most classic expression in the Roman state, that explains the influence
exerted by Roman law down to the present time.
We see then that the state organization is the natural outcome of a society
divided into a great variety of occupations and having varied, frequently
opposing and contending, interests. An inevitable result was oppression of
the weaker members. This truth was recognized by the Nabataeans, an
Arabian tribe, who, according to Diodorus, issued the command neither to
sow nor to plant, to drink no wine, and to build no houses, but to live in
tents, for if they did all these things they might be compelled to obey by a
superior power (the state). Among the Rechabites, the descendants of the
father-in-law of Moses, we find similar decrees.[23] In fact, Mosaic law is
framed in a manner destined to prevent the Jews from developing beyond
the stage of an agricultural society, because their lawmakers feared
that it might bring about the downfall of their democratic, communistic
organization. For the same reasons the “holy land” was selected in a
territory that was bounded on the one side by a mountain range which was
difficult of access, the Libanon, and on the other, especially in the East and
South, by barren lands and a desert, making isolation possible. For the same
reasons, moreover, the Jews were kept at a distance from the sea, which is
favorable to commerce, colonization and the acquirement of wealth. For the
same reasons there were strict laws forbidding mingling and intermarriage

with other nations; and the poor laws, the agrarian laws, the year of jubilee,
all were institutions destined to prevent the acquirement of great fortunes by
individuals. The Jews were to be prevented from becoming a state-forming
nation. That is why the old gentile constitution founded on tribal
organization was maintained by them until their dissolution, and has left its
traces among them even to-day.
Apparently the Latin tribes who participated in the foundation of Rome
had already superseded the matriarchal development. As previously stated,
they robbed the women who were wanting among them from the tribe of
the Sabines and called themselves Quirites after these. At a much later date
the Roman citizens in the popular assembly were still addressed as Quirites.
“Populus Romanus” designated the free population of Rome generally; but
“populus Romanus quiritium” designated Roman citizenship by descent.
The Roman gens was patriarchal; the children inherited from their natural
parent. In case there were no children the property fell to relatives on the
man’s side, and if these were wanting, it fell to the gens. By marriage the
woman lost all rights of inheritance to her father’s property and that of her
father’s brothers. She withdrew from her gens, and thus neither she nor her
children could inherit from her father or his brothers. Otherwise the
hereditary portion would have been lost to the paternal gens. The division
into gentes and phratries for centuries remained the foundation of military
organization and the enactment of civic rights. But with the decay of the
patriarchal gentes and the decline of their significance, conditions became
more favorable to Roman women. They not only obtained the right of
inheritance, they also obtained the right to control their own fortunes; they
accordingly held a far more favorable position than their Greek sisters. This
freer position gradually won by them, gave the elder Cato—born 234 B. C.
—cause for the following complaint: “If the head of each family, following
the example of his ancestors, would seek to maintain his wife in proper
submissiveness, the entire sex would not give so much trouble publicly.”

When a few tribunes in the year 195 B. C., moved to repeal a law enacted
previously, for the purpose of restricting the luxury of women in dress and
personal adornment, he stormed: “If each of us had maintained his manly
authority with his own wife, we would have less bother here with all the
women. Our power that has been shattered in the home, now is being
broken and trampled upon in the forum too by the unruliness of women,
and because we are incapable of resisting them individually, we fear them
all together. Our ancestors decided that women should not even attend to
their private affairs without the control of a guardian, that they should be
subject to their fathers, brothers, husbands. But we submit to it that they
take possession of the republic and interfere with the popular assembly. If
you give free reign to the imperious natures of these unruly creatures, do
not imagine that they will recognize any limits of their tyranny. The truth is
that they desire freedom, nay, dissoluteness, in all things, and when they
have begun to be our equals, they will soon be our superiors.”
At the time Cato delivered this speech the father was guardian to his
daughter during his lifetime, even when she was married, unless he
appointed another guardian. When the father died the nearest male relative
assumed the guardianship. The guardian had the right to transfer this
guardianship to whomever and whenever he pleased. Originally then the
Roman woman had no will of her own before the law.
The forms of marriage ceremonies were varied and underwent many
changes in the course of the centuries. The most ceremonious marriage
ceremony was performed by the high priest in the presence of at least ten
witnesses, whereupon the bridal pair ate a cake made of flour, salt and water
as a symbol of their union. This ceremony has a strong resemblance to the
eating of the sacramental wafer at the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. A
second form of marriage was merely by taking possession. If a woman had
lived with her chosen husband under the same roof for one year, with the
consent of her father or guardian, the marriage was legalized. A third form

was a sort of mutual purchase. The man and woman exchanged some coins
and promised to be husband and wife. At the time of Cicero[24] free
divorce to both partners in the marriage contract was already established,
and it was even denied that an announcement of the divorce was necessary.
But the “lex Julia de adulteriis” prescribed that a divorce must be solemnly
announced. This law was caused by the frequent occurrence that women,
having committed adultery and then having been called to account, claimed
to have divorced their husbands. Justinian (The Christian)[25] prohibited
divorce, except when both parties wished to enter a monastery. But his
successor, Justinian II., found it necessary to introduce it again.
As Rome grew in wealth and power, vice and licentiousness of the worst
kind replaced the moral austerity of its early days. Rome became the center
from which lewdness, debauchery and sensual finesse spread over the entire
civilized world of that period. Especially during the time of the emperors,
and frequently encouraged by the emperors themselves, the debauchery
assumed forms that could only have been inspired by insanity. Men and
women vied with each other in immorality. The number of public brothels
increased rapidly, and besides the “Greek love” (sodomy) was practised
more and more by the men. At one time the number of male prostitutes in
Rome was greater than the number of female prostitutes.
The courtesans appeared in great pomp, surrounded by their admirers, on
the streets and the promenade, in the circus and theater, sometimes reclining
on couches carried by Negroes, holding a mirror in their hand, decked with
jewels, partly nude, fanned by slaves, surrounded by a swarm of boys,
eunuchs and flute-players, with grotesque dwarfs bringing up the rear.
These debaucheries assumed such dimensions in the Roman empire, that
they threatened its very existence. The bad example set by men, was
followed by women. There were women, so Seneca[26] reports, who did
not count years by the consuls, as was customary, but by the number of
their husbands. Adultery was general, and in order to escape the severe

penalties attached to it, women had themselves registered as prostitutes.
Even some of the most aristocratic ladies of Rome were among these.
Besides these debaucheries, civil wars and the system of the latifundia
caused such a marked decline of the marriage and birth-rate, that the
number of Roman citizens and patricians was greatly diminished. In the
year 16 B. C. Augustus enacted the so-called Julian law;[27] that placed a
penalty upon the unmarried state of Roman citizens and patricians, and
rewarded them for having children. Whoever had children was deemed of
higher station than childless or unmarried persons. Unmarried persons
could not inherit property from anyone except their nearest relatives. People
who had no children could only claim half of an inheritance, the other half
was turned over to the state. Women who had been convicted of adultery,
were compelled to give a part of their dowery to their deceived husbands.
This provision caused some men to marry with a desire for adultery on the
part of their wives. That caused Plutarch to remark: “Romans do not marry
to have heirs, but to become heirs.” Later on the Julian law was still
increased in severity. Tiberius issued an edict that no woman whose
grandfather, father or husband had been or was a Roman knight, might
prostitute herself. Married women, who had their names entered in the lists
of prostitutes, should be banished from Italy. For the men, of course, no
such punishments existed. As Juvenal reports, husband-murder by poison
was a frequent occurrence in Rome of his day.

[23] “Mosaic Law,” by John David Michaelis.
[24] Born 106 B. C.
[25] From 527 to 565 A. D.
[26] Seneca lived from 2 to 65 A. D.
[27] Augustus, the adopted son of Caesar, was by adoption a member of
the Gens Julia, from which the Julian law derived its name.

CHAPTER III.

Christianity.

While in the Roman empire the marriage and birthrate were permitted to
decline more and more, the Jews maintained far different customs. The
Jewess was not entitled to choose her own husband; he was chosen for her
by her father. But she regarded marriage as a duty which she faithfully
performed. The Talmud advises: “When thy daughter has attained maturity,
set one of thy slaves free and betroth her to him.” The Jews likewise
faithfully obeyed the commandment of their God: “Be fruitful and
multiply.” Accordingly the Jews have steadily increased in spite of
persecution and oppression; they are staunch opponents of Malthusianism.
Tacitus said of them: “They firmly hold together and readily assist one
another, but are hostile and full of hatred against all others. They never eat
or sleep with enemies, and though very much inclined to sensual passion,
they refrain from pairing with foreign women. Yet they are eager to increase
their tribe. To destroy their offspring is a sin to them; and the souls of those
who have been killed in battle or executed, they consider immortal.
Therefore they combine love for propagation with a contempt for death.”
But Tacitus hated and despised the Jews because they, regardless of their
paternal creed, eagerly accumulated wealth. He calls them “the meanest
people,” “an ugly nation.”
Under Roman rule, the Jews became more and more closely linked with
one another, and during the long time of suffering they were doomed to
endure from this time on through the entire middle ages, that intimate
family life developed among them, which still is regarded as a sort of model
by bourgeois society. In Roman society meanwhile, that process of decay

and dissolution took place that brought the empire to an end. The
debauchery bordering on madness was opposed by the opposite extreme,
rigorous self-denial. Asceticism now assumed religious forms, as the
debaucheries had previously done. Eccentric fanaticism made propaganda
for it. The boundless luxury and extravagance of the ruling classes was in
striking contrast with the want and misery of the millions and millions of
people who were brought to Italy into servitude by the conquering Romans
from all the countries of the world known at that time. Among these there
also were ever so many women, torn from their homes, their parents, their
husbands and children, who were most deeply afflicted by their misfortune
and longed for liberation. Many Roman women who were thoroughly
disgusted by what was going on about them, were in a similar mental state.
Any change in their position seemed desirable. A profound longing for
change, for redemption, manifested itself in wide circles, and the Redeemer
seemed to approach. The conquest of the Jewish realm and Jerusalem by the
Romans, resulted in the destruction of national independence, and brought
forth idealists among the ascetics of that country who predicted the coming
of a new kingdom with freedom and happiness for all.
Christ came and Christianity developed. It personified opposition against
the beastly materialism that prevailed among the rich and mighty ones in
the Roman empire; it represented rebellion against the oppression and
disdain of the masses. But since it sprang from Judaism that knew woman
only as an oppressed being, and since it was biased by the biblical
conception that she is the source of all evil, it preached the disdain of
woman; it preached abstinence and destruction of the flesh, that was sinning
so much at the time, and with ambiguous expressions pointed to a coming
kingdom—conceived by some as a celestial, by others as an earthly
kingdom—that would bring universal peace and justice. In the mire of the
Roman realm, the seeds of these doctrines were planted in fertile soil.
Woman, hoping for liberation and redemption from her position like all the

other unfortunates, gladly and eagerly embraced the new faith. Until this
day no great and important movement has taken place in all the world in
which women did not figure as heroines and martyrs. They who praise
Christianity as a great achievement of civilization, should not forget that to
woman it owed many of its victories. Her eagerness to make converts
played an important part both in the Roman empire and among the
barbarian peoples of the middle ages. Through her efforts those in power
often were converted. Thus, for instance, it was Chlotilde who induced
Chlodwig, King of the Franks, to embrace Christianity. It was Bertha,
Queen of Kent, and Gisela, Queen of Hungary, who introduced Christianity
in their countries. The conversion of many prominent men was due to the
influence of women. But Christianity rewarded woman poorly. Its doctrines
contain the same disdain of woman that is met with in all the religions of
the Orient. It commands her to be an obedient servant to man, and even to-
day women must promise obedience to their husbands before the marriage
altar. Let us hear how the Bible and Christianity speak of woman and
marriage.
The ten commandments of the old testament are addressed exclusively to
the man. In the ninth commandment the woman is mentioned together with
the domestic servants and domestic animals. The man is warned not to
covet his neighbor’s wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his
ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is his neighbor’s. Woman then is an object,
a piece of property, that man should not desire if in someone else’s
possession. Jesus, who belonged to a sect that maintained rigorous
asceticism and practised voluntary emasculation, when asked by his
disciples whether it were well to marry, replied: 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.

According to this, then, emasculation is agreeable to God, and
renunciation of love and marriage is a worthy deed. St. Paul, who may be
called the founder of Christianity even more so than Jesus himself, St. Paul,
who removed this creed from the narrow Jewish sectarianism and gave it its
international character, writes to the Corynthians: Now concerning the
things whereof ye wrote unto me: it is good for a man not to touch a
woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife
and let every woman have her own husband.
“Matrimony is a degraded station; to marry is good, not to marry is
better.” “Walk in the spirit and resist the temptations of the flesh.” “The
flesh conspires against the spirit and the spirit conspires against the flesh.”
They, whom Christ has won, have crucified their flesh with all its passions
and desires.———
He was true to his own views and refrained from marriage. This hatred of
flesh is the hatred of woman, but also the fear of woman, who is
represented as man’s seducer. In this spirit the apostles and fathers of the
church preached; in this same spirit the church used its influence during the
entire middle ages, by establishing monasteries and introducing celibacy of
priests, and it is still using its influence in the same direction.
According to Christianity woman is impure. She is the seducer who
brought sin into the world and wrought man’s destruction. Therefore the
apostles and fathers of the church regarded marriage as a necessary evil, as
prostitution is regarded at present. Tertullian exclaims: “Woman, you ought
to go about clad in mourning and rags, your eyes filled with tears of
remorse, to make us forget that you have been mankind’s destruction.
Woman, you are the gate to hell!” And: “Celibacy must be chose, even
though the human race should perish.” Hieronymus says: “Matrimony is
always a vice, all that can be done is to excuse it and to sanctify it; therefore
it was made a religious sacrament.” Origines declares: “Matrimony is
impure and unholy; a means of sensual passion.” To escape the temptation

he emasculated himself. Augustin teaches: “The married people will shine
in heaven like radiant stars, while their parents (their procreators) will be
like dark stars.” Eusebius and Hieronymus are agreed that the teaching of
the Bible: “Be fruitful and multiply,” is no longer suited to the times, and
does not concern Christians. Hundreds of similar sayings by the most
influential teachers of the church might be quoted, to prove that they all
taught in the same spirit. By their continuous teaching and preaching they
have disseminated those unnatural views about everything pertaining to sex
and the sex relation, which after all is a law of nature, and the fulfillment
of which is one of the most important duties in the plan of life. Modern
society is still suffering from the effects of these doctrines, and is but slowly
recovering from them.
St. Peter exclaims with energy: “Wives, obey your husbands!” St. Paul
writes to the Ephesians: “The husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also
is the head of the church.” And to the Corinthians: “The man is the image
and glory of God; but woman is the glory of the man.”
According to this any fool of a man may deem himself better than the
most excellent woman, and as a matter of fact it has been so in practice
until this day. Against the higher education of women St. Paul also raises
his voice. In the first Epistle to Timothy 2, 11, etc., he says: “Let a woman
learn in quietness with all subjection. But I permit not a woman to teach,
nor to have dominion over a man, but to be in quietness”; and in the Epistle
to the Corinthians, 14, 34 and 35: “Let the women keep silence in the
churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak. But let them be in
subjection as also saith the law. And if they would learn anything let them
ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for a woman to speak in
the church.” St. Thomas of Aquino (1227 to 1274) says: “Woman is a
rapidly growing weed, an imperfect being. Her body attains maturity more
rapidly only because it is of less value, and nature is engaged less in her
making. Women are born to be eternally maintained under the yoke of their

lords and masters, endowed by nature with superiority in every respect, and
therefore destined to rule.”
Such doctrines are not characteristic of Christianity only. As Christianity
is a mixture of Judaism and Greek philosophy, and as both are rooted in the
more ancient civilizations of India, Babylon and Egypt, the inferior position
alloted to woman by Christianity was common to all the civilized nations of
antiquity after the passing of the matriarchate. In the Indian book of laws of
Manu we find the following: “The cause of dishonor is woman; the cause of
hostility is woman; the cause of worldly things is woman; therefore woman
should be shunned.” Beside the degradation of woman, the fear of woman
is repeatedly naively expressed. Thus it is further stated in Manu: “Women
are ever inclined by nature to seduce men; therefore a man should never,
even in the company of his closest female relative, sit in a lonely spot.” The
Indian conception, the old testament, and the Christian conception, all unite
in declaring woman the seducer. Every condition of oppression entails the
degradation of the oppressed. The oppression of woman has been
maintained until this day; but among the Oriental peoples, whose social
development has been retarded, it has been maintained more rigorously than
among the Christian nations. Yet the factor that made for improvement in
the position of women among Christian nations was not Christianity itself,
but the civilization of the Western countries attained in the struggles
against the Christian conception.
Christianity is not the cause that woman’s position is superior to-day to
what it had been at the time of the origin of Christianity. Only reluctantly
has it been compelled to abandon its true attitude toward woman. They who
are enthusiastic over the “redeeming mission of Christianity,” of course,
hold a different view. They claim that Christianity has liberated woman
from her former degraded position, and they base this claim especially upon
the cult of the Holy Virgin, which they consider a token of respect for
woman. The Catholic Church which maintains this cult, might hardly share

this opinion. The above-quoted sayings of the saints and the fathers of the
church which could easily be multiplied, all express hostility to woman and
marriage. The Council at Macon during the sixth century, which indulged in
serious discussion as to whether woman had a soul, and finally decided in
her favor by a majority of one, also disproves the claim that Christianity
was favorable to women. The introduction of celibacy of priests by
Gregory VII,[28] the purpose of which was to create a power by having an
unmarried priesthood that would not be withdrawn from the service of the
church by any family interests, was made possible only by that fundamental
view of the church, that all desires of the flesh are sinful. Many reformers,
especially Calvin and the Scotch ministers, have raved so vehemently
against the “lust of the flesh,” that they left no doubt in regard to the hostile
attitude of Christianity toward women.[29] By introducing the cult of the
Virgin Mary, the Catholic Church, with wise calculation, merely put this
cult in place of the cult of the ancient goddesses, that existed among all the
peoples who were converted to Christianity at that time. Mary replaced
Cybel, Mylitta, Aphrodite and Venus among the Southern nations, and
Freia, Frigga and others among the German tribes. She was only endowed
with a Christian, spiritual idealism.

[28] Among others the parish priests of the Diocese of Mayence thus
protested against this ordinance: “You bishops and abbots possess great
riches, elegant hunting outfits and enjoy royal banquets; we poor, simple
priests have but a wife for our comfort. Abstinence may be a virtue, but it is
forsooth severe and hard.”—Yves Guyot, “Les Théories sociales du
Christianisme.”
[29] A great many instances in evidence of this are furnished by Buckle
in his “History of Civilization in England.”

CHAPTER IV.

Woman in the Mediaeval Age.

1.—The Position of Women among the Germans.

The robust, physically healthy, coarse but unsophisticated peoples that
during the first centuries after Christ came from the North and East,
flooding like mighty ocean waves the enervated Roman empire in which
Christianity had gradually come into power, vehemently resisted the ascetic
teachings of the Christian preachers, who were obliged to make allowances
for these healthy natures. The Romans were surprised to find that the
customs of these peoples differed considerably from their own. Tacitus
takes note of this fact in regard to the Germans, of whom he thus expresses
his approval: “Their marriage laws are severe and none of their customs are
more laudable than this one, for they are practically the only barbarians who
content themselves with one wife. Among this numerous people one rarely
hears of adultery, and when it does occur, it is promptly punished, the men
themselves being permitted to inflict the punishment. Naked, her hair
clipped, thus the man drives the adulteress out of the village before the eyes
of her relatives, for a sin against virtue is not condoned. There nobody
laughs over vice and to seduce and being seduced are not considered a sign
of good breeding. The youths marry late; therefore they maintain their
strength. The maidens, too, are not married off hastily, and they are of the
same stature as the men, and present the same healthful glow of youth. Of
equal age, equally strong, they wed, and the strength of the parents is
transmitted to the children.”

Evidently Tacitus depicted the matrimonial relations of the ancient
Germans in a somewhat too rosy hue, to set them before the Romans as an
example. They indeed severely punished the woman who committed
adultery, but the punishment was not inflicted upon the man who committed
adultery. At the time of Tacitus, the gens still flourished among the
Germans. Tacitus, being accustomed to the more advanced Roman
conditions that made the old gentile organization and its foundations seem
strange and incomprehensible to him, wonderingly relates that among the
Germans a mother’s brother regards his nephew as a son, and that some
considered the bond of blood relation between an uncle on the mother’s side
and his nephew as being even more sacred than the bond between father
and son. For this reason, so he furthermore relates, when hostages were
asked for, it was considered a stronger security when a man gave his sister’s
son instead of his own. Upon this subject Engels remarks: “When the
member of a gens gave his own son as a hostage and he was sacrificed by a
breach of the agreement, it was the father’s own concern. But if his sister’s
son had been sacrificed a sacred gentile right had been violated. The nearest
gentile relation by duty bound to protect the boy or youth, had caused his
death. He should either not have pledged him, or should have kept his
agreement.”[30] Engels shows that in other respects among the Germans at
the time of Tacitus, the matriarchate had already been replaced by the
patriarchate. The children inherited from their father. In the absence of
children, brothers and uncles on both the father’s and mother’s side were
the lawful heirs. That the mother’s brother was admitted to a share in the
inheritance, although inheritance was determined by descent on the father’s
side, can be explained by the fact that the old law had but recently
disappeared. Memories of the old law also caused that profound respect of
the German for the female sex, which so greatly surprised Tacitus. He also
observed that the courage of the men was kindled to the utmost by the
women. The thought of seeing their women led into captivity and servitude

was most terrible to the ancient Germans and impelled them to the utmost
resistance. But the women also were animated by a spirit that greatly
impressed the Romans. When Marius would not permit the captured Teuton
women to become priestesses of Vesta (the goddess of virgin chastity) they
committed suicide.
At the time of Tacitus the Germans possessed fixed abodes. There was an
annual division of the soil, which was determined by lot, and the wood, the
streams and the pasture-ground were considered common property. Their
mode of life was extremely simple; their wealth consisted mainly of cattle;
coarse woolen cloaks or the hides of animals constituted their clothing.
Women and some men of rank wore linen under-garments. Metal tools and
weapons were manufactured only by those tribes who lived in too remote
parts for the importation of Roman products of industry. In minor matters
decisions were rendered by the council of chiefs; in more important matters
by the popular assembly. Originally the chiefs were elected, though usually
from one particular family. But the transition to the patriarchal system
favored the heredity of the position, and finally led to the formation of a
hereditary nobility that later on developed into kingship. As in Greece and
Rome, the German gens perished by the rise of private property, the
development of industry and commerce, and intermarriage with members of
foreign tribes and nations. The gens was replaced by the mark community, a
democratic organization of free peasants that constituted a firm bulwark
against the encroachments of church and nobility for many centuries, and
did not quite disappear even then when the feudal state had come into
power and the free peasants had been forced into a condition of servitude.
The mark community was represented by the heads of the families. Wives,
daughters and daughters-in-law were excluded from the council. The times
had passed in which women conducted the affairs of the tribe—an incident
which greatly amazed Tacitus, and which he describes with remarks of

scorn. In the fifth century the Salic law repealed the right of inheritance of
women to patrimonial estates.
Every male member of the mark community was entitled, upon marriage,
to share in the common soil. Usually grandparents, parents and children
lived under one roof in a household community, and so it frequently
occurred that for the purpose of obtaining an additional share, a son who
had not yet attained the marriageable age was joined in wedlock with some
maiden of marriageable age by proxy, the father acting as husband in place
of the son.[31] Newly married couples were given a cartload of beachwood
and wood to build a log cabin. Upon the birth of a daughter, parents also
received one cartload of wood; upon the birth of a son they received two.
The female sex accordingly was considered worth only half as much as the
male sex.
The marriage ceremony was simple. Religious rites were unknown. A
mutual agreement was sufficient, and as soon as the couple had entered the
nuptial bed, the marriage was contracted. Only in the ninth century that
custom arose according to which a religious ceremony was necessary to
legalize a marriage, and as late as the sixteenth century, marriage was made
a sacrament of the Catholic Church by a decision of the council of Trent.

[30] Engels: “Origin of the Family.”
[31] The same custom was met with in Russia during the rule of Mir.

2.—Feudalism and the Right of the First Night.

With the rise of the feudal state the position of a great many commoners
became considerably worse. The victorious leaders of the army abused their
power by taking possession of large tracts of land. They considered
themselves entitled to the common property, and did not hesitate to
distribute it among their followers, slaves, serfs or freed men, either for
temporary use or with the right of inheritance. Thereby they created for
themselves a court and military nobility, devoted to them in all things. The
establishment of a large realm of the Franks destroyed the last traces of
gentile organization. The council of the chiefs was replaced by the leaders
of the army and the newly created nobility.
Gradually the great mass of the commoners were driven into a condition
of exhaustion and pauperism, as a result of the continuous wars of conquest
and the disputes of their rulers, for which they had to bear the heaviest
burdens. They could no longer serve in the militia. In their place the lords
and noblemen recruited vassals, and the peasants placed themselves and
their possessions under the protection of a worldly or spiritual lord—for the
church had succeeded in becoming a great power within a few centuries—
in return for which they paid rent and taxes. Thus the free farms were
transformed into leased property, and as time went by new duties were
constantly imposed. Having once come into this dependent position, it was
not long before the peasants were deprived of their personal liberty as well.
Bondage and serfdom expanded more and more. The feudal lord held
almost unrestricted sway over his serfs. His was the right to compel any
man who had attained the eighteenth and any girl who had attained the
fourteenth year, to become married. He could prescribe to both men and
women whom they were to marry, even in the case of widows and

widowers. As lord of his subjects, he considered himself entitled to sexual
intercourse with his female serfs, and his power was expressed in the “jus
primae noctis” (the right of the first night). This right might also be
practiced by his representative (major domo) unless the right were waived
upon payment of a tax. The terms “bed-tribute,” “virgin’s tribute,” etc.,
betray the nature of these taxes.
It has frequently been denied that this right of the first night existed. The
knowledge of its existence is uncomfortable to some people, because it was
still practiced at a time that they like to represent as a model for
virtuousness and piety. We have already shown that this right of the first
night was a custom which had its origin in the time of the matriarchate.
When the old gentile organization disappeared, the custom of surrendering
the bride in the bridal night to the members of her kinship was still
maintained. But in the course of time the right was restricted and finally
practiced only by the chief or priest. It was transferred upon the feudal lord
as a result of his power over the people who lived upon the land owned by
him, and he might practice this right if he so chose, or waive it in return for
a payment in kind or in money. How real was this right of the first night
may be seen by the following passage from a tale by Jacob Grimm: “The
groom shall invite the manager of the estate to the wedding and he shall
also invite the manager’s wife. The manager shall bring a cartload of wood
to the wedding, and his wife shall bring a quarter of a roasted pig. When the
wedding is over, the groom shall let the manager lie with his wife for the
first night, or he shall redeem her with five shillings and six pence.”
Sugenheim[32] holds the opinion that the right of the first night was
given to the feudal lord because his serfs, in order to marry, needed his
consent. In Béarn this practice led to the custom that all first-born children
of marriages in which the “jus primae noctis” had been practiced, were
regarded as of free estate. Later on this right was generally redeemable by
the payment of a tax. According to Sugenheim, the bishops of Amiens

stubbornly maintained this tax until the beginning of the fifteenth century.
In Scotland the right of the first night was declared redeemable by payment
of a tax by King Malcolm III at the close of the eleventh century. In
Germany it existed much longer. According to the records of the Swabian
monastery Adelberg of the year 1496, the serfs living in the community of
Boertlingen, could redeem the right if the groom gave a bag of salt and the
bride gave 1 lb 7 shillings in a dish “large enough that she might sit in it.”
In other localities the brides might redeem it by giving the feudal lord so
much butter or cheese “as was the size of their seat.” Elsewhere they had to
give a dainty leather chair “in which they just fitted.” According to a
description of the Bavarian judge of the court of appeals, Mr. Welsh, a tax
for redeeming the jus primae noctis still existed in Bavaria in the eighteenth
century. Engels furthermore reports that among the Scots and Welsh the jus
primae noctis was maintained thruout the middle age, but since here the
gentile organization continued to exist, it was not the feudal lord or his
representative who practiced this right, but the chieftain of the clan, and by
him it was practiced as representative of all the husbands unless a tribute
was paid.
So there can be no doubt as to the existence of the right of the first night,
not only in medieval days, but even down to modern times, and that it held
a place in the feudal code of laws. In Poland noblemen arrogated the right
to deflour any maiden who chanced to please them, and if someone
protested against this usage, they condemned him to receive one hundred
blows with a cane. Land-lords and their employees still consider the
sacrifice of virginal honor to their lust a matter of course, not only in
Germany, but in the entire southern and south eastern portion of Europe, as
is asserted by those who are acquainted with the land and the people.
During feudalism it was in the interest of the feudal lord that his serfs
should become married, for the children became his serfs also, adding to the
number of his workers and increasing his income. Therefore both worldly

and spiritual masters encouraged marriage among their subjects. The
question assumed a different aspect tho as far as the church was concerned,
when an unmarried person was likely to will his property to the church. But
this only applied to free men of low estate, whose conditions grew steadily
worse as a result of the conditions described herein, and who gave over
their possessions to the church to seek protection and peace within the walls
of the monasteries. Others again placed themselves under the protection of
the church by paying a tax or by rendering services. But in this way the fate
they had sought to escape frequently befell their descendants; they
gradually came into bondage or were made novices for the monasteries.

[32] History of the abolition of serfdom in Europe until the middle of the
nineteenth century.

3.—The Rise of Cities.—Monastic Affairs.—Prostitution.

The cities which had begun to flourish with the eleventh century, favored
the increase of population in their own interest by facilitating residence and
marriage. They became places of refuge to the rural population seeking to
escape unbearable oppression, and to fugitive serfs. But at a later day these
conditions changed again. As soon as the cities had obtained power, and a
class of mechanics in comfortable circumstances had come into existence, a
feeling of hostility manifested itself against new-comers who tried to settle
down as mechanics, since they were regarded as undesirable competitors.
Barriers were erected against the new-comers; heavy taxes were levied
upon them if they would obtain the right of residence and become qualified
as master-workmen. Trades were limited to a certain number of master-
workmen and their journeymen, thereby forcing thousands into a condition
of servitude, celibacy and vagabondage. When during the sixteenth century
the cities began to decline,—owing to conditions that will be discussed later
on,—it was quite in keeping with the narrow views of the time that
residence and the right to independently practice a trade were made still
more difficult. The tyranny of the feudal lords constantly increased, until
many of their subjects preferred to abandon their miserable lives for the
freer life of beggar, tramp or robber, the latter being favored by the large
forests and the poor condition of the highways, or, making the most of the
numerous warfares of the time, they became mercenary soldiers, selling
their services wherever the pay was highest and the booty most promising.
Male and female rabble flooded the country, becoming a public nuisance.
The church helped to increase the general depravity. The forced celibacy of
the clergy alone led to sexual debauchery, and this was still heightened by
the constant association with Italy and Rome.

Rome was not only the capital of Christianity, being the residence of the
popes, it was also, true to its traditions under the heathen emperors, a new
Babel, the European high-school of immorality, and the papal court was its
most distinguished center. The Roman empire at its dissolution had left to
Christian Europe all its vices. These were cultivated in Rome and from
there penetrated into Germany, favored by association of the clergy with
Rome. The numerous clergy, consisting to a great extent of men whose
sexual desires were increased to the utmost by a lazy and luxurious life, and
whom enforced celibacy drove to illegitimate or unnatural satisfaction of
their desires, transmitted this immorality to all strata of society. The clergy
became a pestilential danger to the virtue of women in cities and villages.
Monasteries and nunneries,—and there were countless numbers of them,—
frequently differed from public brothels only inasmuch as life within them
was still more licentious and dissolute. Crimes, especially infanticide, were
frequently committed there with impunity, because only those were
permitted to pass judgment who were more often than not connected with
the crimes. Sometimes peasants tried to protect their wives and daughters
from being seduced by clergymen, by refusing to accept as pastor any one
who would not consent to keeping a concubine. This circumstance led a
bishop of Constance to impose a concubine tax upon the clergy of his
diocese. Such conditions explain the historically authenticated fact, that
during the mediæval age described by one writer of romance as a pious and
virtuous age, for instance in 1414, at the council of Constance, no less than
1500 prostitutes were present.
But these conditions by no means made their appearance only at the
decline of the middle age. They appeared at an early date and gave cause
for constant complaints and ordinances. Thus Charlemagne issued an
ordinance in the year 802, in which it says: “the nunneries shall be closely
guarded. The nuns shall not roam about but shall be carefully watched,
neither shall they live in discord and quarrels with one another, and under

no circumstances shall they disobey their mothers superior. Where they
have monastic rules they shall absolutely abide by them. They shall not be
given to covetousness, drunkenness and prostitution, but shall lead a just
and temperate life. Neither shall any man enter their convent except to
attend mass, and then he shall immediately depart again.” Another
ordinance of the year 869 declared: “if priests keep several wives or shed
the blood of Christians or heathens, or break the canonical law, they shall be
divested of their priesthood because they are worse than the laity.” The fact
that in those days the priests were forbidden to have several wives, shows
that in the ninth century polygamy was not rare. Indeed there were no laws
forbidding it. Even later, at the time of the minnesingers, during the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, it was not considered objectionable to have several
wives. In a poem by Albrecht of Johansdorf in the collection “Love-songs’
Springtime,” we find the following stanza:[33]
Particularly detrimental to the moral condition of the age were the
crusades, that kept tens of thousands of men away from their homes for
years, and led them to become acquainted with customs in the Eastern
Roman empire that had until then been unknown in Western Europe. The
position of women became especially unfavorable, not only as a result of
the many hindrances to marriage and permanent residence, but also because
their numbers by far exceeded the male population. The chief cause of this
was the numerous wars and the fact that commercial traveling in those days
was a dangerous undertaking. Moreover the death rate among men was
higher than among women, as a result of their intemperate living, which
was especially manifested during the plague that frequently ravaged the
population in the middle age. Thus there were 32 plague years in the period
from 1326 to 1400; 41 from 1400 to 1500, and 30 from 1500 to 1600.[34]
Hosts of women roamed about on the highways as musicians, dancers,
magicians, in the company of wandering scholastics and priests, and
flooded the markets and fairs. They formed special divisions in the troops

of foot-soldiers where they were organized in guilds according to the spirit
of the age, and were assigned to the different ranks according to age and
beauty. By severe penalty they were forbidden to yield to any man outside
of the prescribed circle. In the camp they had to help the baggage-carriers to
gather in hay, straw and wood, to fill up holes and ditches and to clean the
camp. During sieges it was their task to fill up the ditches with brushwood,
branches and tufts of grass to facilitate the attack; they helped to place the
guns in position and to drag them along when they became stuck in the
muddy roads.[35] To give some relief to these numerous helpless women,
so called beguinages, that were maintained by the municipality, were
erected in many cities from the middle of the thirteenth century on. Here the
women were given homes and were encouraged to lead decent lives. But
neither their institutions nor the nunneries could shelter all those who
sought help and protection.
The hindrances to marriage, the journeys of noblemen and other worldly
and spiritual lords who came into the cities with their hosts of knights and
attendants, the young men within the cities and, last but not least, the
married men who were not troubled much by moral scruples but believed
that variety was the spice of life,—all these created a demand for prostitutes
in the medieval towns. As every trade in those days was organized into
guilds and submitted to definite regulations, so also was prostitution. In all
the larger cities brothels were maintained that were municipal, state or
church property and whose profits went to fill these respective treasuries.
The women in these houses had a senior-mistress elected by themselves,
whose duty it was to maintain order and who was especially charged with
the task of seeing to it that no competitors outside of the guild harmed the
legitimate trade. If such competitors were caught, they had to pay a legal
fine. Thus the inhabitants of a brothel in Nuremberg complained to the
magistrate about the competition of women who were not members of their
guild: “that other keepers also maintain women who go upon the streets at

night and harbour married men and others, and who ply their trade in a
much coarser way, and that such were a disgrace and should not be
permitted in this praiseworthy town.”[36] The brothels enjoyed special
protection; breach of the peace in their vicinity was punished more severely
than elsewhere. This female guild was also entitled to appear at festivals
and in processions in which it was customary for all the guilds to
participate. They were even sometimes invited as guests to princely and
official banquets. The brothels were considered desirable “for the protection
of married women and the honor of virgins.” This was the same argument
which was resorted to in order to justify the maintenance of brothels by the
state in Athens. Nevertheless barbarous persecutions of the prostitutes were
met with, that came from the same men whose demand and whose money
maintained the prostitutes. Thus Charlemagne decreed that a prostitute
should be brought nude upon the market place and be flogged there. He
himself, the “most Christian” king and emperor had no less than six wives
simultaneously. His daughters, evidently following their father’s example,
were not models of virtue either. Their mode of life gave him many
unpleasant hours, and they brought several illegitimate children into his
house. Alkuin, a friend and advisor to Charlemagne, warned his pupils of
“the crowned doves who fly thru the Palatinate at night,” meaning the
emperor’s daughters.
The same communities that officially organized and protected the
brothels and granted all sorts of privileges to the prostitutes inflicted the
hardest and most cruel punishments upon a poor forsaken girl who had
gone wrong. The infanticide who, driven to despair, had killed her own
offspring was subjected to cruel death, while no one bothered about the
unscrupulous seducer. Perhaps he sat among the judges who pronounced the
death sentence on the unfortunate victim. The same is possible still.[37]
Adultery of wives was also severely punished; to be put in the pillory was

the least she might expect. But adultery of husbands was concealed by the
cloak of Christian forbearance.
In Wuerzburg it was customary for the brothel-keeper to take an oath
before the magistrate, pledging faith and allegiance to the city and that he
would diligently enlist women. Similar oaths were taken in Nuremberg,
Ulm, Leipsic, Cologne, Frankfort, and others. In Ulm the brothels were
abolished in 1537; but in 1551, the guilds moved to reinstate them “to avoid
a worse state of affairs.” When strangers of note visited a city, prostitutes
were placed at their disposal at the city’s expense. When King Ladislaus
entered Vienna in 1452, the magistrate sent a committee of public
prostitutes to meet him, clad in transparant gauze that disclosed their
beautiful shapes. Emperor Charles V, upon entering Antwerp, was also
received by a committee of nude girls, a historic scene that Hans Makart
depicted in a large painting which is now on exhibition in the museum at
Hamburg. Such occurrences created no scandal in those days.

[33] Would he not be fickle
Who would choose to have a second wife
Beside his virtuous one? Speak, Sir, would you?—
Let it to men be granted but to women not!

[34] Dr. Charles Buecher: “The Woman Question in Mediæval Times.”
[35] Dr. Charles Buecher: “The Woman Question in Medieval Times.”
[36] Joh. Scherr, History of the German Woman, 4th ed. Leipsic, 1879.
[37] Leon Richter in “La femme libre” reports a case where a servant girl
was convicted of infanticide by the father of her child, a pious lawyer, who
was a member of the court. After the girl’s conviction it became known that
the lawyer himself was the murderer and that she was innocent.

4.—Knighthood and the Veneration of Women.

Phantastic writers of romance and scheming persons have endeavored to
depict the mediæval age as an especially virtuous one, and as one imbued
with a profound veneration of women. The time of the minnesingers, from
the twelfth to the fourteenth century, is dwelt upon to furnish proof to this
assertion. The poetic courtship of the knights, that was first introduced by
the Moriscos in Spain, is supposed to prove that women were highly
honored at that time. But let a few facts be remembered. Firstly, the knights
only constituted a very small portion of the population, and in the same way
their ladies constituted a small portion of the women. Secondly, only a very
limited number of the knights practiced this knightly courtship; and thirdly,
the true nature of this custom has been considerably misunderstood or
distorted. The time when knighthood was in flower, was the age of the rule
of brute force in Germany; it was the age in which all bonds of law and
order were broken, and the knights practiced extortion, plundering and
highway-robbery without restraint. Such an age of brute force is not one in
which mild and poetic sentiments predominate. On the contrary. This age
was destined to shatter the respect for the female sex that might still have
remained. The knights, in the country as well as in the towns, were mostly
coarse, brutal fellows, whose chief passion, besides warfare and excessive
drinking, was the unrestricted satisfaction of their sexual desires. The
chroniclers of that time tell of incessant acts of violence and ravishment
committed by the nobility of town and country, who controlled the
municipal governments throughout the thirteenth, fourteenth and into the
fifteenth centuries. Because the knights conducted the courts in the towns,
and the feudal lords passed judgment in the rural districts, the injured
persons rarely obtained redress of their grievances. It is a great exaggeration

then to assume that their customs of courtship caused the ancient nobility to
treat women with special respect and to regard them as superior beings.
A small minority of the knights seem to have been enthusiastic over
feminine beauty, but their enthusiasm was by no means platonic but
pursued very material aims. Even that clown among the romantic admirers
“of lovely women,” Ulrick of Lichtenstein of ridiculous memory, was a
platonic lover only so long as he was compelled to be. In the main, this
romantic worship of woman was nothing but deification of the mistress at
the expense of the legitimate wife; it was nothing but courtesanship, as it
has existed in Greece at the time of Pericles, transplanted into medieval
Christianity. The mutual seduction of wives was frequently practiced among
the knights also, as it is still practiced in certain circles of our bourgeoisie.
The open manifestation of sensuality, characteristic of that age,
constituted a frank recognition of the fact that the natural desires implanted
in every healthy, adult human being rightfully seek satisfaction. In that
respect it expressed a victory of healthy nature over the ascetic teachings of
Christianity. But on the other hand it must again be emphasized, that this
recognition came into consideration for the one sex only, while the other
sex was treated on the assumption that it could not and dare not have the
same impulses. The slightest transgression by women of the moral laws laid
down for them by men, was punished with unmerciful severity. Women, as
a result of constant oppression and a singular education, have become so
accustomed to the conception of their rulers, that they still consider this
condition quite natural. Were there not also millions of slaves who
considered slavery a natural condition and who would never have liberated
themselves had not the liberators sprung from the slave owning class?
When Prussian peasants were to be emancipated from serfdom, they
petitioned the government not to emancipate them, “for who should provide
for them when they were aged or ill?” And do we not meet with the same

situation in the modern labor movement? How many workingmen still
permit their exploiters to influence them and lead them at will!
The oppressed needs some one to animate and inspire him, because he
lacks the initiative for independence. It was thus in the present day
movement of the proletariat, and it is the same in the struggle for the
emancipation of women. Even the bourgeoisie, that enjoyed a relatively
more favorable position in its struggle for independence, found its leaders
and spokesmen among the nobility and clergy.
Whatever the shortcomings of the middle ages may have been, it
possessed a healthy sensuality which sprang from the strong, buoyant
nature of the people, and which Christianity could not suppress. The
hypocritical prudery and concealed lasciviousness of our day, that fears to
call a spade a spade and to speak of natural things in a natural way, was
foreign to that age. Neither was it familiar with that piquant ambiguity to
which we resort in speaking of what we dare not name, because to be
prudish and unnatural has become customary with us, and which is all the
more dangerous because such language allures, but does not satisfy, allows
us to surmise but does not express clearly. Our social conversations, our
novels and our theaters abound with these piquant ambiguities, and their
effect is manifested. This spiritualism of the roué, concealed by religious
spiritualism, has a powerful influence.

CHAPTER V.

The Reformation.

1.—Luther.

The healthy sensuality of the middle ages found its classic exponent in
Luther. We are here not so much concerned with the religious reformer, but
with Luther, the man. In regard to all human relations, Luther’s strong,
unsophisticated nature clearly manifested itself, and caused him to express
freely and without reserve his desire for love and enjoyment. His position as
a former Roman clergyman had opened his eyes and had taught him from
experience how contrary to all the laws of nature were the lives of monks
and nuns. Therefore he roundly condemned the celibacy of priests and
monks. Luther says: “Unless specially endowed by a rare, divine grace, a
woman can no more dispense with a man, than she can dispense with food,
drink, sleep and other natural needs. In the same way a man cannot do
without a woman. The cause is that the desire to propagate the race is as
deeply implanted by nature as the desire for food and drink. Therefore God
has given unto the human body limbs, veins, circulation and all that serves
this end. He who opposes this, and will not let nature take her course, what
does he do but seek to prevent nature from being nature, fire from burning,
water from moistening, human beings from eating, drinking and sleeping?”
In his sermon on marriage, he says: “Just as it is not within my power not to
be a man, so it is not in thy power to do without a man, for it is not free will
or advice but a natural necessity that every man must have a woman and
that every woman must have a man.” But Luther does not only express
himself so strongly in favor of marriage and the necessity of sexual

relations, he also expresses himself as opposed to it that the church and
marriage should have anything in common. He says in regard to this:
“Know that marriage is something extrinsic as any other worldly action. As
I may eat, drink, sleep, walk, ride and deal with any heathen, Jew, Turk or
heretic, so to one of these I may also become and remain married. Do
not observe the laws of fools that forbid such marriages.... Heathens are
men and women, well and wisely created by God, just as well as St. Peter
and St. Paul and St. Luke, not to speak of any false and wanton Christian.”
Luther furthermore, like other reformers, opposed all restrictions to
marriage, and favored permitting divorcees to marry, which was opposed by
the church. He says: “in regard to matters of marriage and divorce among
us I say, let the jurists dispose of them, and let them be subject to
worldly rule, since matrimony is a worldly, extrinsic thing.” In
accordance with this view, it was not until the end of the seventeenth
century that a religious ceremony was considered essential to a legal
marriage among Protestants. Until then the so called conscience marriage
sufficed, that is, a marriage founded upon the mutual agreement to regard
one another as husband and wife and to live in matrimonial relations with
one another. According to German law such marriages were legal. Luther
even went so far as to adjudge to the unsatisfied party in a marriage contract
—even if the party were the woman—the right to seek satisfaction outside
of marriage, “in order to do justice to nature that can not be resisted.”[38] In
this matter Luther sets forth opinions that would rouse many of our present
day respectable men and women, who always point to Luther in their pious
zeal, to vehement indignation. In his treatise “on married life,” II, 146, Jena
1522, he says: “if a healthy woman is joined in wedlock to an impotent man
and could not nor would for her honor’s sake openly choose another, she
should speak to her husband thus: See, my dear husband, thou hast deceived
me and my young body and endangered my honor and salvation, before
God there is no honor between us. Suffer that I maintain a secret marriage

with thy brother or closest friend while thou remainest my husband in
name. That thy property may not fall heir to strangers; willingly be
deceived by me as you have unwillingly deceived me.” It should be the
husband’s duty, Luther goes on to say, to consent to such arrangement. “If
he will not she has the right to abandon him and go into another country and
marry another man. In the same way if a woman will not perform her
conjugal duty, the man has the right to seek another woman; only he should
first tell his wife.”[39] We see, the opinions set forth by the great reformer
are very radical and even immoral, when viewed in the light of our age,
abounding with prudery and hypocrisy. But Luther only expressed the
popular conceptions of his age. The following is told by Jacob Grimm: “If a
man cannot satisfy his wedded wife, let him take her gently upon his back
and carry her to his neighbors. There let him set her down softly, without
anger or rudeness but upon mutual agreement, and let him appeal to his
neighbors to help his wife in her need. If they will not or can not, then let
him send her to the nearest fair. There shall she appear, becomingly dressed
and adorned, wearing a gold embroidered veil as a token that she may be
wooed. If after all she returns from the fair still unsatisfied, then may the
devil help her!”
The peasant of the middle age primarily sought marriage for the purpose
of having heirs, and if he was unable to beget them himself, being a
practical man, he left this pleasure to another without having particular
moral scruples about it. The main object was to attain his purpose. We
repeat: Man does not control his property, he is controlled by it.
The above quotations from the writings and sermons of Luther are of
special importance because the views in regard to marriage expressed in
them are diametrically opposed to those maintained by the church to-day.
Luther and the other reformers went still further in matters pertaining to
marriage but, it must be admitted, for opportunistic reasons, in order to
please such sovereigns whose lasting support and good will they sought to

win and to maintain. The landgrave of Hessia, Philip I, who was in
sympathy with the reformation, had a legal wife, but fell in love with
another woman who refused to yield to his entreaties unless he would marry
her. It was a delicate case. To become divorced from his wife without good
and sufficient reason would imply a great scandal; to be married to two
women simultaneously was a shocking occurrence with a Christian
sovereign of the newer era, bound to create a still greater scandal.
Nevertheless amorous Philip chose the latter alternative. It only was
necessary to determine that this step was not in opposition to the teachings
of the Bible, and to obtain the consent of the reformers, especially Luther
and Melanchton. The landgrave then opened negotiations with Butzer, who
consented to the plan and promised to win Luther and Melanchton. Butzer
explained his view by pointing out that to have several wives
simultaneously was not in conflict with the gospel, since Paul, who had
mentioned many who shall not inherit the kingdom of God, had said
nothing about those who have two wives. Paul had decreed that a bishop
and his servants should not have more than one wife. If it had been
necessary that no man should have more than one wife, he would have
stated this and would have forbidden polygamy. Luther and Melanchton
declared themselves in accordance with these views and consented to the
double marriage, after the landgrave’s wife had also given her consent
under the condition “that he should perform his conjugal duty toward her
even more than heretofore.”[40] Luther had been previously troubled by the
question whether bigamy was permissible when asked to give his consent to
the double marriage of Henry VIII of England. That can be seen from a
letter which he wrote to the Saxon chancellor Brink in January 1524. In this
letter he wrote that on principle he, Luther, could not object to bigamy since
it was not in conflict with the Holy Scripture,[41] but that he considered it
offensive when occurring among Christians, for there were some things
from which Christians should refrain even if they were not forbidden. After

the marriage of the landgrave, which actually took place during March
1540, he wrote (April 10) in reply to a letter of appreciation from him: “I
am glad that Your Grace is pleased by the advice we have given; but we
should prefer to have secrecy maintained. Otherwise the coarse peasants,
seeking to follow the example set by the landgrave, might present the same
or even better causes, which would give us no end of trouble.”
Melanchton probably had fewer scruples in giving his consent to the
double marriage of the landgrave, for he had previously written to
Henry VIII, that every sovereign was entitled to introduce polygamy in his
realm. But the double marriage of the landgrave caused so much unpleasant
notoriety in his country, that in 1541 he had a pamphlet distributed in which
polygamy was defended on the ground that it was not in opposition to the
Holy Scripture. But conceptions had been greatly modified since the ninth
or twelfth century when polygamy was accepted without averse criticism.
The double marriage of the landgrave of Hessia was however not the only
one that gave offense to wide circles. Such princely double marriages were
repeated both in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as will be shown.
When Luther declared the satisfaction of sensual desire to be a law of
nature, he only expressed what his contemporaries thought and what the
men claimed as their privilege. By the reformation, which did away with
the celibacy of the clergy and abolished the monasteries in the Protestant
countries, he gave to hundreds of thousands of men and women the
possibility to seek legitimate satisfaction of their natural desires. Hundreds
of thousands of others, of course, remained excluded from this possibility
by the existing forms of property and the laws founded upon them.
The reformation was the protest of the rising bourgeoisie against the
constraint of feudal conditions in church, state and society. This rising
bourgeoisie struggled for liberation from the narrow bonds of the guild, the
court and the papal anathema; it strove for centralization of the powers of

the state, simplification of the extravagant church affairs, and the abolition
of the numerous abodes of idle persons, the monasteries.
Luther represented these endeavors of the bourgeoisie upon the religious
field. When he stood for the freedom of marriage, it was the bourgeois
marriage that was realized only in our day by the civil marriage laws, and
the freedom of migration and freedom of choice in trade and domicile. We
will see to what extent the position of woman was modified by these
changes. During the reformation this change of development had not yet
been reached. While on the one hand the reformation made marriage
possible for many people, on the other hand free sexual intercourse was
subjected to the most bitter persecution. While the Catholic clergy had
maintained a certain tolerance toward sexual excess, the Protestant clergy,
having been provided for itself, declaimed against it with redoubled zeal.
War was waged against the public brothels that were declared to be the
devil’s dens. Prostitutes were persecuted as daughters of Satan, and every
woman who had “fallen” was considered a paragon of wickedness and was
subjected to relentless persecution. The merry, life loving townsman of the
middle ages became a bigoted, austere, sombre philistine, who lived miserly
that his later day bourgeois descendants might live all the more
extravagantly. The honorable citizen with his stiff cravat, his narrow
intellectual horizon, his severe but hypocritical morality, became the
prototype of society. Legitimate wives who had not favored the sensuality
tolerated by the Catholicism of the middle ages, were generally better
pleased by the Puritan spirit of Protestantism. But other causes that had an
unfavorable influence on conditions in Germany generally, also influenced
the position of women unfavorably.

[38] Dr. Carl Hagen—Germany’s Literary and Religious Conditions
during the Reformation.
[39] Dr. Carl Hagen.

[40] John Janssen—History of the German People.
[41] This is true and can be explained from the fact that the Bible had its
origin at a time when polygamy prevailed both among the Eastern and
Western people; but in the sixteenth century it nevertheless was in direct
opposition to custom.

2.—Results of the Reformation.—The Thirty Years’ War.

Transformations in the conditions of production, exchange and finance,
that were brought about especially by the discovery of America, and the
discovery of the passage to India, resulted in a great social reaction for
Germany. Germany ceased to be the center of European commerce. The
German trades and manufactures declined. At the same time the religious
reformation had destroyed the political unity of the nation. Under the cloak
of the reformation, the German princes sought to emancipate themselves
from imperial rule. On the other hand, these princes oppressed the nobility
and favored the cities to serve their own ends. Some of the cities voluntarily
placed themselves under the rule of the princes, driven to this step by
conditions that were steadily growing worse. The bourgeoisie upon seeing
their income threatened, tried to make the restrictions that were intended to
guard them against undesirable competition more and more rigorous, and
the princes willingly conceded their demands. The ossification of conditions
increased, but the general impoverishment increased likewise.
Another result of the reformation were the religious struggles and
persecutions—used by the princes to serve their own political and economic
ends—that raged in Germany with some interruptions for over a century,
and finally ended with its complete exhaustion at the end of the Thirty
Years’ War. Germany had become a vast field of corpses and ruins. Entire
countries and provinces had been devastated, hundreds of cities and
thousands of villages partly or completely destroyed, and many of them had
been wiped from the surface of the earth forever. In many places the
population had been reduced to a third, a fourth, a fifth, even an eighth or a
tenth of its original number. Such was the case in Nuremberg, and in the
entire Franconian province. In this utmost need, in order to increase the

population in the depopulated towns and villages, the unusual measure was
occasionally resorted to of permitting one man to have two wives. Men had
been decimated by the wars, but there was a superabundance of women. On
the 14th of February 1650, the Franconian district council at Nuremberg
decreed that “men under 60 should not be admitted into monasteries”; it
furthermore decreed that “those clergymen who were not members of an
order should become married.” Moreover, “every man should be permitted
to wed two wives, but the men should be frequently reminded and exhorted
from the pulpits to employ good judgment and discretion, that a married
man who ventured to maintain two wives should not only provide well for
both of them, but should also endeavor to avoid ill feeling between them.”
So even the pulpits were employed to make propaganda for the double
marriage and to lay down rules of conduct for the men.
Commerce and industry almost came to a standstill during this long
period; in many instances they were almost completely destroyed and
picked up but very gradually. A large portion of the population had become
demoralized and brutalized and disaccustomed to all regular work. During
the wars, troops of mercenary soldiers had crossed Germany from one end
to the other, plundering, destroying, ravishing and murdering, a terror alike
to friend and foe. After the wars countless numbers of beggars, robbers and
vagabonds maintained the population in constant terror and made
commerce and all traffic difficult or impossible. To the female sex
especially it was a time of great suffering. In this period of dissoluteness the
contempt of woman had increased to the utmost, and the general condition
of unemployment weighed most heavily upon her shoulders. Like the male
vagabonds, thousands of women populated the highways and forests and
filled the alms-houses and prisons. All these sufferings were still increased
by the forcible expulsion of numerous peasant families by the greedy
nobility. Since the reformation the nobility had become more and more
subjected to princely rule, and by holding court and military positions their

dependence on the princes had constantly increased. Now they tried to
reimburse themselves for the losses sustained through the princes by
robbing the peasants. To the princes, on the other hand, the reformation
offered the desired excuse to acquire the property of the church, which they
proceeded to do on a large scale. Prince August of Saxony, for instance,
had, at the end of the sixteenth century, acquired no less than 300
ecclesiastical estates.[42] His brothers and cousins, the other Protestant
sovereigns, above all those of the House of Hohenzollern, did likewise. The
nobility followed their example by appropriating the remaining communal
property, and by driving both free peasants and serfs from hearth and home
and taking possession of their estates. The unsuccessful peasant revolts
during the sixteenth century gave them the desired pretext for such action,
and after the attempt had once succeeded, new pretexts were constantly
found to continue this forcible method. Various schemes and distortions of
justice were resorted to, made easy by the Roman law which had been
established in Germany in the meantime, to increase the property of the
nobility by forcing the peasants to sell theirs at lowest prices, or by simply
expropriating them. Entire villages and the farms of entire districts were
usurped in this manner. To quote just a few examples: Of 12,543 knightly
peasant estates which still existed in the province of Mecklenburg during
the Thirty Years’ War, only 1,213 remained in the year 1848. In the province
of Pomerania 12,000 farms were abandoned since 1628. The
transformations in the methods of farming that took place during the
seventeenth century gave a further impulse to the nobility to expropriate the
peasants and to transform the last remnants of communal property into their
private estates. The rotation of crops had been introduced, which provided
for changes in the cultivation of the soil in definite periods of time. Tilled
land was occasionally transformed into pasture which favored cattle-
breeding and made it possible to diminish the number of workers.

In the cities conditions were not much better than in the country.
Formerly women had been permitted to acquire the title of master-workman
and to employ journeymen and apprentices without any opposition from the
male craftsmen. They were even compelled to join the guilds to force them
to meet the same conditions of competition. So there were independent
women workers among the linen-weavers, the cloth-weavers, the carpet-
weavers and tailors. There were female gold-smiths, girdle-makers,
harness-makers, etc. We find women employed as furriers in Frankfort and
the Silesian cities; as bakers in the cities along the Rhine; as girdle-makers
and embroiders of coats of arms in Cologne and Strassburg; as harness-
makers in Bremen; as cloth-shearers in Frankfort as tanners in Nuremberg;
as gold-smiths in Cologne.[43] But as the circumstances of the craftsmen
grew more and more unfavorable, a sentiment of ill will against the female
competitors arose. In France, women were excluded from the trades at the
close of the fourteenth century; in Germany, not until the close of the
seventeenth century. At first they were forbidden to become master-
workmen—with the exception of widows—later on they were also excluded
from becoming assistants. Protestantism, by abolishing the ostentatious
Catholic cult, had seriously injured or entirely destroyed a number of
artistic crafts, and these were the very crafts in which many women had
been employed. The confiscation and secularization of church property
resulted in a decline of charitable work, and widows and orphans were the
main sufferers.
The general economic decline that manifested itself during the sixteenth
century, as a result of all the enumerated causes, and lasted through the
seventeenth century, caused the marriage laws to become more and more
severe. Journeymen and people employed in menial service (men and maid
servants) were prohibited entirely from marrying, unless they could prove
that there was no danger of their future families becoming a burden to the
community in which they lived. Marriages contracted in opposition to the

legal premises were punished frequently severely, sometimes barbarously.
According to Bavarian law, for instance, the penalties were imprisonment
and public flogging. Illegal marriages, that became more frequent as the
marriage laws became more severe, were subjected to especially violent
persecution. All minds were ruled by the prevailing fear of over-population,
and to diminish the numbers of beggars and vagabonds, the various rulers
enacted one law upon another, and each was more severe than the preceding
one.

[42] John Janssen—History of the German People.
[43] Dr. Carl Buecher—The Woman Question in the Middle Age.

CHAPTER VI.

The Eighteenth Century.

1.—Court Life in Germany.

Following the example set by Louis XIV. of France, most of the princely
courts, that were very numerous in Germany in those days, indulged in an
extravagance of outward display, especially in the maintenance of
concubines, that were in no relation to the size and productiveness of their
small domains. The history of the courts of the eighteenth century
constitutes one of the ugliest chapters of history. One ruler tried to excel the
other in hollow conceit, mad extravagance and costly military sport. But it
was especially in the affairs with their courtesans that the wildest excesses
were indulged in. It is hard to tell which of the many German courts
excelled in this extravagant mode of living that had a corrupting influence
on public life. It was one to-day and another to-morrow. None of the
German states were spared this disgrace. The nobility imitated the
sovereigns and in the capitals the bourgeoisie imitated the nobility. If the
daughter of a bourgeois family was fortunate enough to please one of the
gentlemen of the court or His Serene Highness himself, in nineteen cases
out of twenty she considered herself highly favored, and the family
willingly consented to her becoming a princely or royal concubine. Among
the families of the nobility the same was the case if one of their daughters
found favor with the sovereign. Wide circles were dominated by an utter
lack of character and modesty. It was worst of all in the two chief cities of
Germany, Vienna and Berlin. Although during a great part of the century
Vienna was ruled by Maria Theresa, known for her moral austerity, she was

powerless against the doings of the rich, profligate nobility and an eagerly
imitative bourgeoisie. By establishing purity commissions, that resulted in
an extensive system of espionage, she caused much bitterness and made
herself ridiculous. The results amounted to nothing. In frivolous Vienna
during the second half of the eighteenth century, proverbs were circulated
like the following: “one should love one’s neighbor like meself; that means,
one should love one’s neighbor’s wife like one’s own”; or, “If the wife turns
to the right the husband may turn to the left; if she takes to herself a man
servant, let him take a lady friend.” How frivolously marriage and adultery
were viewed at that time, may be seen from a letter written by the poet
Christian von Kleist to his friend Gleim in 1751. It contains the following
passage: “I suppose you heard of the adventure of the landgrave Henry. He
has sent his wife to his country seat and intends to get a separation from her
because he found her with the Prince of Holstein. The margrave would have
acted more wisely if he had kept the affair secret instead of causing all
Berlin and half of the world to speak of him. Besides, one should not
judge a natural occurrence so severely, especially one who is not over
virtuous himself. Disgust is bound to result in matrimony, and by their
acquaintance with other amiable persons all men and women are induced
to be faithless. How can we be punished for something we have been
forced to do?” In 1772 the British ambassador, Lord Malmesbury, wrote
the following in regard to conditions in Berlin: “moral depravity prevails
among both sexes of all classes. To this is added a general insufficiency of
means, due partly to the heavy taxes imposed by the king, and partly to the
love of luxury introduced by his grandfather. The men lead a dissolute life
notwithstanding their limited means, and the women are shameless harlots.
They deliver themselves up to the one able to pay the highest price;
modesty and true love are foreign to them.”
The worst conditions existed in Berlin during the rule of Frederick
William II. from 1786 to 1797. He set his people the worst possible

example. His court chaplain, Zoellner, even degraded himself by marrying
the king to his courtesan, Julie von Voss, although he had another wife; and
when she died soon after in childbirth, Zoellner again consented to marry
the king to another one of his courtesans, the Countess Sophie
von Doenhoff. Other rulers had set an equally bad example at the beginning
of the century. In July, 1706, Duke Louis of Wurtemberg married, as an
additional wife, his courtesan, Gravenitz, the “corrupter of the country,” as
she is still called in Wurtemberg. His cousin, Duke Leopold, still excelled
him in profligacy, for he had three wives simultaneously, two of which were
sisters. Of his thirteen children he joined two in marriage. The doings of
these sovereigns caused much comment among their subjects, but that was
all. The marriage of the Duke of Wurtemberg with Graevenitz was annulled
by imperial intervention. But she entered into a mock marriage with a
profligate count, and thereupon remained for twenty years more the duke’s
concubine and the “corrupter of the country.”

2.—Commercialism and the New Marriage Laws.

The increasing power of sovereigns and the formation of larger states
had led to the institution of standing armies. These standing armies and the
extravagant mode of life indulged in at most of the courts, could not be
maintained without heavy taxation, and to make such taxation possible a
large, taxable population was required. Therefore governments from the
eighteenth century on, especially those of the larger states, adopted
measures for increasing the population and for heightening the taxability of
the inhabitants. The foundation for such measures had been established by
the social and economic transformations referred to above, i. e., the
discovery of America, the discovery of the passage to India, and the
circumnavigation of Africa. This transformation first manifested itself in
Western Europe, but later in Germany also. The newly opened thoroughfare
had created new commercial relations of an extent undreamt of until then.
Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands and England were the first to profit by the
transformation; but France and eventually Germany also were benefited by
it. Of all these countries Germany was most retarded in development, as a
result of the numerous religious wars and its political disunity. The
establishment of a world market and the constant opening of new markets
for the products of European industry, not only revolutionized the methods
of production, but also revolutionized the views, sentiments and
conceptions of the European nations and their governments. The former
mode of production, destined to supply only the daily needs of a given
center and its immediate vicinity, was superseded by manufacture on a large
scale, which implies the employment of a large number of workers and an
increased division of labor. The merchants possessing large financial
resources and broadness of perception, became the leaders along these new
lines of industry that partly replaced and partly abolished the old handicrafts

and put an end to their guild organization. Thereby a period had been
ushered in which made it possible for woman to resume her industrial
activity. The textile industries; cloth manufactury and the manufacture of
laces opened up to her new fields of activity. At the close of the eighteenth
century we already find 100,000 women and 80,000 children employed in
the textile and printing trades of England and Scotland, unfortunately under
conditions, both in regard to wages and hours of work, that were simply
appalling. Similar conditions prevailed in France at the same time, where
also tens of thousands of women were employed in various manufactures.
This economic development demanded more people, and as the
population had been greatly diminished by the wars of conquest in Europe
during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and by the
expeditions of discovery beyond the seas, the more advanced governments
found it necessary to facilitate marriage and the right of settling. Spain, that
by its imperialistic policy had become greatly depopulated, was obliged as
early as 1623 to pass a law exempting from taxes for a number of years all
persons who became married between the ages of 18 and 25. Poor persons
were even given a dowry from public funds. Parents who had six or more
male children were entirely exempt from taxes. Spain also encouraged
immigration and colonization.
King Louis XIV. of France, who had decimated his people by his
numerous wars, found it necessary to counteract this devastation by
exempting from taxes for from four to five years all taxpayers, who
constituted a great majority of the population, if they became married
before the twentieth or twenty-first year of age. Complete exemption from
taxes was, furthermore, guaranteed to all who had ten living children,
provided that none of these had become a priest, a monk or a nun.
Noblemen having the same number of children, provided that none of them
had become priests, monks or nuns, received an annual pension of from
1,000 to 2,000 livres. Citizens not subject to taxation under the same

conditions received one-half of this amount. Marshal Maurice of Saxony
even advised Louis XV. not to permit marriages to be contracted for a
longer period than five years.
In Prussia, by laws enacted in the years 1688, 1721, 1726 and 1736, and
by various government measures, endeavors were made to encourage
immigration; especially were the immigrants welcomed who had been
subjected to religious persecution in France and Austria. The theories in
regard to population maintained by Frederick the Great were expressed with
brutal frankness in a letter written by him to Voltaire on the 26th of August
1741. He wrote: “I consider men as a herd of deer in the deer park of some
great lord, having no other task but to populate the park.” By his wars he
certainly made it necessary to have his deer park repopulated. In Austria,
Wurtemberg and Brunswick immigration was also encouraged and there, as
in Prussia, emigration was forbidden. Furthermore, in the course of the
eighteenth century, England and France removed all obstacles to marriage
and settlement, and other nations followed their example. During three-
fourths of the eighteenth century political economists as well as the
governments considered a large population the greatest good fortune to the
state. Only at the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth
century a reversion of opinion took place. This was due to economic crises
and to warlike and revolutionary events, that continued during the first half
of the nineteenth century, especially in Germany and Austria. The age at
which marriage was permitted was raised again, and proofs were required
showing that the contracting parties were assured of a certain amount of
wealth or a secure income, and could maintain a given standard of living.
To the destitute, marriage was made impossible, and the municipalities were
given a great influence in determining under what conditions marriages
might be contracted. Occasionally peasants were even forbidden to build
their little homes, or compelled to tear them down when they had been built
without princely permission. Only in Prussia and Saxony the marriage laws

remained comparatively liberal. Since human nature will not be suppressed,
the result of all these hindrances to marriage was, that in spite of all the
harassing and persecution, illicit relations greatly increased, and that in
some German states the number of illegal children was almost as great as
that of the legal ones. Such was the fruit of a paternal government that
prided itself on its Christian morality.

3.—The French Revolution and the Rise of Industry.

In those days the married woman of the middle class lived in severe
domestic retirement. The number of her domestic duties was so large, that it
was necessary for the conscientious housewife to be at her post from
morning till night, and frequently she could accomplish all her tasks only
with the aid of her daughters. It was necessary to perform not only those
daily domestic tasks that are still performed by the present-day
housekeeper, but also many others from which modern woman has been
freed by the industrial development. She had to spin, weave and bleach, cut
and sew all the garments, manufacture tallow-candles and soap, and brew
the beer. She was indeed a perfect Cinderella and her only relaxation was
going to church on Sunday. Marriages were contracted only within the same
social circle. A severe and ridiculous caste feeling dominated all social
relations. The daughters were educated in the same spirit and were
maintained in close domestic confinement. Their education was
insignificant, and their intellectual horizon did not extend beyond the
commonplace domestic relations. To this was added an empty superficial
formality, that was supposed to make up for the lack of intellect and
education, making woman’s life a sheer treadmill. The spirit of the
reformation had degenerated into the worst kind of pedantry; the most
natural human desires and the joy of life were crushed beneath a mass of
apparently dignified, but soul-killing rules of behavior. Emptiness and
narrow-mindedness dominated the middle class, and the lower classes lived
under a leaden pressure and in wretched conditions.
Then came the French revolution. It swept away the old political and
social order in France, and also wafted a breath of its spirit to Germany, that
could not long be resisted. French rule especially had a revolutionizing

effect upon Germany; it swept away what was old and decrepit or, at least
hastened its destruction. Though strenuous efforts were made during the
reactionary period after 1815 to turn the course of development backward,
the new conceptions had become too powerful and were victorious in the
end.
Guild privileges, lack of personal freedom, market privileges and
proscription were gradually laid on the shelf in the more advanced states.
New mechanical inventions and improvements, especially the invention of
the steam engine, and the resultant cheapening of commodities, provided
employment for the masses, including also the women. Capitalistic industry
was born. Factories, railroads and steamboats were built, mines and
foundries, the manufacture of glass and china, the textile industry in its
various branches, manufacture of tools and machinery, the building trades,
etc., rapidly developed. Universities and polytechnical institutes provided
the intellectual forces required by this evolution. The new class that had
come into existence, the capitalist class, the bourgeoisie, supported by all
those who favored progress, insisted upon the abolition of conditions that
had become untenable. What had been shaken by the revolution from below
during the movement of 1848 and 1849, was finally abolished by the
revolution from above in 1866. Political unity, according to the desire of the
bourgeoisie, was established, and this was followed by the final overthrow
of all the remaining economic and social barriers. Freedom of trade, right of
settlement and emigration, and the repeal of laws restricting marriage
followed, creating those conditions that capitalism needed for its
development. Besides the workingman, woman was the one to profit chiefly
by this new development, since it opened up to her new avenues and
brought her greater freedom.
Even before the new order had been introduced by the transformations of
the year 1866, several German states had removed a number of the old,
rigid barriers, which caused pedantic reactionaries to predict the destruction

of decency and morality. In 1863 the Bishop of Mayence, von Ketteler,
lamented that “to abolish the existing barriers to marriage meant the
destruction of marriage itself, since now married couples were enabled to
leave each other at will.” This lament contains the unintentional confession
that in modern marriages the moral bonds are so weak, that man and wife
can be kept together only by force.
Since marriages now were contracted much more frequently than before
this period, a rapid increase of population resulted. This fact, and the fact
that the new, rapidly developing industrial system created social problems
that had not previously existed, caused the fear of over-population to spring
up again, as it did in former periods. It will be shown what this fear of over-
population amounts to; we will test its true value.

Woman at the Present Day.

CHAPTER VII.

Woman as a Sex Being.

1.—The Sexual Impulse.

In present-day bourgeois society woman holds the second place. Man
leads; she follows. The present relation is diametrically opposite to that
which prevailed during the matriarchal period. The evolution from primitive
communism to the rule of private property has primarily brought about this
transformation.
Plato thanked the gods for eight favors they had bestowed upon him. The
first was that he had been born a free-man instead of a slave, and the second
was that he had been born a man instead of a woman. A similar thought is
expressed in the morning prayer of the Jews. They pray: “Be thou praised
God our Lord and Lord of the earth, who hast not created me a woman.”
In the prayer uttered by the Jewish women the corresponding passage is

worded: “Who hast created me according to thy will.” The contrast in the
respective positions of the sexes could not be more forcibly expressed than
in this utterance of Plato and the prayer of the Jews. Man is the real human
being according to numerous passages in the Bible, and both the English
and French languages furnish proofs of this conception, since the word
“man” denotes both male and human being. When speaking of the people
we usually think of men only. Woman is a factor of slight importance, and
man is her master. Men generally consider this state of affairs quite proper,
and the majority of women still accept it as a divine ordinance. In this
prevailing conception the present position of woman is reflected.
Regardless of the question whether woman is oppressed as a proletarian,
we must recognize that in this world of private property she is oppressed as
a sex being. On all sides she is hemmed in by restrictions and obstacles
unknown to the man. Many things a man may do she is prohibited from
doing; many social rights and privileges enjoyed by him, are considered a
fault or a crime in her case. She suffers both socially and as a sex being. It
is hard to say in which respect she suffers more, and therefore it only seems
natural that many women wish they had been born men instead of having
been born women.
Of all the natural desires that are a part of human life, beside the desire
for food in order to live, the sexual desire is strongest. The impulse of race
preservation is the most powerful expression of the “will to live.” This
impulse is deeply implanted in every normally developed human being, and
upon attaining maturity its satisfaction is essential to physical and mental
welfare. Luther was right when he said: “He who would thwart the natural
impulse, seeks to prevent nature from being nature, fire from burning, water
from moistening, man from eating and drinking and sleeping.” These words
ought to be engraved above the portals of our churches in which the “sinful
flesh” is so vehemently denounced. No physician or physiologist could

more accurately express the necessity of satisfying the human desire for
love.
If the human organism is to develop normally and healthfully it is
essential that no portion of the human body should be neglected, and that no
natural impulse should be denied its normal satisfaction. Every organ
should perform the functions which it has been destined by nature to
perform, unless the whole organism is to suffer. The laws of the physical
development of man must be studied and observed as well as the laws of
mental development. The mental activity of a human being depends upon
the physiological condition of his organs. Physical and mental vigor are
closely linked. An injury to one has a detrimental effect upon the other. The
so-called animal instincts are not inferior to mental requirements. Both are
products of the same organism and are mutually interdependent. This
applies to both man and woman. Hence it follows that knowledge of the
nature of the sexual organs is as necessary as that of all other organs, and
that the same attention should be bestowed upon their care. We ought to
know that organs and impulses implanted in every human being constitute a
very important part of our existence, that they as a matter of fact
predominate during certain periods of life, and that therefore they must not
be objects of secrecy, false shame and complete ignorance. It follows
furthermore that among both men and women knowledge of the physiology
and anatomy of the various organs and their functions should be as widely
diffused as any other branch of human knowledge. Endowed with an exact
knowledge of his physical nature, man would take a different view of many
circumstances. This knowledge would lead to the removal of many evils
that society at present passes by silently, in solemn awe, but that
nevertheless claim consideration in almost every family. In regard to all
other matters knowledge is considered a virtue; it is regarded as the loftiest,
most desirable human aim. But we decry knowledge pertaining to those

matters that are most closely linked with our own “ego” and are at the
bottom of all social development.
Kant says: “Man and woman together form the full and complete human
being; one sex supplements the other.” Schopenhauer says: “The sexual
impulse is the most complete expression of the will to live, it is the
concentration of will”; and long before these Buddha thus expressed
himself: “The sexual impulse is sharper than the prod by means of which
wild elephants are tamed; it is hotter than flames; it is like an arrow driven
into the soul of man.”
Such being the intensity of sexual impulse, it is not to be wondered at
that with both men and women sexual abstinence frequently leads to serious
disorders of the nervous system, and in some cases even to insanity and
suicide. Of course, not all natures manifest an equally strong sexual
impulse. It can also be restrained to a great extent by education and self-
control, especially by avoiding the stimulant of lewd conversation and
literature, alcoholism, etc. It is held that the sexual impulse is weaker
among women than among men, and that sometimes women even feel
revulsion against sexual contact. But these constitute a small minority
whose physiological and psychological dispositions are peculiarly
constituted.
We may say that the manner in which the natural desires of the sexes are
expressed, both in their organic and physical development, in form and in
character, marks the degree of perfection of a human being, be it man or
woman. Each sex has attained its own highest development. “Among
civilized human beings,” says Klenke in his essay on “Woman as a Wife,”
“sexual intercourse is controlled by moral principles dictated by common
sense. But nothing could ever fully subdue the instinct of race preservation,
implanted by nature in both sexes. Wherever healthy male or female
individuals failed to fulfill this duty, it was not of their own free will,
though they may deceive themselves into believing it, but was a result of

social hindrances and restrictions. These hindrances have impeded the
laws of nature, have stunted the organs, and have transformed the whole
organism into an atrophied type both in appearance and in character and
have caused nervous disorders that bring about abnormal, pathological
conditions of body and mind. The man becomes effeminate; the woman
becomes masculine in form and character, because the sexual contrast has
not been realized; because such particular human being remained one-sided,
failing to attain his own integration, the full height of his existence.”
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell says in her essay on “The Moral Education of the
Young in Relation to Sex”: “Sexual impulse exists as an inevitable
condition of life and the foundation of society. It is the greatest power in
human nature.... While undeveloped it is not an object of the thoughts, but it
remains nevertheless the central force of life. This inevitable impulse is the
natural guardian against all possibility of destruction.”[44] Practical Luther
has positive advice to offer. He advises: “Let him who has no desire for
chastity look about him for work and turn to matrimony; a boy at the latest
when he is twenty, a girl when she is fifteen or eighteen years of age. Then
they are healthy and skillful and trust to God to provide for them and their
children. God gives them the children and he will provide for them.”
Unfortunately our social conditions make it impossible to follow Luther’s
good advice, and neither the Christian state nor Christian society believes in
trusting to God to provide for the children.
Science, the views of the philosophers, and Luther’s sound common
sense, all are agreed that man is entitled to normal satisfaction of those
desires that are part and parcel of his very life. If social institutions or
prejudices make this impossible, his development is hampered thereby. The
results are well known to our physicians, and can be met with in hospitals,
insane asylums, prisons, and in thousands of disrupted families. In a book
published in Leipsic we find the following thought expressed: “Sexual
impulse is neither moral nor immoral; it is simply natural like hunger and

thirst. Nature knows nothing of morality.” But organized society is very far
from recognizing the truth of this sentence.

[44] E. Blackwell, “Essays in Medical Sociology.” Page 177. London,
1906.

2.—Celibacy and the Frequency of Suicide.

Among physicians and physiologists it is generally assumed that even an
imperfect marriage is preferable to celibacy, and this assumption is
substantiated by experience. It is a striking fact that the rate of mortality is
lower among married than among unmarried people (comparing about
1,000 married persons 30 years old with 1,000 unmarried persons of the
same age). The difference is especially marked in the case of men. During
some periods of life the rate of mortality among unmarried men is almost
twice as great as that among married men. Mortality is likewise very great
among men who have become widowers while still young.[45]
It is furthermore claimed that the number of suicides are increased by
unsound sexual relations. In all countries suicides are much more frequent
among men than among women. The following table shows the ratio in
various European countries:

Among 100,000 Ratio of female
During the suicides. to male
years. Male. Female. suicides.
Germany 1899–1902 33.0 8.4 25.5
Austria 1898–1901 25.4 7.0 27.6
Switzerland 1896–1903 33.3 6.4 19.2
Italy 1893–1901 9.8 2.4 24.5
France 1888–1892 35.5 9.7 27.3
Netherlands 1901–1902 9.3 3.0 32.3
England 1891–1900 13.7 4.4 32.1
Scotland 1891–1900 9.0 3.2 35.6
Ireland 1901 2.3 1.2 52.2

Among 100,000 Ratio of female
During the suicides. to male
years. Male. Female. suicides.
Norway 1891–1900 10.0 2.5 25.
Sweden 1891–1900 21.1 8.6 40.8
Finland 1891–1900 7.8 1.8 21.1
European
Russia 1885–1894 4.9 1.6 32.7

During the years 1898 to 1907 we find the following ratio of suicides in
the German Empire:

Year. Total. Male. Female.
1898 10,835 8,544 2,291
1899 10,761 8,460 2,301
1900 11,393 8,987 2,406
1902 12,336 9,765 2,571
1904 12,468 9,704 2,764
1907 12,777 9,753 3,024

For each 100 male suicides there were female suicides: During 1898,
26.8; during 1899, 27.2; during 1900, 26.8; during 1904, 28.5; during 1907,
31. But during the period of life from the fifteenth to the thirtieth year, the
rate of suicide is higher among women than among men.
The following table shows the ratio between the 15th and 20th, and
between the 21st and 30th year:

15th to 20th year. 21st to 30th year.
During the years. Male. Female. Male. Female.
Prussia 1896–1900 5.3 10.7 16. 20.2
Denmark 1896–1900 4.6 8.3 12.4 14.8

15th to 20th year. 21st to 30th year.
During the years. Male. Female. Male. Female.
Switzerland 1884–1899 3.3 6.7 16.1 21.
France 1887–1891 3.5 8.2 10.9 14.[46]

The following table shows the ratio of male and female suicides in
Saxony between the 21st and 30th year:

Men. Women.
1854–1868 14.95 18.64
1868–1880 14.71 18.79
1881–1888 15.3 22.3

We find an increased number of suicides among widowed and divorced
persons also. In Saxony among divorced men the rate of suicide is seven
times as high, among divorced women three times as high, as the average
rate of suicide among men and women. Also suicide is more frequent
among those widowed or divorced men and women who are childless.
Among the unmarried women who are driven to suicide between the 21st
and 30th year, there are many who have been betrayed in love or have
“gone wrong.” Statistics show that an increase of illegal births is generally
accompanied by an increase of female suicides. The rate of female suicides
between the 16th and 21st year is exceptionally high, which also points to
the conclusion that ungratified sexual impulse, love-sorrow, secret
pregnancy or the deceit of men constitute frequent causes.
In regard to the position of woman as a sex being, we find the following
thought expressed by Professor Krafft-Ebing[47]: “One source of lunacy
among women that should not be underrated, is their social position.
Woman is by nature more desirous of love than man, at least in the ideal
sense, and she has no honorable means of gratifying this desire except
marriage (Mandsley). Marriage is, furthermore, her only means of

livelihood. Through countless generations her character has been developed
in this direction. Even the little girl is mother to her doll. Modern life with
its increased demands is constantly diminishing the prospects of satisfaction
through marriage. This is especially true of the upper classes where
marriages are contracted less frequently and later in life.
“While man owing to his greater physical and intellectual force and his
free social position, readily obtains satisfaction of his sexual impulse, or at
least finds an equivalent in some life’s work that requires all his strength,
these paths are barred to the unmarried women of the upper classes. This
leads, consciously or unconsciously, to dissatisfaction with one’s self and
the world and to morbid brooding. For some time compensation is sought in
religion, but in vain. The religious fanaticism, with or without masturbation,
leads to a number of nervous disorders that frequently culminate in hysteria
or insanity. This explains the fact that unmarried women fall victims to
insanity most frequently between the 25th and 35th year of life. It is that
period when the bloom of youth fades and hope fades with it; while among
men insanity most frequently occurs between the 35th and 50th year, the
period during which the struggle for existence makes its greatest demands
upon their strength.
“It is not a mere coincidence that with the decline in the marriage rate the
question of the emancipation of women is becoming more and more urgent.
I regard it as a signal of distress showing that woman’s position in modern
society is steadily becoming more unbearable. It is a just demand that
woman should be given an equivalent for that which has been assigned to
her by nature and of which she is being deprived by modern social
conditions.”
In speaking of the effect of ungratified sexual impulse on unmarried
women, Dr. H. Ploss says: “It is a noteworthy fact, of interest not only to
the physician but to the anthropologist as well, that an infallible remedy
exists whereby the process of fading bloom, so manifest in old maids,

cannot only be arrested, but the already vanished bloom of youth can even
be reinstated, partly at least, if not in its entire charm. Unfortunately our
social conditions rarely permit its application. This remedy is a regular,
orderly, sexual intercourse. We can often observe that when an elderly girl
is still fortunate enough to attain matrimony, a marked change in her
appearance takes place shortly after her marriage. Her shape obtains its
former roundness, the roses return to her cheeks, and her eyes regain their
former brightness. Marriage then is a real fountain of youth to the female
sex. Thus nature has its fixed laws that inexorably demand obedience, and
every unnatural mode of life, every attempt to adapt the organism to
conditions of life that are not in keeping with the laws of nature, inevitably
leaves marked traces of degeneration. This is true of both the animal and the
human organism.”
The question now presents itself: Does society fulfill the demands for a
rational mode of life, especially in the woman’s case? If it does not, we are
confronted by a second question: Can society fulfill them? If this question
also must be answered in the negative, a third question ensues: How can
they be fulfilled?

[45] Dr. G. Schnapper-Arndt: “Social Statistics,” Leipsic, 1908.
[46] H. Krose, “Causes of the Frequency of Suicide.” Freiburg, 1906.
[47] Text-book of Psychiatry—Stuttgart 1883.

CHAPTER VIII.

Modern Marriage.

1.—Marriage as a Profession.

“Marriage and the family are the foundations of the state. Whoever,
therefore, attacks marriage and the family, is attacking society and the state
and undermining both.” Thus exclaim the defenders of the present order.
Monogamic marriage as has been sufficiently shown, is the outcome of the
system of gain and property that has been established by bourgeois society,
and therefore undoubtedly forms one of its basic principles. But whether it
is adapted to natural needs and to a healthy development of human society
is a different question. We will show that this marriage, which depends
upon the bourgeois system of property, is a more or less forced relation,
having many disadvantages, and frequently fulfilling its purpose only
insufficiently or not at all. We will, furthermore, show that it is a social
institution which is and remains inattainable to millions of persons, instead
of being a free union founded on love, the only union suited to nature’s
purposes.
John Stuart Mill says in regard to modern marriage: “Marriage is the
only real bondage recognized by law.” According to Kant’s conception man
and woman together constitute the perfect human being. Upon a normal
union of the sexes the healthy development of mankind depends.
Satisfaction of the sexual impulse is essential to the sound physical and
mental development of both man and woman. But man has gone beyond the
animal stage, and so is not contented by the mere physical satisfaction of
his sexual impulse. He requires intellectual attraction as well, and the

existence of a certain harmony between himself and the person with whom
he enters into union. Where such intellectual harmony fails to exist, the
sexual intercourse is purely mechanical and thereby becomes immoral. Men
and women of refinement demand a mutual attraction that extends beyond
their sexual relations, and that shall have an ennobling effect upon the
new beings which may spring from their union.[48] The fact that such a
standard of ideals fails to exist in countless present-day marriages caused
Varnhagen von Ense to write: “Whatever we saw about us both of
marriages already contracted, and of marriages about to be contracted, was
not likely to implant in us a good opinion of such unions. On the contrary;
the entire institution which is supposed to be founded on mutual love and
respect and is instead founded on anything but that, seemed coarse and
despicable to us, and we fully agreed with Friedrich Schlegel, whose
opinion on this subject we found expressed in the fragments of ‘Atheneum’:
Almost all marriages are concubinages; they are at best remote approaches
to the true marriage, which should be a blending of two persons into one.”
This is quite in keeping with the views of Kant.
The joy in having progeny and the responsibility toward same makes the
relation of love existing between two persons one of longer duration. A
couple desirous of entering marriage should therefore carefully consider
whether their respective traits of character are suited to their union. The
answer to this grave question ought to be unbiased. But that is only possible
by the exclusion of every other interest that has no direct bearing on the
purpose of the union, satisfaction of the sexual impulse and propagation of
one’s own personality by means of propagation of the race, guided by a
certain measure of insight that controls blind passion. As these conditions
fail to be observed in a tremendous number of cases in present-day society,
it is evident that modern marriage frequently fails to fulfill its true object
and that we are not justified in regarding it as an ideal institution.

How many marriages are contracted on an entirely different basis
than the one described above cannot be demonstrated. The parties
concerned like to have their marriage appear different from what it really is.
Here a condition of hypocrisy presents itself, such as no previous social
period has known in a similar degree. The state, the political representative
of society, has no inclination to institute investigations that would cast an
unfavorable light upon society. The state itself marries its officials and
servants according to maxims that cannot be measured by the standard
that should constitute the foundation of true marriage.

[48] “The sentiments and feelings with which husband and wife approach
one another undoubtedly have a decisive influence upon the effects of
sexual intercourse and transmit certain traits of character upon the being
that is coming into existence.” Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell. “The Moral
Education of the Young in Relation to Sex.”—See also Goethe’s “Affinity,”
where he distinctly shows the effects of the feelings that prompt two human
beings to intimate intercourse.

2.—Decline of the Birthrate.

Marriage, in order to realize the purpose of nature, should be a union
founded on mutual love. But this motive is rarely met with unalloyed under
present conditions. To the great majority of women, marriage is a means of
livelihood that they must obtain at any cost. On the other hand, a great
many men regard marriage from a purely commercial point of view,
weighing and considering its material advantages and disadvantages. Even
those marriages that are not based on selfish, sordid motives, are frequently
marred and broken up by the harsh realities of life. Only rarely those hopes
are realized that were held by a man and woman prior to their marriage.
That is only natural. For in order to lead a contented married life not only
mutual love and respect are required, but economic security as well; that is,
a certain measure of the necessities and comforts of life in order to satisfy
the needs of man and wife and their children. Material cares and the cruel
struggle for existence are destructive to marital contentment and happiness.
But these material cares increase with the increasing number of offspring;
in other words, the better marriage fulfills its natural object, the greater
become these cares. The peasant, for instance, takes pleasure in every new
calf that his cow brings forth, he cheerfully counts his suckling pigs and
relates the good news of their arrival to his neighbors. But he looks somber
when a new baby is added to the number of children that he feels able to
support without care—not a large number, forsooth—and he looks doubly
somber if the newly-born babe has the ill fortune of being a girl.
We may say then that both marriages and births are controlled by
economic conditions. This is especially evident in France where agriculture
is carried on by a division of the land into small lots, the products of which
are not sufficient to support a large family. The famous, or notorious,

French system of having no more than two children, a system that has
developed into a social institution in France, is the result. In many
provinces the population is accordingly almost stationary, while in others
there has been a marked decline. The same results that the methods of
farming have produced in the rural districts, have been produced in the
cities by industry. In fact, the birthrate is declining even more rapidly in the
cities.
The number of births is constantly decreasing in France, in spite of the
fact that the number of marriages is increasing. This is true not only of
France, but of the majority of civilized countries. This fact points to a
development produced by our social conditions that should make the ruling
classes think. In 1881, 937,057 children were born in France; in 1906,
806,847, and in 1907, only 773,969. In 1907, 163,088 fewer children were
born than in 1881. It is a noteworthy fact that the number of illegitimate
births did not decrease. There were 70,079 of these in 1881; during the
period from 1881 to 1890 they attained their highest figure, 75,754, and in
1906 there still were 70,866. The decline of the birthrate then was confined
entirely to the legitimate births. During the entire century a decline of the
birthrate was noticeable. The following table shows the number of births for
every thousand inhabitants of France during more than a century:

1801–1810 332
1811–1820 316
1821–1830 308
1831–1840 290
1841–1850 273
1851–1860 262
1861–1870 261
1881–1890 239
1891–1900 221

1905 206
1906 206
1907 197

This represents a decline of 135 births for every thousand inhabitants
from 1801 to 1907. It is natural that this symptom is a cause of much
concern to French statesmen and economists. But the problem is not
confined to France. Since a long time the same phenomenon may be
observed in Germany, especially in Saxony, where the decline of the
birthrate has been even more rapid. In Germany there were the following
number of births for every thousand inhabitants:

1875 423
1880 391
1885 385
1890 370
1895 373
1900 368
1905 340
1906 341
1907 332

The majority of the other European countries present a similar condition,
as the following table shows:

For every 1,000 inhabitants.
1871 to 1881 to 1891 to 1901 to
1880 1890 1900 1905 1907
England &
Wales 35.4 32.5 29.9 28.1 26.3
Scotland 34.9 32.3 30.2 28.9 27.

For every 1,000 inhabitants.
1871 to 1881 to 1891 to 1901 to
1880 1890 1900 1905 1907
Ireland 26.5 23.4 23. 23.2 23.2
Sweden 30.5 29.1 27.2 26.1 25.5
Italy 36.9 37.8 34.9 32.6 31.5
Austria 39. 37.9 37.1 35.8 35.
Hungary 44.3 44.0 40.6 37.2 36.
Belgium 32.3 30.2 39. 27.7 25.7
Switzerland 30.8 28.1 28.1 28.1 26.8
Netherlands 36.2 34.2 32.5 31.5 30.

The decline of the birthrate then is a general one, and though France and
Ireland show the lowest figures, the decline is most rapid in England,
Germany and Scotland. We meet with the same phenomenon in the United
States and Australia. The fact presents itself still more strikingly if we
proceed to compare the number of births with the number of married
women between the 15th and 49th year of age:

LEGITIMATE CHILDREN BORN TO 1,000 MARRIED
WOMEN BETWEEN THE FIFTEENTH AND FORTY-NINTH
YEAR.

DECADES
1876 to 1885 1886 to 1895 1896 to 1905
England and Wales 250 259 203
Scotland 271 255 235
Ireland 250 245 264
Denmark 244 235 217
Norway 262 259 246
Sweden 240 231 219

DECADES
1876 to 1885 1886 to 1895 1896 to 1905
Finland 259 246 244
Austria 246 250 242
Hungary 234 235 216
Switzerland 239 230 225
German Empire 268 258 243
Prussia 273 265 250
Bavaria 276 263 259
Saxony 267 250 216
Wurtemberg 288 259 262
Baden 266 248 251
Netherlands 293 286 272
Belgium 264 236 213
France 167 150 132
Italy 248 249 232

The above enumerated facts go to prove that the birth of a human being,
“God’s image,” as religious persons say, is, on an average, estimated below
the value of a newly-born domestic animal.
In many respects our views differ but slightly from those of barbarian
people. Among the latter, newly-born children were often killed. This fate
especially befell the girls. Among some living savages the same custom still
prevails. We do not kill the girls; we are too civilized for that, but frequently
we treat them as parias. Man, being the stronger, everywhere represses
woman in the struggle for existence, and if she still persists in the struggle,
she is often persecuted by the stronger sex as an undesirable competitor.
Men of the upper classes are especially bitter against female competition.
Among workingmen the demand to exclude women from the trades is
voiced only rarely. When a resolution formulating such a demand was

presented at a congress of French workingmen in 1876, it was voted down
by a large majority. Since that time the conviction that the working woman
is a fellow being entitled to equal rights and privileges, has grown among
the class-conscious workingmen of all countries. The resolutions passed by
international workingmen’s congresses prove this. The class-conscious
workingman knows that present industrial conditions compel woman to
enter into competition with man. He also knows, that an attempt to exclude
woman from industry would be as futile as an attempt to forbid the use of
machinery. Therefore he endeavors to instruct woman in regard to her
position in society and to enlist her aid in the struggle for freedom of the
proletariat against capitalism.

3.—Mercenary Marriage and the Matrimonial Market.

Modern society has undoubtedly advanced beyond any previous stage of
development, but our conceptions concerning the relation of the sexes has
in many respects remained unchanged. In 1876 Prof. L. v. Stein published a
book on “Woman in the Field of Political Economy,” that is not suited to its
title, since it merely draws a very poetically tinted picture of marriage. But
this picture clearly shows the submissive position of woman in her relation
to the “lion,” man. Stein writes: “Man desires a being who not only loves
him but also understands him. He seeks one who is not only devoted to him,
but whose soft hand smoothes the wrinkles on his forehead; who brings into
his life peace, calm, order, gentle self-control, and all the many little
comforts of life to which he returns daily. He needs some one to enhance all
these things with the inexpressible charm of womanliness, imparting
warmth and joy to his home.”
Beneath this apparent praise of woman lurks her degradation and the
egotism of man. The professor depicts woman as a dainty creature,
endowed nevertheless with the needful knowledge of arithmetic to keep the
household accounts well balanced, caressing like a gentle spring breeze the
master of the house, the ruling lion, and with her soft hand smoothing the
wrinkles from his forehead, that perhaps have appeared there from brooding
over his own stupidity. The professor depicts woman and marriage such as
barely one among a hundred actually exist.
About the many thousand unhappy marriages, about the great number of
women to whom it is never given to attain marriage, and about the millions
of women who must slave beside their husbands from morning till night to
earn their daily bread, he seems to see and know nothing whatever. All
these marriages are stripped of poetry by the harsh reality of life, more

quickly than a careless hand strips the colored dust from a butterfly’s wing.
One glance at those countless women sufferers would have greatly marred
the professor’s poetically tinted picture. The women he observes only
constitute a small minority, and it is doubtful whether they represent an
advanced type.
There is a frequently quoted saying, that the degree of civilization
attained by a nation may be measured by the position of its women. We
uphold the justice of this saying. But upon applying this standard we find
that our highly lauded civilization does not amount to much. In his book on
the “Subjection of Women”—the title shows the conception of the position
of woman held by the author—John Stuart Mill says: “Men have become
more domesticated. Increasing civilization has put more fetters on man in
regard to woman.” That is true to some extent wherever an honest marriage
relation exists between husband and wife. But to a considerably large
minority it does not apply. Intelligent men will recognize, that it is to their
own advantage, if women are drawn out into the world from their narrow
domestic sphere, and are given an opportunity to become acquainted with
the great problems of the day. The “fetters” that are thereby placed on him,
are not hard to bear. On the other hand, the question arises whether modern
life has not brought new factors into the matrimonial relation that are more
apt to destroy marriage than any previously known.
Marriage has become an object of material calculation in a marked
degree. The man who wishes to marry, in seeking to obtain a wife, also
seeks to obtain property. That was the chief reason why daughters, who
were at first excluded from the right of inheritance when the patriarchal
system came into power, were at an early period reinstated to this right. But
never before was the marriage market as openly and cynically displayed as
to-day; never before was marriage regarded in the same degree as a simple
speculation, a mere financial transaction. At present match-making is
frequently carried on so shamelessly, that the often-repeated phrase about

the “sanctity of marriage” becomes a farce. Still, for this fact, as for all
others, an explanation can be found. At no previous time was it so difficult
for the great majority of people to accumulate a modest fortune, as it is at
present, and at no previous time was the striving for a decent livelihood and
the enjoyment of life so general. Those who do not attain the aim they have
set for themselves feel their disappointment all the more keenly, because all
believe to have the same right to enjoyment. No formal difference of class
or caste exists. Everyone hopes to attain some aim that seems attainable in
accordance with his station in life. But many are called and few are chosen.
In order that one may live in comfort, twenty others must live in want; and
in order that one may revel in luxury, hundreds or thousands must dwell in
poverty. But everyone is eager to be one of the favored few, and
accordingly resorts to all means that are likely to lead him to his goal. One
of the simplest and most accessible means of attaining a privileged social
position is a mercenary marriage. In this way the desire for money, on the
one side, and the desire for social rank and title, on the other, obtain mutual
satisfaction among the upper classes of society. Here marriage is degraded
to a business transaction. It becomes a conventional union that both sides
respect outwardly, while secretly both all too often follow their own
inclinations.[49]
In every large city there are certain places where upon definite days
members of the upper classes come together, chiefly for the purpose of
match-making. Rightly have these reunions been called the “matrimonial
market”; for just as on the stock market, speculation and barter dominate,
and not infrequently fraud and deception enter into the dealings. Here we
find officers of the army, over head and ears in debt, but possessing some
ancient title of nobility; roués, weakened by a life of debauchery, who seek
a wife to nurse them and hope to mend their shattered health in marriage;
manufacturers, merchants and bankers, who are at the verge of bankruptcy,
sometimes at the verge of imprisonment and who wish to be saved, and

public officials who have prospects of promotion, but are in need of money;
here they come as customers and conclude the marriage bargain. In these
marriages it frequently is deemed quite immaterial whether the future wife
is young or old, pretty or ugly, well-built or deformed, educated or ignorant,
pious or frivolous, a Christian or a Jewess, provided that she has money.
Money redeems all faults and compensates for the lack of anything else.
According to the German law, procurers are severely punished by
imprisonment. But when parents or guardians barter their children or
relatives to some unloved man or woman for life, for the sake of wealth,
social position or some other advantage, no public prosecutor may interfere,
and yet a crime has been committed. There are many well-organized
matrimonial agencies, and any number of procurers and procuresses who
are searching candidates for the “sacred wedded state.” These transactions
are especially profitable when performed in the interest of members of the
upper classes. In 1878 a procuress was tried in Vienna who had been
accused of being an accomplice in murder, and was finally sentenced to
fifteen years’ imprisonment. Among other things the trial revealed that the
former French ambassador to Vienna, Count Banneville, had paid this
woman 22,000 guilders for procuring a wife for him. Other members of the
aristocracy were also involved in this trial. For years the authorities had
permitted this woman to ply her criminal trade unmolested. In the capital of
the German Empire similar occurrences were reported. They are met with
wherever there are persons seeking to contract mercenary marriages.
During the last few decades the daughters and heiresses of American
millionaires have become special objects of desire to the pauperized
European nobility. These American women, on the other hand, have
exchanged their millions for the rank and title that are unknown in their
own country. A number of communications, published in the German press
during the fall of 1889, contained some characteristic information on this
subject. According to this a German nobleman living in California had

offered his services as a match-maker by advertising in German and
Austrian papers. The offers he received in return clearly show the
conceptions prevailing in the circles concerned, in regard to the sanctity of
marriage and its ethical side. Two Prussian army officers, members of an
ancient nobility, sought his services, and frankly stated as the reason of their
doing so, the fact, that together they owed over 15,000 dollars. In their letter
to the procurer they literally wrote: “It is self-understood that we cannot pay
anything in advance. You will receive your remuneration immediately after
the wedding journey. Only recommend ladies to us whose families are in no
wise objectionable. We would also consider it very desirable to meet ladies
who are particularly good-looking. If required, we will give your agent our
photographs, who can also give us further details, show us the ladies’
photographs, etc. We regard this whole transaction as an affair of honor (!)
and expect the same of you. We expect an early reply through your agent on
this side.
“Baron v. M........
“Baron v. W........
“Berlin, Frederick St. 107, Dec. 15, 1889.”
A young German nobleman, Hans v. H...... wrote from London that he
were five foot ten, of ancient nobility, and employed in diplomatic service.
He confessed that his fortune had been greatly diminished by unsuccessful
betting at the races, and that he was therefore compelled to seek a rich wife.
“I am prepared,” he wrote, “to come to the United States immediately.” The
German-American nobleman asserted that besides a number of counts,
barons, etc., he had counted among his customers three princes and sixteen
dukes. Some men who were not the proud possessors of a title bargained for
American heiresses likewise. An architect, Max W. from Leipsic, asked for
a fiancée who must be rich, beautiful and cultured. A young manufacturer,
Robert D., from Kehl on the Rhine, wrote that he would content himself
with a fiancée owning 100,000 dollars, and promised in advance that he

would make her happy. But we need not look far to find further instances of
this sort. We need but glance at the matrimonial advertisements in many of
our capitalistic papers to recognize them as the outward signs of degrading
views. The prostitute who plies her trade as a result of bitter need is morally
superior to these marriage seekers. The editor of a Socialist paper who
should venture to publish such advertisements would be expelled from his
party. The capitalistic press does not hesitate to publish such
advertisements, because they pay. But that does not prevent this same press
from railing against the Socialistic principles as being destructive of
marriage. No age has been more hypocritical than ours. Most of these
newspapers are nothing more or less than matrimonial agencies. One might
fill entire pages with clippings taken from leading newspapers on a single
day. Sometimes the interesting fact is revealed, that even ministers are
sought in this way and that ministers also resort to this method to seek
wives. Sometimes the applicants even consent to overlook a moral blemish,
provided that the girl is rich. The moral degradation of certain strata of
society could not be more vividly exposed than by this sort of marriage.

[49] For the sake of completeness we must also mention marriage for
political reasons as contracted in the highest circles. In these marriages the
right is also silently conceded to the man to follow his own inclinations
outside of his marriage. There was a time when rulers considered it good
form, a sort of royal attribute, to have at least one mistress. Thus, according
to Sherr, King Frederick William I. of Prussia, otherwise noted for his
temperate life, maintained an intimate relation with the wife of a general. It
is well known that King August of Poland and Saxony had almost 300
illegitimate children, and that King Victor Emanuel of Italy left 32
illegitimate children. In the picturesquely situated little capital of a German
principality there still stood not many years ago about a dozen beautiful
villas that had been erected by the ruler for his abdicated mistresses. One

might write volumes on this subject; in fact, an extensive collection of
books exists that deal mainly with these piquant occurrences. In view of
these facts it is indeed very necessary that sycophantical historians should
strive to present the various fathers and mothers of their countries as models
of domestic virtue, as faithful husbands and devoted mothers. The augurs
are not yet extinct, they fatten, as in the days of Rome, upon the ignorance
of the masses.

CHAPTER IX.

Disruption of the Family.

1.—Increase of Divorce.

The part played by church and state in this sort of “sacred marriage” is
not a worthy one. The state official or the officiating clergyman whose task
it is to perform the marriage ceremony, never pauses to consider by what
methods the couple he is about to join in wedlock have been brought
together. It may be quite evident, that the two are in no wise mated either in
regard to their ages or in regard to physical and mental qualities; the bride
may, for instance, be twenty and the groom seventy, or vice versa; the bride
may be beautiful and full of vitality, the groom may be old, cross and
inflicted with infirmities, it makes no difference to the representative of
state and church. The marriage is consecrated, and the consecration is most
solemn in character where the monetary reward for this “holy function” is
most generous. But when such a marriage turns out to be an exceedingly
unhappy one, as could have been foreseen by anybody, and frequently was
foreseen by the unfortunate victim itself—the woman generally being the
victim—and when one or the other party then seeks separation, both church
and state place the greatest difficulties in their way. Yet neither church nor
state questioned in advance whether love and moral sentiments, or
shameless, coarse egotism brought about the union. Moral revulsion is not
considered sufficient cause for separation; obvious proofs are demanded,
proofs that will degrade one or the other party in public opinion, to make
divorce possible. That the Catholic Church does not permit divorce at all,
except by special permission from the pope, which is very hard to obtain,

makes conditions particularly unfavorable among the Catholic population.
The German code of civil law has also made divorce much more difficult.
Thus divorce by mutual consent, that had been permitted by Prussian law,
was abolished. Many divorces had been granted under this law, some for
more serious reasons that were concealed out of regard for the guilty party.
In Berlin, for instance, there were 5,623 divorces from 1886 until 1892;
1,400 of these, approximately 25 per cent., were granted upon mutual
consent. In many cases divorce is granted only then, when the party seeking
divorce does so within six months after discovery of the cause for divorce.
According to Prussian law, the time limit is one year. Take, for example,
that a young wife discovers soon after her marriage, that she is tied to a man
who is no husband to her at all. It is asking a great deal that she should
determine on divorce within six months, a step that requires a considerable
amount of moral strength. To justify the increased difficulty in divorce, the
following argument is advanced: “Only by making divorce increasingly
difficult, can the advancing disruption of the family be counteracted and the
family bonds be strengthened.” This argument is a contradiction in itself. A
disrupted marriage is not made bearable by forcing husband and wife to
continue living together in spite of their inward estrangement and mutual
aversion. A condition of this sort, maintained by law, is profoundly
immoral. The result is that in a large number of cases adultery is made a
cause for divorce, since this cause cannot be ignored by the law; neither the
state nor society are improved by this process. It must also be regarded as a
concession to the Catholic Church, that in many cases separation takes the
place of divorce which was formerly not the case according to civil law. It
is no longer considered a cause for divorce, when through the fault of the
one party, a marriage remains childless. The new German code of civil law
contains the following paragraph: “The religious duties in regard to
marriage are not touched upon in the rules laid down in this paragraph.”
This likewise is a concession to the church. It is merely ornamental in

character, but it is characteristic of the spirit still prevailing in Germany at
the beginning of the twentieth century. For our purposes the admission is
important, that divorce was made more difficult to counteract the advancing
disruption of the family.
Human beings then remain chained to one another for lifetime against
their will. One party becomes a slave to the other and is forced in
fulfillment of “matrimonial duties,” to endure intimate embraces that
perhaps seem more loathsome than harsh words and ill treatment. Rightly
Mantegazza says: “There is no greater torture than to suffer the caresses of
an unloved person....”[50] Is such marriage not worse than prostitution?
Even the prostitute has a certain degree of liberty of withdrawing from her
abominable trade, and if she is not the inmate of a public brothel, she may
refuse herself to a man she does not wish for some reason or other. But a
woman sold in marriage must endure the embraces of her husband, even
though she have a hundred reasons to hate and despise him.
If the marriage has been contracted from the outset and by mutual
understanding, as a mere marriage of convenience, matters are not quite as
bad. Mutual obligations are considered and a bearable mode of life is found.
Scandal is avoided, especially out of consideration for the children, where
such exist; and yet it must be said that the children are the ones to suffer
most when their parents lead a cold, indifferent life, devoid of love, even if
it does not deteriorate into a life of open hostility. More frequently yet an
agreement is accomplished to avoid material loss. Usually the husband’s
misbehavior is the cause of trouble in marriage; that may be seen from the
divorce cases. When a man remains dissatisfied with his marriage his
domineering position enables him to find compensation elsewhere. The
woman is far less inclined to go astray, firstly because physiological reasons
make a transgression much more dangerous in her case, and secondly
because when she is the one to break the marital vow, it is considered a
crime that society will not condone. The woman alone—be she wife, widow

or maiden—has “fallen”; the man, when he commits the same sin, has, at
the worst, behaved with impropriety. The same action then is judged by
entirely different standards, according to whether it has been committed by
a man or by a woman, and the women themselves are often most bitter and
unmerciful in their condemnation of a “fallen” sister.[51]
As a rule, women will seek divorce only in cases of flagrant infidelity or
gross ill-treatment, because they are in a dependent position and are obliged
to regard marriage as a means of subsistence; also because the social
position of a divorced woman is not an enviable one. She is regarded and
treated more or less as a cipher. If in spite of all this women constitute the
majority of plaintives in divorce cases, this goes to prove what moral
tortures they must endure. In France, even before the introduction of the
new divorce laws, by far the most proceedings for separation were
instituted by women. Until 1884 a woman in France could sue for divorce
only in case her husband brought the woman with whom he maintained an
intimate relation into the domicile of his wife against her will. Thus
proceedings for separation were instituted annually by:

Women. Men.
1856–1861 1,729 184
1861–1866 2,135 260
1866–1871 2,591 330
1901–1905 2,368 591

Not only were the majority of proceedings instituted by women, the
figures also show that their number steadily increased. By information
gathered from reliable sources it may be seen, that elsewhere also the
greater number of actions for divorce and separation are instituted by
women, as the following table shows:[52]

PERCENTAGE OF NUMBER OF PLAINTIVES.

DIVORCES.
During the Husbands and
years. Husbands. Wives. wives.
Austria 1893–1897 4.4 5.0 90.6
Roumania 1891–1895 30.6 68.9 0.5
Switzerland 1895–1899 26.4 45.4 8.2
France 1895–1899 40.0 59.1 ..
Baden 1895–1899 36.0 59.1 4.9
England &
Wales 1895–1899 60.4 39.6 ..
Scotland 1898–1899 43.3 56.7 ..

SEPARATIONS.
Austria 1897–1899 4.9 16.6 78.5
France 1895–1899 15.9 84.1 ..
England &
Wales 1895–1899 3.0 97.0 ..
Scotland 1898–1899 .. 100. ..

In the United States, where the divorce statistics cover a period of forty
years, we find the following ratio:

1867–1886. P. C. 1887–1906. P. C. 1906. P. C.
Men 112,540 34.2 316,149 33.4 23,455 32.5
Women 216,176 65.8 629,476 66.6 48,607 67.5
Total 328,716 100 945,625 100 72,062 100

The above table shows that in more than two-thirds of all divorce cases
women were the plaintiffs.[53]
In Italy we find a similar ratio. During 1887 there were 1,221 divorce
cases; 593 of these were instituted by wives, 214 by husbands, 414 by both

husbands and wives. In 1904 there were 2,103 cases; 1,142 by wives, 454
by husbands, and 507 by both.
Statistics teach us that the majority of divorces are sought by women,
and they furthermore teach us that the number of divorces is rapidly
increasing. Since the introduction of the new divorce law in France in 1884,
the divorces have increased from year to year, as follows:

Years 1884. 1885. 1890. 1895. 1900. 1905. 1906. 1907.
Divorces 1,657 4,123 6,557 7,700 7,820 10,019 10,573 10,938

In Switzerland, too, the divorce-rate is increasing. From 1886 to 1890
there were 882 divorces. From 1891 to 1895 there were 898 divorces; in
1897, 1,011; in 1898, 1,018; in 1899, 1,091; in 1905, 1,206; in 1906, 1,343.
In Austria during 1899 there were 856 divorces and 133 separations. In
1900 there were 1,310 divorces and 163 separations. In 1905 there were
1,885 divorces and 262 separations. The number of divorces and
separations have been doubled during a decade. In Vienna there were 148
divorces in 1870 and 1871; they increased with each succeeding year until
in 1878 and 1879 there were 319 cases. Vienna being a Catholic city,
divorces are not easily obtained. Nevertheless, a Viennese judge exclaimed
during the eighties: “The charge of broken marriage vows is as frequent as
the charge of broken windows.”
The following shows the increasing divorce-rate in the United States:

Years 1867. 1886. 1895. 1902. 1906.
Divorces 9,937 25,535 40,387 61,480 72,062

If the number of divorces in relation to the population had remained the
same in 1905 as in 1870, the exact number of divorces in 1905 would have
been 24,000, and not 67,791, as actually was the case. The total number of
divorces from 1867 to 1886 was 328,716; from 1887 to 1906, 945,625. The
United States have the highest divorce-rate. For every thousand marriages

there were the following number of divorces: In 1870, 81; in 1880, 107; in
1890, 148; in 1900, 200. Why is divorce more frequent in the United States
than in any other country? Firstly, because in some of the states the divorce
laws are less rigorous than in most of the other countries, and, secondly,
because women enjoy a freer, more independent position than in any
other country of the world, and are accordingly less willing to submit to
the tyranny of husbands.
The following shows the number of divorces in Germany from 1891 to
1900:

Years 1891. 1892. 1893. 1894. 1895. 1896. 1897. 1898. 1899. 1900.
Divorces 6,678 6,513 6,694 7,502 8,326 8,601 9,005 9,143 9,563 7,928

We see that from 1899 to 1900, the number of divorces have decreased
by 1,635, because on the first of January, 1900, the new code of civil law
went into effect which made divorce more difficult. But life is stronger than
law. After there was a decrease in the divorce-rate from 1900 to 1902, there
has been a rapid increase ever since, as the following table shows:

Years 1901. 1902. 1903. 1904. 1905. 1906. 1907.
Divorces 7,964 9,069 9,933 10,868 11,147 12,180 12,489

In Saxony, too, in spite of various fluctuations, there has been a steady
increase, as may be seen from the following table:

For each 1,000
Years. Divorces. marriages.
1836–1840 356 121
1846–1850 395 121
1871–1875 581 122
1891–1895 921 138
1896–1900 1,130 151
1901–1905 1,385 168

For each thousand marriages in Prussia there were the following number
of divorces: 1881 to 1885, 67.62; 1886 to 1890, 80.55; 1891 to 1895, 86.77;
1896, 101.97; 1905, 106; 1908, 121. That is a tremendous increase. The
increase of divorce is not a national but an international symptom. For each
thousand marriages there were the following number of divorces in:

1876– 1881– 1886– At the close of
1880. 1885. 1890. the century.
Austria .. 19.4 19.7 31.
Hungary 31.6 30.4 30.5 58.
Roumania 37.3 52.3 73.1 98.
Italy 11.8 11.3 10.6 15.
France 33.9 75.9 80.9 129.
England &
Wales 6.5 7.4 7. 10.6
Scotland 12.3 13. 16.7 26.
Ireland 0.6 0.4 1.1 1.
Belgium 25.5 31.9 43. 72.
Netherlands .. .. .. 78.
Norway 13.9 12.1 19.3 33.
Sweden 28.5 28.6 31.6 45.
Finland 16.1 7.8 10.0 29.
Switzerland 220. 200. 188. 199.9

It would be a great mistake to draw conclusions from these widely
diverging figures about the moral status of the various countries enumerated
above. No one would claim, that cause for divorce is four times greater
among the Swedish people than among the English people. The laws must
be taken into consideration that make divorce more or less difficult as the
case may be.[54] The moral status, that is, the causes making divorce
appear desirable to either man or woman, are a secondary consideration.

But the figures show, that the divorce-rate is increasing more rapidly than
the population; that is increasing, in fact, while the marriage-rate is
decreasing. We will return to this phase of the question later on. Great
differences of age between husband and wife play a considerable part in
divorce. That is shown by the following table gathered from official
statistics in Switzerland:

NUMBER OF DIVORCES FOR EACH 1,000
MARRIAGES WITH SAME DIFFERENCE OF AGE.
1881–1890. 1891–1900.
Man older; 26 years and more 271 328
Man older; 11 to 25 years 189 198
Man older; 1 to 10 years 193 181
Husband and wife of same age 195 190
Man younger; 1 to 10 years 226 226
Man younger; 11 to 25 years 365 431
Man younger; 26 years and more 759 870

The following statistics from Saxony during 1905 and 1906, and from
Prussia from 1895 to 1905, show the divorce-rate in its relation to the
various strata of society:

ANNUAL DIVORCES FOR EACH 100,000
MARRIED MEN.
Saxony. Prussia.
Agriculture 59 34
Industry 220 158
Commerce 297 229
Public service and learned professions 346 165

In Saxony divorces were most frequent among officials and professional
men. In Prussia they were most frequent among those employed in
commerce. In Saxony those employed in commerce came second; in
Prussia, officials and professional men. Men employed in industry come
third; 220 in Saxony, and 158 in Prussia. Those employed in agriculture
furnished the lowest figures. When we compare the growing number of
divorces in the cities with those among the rural population, we are led to
the conclusion that the rapid development of industry, accompanied by an
increasing instability of public life, makes the marriage relation more
unfavorable, and adds to the factors that make for the disruption of
marriage. On the other hand, the growing divorce-rate shows, that the
number of women are increasing who resolve to cast off a yoke that has
become unbearable.

[50] The Physiology of Love.
[51] Alexander Dumas correctly says in “Monsieur Alphonse”: “Man has
created two standards of morality: one for himself, and one for woman, one
that permits him to love all women, and another that permits woman as a
compensation for her lost freedom, to be loved by but one man.” See also
Marguerite’s self-accusation in “Faust.”
[52] George v. Mayer: “Statistics and Social Science.”
[53] Marriage and Divorce. 1887–1906. Bureau of the Census,
Bulletin 96, p. 12. Washington, D. C., 1908.
[54] In England divorce is a privilege enjoyed by the rich. The cost of a
trial is so exorbitant, that divorce becomes almost impossible to people of
moderate means, especially as it necessitates a journey to London. In the
whole country there is only one divorce court, which is situated in London.

2.—Bourgeois and Proletarian Marriage.

The corruption of marriage increases at the same rate at which the
struggle for existence grows more severe, making matrimony more and
more an object of mercenary speculation. As it is becoming increasingly
difficult to support a family, many men choose to refrain from marrying,
and so the declamations about it being woman’s duty to practice her natural
profession of wifehood and motherhood, are just so many meaningless
phrases. On the other hand, these conditions are bound to foster illegitimate
relations and to increase the number of prostitutes; they also increase the
number of those who fall victims to an unnatural satisfaction of the sexual
impulse.
Among the ruling classes the wife is frequently degraded, just as she was
in ancient Greece, to the mere functions of bearing legitimate children,
acting as housekeeper, or serving as nurse to a husband ruined by a life of
debauchery. For his amusement, or to gratify his desire for love, the man
maintains courtesans or mistresses who live in elegance and luxury. Others
who do not have the means of maintaining mistresses, associate with
prostitutes during marriage as before marriage, and a number of wives are
sufficiently corrupted to consider such relations quite proper.[55]
In the upper and middle classes of society the chief evil in marriage is its
mercenary character. But this evil is still heightened by the mode of life that
prevails among these classes. That applies to the women as well as to the
men, since they frequently lead lives of idleness or devote themselves to
corrupting occupations. The society woman’s spiritual nourishment usually
consists of the following: Reading ambiguous novels, visiting frivolous
plays, enjoying sensuous music, resorting to intoxicating stimulants, and
indulging in scandal-mongering. Idleness and ennui frequently entice her

into love-intrigues, that are sought more eagerly still by the men of her
circles. In the mad pursuit of pleasure she rushes from one banquet and
entertainment to another, and in summer she goes to watering-places and
summer resorts to rest from the exertions of the winter and to seek new
amusement. Scandals are a daily occurrence with this mode of life; men
seduce and women allow themselves to be seduced.
Among the lower classes mercenary marriage is practically unknown.
The workingman generally marries for love, but nevertheless many harmful
and destructive influences exist in the proletarian marriage also. Blessed
with many children, cares and worries ensue, and all too often bitter poverty
prevails. Disease and death are frequent guests in the proletarian family, and
unemployment heightens the misery. Many are the factors that lessen the
workingman’s income and frequently deprive him of that meagre income
altogether. Hard times and industrial crises throw him out of employment;
the introduction of new machinery or of new methods of production, makes
him superfluous; wars, unfavorable tariff and commercial treaties, the
imposition of new indirect taxes, or black-listing by his employers as a
result of his political convictions, destroy his means of subsistence or
gravely injure them. From time to time one or another thing occurs that
entails a longer or shorter period of unemployment with its accompanying
misery and starvation. Uncertainty is the mark of his existence. Such
vicissitudes are productive of ill temper and bitter feelings that most
frequently lead to outbursts in domestic life where demands are made daily
and hourly that cannot be satisfied. This leads to quarrels and harsh words
and eventually to a rupture in the marriage relation.
Frequently both husband and wife must work for a living. The children
are left to themselves or to the care of older brothers and sisters, who are
still in need of care and education themselves. The noon-day meal, usually
of the poorest quality, is devoured in utmost haste, provided that the parents
have time to come home for this meal. In the majority of cases this is

impossible, owing to the distances between homes and factories and to the
brevity of the time allowed for rest. Weary and worn, both parents return at
night. Instead of a cheerful, pleasant home to come to, theirs is only a small,
unsanitary dwelling, frequently wanting in fresh air and light and devoid of
the most elementary comforts. The scarcity of available lodgings with all
the resulting evils, is one of the darkest phases of our social system that
leads to countless vices and crimes. In spite of all attempts at relief, the
housing problem is becoming more serious every year in all the larger
centers of industry; and other strata of society, such as professional people,
clerks, officials, teachers, small dealers, etc., are affected by it. The
workingman’s wife who returns to her “home” at night exhausted from a
day’s hard labor, must begin work anew. She must toil in feverish haste to
attend to the most necessary details of housekeeping. After the children
have been put to bed, she still continues to mend and sew until far into the
night. Rest and recuperation are unknown to her. The man often is ignorant
and the woman still more so, and the little they have to say to one another is
quickly said. The man goes to a saloon where he at least finds some of the
comforts that he lacks at home; he drinks, and no matter how little he
spends, he is spending too much for his income. Sometimes he falls a
victim to the vice of gambling, that claims many victims in the upper strata
of society also, and then still loses more than he spends on drink.
Meanwhile the woman is brooding at home full of grudge. She must toil
like a beast of burden, there is no rest or recreation for her; but the man
enjoys the liberty that is his, just because he had the good fortune of having
been born a man. Thus discord arises. If the woman is less conscientious; if
she, too, seeks pleasure and diversion when she has returned from a hard
day of work, to which she is surely entitled, her household goes to ruin and
the misery becomes greater still. Nevertheless, we are living in “the best of
worlds.”

Thus marriage is constantly being disrupted among the proletariat also.
Even favorable periods of employment often have a detrimental influence,
for they involve over-time work and sometimes also work on Sunday,
thereby depriving the worker of the little time he is able to devote to his
family. Often the distances from the workingmen’s homes to their places of
employment are so great, that they must leave at day-break, when the
children are still soundly asleep, and do not return until late at night when
they are sleeping again. Thousands of workingmen, especially those
connected with the building trades, remain away from home during the
entire week and only return to their families on Saturday night. How can
family relations prosper under such conditions?! At the same time the
number of women workers is constantly growing, especially in the textile
industries, for thousands of spinning-machines and power-looms are being
tended by women and children, whose labor is cheap. Here matrimonial
relations have been reversed. While the wife and the children go to the
factory, the unemployed man not infrequently, remains at home performing
the domestic duties. “In a number of cloth factories in Chemnitz we find
women who are employed there only during the winter months, because
their husbands who are road-builders, masons or carpenters, earn little or
nothing in winter. During the absence of the women, the men attend to the
housekeeping.”[56] In the United States, where capitalism has developed so
rapidly, that all its evils are manifest on a much larger scale than in the
industrial countries of Europe, a characteristic name has been coined for
this state of affairs. Industrial centers where women are mainly employed
while men remain at home, have been called “she-towns.”[57]
At present it is generally conceded that women should be admitted to all
trades. Capitalistic society in its mad chase of profits has long since
recognized, that women can be more profitably exploited than men, since
they are by nature more pliant and meek.[58] Accordingly the number of
trades in which women may find employment are increasing with every

year. The constant improvement of machinery, the simplifying of the
process of labor by an increased division of labor, and the competitive
warfare among individual capitalists, as also among rival industrial
countries—all favor the steady increase of woman labor. The phenomenon
is common to all industrially advanced countries. As the number of women
in industry increases, the competition between them and the male workers
grows more severe. The reports of factory inspectors and statistical
investigations prove this.
The position of women is especially unfavorable in those trades in which
they predominate as, for instance, the clothing trades, and particularly in
those branches in which the workers perform the work in their own home.
Investigations concerning the condition of women workers in the
manufacture of underwear and the clothing trades, were made in Germany
in 1886. This investigation showed among other things that the miserable
pay these workers received frequently drove them to prostitution.
Our Christian government, whose Christianity is sought in vain where it
is really needful, but is met with where it is superfluous—our Christian
government is like our Christian bourgeoisie, whose interests it serves. This
government finds it exceedingly difficult to decide upon the enactment of
laws which would limit the work of women to a bearable degree and
prohibit child-labor entirely. This same government also fails to grant a
normal work-day and sufficient rest on Sundays to its own employees,
thereby harming their family relations. Frequently men employed in the
mail and railroad service and in prisons must work many hours overtime
without receiving adequate remuneration.
As the rents are also far too high in comparison with the incomes of the
workers, they must content themselves with the poorest quarters. Lodgers
of one sex or the other, sometimes of both, are taken into the workingman’s
home.[59] Old and young of both sexes live together in a small space and
frequently witness the most intimate relations. How modesty and decency

fare under such conditions, has been shown by horrible facts. The
increasing demoralization and brutalization of the young that is being
discussed so much, is partly due to these conditions. Child-labor, too, has
the worst possible influence on children, both physically and morally.
The increasing industrial activity of married women has the most
detrimental effect during pregnancy and at child-birth and during the early
babyhood of the children, when they depend upon the mother for
nourishment. During pregnancy it may lead to a number of diseases that are
destructive to the unborn child and harmful to the organism of the woman,
and bring about premature births and still-births. When the child has been
born, the mother is compelled to return to the factory as soon as possible,
lest some one else take her place. The inevitable result for the poor, little
babes is neglect and improper or insufficient nourishment. They are given
opiates to be kept quiet; and as a further result of all this, they perish in
masses or grow up sickly and deformed. It means race degeneration.
Frequently the children grow up without ever having experienced real
parental love. Thus proletarians are born, live and die; and society and the
state marvel at it that brutality, immorality and crime are increasing.
During the sixties of the last century the cotton industry in England
almost came to a standstill, as a result of the Civil War that was being
waged in the United States. Accordingly, thousands of working-women
were unemployed, and among them physicians made the astounding
observation, that in spite of the existing want, infant mortality was
decreasing. The reason was that the babies now were being nursed by their
mothers and more care was bestowed on them than ever before. During the
crisis of the seventies of the last century similar observations were made in
the United States, especially in New York and Massachusetts.
Unemployment enabled the women to devote more time to their children.
The same fact was noted during the general strike in Sweden in August and
September of 1909. The mortality in Stockholm and other large Swedish

cities had not been as low for many years as during the weeks of this giant
strike. One of the eminent medical authorities of Stockholm declared that
the low rate of mortality and the general state of good health was in close
connection with the great strike. He pointed out that the out-of-door life
which was being led by the army of strikers was chiefly responsible for this
satisfactory state of health, for no matter how extensive the sanitary
regulations might be, the air in the factories and workshops was always
more or less detrimental to the health of the workers. The same medical
authority pointed out, furthermore, that the prohibition of the sale of
intoxicating drinks during the great strike, also tended to improve the state
of health.
Domestic industry, which is depicted so alluringly by the romancers
among political economists, is not more favorable to the workers. Here man
and wife both toil from dawn to darkness and the children are trained as
helpers from their earliest childhood on. The entire family and perhaps
some assistants live together in closest quarters among rubbish and
disagreeable odors. The bedrooms are similar to the workshop, usually
small, dark spaces with insufficient ventilation, detrimental to the health of
the persons who are obliged to sleep in them.
The struggle for existence that is growing increasingly difficult, also
sometimes compels men and women to commit acts that they would loathe
under different circumstances. It was shown in 1877 in Munich that among
the prostitutes entered on lists by the police, there were no less than 203
wives of workingmen and mechanics. Many more married women are
driven to occasional prostitution by need, without submitting to police
control that deeply degrades all modesty and human dignity.

[55] In his book on “The Woman Question in the Middle Ages,” that I
have frequently quoted, Buecher laments the dissolution of marriage and
the family. He condemns the employment of women in industry, and

demands that woman should return to her “particular sphere,” the only one
where she creates “real values,” the home and the family. The aims of the
modern woman movement appear “amateurish” to him, and he expresses
the hope that “a better way may be found.” But he fails to point out a
successful way. From his bourgeois point of view it would be impossible to
do so. The matrimonial conditions as also the position of women in general,
are not the result of wilful creation. They are the natural product of social
evolution, and this social evolution is consummated in accordance with
inherent laws.
[56] Technics and Political Economy.
[57] The following clipping taken from an American newspaper in 1893
gives an adequate description of a “she-town”: “A singularity that is met
with in the factory towns of Maine, is a class of men who may rightly be
called housekeepers. Any one visiting some of these workers’ homes shortly
after the noon hour, will find the men, wearing an apron, washing dishes. At
other hours of the day they may be seen making the beds, dressing the
children, scrubbing or cooking.... These men do the housekeeping for the
simple reason that their wives can earn more in the factories than they, and
it is more economical for them to remain at home while the women work.”
[58] “Mr. E., a manufacturer, informs me that he employs only women at
his power-looms. He prefers married women and especially those who have
a family at home depending upon them. They are much more attentive and
docile than unmarried women, and are obliged to exert themselves to the
utmost in order to earn the necessary means of subsistence. Thus the
peculiar virtues of woman’s character are turned to her own detriment, and
the gentleness and decency of her nature become a means of her
enslavement.” From an address by Lord Ashley on the ten-hour bill, 1844.
—Karl Marx, “Capital,” second edition.

[59] The Prussian census of 1900 has shown that in Prussia there are
3,467,388 persons not related to the families in whose midst they live. In
the entire state about one-quarter of these non-related members of the
households consisted of strange boarders and lodgers; in the rural districts
they constituted only one-seventh, but in the cities one-third, and in the
capital, Berlin, more than one-half.—G. v. Mayer, “Statistics and Social
Science.”

CHAPTER X.

Marriage as a Means of Support.

1.—Decline of the Marriage Rate.

When we consider the conditions enumerated above, it requires no
further proof to recognize that a growing number of persons do not regard
the wedded state as a desirable goal, but hesitate to enter into it. This
explains the phenomenon, that in most civilized countries the marriage rate
is stationary or declining. It was a matter of old experience, that an increase
in the price of grain had a detrimental effect on both the marriage and birth
rates. With the growing industrial development of any country the marriage
and birth rates are influenced more and more by the ups and downs of the
market. Economic crises and a lowering of the general economic standard
have a lasting unfavorable influence. This may be seen from the marriage
statistics of various countries. According to the latest census, 12,832,044
marriages were contracted in the United States during the period from 1887
to 1906.

1887 483,096
1891 562,412
1892 577,870
1893 578,673
1894 566,161
1902 746,733
1903 786,132
1904 781,145

1905 804,787
1906 853,232

These figures show that as a result of the crises during 1893 and 1894,
the marriage rate declined by 12,512. The same phenomenon recurs in
1904, during which year the marriage rate declined by 4987. The following
table shows marriage statistics gathered in France:

1873–1877 299,000
1878–1882 281,000
1883–1887 284,000
1888–1892 279,000
1893–1897 288,000
1898–1902 296,000
1903–1907 306,000

The marriage rate attained its highest figure, 321,238, during the year
1873. From that time on the marriage rate declined only to increase again
with times of prosperity. In France the highest marriage rate since 1873 was
attained in 1907 when it reached 314,903. To some extent this increase was
due to a new law that went into effect on June 21, 1907, by which the legal
formalities required in order to become married were simplified. This
increase was especially noticeable in the poorer districts. The following
table shows the number of marriages contracted for every thousand
inhabitants in various European countries:

1871 to 1876 to 1881 to 1886 to 1891 to 1896 to 1901 to
COUNTRIES 1875 1880 1885 1890 1895 1900 1905 1907
German Empire 18.84 15.68 15.40 15.68 15.88 17.83 16 16.2
Prussia 18.88 15.86 15.92 16.32 16.40 16.86 16.2 16.4
Bavaria 18.92 14.65 13.64 13.96 14.76 16.09 15.2 15.4
Saxony 19.96 17.70 17.62 18.64 17.52 18.76 16.6 16.8
Austria 18.30 15.52 15.88 15.40 15.76 16.04 15.8 15.8

1871 to 1876 to 1881 to 1886 to 1891 to 1896 to 1901 to
COUNTRIES 1875 1880 1885 1890 1895 1900 1905 1907
Hungary 21.51 19.30 20.24 17.72 17.92 16.05 17.2 19.6
Italy 15.54 15.06 14.08 17.64 14.96 14.40 14.8 15.4
Switzerland 16.06 14.90 13.80 14.00 14.72 15.59 15 15.6
France 16.06 15.16 15.04 14.48 14.90 15.14 15.2 16
England and Wales 17.08 15.34 15.14 14.70 15.16 16.14 15.6 15.8
Scotland 14.98 11.76 13.76 18.02 13.68 14.94 14 14
Ireland 9.72 9.04 8.66 8.66 9.48 9.87 10.4 10.2
Belgium 15.44 13.94 13.94 14.34 15.24 16.45 16.2 16.2
Netherlands 16.64 15.76 14.28 14.04 14.48 14.88 15 15.2
Denmark 15.88 15.54 15.38 13.94 13.84 14.79 14.4 15.2
Norway 14.58 14.40 13.82 12.76 12.92 13.73 12.4 11.8
Sweden 14.04 13.20 12.84 12.20 11.45 12.04 11.8 12
Finland 17.68 15.72 14.90 14.40 12.98 15.34 13 13.6
European Russia excl.
the Vistula province 19.62 17.62 18.06 17.94 17.08 17.80 — —
Bulgaria — — 18.04 17.24 16.07 — — —
Servia 22.80 23.32 22.14 21.76 19.84 — — —

That the marriage rate rises and sinks with the rise and decline of
national prosperity is most strikingly noticeable in Germany. The largest
number of marriages (423,900), were contracted in Germany in 1872, the
year after the close of the Franco-Prussian war. From 1873 on, the marriage
rate declined until in 1879, the year when the crisis was at its worst, it
attained its lowest figure (335,133). Then it gradually increased again until
1890, a year of prosperity, to sink once more in 1892 and again to increase
with the years of returning prosperity until with the height of prosperity the
highest figures were attained (476,491 in 1900, and 471,519 in 1899). The
next crisis brought another decline. In 1902 the number of marriages did not
exceed 457,208 while in 1906 and 1907 it rose up again to 498,900 and
503,964.
But in general the statistics of most countries point to a decline of the
marriage rate. The highest numbers attained during the seventies were
attained only in exceptional instances at the close of the nineties. But not

only the earnings have a strong influence on the marriage rate, the
conditions of property have so likewise. Statistics from the kingdom of
Wurtemberg show, that with the increase of large estates the number of
married men between 25 and 30 years of age decreases and the number of
unmarried men between 40 and 50 years of age increases. Small estates
are favorable to the marriage rate, because they enable a greater number of
families to maintain a decent though modest livelihood, while large estates
are, for obvious reasons, unfavorable to the marriage rate. With the growing
industrial development of a country, the number of marriages in urban
trades and professions increases. The following statistics from Sweden
during the years 1901 to 1904 show the relation of marriage to occupation:

Agriculture per 1000 4.78
Industry “ “ 7.17
Commerce “ “ 7.75
Learned professions “ “ 6.33

All these figures prove that not moral but economic causes are the
determining factors. The number of marriages like the moral status of a
social group depend upon its material foundation.

2.—Infanticide and Abortion.

Fear of poverty and doubts as to whether it will be possible to bring up
the children suitable to their station in life, cause many women of all
classes to commit deeds that are averse to the laws of nature and to the laws
of organized society as well. Such deeds include the various methods to
prevent conception, and when this has occurred nevertheless, artificial
abortion. It would be a mistake to assume that such methods are resorted to
only by frivolous, unscrupulous women. They are, on the contrary,
frequently resorted to by conscientious wives, who feel that they must limit
the number of offspring and rather submit to the dangers of abortion, than to
deny themselves to their husbands and thereby drive them to the devious
paths. Other women again take this step to conceal a “sin,” or because they
abhor the discomforts of pregnancy, child-birth and motherhood, or because
they fear that their physical beauty will be impaired and that they will
accordingly seem less attractive to their husbands and to men in general.
These women readily obtain medical and surgical aid at high prices.
Artificial abortion seems to be practiced more and more. It was
frequently practiced among the ancients and is practiced to-day among both
civilized nations and savages. The old Greeks practiced it openly, without
any legal restraint. Plato regarded it as within the province of the midwife,
and Aristotle permitted it to married people when a pregnancy that was not
desired took place.[60] According to Jules Ronyer, the women of Rome
practiced abortion for several reasons. In the first place they wished to
conceal the results of their illegitimate relations; secondly they wished to
indulge in uninterrupted excesses, and thirdly they sought to avoid the
detrimental effects of pregnancy and child-birth upon their beauty.[61]
Among the romans a woman was considered old when she attained the

thirtieth year, and the women therefore shunned everything that was likely
to make them age more quickly. During the mediaeval ages abortions were
punishable by severe penalties, in some instances even by capital
punishment, and a free woman who had practiced it became a serf.
At the present time abortions are practiced chiefly in Turkey and in the
United States. “The Turks do not regard a foetus as being really alive until
after the fifth month, and have no scruple in causing its abortion. Even at
later stages, when the operation becomes criminal, it is frequently practiced.
In 1872 at Constantinople, more than three thousand cases of abortion were
brought before the courts in a period of ten months.”[62]
More frequently yet it is practiced in the United States. In all the large
cities of the union institutions exist where women and girls can go to bring
about premature birth. Many American newspapers contain advertisements
of such places.[63] In some strata of American society an artificial abortion
is discussed as openly as a regular confinement. In Germany and other
European countries it is regarded in a different manner, and according to
German law both the perpetrator and the accomplice may be punished by
imprisonment. Abortion is often followed by the worst results; not
infrequently it results in death, and in many cases it means the permanent
destruction of health. “Dangers from the most unfavorable pregnancy and
child-birth are less great than from artificial abortions.”[64] Sterility is the
most frequent result. Nevertheless the practice is becoming more frequent
in Germany also. The following number of persons were convicted of
criminal abortion: From 1882 to 1886, 839; from 1897 to 1901, 1565; from
1902 to 1906, 2236.[65] During recent years several cases of criminal
abortions created a sensation, because distinguished physicians and
prominent society women figured in these cases. Judging by the
advertisements in German newspapers, there also is an increase of those
places and institutions where married and unmarried women are given an
opportunity to await the results of their wrong-doing in absolute secrecy.

The fear of a too numerous progeny in consideration of the economic
status and the cost of education has caused the introduction of preventive
measures among entire classes and nations and has gradually developed
into a regular system that threatens to become a public calamity. It is a
wellknown fact that almost all strata of French society abide by the custom
of limiting their offspring to two children. Few civilized countries have as
high a marriage rate as France; but notwithstanding this fact, in no other
country the birth rate is as low and the increase of population as gradual.
The French bourgeoisie, the peasantry and the working class, all abide by
this custom. In some parts of Germany the conditions among the peasantry
seem to have lead to a similar state of affairs. In a picturesque region in the
south-western part of Germany, a certain species of tree, which furnishes an
ingredient for an abortive remedy, is grown on every farm. In another
region the peasants have long since followed the custom of limiting their
offspring to two children; they do not wish to divide up their farms. Another
noteworthy fact is the marked increase in the publication and sale of
literature discussing and recommending means for optional sterility. Of
course, these books are always clothed in “scientific” garb and invariably
point to the threatening danger of excess of population.
Besides the prevention of conception and artificial abortion, crime also
plays a part. In France child exposure and infanticide have increased as a
direct result of French civil law, according to which it is interdicted to
investigate paternity. The “Code civil” provides that “La recherche de la
paternité est interdite,” but “la recherche de la maternité est admise.” This
law forbids to search for a child’s father but permits to search for its mother.
With brutal frankness it thus proclaims injustice to the unfortunate girl who
has been seduced. The men of France may, by the provision of this law,
seduce as many girls and women as they please; they are freed from all
responsibility and do not have to contribute anything to the support of their
illegitimate children. This law was framed under the pretext that women

must be deterred from seducing men. We see, everywhere it is the poor,
feeble man,—although his is the strong sex,—who never seduces but
always is seduced. The result of this paragraph of the “Code civil” was the
framing of another paragraph which provides that “L’enfant conçu pendant
le marriage a pour père le mari” (the husband is father to every child
conceived during marriage). While it is forbidden to search after a child’s
father, deceived husbands must regard children as their own, that have
sprung from illicit relations their wives may have maintained. We must
admit that the French bourgeoisie is at least consistent. Until now all
attempts to repeal these obnoxious laws have failed. On the other hand the
French bourgeoisie seeks to atone somewhat for the cruelty of preventing
women, who have been deceived, from seeking financial aid from the
fathers of their children, by establishing foundling institutions. Thus the
new-born babe is deprived not only of its father but of its mother as well.
According to the French conception foundlings are orphans, and the French
bourgeoisie thus permits its illegitimate children to be reared as “children of
the nation” at the expense of the state. A wonderful institution!
Lately French methods have been copied in Germany. The new German
civil law contains provisions in regard to the legal status of illegitimate
children, that are in contradiction to the more humane laws that were in
force heretofore. One paragraph states that “an illegitimate child and its
father are not regarded as being related,” while Emperor Joseph II had
already decreed that legitimate and illegitimate children should be equal
before the law. Another paragraph states that “an illegitimate child is
fatherless if its mother maintained relations with several men at the time of
conception.” The child is made to suffer for its mother’s frivolousness,
weakness or poverty. Frivolous fathers are not taken into consideration by
the law. The law concerning illegitimate children furthermore provides: “it
is the mother’s right and duty to care for the person of the illegitimate child.
The father of the illegitimate child is obliged to provide for same until the

completion of its sixteenth year, in accordance with the social status of the
mother.” According to former Prussian law, the seducer was obliged to
provide for the child in accordance with his own social status and wealth. If
the woman had been seduced with the promise of marriage, she was entitled
to all the rights of a divorced wife, and in those cases the illegitimate
children were regarded as legitimate before the law. These more just and
humane provisions have now been dispensed with. The tendency of German
legislation is a retrogressive one.
During the period from 1831 to 1880, 8568 cases of infanticide were
tried before the French court of assizes. This number increased from 471
during the years 1831 to 1835 to 970 during the years 1876 to 1880. During
the same period 1032 cases of criminal abortion were tried, 100 of these
during the single year 1880. It goes without saying that only a small number
of the artificial abortions actually practiced ever come to the notice of the
courts. As a rule only such cases are brought to public attention that result
in severe illness or death. The rural population furnished 75 percent of the
infanticides, and the urban population furnished 67 percent of criminal
abortions. The women residing in cities have more means at hand to prevent
normal child-birth; therefore the cases of abortion were numerous and the
cases of infanticide relatively few. In the rural districts the inverse ratio
prevails. In Germany the following number of persons were convicted of
infanticide: from 1882 to 1886, 884; from 1897 to 1901, 887; from 1902 to
1906, 745.
This is the picture presented by present day society in regard to its most
intimate relations. It differs considerably from that picture which is usually
drawn for us by poetic visionaries, but it at least has the advantage of being
true. Yet the picture is incomplete; a few characteristic features must still be
added.

[60] Elie Metchnikoff—The Nature of Man.

[61] Jules Ronyer, Etudes médicales sur l’ancienne Rome. Paris 1859.
[62] Elie Metchnikoff—The Nature of Man.
According to an official investigation, 200 persons were counted in
[63]
New York who made a profession of artificial abortions.
[64] Edw. Reich—History of Abortion and its Dangers.
[65] Criminal statistics of the German Empire for the year 1906.

3.—Education for Marriage.

All parties are agreed that at the present time the female sex is, on an
average, mentally inferior to the male sex. Balzac, who by no means was an
admirer of women, nevertheless declared, “a woman who has obtained the
education of a man, indeed possesses the most brilliant and fruitful qualities
for establishing her own happiness and that of her husband.” Goethe, who
was well acquainted with the types of men and women of his day, uttered
the following sharp remark in “The Years of Travelling of William Meister”
(Confessions of a fair soul): “scholarly women were held up to ridicule, and
educated women were not popular either, probably because it was regarded
as impolite to disgrace so many ignorant men.” But that does not alter the
fact that women, as a rule, are mentally inferior to men. This difference is
bound to exist, since the mental status of woman is but what man, her
master, has made it. The education of women has always been pitifully
neglected, even more than the education of the proletariat, and even at the
present time it is insufficient. In our age the desire for the exchange of ideas
is a growing one among all classes of society, and accordingly we begin to
recognize the neglected mental training of women as a great mistake, one
from which not only women, but men also must suffer.
With men education is mainly directed upon the development of the
intellect; it is supposed to sharpen their reasoning powers, to expand their
knowledge and to strengthen their will-power. With women, especially
among the upper classes, education is mainly directed upon the
development of their sentiments; it chiefly consists of attaining various
accomplishments that only tend to heighten their imaginative faculty and to
increase their nervous irritability, such as music, literature, art and poetry.
That is the greatest error in education that could possibly be committed. It

shows that educators have allowed themselves to be guided by their
prejudices concerning the nature of woman and her narrow sphere in life.
The development of sentiment and imagination in women should not be
artificially stimulated which only increases the tendency to become
nervous. With women, as well as with men, the mental faculties should be
developed and they should be acquainted with the practical facts of life. It
would be the greatest advantage to both sexes if women were less
sentimental and more rational; if they displayed less nervousness and
timidity, and more courage and will-power; if they possessed fewer
accomplishments, and a broader knowledge of the world and mankind and
the natural forces of life. Until the present time the spiritual life of woman
and her sentiments have been stimulated to the utmost, while her
intellectual development has been neglected, hampered and repressed. As a
result she literally suffers from spiritual and sentimental hypertrophy, which
makes her susceptible to all sorts of superstitions and miracle-frauds, an
easy victim of religious and other swindles, a willing tool of bigotry and
reaction. Men in their short-sightedness frequently lament this fact; but they
do nothing to change it, because the great majority of them are still deeply
entrenched in their own prejudices. As a result of this false education,
women generally regard the world very differently from men, and thereby
another great source of differences and misunderstandings between the
sexes is established.
For every man in present day society, participation in public life is one of
the most essential duties; that many men still fail to recognize this duty does
not alter the fact. But an ever widening circle of men has begun to
recognize that public institutions directly affect the private relations of
each individual, and that the welfare of individuals and families depends far
more upon the nature of public institutions than upon personal qualities and
actions. They have begun to recognize, that even supreme efforts on the part
of a single individual are powerless in combatting evils that are rooted in

social conditions, and influence his position accordingly. Moreover the
struggle for existence necessitates far greater exertions to-day than
formerly. Demands are made upon a man to-day, that require more and
more of his time and strength. But the ignorant, indifferent woman is
usually incapable of comprehending his duties and interests. We may even
say that the differentiation between man and woman is greater to-day than it
was formerly, when conditions were more petty and narrow, and therefore
more within the range of woman’s understanding. Occupation with public
affairs to-day claims a greater number of men than formerly. This expands
their ideas, but it also estranges them from their domestic circle. Thereby
the woman feels neglected, and one more source of differences has been
created. Only in rare cases do men succeed in making themselves
understood by their wives and in convincing them. As a rule the man holds
the opinion that his aims and interests do not concern his wife, and that she
is unable to understand them. He does not take the trouble to instruct her.
“You don’t understand that,” is the usual reply when a woman complains to
her husband that he is neglecting her. The lack of understanding on the part
of the women is still heightened by the lack of common sense on the part of
the men. Among the proletariat the relation between husband and wife is
more favorable, when both recognize that they must follow the same path,
since one, and one only leads to a better future for them and their children:
the complete reorganization of society that will make all men and women
free. As this recognition spreads among the women of the proletariat, their
wedded life becomes idealized in spite of misery and want. For now both
husband and wife have a common aim to strive for, and their common
struggle furnishes an inexhaustible source of inspiration in exchange of
opinions. The number of proletarian women who have awakened to this
recognition is growing with each year. Here a movement is expanding that
will be of vital importance to the future of mankind.

In other marriages the differences of education and conceptions, that
were overlooked in the beginning while passion was still strong, become
more and more noticeable with the advancing years. But as sexual passion
decreases, it ought to be replaced by mental conformity. Quite disregarding
the fact whether or not a man recognizes that he has social and civic duties,
and whether or not he fulfills these duties, his business or profession alone
suffices to keep him in constant touch with the outside world, and to create
an intellectual atmosphere about him that broadens his views. Contrary to
the woman, he is usually in a state of intellectual moulting; but domestic
activities require the woman’s time and attention from morning till night,
and being deprived of opportunity for mental development, she is apt to
become dull and mentally stunted.
This domestic misery in which the majority of wives in present day
society are obliged to live, has been truly pictured by Gerhard v. Amyntor
in his book on “A Commentary to the Book of Life.” In the chapter on
“Fatal Stings” he says: “It is not the terrible occurrences that no one is
spared,—a husband’s death, the moral ruin of a beloved child, long,
torturing illness, or the shattering of a fondly nourished hope,—it is none of
these that undermine the woman’s health and strength, but the little daily
recurring, body and soul devouring cares. How many millions of good
housewives have cooked and scrubbed their love of life away! How many
have sacrificed their rosy cheeks and their dimples in domestic service,
until they became wrinkled, withered, broken mummies. The everlasting
question: ‘what shall I cook to-day,’ the ever recurring necessity of
sweeping and dusting and scrubbing and dish-washing, is the steadily
falling drop that slowly but surely wears out her body and mind. The
cooking stove is the place where accounts are sadly balanced between
income and expense, and where the most oppressing observations are made
concerning the increased cost of living and the growing difficulty in making
both ends meet. Upon the flaming altar where the pots are boiling, youth

and freedom from care, beauty and light-heartedness are being sacrificed. In
the old cook whose eyes are dim and whose back is bent with toil, no one
would recognize the blushing bride of yore, beautiful, merry and modestly
coquettish in the finery of her bridal garb.—To the ancients the hearth was
sacred; beside the hearth they erected their lares and household-gods. Let us
also hold the hearth sacred, where the conscientious German housewife
slowly sacrifices her life, to keep the home comfortable, the table well
supplied, and the family healthy.” That is the only consolation that
bourgeois society is able to offer those women who slowly perish as a result
of the present order!
Those women who enjoy a freer position as a result of their more favored
social circumstances, usually have a narrow, superficial education that is
manifested in connection with inherited, female characteristics. Most of
these women are interested only in external appearances; dress and personal
adornment are their chief concern, and the satisfaction of their depraved
tastes and their unbridled passions, form their object in life. They are not
interested much in the children and their education; that would mean too
much trouble and annoyance. Therefore they willingly turn over their
children to nurses and governesses and later on to boarding-schools. At the
most they regard it as their duty to make silly doll-women of their
daughters, and superficial, extravagant dandies of their sons. This class of
young men, who regard idleness and extravagance as a profession,
furnishes the seducers of the daughters of the people.
The conditions described above have lead to a number of traits of
character peculiar to women, that are more fully developed from generation
to generation. Men seem to find satisfaction in ridiculing these traits, but
they forget that they themselves are to blame for them. The following are
some of these frequently condemned female traits of character:
talkativeness and scandal-mongering; the inclination to discuss the most
insignificant things at the greatest length; the exaggerated interest in

outward display; the love of dress and coquetry; envy and jealousy toward
the members of her sex, and the tendency of being dishonest and
hypocritical. These traits of character usually manifest themselves with the
female sex at an early age; they are general and only differ in degree. These
traits have developed under the pressure of social conditions, and they have
been further developed by heredity, example and education. One who has
been brought up unwisely is not likely to bring up others wisely.
In order to understand the origin and development of traits of character
common to an entire sex or to an entire people, we must follow the same
method that modern scientists apply to understand the origin and
development of living beings and their characteristics. The material
conditions of life to a great extent imprint upon every living being its traits
of character. It is compelled to adapt itself to these existing material
conditions, until the adaptation becomes its nature.
Human beings form no exception to that which holds true for all living
beings throughout nature. Man is not exempt from natural laws. Viewed
physiologically, he is merely the most highly developed animal. Of course,
many persons refuse to admit this. Thousands of years ago ancient peoples,
although they knew nothing of modern science, held more rational views in
regard to many human problems, than a great many of our contemporaries,
and, what is more noteworthy still, their views that were based on
experience, were put into practice. We praise and admire the strength and
beauty of the men and women of ancient Greece; but we forget that it was
not the climate of this beautiful country that had such a favorable influence
upon the nature and development of its population, but the educational
maxims that were consistently carried out by the state, and that were
destined to combine beauty, strength and skill with mental sharpness and
vigor. Indeed the mental development of woman was neglected even then,
but not so her physical development.[66] In Sparta where physical culture
of both sexes was most extensively practiced, boys and girls went about

naked until the age of puberty, and together they joined in physical
exercises, games and wrestling-matches. The display of the nude human
body, the natural treatment of natural things, prevented the extreme sexual
irritation that is mainly caused by an artificial separation of the sexes from
childhood on. The body of one sex was no mystery to the other. No dallying
with ambiguities could arise. Nature was regarded as such. Each sex took
pleasure in the beauty of the other.
To a natural, untrammeled relation of the sexes must mankind return; we
must cast aside the unsound spiritualistic conceptions concerning human
affairs and create methods of education that shall bring about a physical and
mental regeneration. The prevailing conceptions in regard to education,
especially the education of women, are still exceedingly reactionary. That a
woman should possess such qualities of character as strength, courage and
determination, is decried as unwomanly, and yet no one can deny that by
means of such qualities she will be better enabled to protect herself. But her
physical development is hampered, just like her mental development. This
is due in no small degree to the irrational mode of dress. Woman’s dress not
only interferes with her physical development, it frequently does her direct
bodily harm; and yet there are few, even among physicians, who dare to
oppose it. Fear of displeasing the patient causes them to be silent or even to
flatter her follies. The modern style of dress prevents women from freely
exercising their strength, hampers their physical development, and creates a
feeling of helplessness in them. Moreover, woman’s dress endangers the
health of her environment, for at home and on the street she is a walking
generator of dust.
The physical and intellectual development of women is furthermore
severely hampered by a rigorous separation of the sexes in school and in
social intercourse, that is quite in accordance with the spiritualistic
conceptions implanted by Christianity, and is still sadly prevalent among us.
The woman who is given no opportunity to develop her abilities and talents,

who is maintained within a narrow sphere of ideas, and rarely permitted to
associate with members of the other sex, cannot rise above the
commonplace and trivial. For her ideas are centered in the occurrences of
her immediate environment. Verbose conversations over a mere nothingness
and the tendency to gossip are fostered by this narrow life, since the mental
activities that reside in every human being must find expression
somewhere. Men are frequently grievously annoyed and driven to despair
by these qualities which they roundly condemn, without pausing to consider
that they, “the lords of creation,” are chiefly to blame for them. During
recent years numerous attempts have been made to introduce more rational
conceptions of life; but they are merely a beginning, and until now have
been confined to a very small portion of society.

[66] Plato, in “The State”, demands that women should be given an
education similar to men, and Aristoteles in “Politics” declares as a
fundamental principle of education: “first let the body be developed and
then the mind.”

4.—The Misery of Present Day Marriages.

As a result of our social and sexual relations, woman is directed toward
marriage by every fibre of her existence, and naturally marriage constitutes
a chief topic of her conversation and thought. As woman is physically
weaker than man, and is subjected to him by custom and law, her tongue is
her chief weapon to be used against him, and she naturally makes a liberal
use of this weapon. In the same way her much berated love of dress and
personal adornment can be explained, that leads to increasingly eccentric
follies of fashion and often causes financial troubles and unpleasantness to
fathers and husbands. To man, woman has chiefly been an object of
enjoyment. Being socially and economically dependent, she must regard
marriage as a means of support, and thus becomes subservient to man,
becomes his property. Her position is rendered more unfavorable still by the
fact that the number of women usually exceeds the number of men; we will
return to this phase of the question later on.—This disproportion increases
the competition of women among themselves, all the more so because, for
numerous reasons, many men fail to marry. Woman is therefore compelled
to enhance her personal charms, in order to compete with the members of
her own sex in the struggle for the possession of a man. When we consider
that this disproportion has existed through many generations, it is not to be
wondered at that these characteristics have gradually assumed their present,
extreme form. We must consider moreover that at no time the competition
among women for the possession of man was as severe as it is at present,
owing to causes, some of which have already been, and others that still are
to be enumerated. The increasing difficulty of obtaining a decent livelihood
also directs woman more than ever to marriage as a means of support.

Men do not object to these conditions, since they are favorable to them.
It flatters their vanity and serves their interest to play the part of the ruler,
and as all rulers they are not easily accessible to reason. It is all the more
important therefore that women themselves should strive to bring about
conditions that will liberate them from their present, degraded position.
Women can no more rely upon the aid of men, than the workers can rely
upon the aid of the bourgeoisie.
When we furthermore consider what traits of character are developed by
competition along other lines, how, for instance, industrial competition
leads to hatred, envy and calumny, and how the competitors resort to the
basest means, we find an explanation for the fact that similar traits of
character have been developed in women by their competition for the
possession of a man. It is due to this permanent competition that women, as
a rule, cannot get along as well with one another as men can; that even
intimate friends are easily led to quarrel when the favor of a man enters into
consideration. This competition also explains what may be frequently
observed, that when two women meet, even though they are utter strangers
to one another, they regard each other in a hostile way. With a single glance
they have summed up each other’s shortcomings in the manner and style of
their clothes, and in the looks of each the verdict may be read: “I am better
dressed than you are and am better able to attract attention to myself.”
On the other hand woman is by nature more impulsive than man. She is
less given to reflection, is more unselfish and naive, and is more controlled
by passion. These traits of character are expressed in their most beautiful
form by the unselfish self-sacrifice with which she serves her children and
others who are near and dear to her and cares for them during illness. But
when angered, her impassionate nature manifests itself in its ugliest form.
Yet the fact remains that both good and evil qualities are fostered, hampered
or transformed, by the social position. The same propensity that may be
harmful under unfavorable circumstances may, under favorable

circumstances, become a source of happiness to oneself and others. Fourier
has ably shown that the same human propensities may, under different
circumstances, lead to opposite results.[67]
Beside the improper mental education, the improper or insufficient
physical education in regard to the purposes of nature, remains to be
considered. All physicians are agreed that woman’s education for her
profession of motherhood is almost entirely neglected. “Soldiers are trained
in the use of their weapons, and mechanics in the use of their tools. Every
profession requires preliminary study. Even the monk has his noviceship.
Only the woman is not educated for her serious maternal duties”.[68] Nine
tenths of all maidens who are given an opportunity to marry, enter
matrimony in complete ignorance of motherhood and its duties. The
unpardonable prudery that prevents mothers from speaking to their grown
daughters about the important functions of sex, leaves them in a state of
densest ignorance concerning their duties to their husbands and to
themselves. The entrance into marriage means to most women entrance into
an utterly strange world. Their conceptions of marriage are purely
imaginative, drawn from novels of doubtful value, and are usually very
foreign to reality.[69] Another source of differences may be found in the
lack of practical knowledge of housekeeping that is still quite essential in
present day marriage, though women have been relieved of many domestic
activities that were formerly inevitable. Some women are deplorably
ignorant of household duties because they consider themselves superior to
such work and regard it as a task for servants only. Others, daughters of the
proletariat, are equally ignorant, because the struggle for existence
compelled them to toil in the factory from morning until night, and they
found no time to prepare for their future profession of housekeeper. It
becomes more and more evident that the trend of development makes
individual housekeeping unpractical, and that it can be maintained only by
an irrational sacrifice of time and money.

There is still another cause that to many men destroys the purpose of
marriage: the physical enfeeblement of women. The food we eat, the
manner in which we live, the conditions of our work and the character of
our amusements, all tend to act more destructively than favorably upon our
physical condition. Rightly is our age termed a nervous age. But
nervousness leads to physical degeneration. Anaemia and nervousness exist
in an especially marked degree among women. This physical degeneration
is fast becoming a social calamity, and if it would continue to exist for
several generations more, without our being able to procure more normal
conditions of development, it would ultimately lead to race destruction.[70]
The female organism requires special care in consideration of its special
sexual functions. It requires good and sufficient nourishment and at certain
periods it requires rest. For the great majority of women such care does not
exist, nor can it be obtained under present-day conditions. Women have so
accustomed themselves to self-denial that many women consider it a
matrimonial duty to give their husbands the best morsels and to content
themselves with insufficient food. It also frequently happens that the boys
of a family are better nourished than the girls. It is generally assumed that
women can content themselves with poorer and less nourishment than men.
Young girls are therefore often a sad sight to professional authorities on
hygiene and physical culture.[71] A great number of our young women are
weak, anaemic, and extremely nervous. The results are suffering during
menstruation and diseases of the sexual organs that sometimes make it
dangerous or impossible to give birth to children or to nurse them. “If the
degeneration of our women continues to go on in the same manner as up to
the present, it will become doubtful whether civilized man may still be
classified with the mammals.”[72] Instead of being married to a healthy,
cheerful companion, a capable mother, a wife attending to her domestic
duties, the man is burdened with a sickly, nervous woman who cannot
endure the slightest draught or the least noise and requires the constant

attendance of a physician. We need not dwell longer on this subject.
Everyone knows of a number of such cases among his own friends and
relatives.
Experienced physicians assert that the majority of married women,
especially in the cities, are in a more or less abnormal, physical condition.
According to the degree of the ailment and the characters of husband and
wife, such marriages must be more or less unfortunate. In accordance with
public opinion they entitle the men to take liberties outside of their
matrimonial relations, and the knowledge of this fact must heighten the
misery of the wives. Sometimes the sexual requirements of husband and
wife also differ widely and give rise to profound disharmonies, yet the
much desired separation is not possible.
In connection with this, the truth must not be concealed that in a great
many cases the men are responsible for the severe physical sufferings
that befall their wives in marriage. As a result of their profligate lives,
many men suffer from chronic sexual diseases that they frequently
treat lightly, because they do not cause them much trouble. But during
sexual intercourse with their wives, these fall victims to severe abdominal
diseases that set in shortly after marriage and frequently result in sterility.
Usually the unfortunate woman is ignorant of the true cause of the disease
that mars her life and destroys the purpose of marriage, and reproaches
herself or is reproached for the condition that her husband has caused.
Many a blooming young woman becomes a chronic invalid after she has
barely entered marriage,—neither she nor her relatives are able to explain
her condition, and the physician must maintain silence. Recent
investigations have shown that childless marriages are frequently due to
sexual diseases of men; while formerly the lords of creation maintained the
convenient theory that the woman was always to blame when their
marriages remained childless.[73]

Numerous are the causes that prevent present day marriage from being
what it ought to be. It is therefore a recommendation of doubtful value
when even learned men seek to oppose the woman movement by pointing
out to woman that marriage is their true vocation. As a result of our social
conditions marriage has become a carricature foreign to its true purposes.

[67] A. Bebel—“Charles Fourier, His Life and His Theories.” Stuttgart,
1907. J. H. W. Dietz.
[68]Irma v. Troll-Borostyani—“The Mission of our Century. A Study of
the Woman Question.”
[69] In “Les Femmes qui tuent et les femmes qui votent,” Alexander
Dumas, jr., relates that an eminent Catholic clergyman had told him that
among hundred of his former female pupils who had become married, at
least eighty came to him after a few months had elapsed and told him that
marriage was a disappointment to them and that they regretted having
married. That seems very plausible indeed. The French bourgeoisie find it
compatible with their conscience to have their daughters reared in convents.
They are influenced by the assumption that an ignorant woman is more
easily guided than an enlightened one. Conflicts and disappointments in
marriage are the inevitable result. Laboulaye even frankly advises to
maintain the women in moderate ignorance, for “notre empire est détruit si
l’homme est reconnu.” (Our rule will be destroyed if man is recognized.)
[70] Softening of the brain has increased more rapidly among women
than among men. Among every hundred patients admitted to asylums in
Prussia there were cases of softening of the brain:

[Women] [Men]

1876–1879 17.0 3.7
1880–1891 17.3 5.4
1892–1894 17.7 6.8

[Women] [Men]

1895–1897 18.5 7.6
1898–1901 16.2 7.5

Further details on this subject may be found in “The Book of
[71]
Women,” by Mrs. H. S. Adams, M. D., Stuttgart.
[72] Dr. F. B. Simon, “The Care of the Health of Women.”
[73] Dr. F. B. Simon discusses this subject and the analogous subject,
why so many young women become ill after marriage without being able to
account for it, at length. His book is a glaring reflection upon the
wrongdoings and vices of men.

CHAPTER XI.

The Chances of Matrimony.

1.—The Numerical Proportion of the Sexes.

The usual advice to women to seek their salvation in marriage, this being
their true profession, is thoughtlessly approved of by the vast majority of
men. But it seems like mockery, that many of those who give such advice
and of those who applaud it, refrain from marrying themselves.
Schopenhauer, the philosopher, has only the conception of a philistine
concerning woman and her position. He says: “woman is not called upon to
perform great tasks. Her characteristic is not doing but suffering. She pays
her debt to life by the throes of child-birth, care of her child and
submissiveness to her husband. The supreme expressions of vitality and
perception are denied her. Her life should be more tranquil and insignificant
than man’s life. Woman is called upon to be the nurse and educator of
childhood because she is childish herself; because throughout life she
remains a big child, a sort of intermediary stage between child and man,
the true human being.... Girls should be reared to be domestic and
submissive.... Women are the most thoroughgoing, incurable
philistines.”
The work by Lombroso and Ferrero, “Woman as a Criminal and
Prostitute”, is also written in the spirit of Schopenhauer. We have never met
with an equally extensive scientific book,—it consists of 590 pages,—that
contains so little convincing material in regard to the subject it deals with.
The statistics from which the most daring conclusions are drawn, are very
inadequate. Sometimes a dozen cases have sufficed the author to form a

weighty opinion. It is a noteworthy fact that the material contained in the
book which may be regarded as the most trustworthy has been furnished by
a woman, Dr. Mrs. Tarnowskaya. The influences of social conditions and
social development are almost entirely disregarded. All phenomena are
judged from a narrow physiological and psychological point of view and
much ethnological information concerning various peoples—is interwoven
with the argumentation, without any attempt being made to investigate the
nature of this information. According to the authors, as according to
Schopenhauer, woman is a big child, an incarnate liar, weak in her
judgment, fickle in love, incapable of any heroic deed. The inferiority of
woman,—so they claim,—has been proven by a great many physical
differences and characteristics. “Woman’s love is, at the bottom, nothing but
a secondary character of motherhood. All the sentiments of affection that
bind a woman to a man are not derived from the sexual impulse but from
instincts of devotion and submission acquired by adaptation.” But how
these instincts were acquired the authors fail to examine. If they did, it
would imply an investigation of the social position of woman during
thousands of years which has made her what she is to-day. The authors
describe the dependence and enslavement of woman among different
nations and during various periods of civilization, but being blinded by a
narrow conception of the Darwinian theory, they trace everything to
physiological causes, and disregard the social and economic causes that
have had the strongest influence on woman’s physiological and
psychological development.
Among other things the authors discuss the vanity of woman and express
the view that among people at a low stage of development men are the vain
sex, which may be observed even to-day on the Hebrides, Madagascar and
among the tribes about the Orinoco river, as also on many islands of the
Polynesian Archipelago and among a number of African and South Sea
Island tribes; while among nations of high stage of development, women

are the vain sex. But why is this so? The answer is simple. Among peoples
at a low stage of development, matriarchal conditions prevail or have been
abandoned but recently. Here woman’s position is such that she is relieved
of the necessity of wooing man. The man woos her, and for this purpose he
adorns himself, he becomes vain. Among peoples at a higher stage of
development, especially among all civilized nations, man does not woo
woman, but woman woos man. It rarely occurs that woman takes the
initiative and literally offers herself to a man; modesty forbids that. But the
offer nevertheless is made by manner and dress, the luxury of her personal
adornment and her coquetry. Such conduct is forced upon her by the fact
that there are more women than men and by the social necessity of
regarding marriage as a means of support and as the only institution by
means of which she may satisfy her sexual impulse and obtain social
recognition. Here again we find purely economic and social causes
bringing forth qualities, now in the man and now in the woman, that we are
accustomed to regard as quite independent of social and economic causes.
From this we may draw the conclusion that when society has reached a state
of development in which every form of dependence of one sex upon the
other will cease, vanity and the follies of fashion will disappear as will
many other vices that we deem ineradicable to-day, because we believe
them to be inherent in human nature.
In regard to Schopenhauer it must be said that he, as a philosopher, is as
biased in his judgment of women as the majority of our anthropologists and
medical men who regard her only as a sex being, never as a social being.
Schopenhauer had never been married. He failed to contribute his share that
one more woman might fulfill the purpose in life that he prescribed to
women. This leads us to another, no more pleasant phase of the question.
It is generally known that many women remain unmarried because they
are given no opportunity to become married. Custom forbids the woman to
offer herself. She must allow herself to be chosen; she may not choose. If

she is not chosen she must join that great army of unfortunate women who
have missed their purpose in life and who are frequently subjected to a life
of poverty and want, sometimes made more bitter still by ridicule. But what
causes the numerical disproportion of the sexes? Many are quick to reply:
too many girls are born. The persons who make this statement are
misinformed, as we shall see. Others draw the conclusion that if women are
in the majority in most civilized countries, polygamy ought to be permitted.
But polygamy is not only averse to our customs, it also entails the
degradation of woman; although that did not prevent Schopenhauer from
asserting that “to the female sex in general polygamy is a boon.” Many men
do not marry because they believe that they are unable to support one
woman and the children who are likely to be born according to their station
in life. Only few men are able to support two women, and among these,
many do have two or several wives: one legitimate wife, and one or several
illegitimate wives. Those privileged by wealth allow nothing to prevent
them from doing as they choose.
Even in the orient where custom and law have suffered polygamy to exist
for thousands of years, relatively few men have more than one wife. We
speak of the degrading influence of life in Turkish harems. But we overlook
the fact that only very few men belonging to the ruling class can afford to
maintain a harem, while the great mass of men live in monogamic marriage.
In the city of Algiers at the close of the sixties of the last century, there were
among 18,282 marriages no less than 17,319 with only one wife; there were
888 marriages with two wives, and only 75 with more than two. In
Constantinople, the capital of the Turkish empire, conditions are probably
quite similar. Among the rural population in the orient the conditions
favoring monogamic marriage are still more striking. In the orient, as with
us, material conditions come into consideration that compel the majority of
men to content themselves with one wife.[74] But if conditions were
equally favorable to all men polygamy could still not be generally

maintained because there are not enough women. Under normal
conditions the numbers of persons of both sexes are almost equal,
which everywhere points to monogamic marriage. The following table
which has been published by Buecher in the “General Statistic Records,”
proves this assertion.[75]

Number of
Number of male Number of female Entire women for every
persons persons population 1000 men
Europe 170,818,561 174,914,119 345,732,680 1,024
America 41,643,389 40,540,386 82,183,775 973
Asia 177,648,044 170,269,179 347,917,223 958
Australia 2,197,799 1,871,821 4,069,620 852
Africa 6,994,064 6,771,360 13,765,425 968
399,301,857 394,366,865 793,668,722 988

The result of this compilation may, to many people, be a surprising one.
With the exception of Europe where there are, on an average, 1,024 female
inhabitants for every 1000 male inhabitants, the male population
predominates. Even if we may assume that the information is incomplete,
especially in regard to the female sex, and that especially in countries with a
Mohammedan population the female population surpasses the given figures,
the fact remains that, except in a few European countries, the female
population nowhere considerably exceeds the male population. In the
meantime the imperial bureau of statistics in Berlin has published a new
compilation of the census in European and non-European countries which
includes 883,000,000 people. “When we take into consideration the census,
not included in this compilation, of Italy, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Costa
Rica, Argentine Republic, the Transvaal, Orange River Colony, Cyprus,
Formosa and Pescadores, the number of enumerated inhabitants of the earth
attains 882,000,000 with a general average of 991 female persons for every
1000 male persons. For the enumerated population of the earth we may

therefore assume an almost equal representation of both sexes with a slight
preponderance of the male.”[76]
In Europe the conditions are different. With the exception of the
countries of South Eastern Europe, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Servia, Bulgaria,
Rumania and Greece, the female population predominates. The proportion
is least unfavorable in Hungary and Italy where there are respectively 1,009
and 1,010 female inhabitants for every 1000 male inhabitants. Belgium
comes next with 1013 female for every 1000 male inhabitants. Portugal and
Norway show the most unfavorable proportion; next to these Great Britain
with 1063 female for every 1000 male inhabitants. France, Germany,
Austria and Russia lie in the middle having for every 1000 male inhabitants
respectively 1,033, 1,032, 1,035 and 1,029 female inhabitants.[77] In
Germany during the last two decades each census has shown a more
favorable proportion. On Dec. 1, 1885, the female population exceeded the
male population by 988,376 persons. The census of Dec. 1, 1890, still
showed an excess of the female population of 966,806 persons. 1895—
957,401; 1900—892,684, and according to the census of Dec. 1, 1905 the
excess of the female population had sunken to 871,916 persons (1029
female for every 1000 male inhabitants). The decline of this difference may
be chiefly accounted for by the decline of emigration in which the male sex
is mainly concerned. This may be clearly seen from the proportion of the
sexes in the United States, into which the stream of emigration is mainly
directed, and where the dearth of women is almost as great as the excess of
women in Germany. In 1900 for every 1000 men there were only 953
women. This emigration from Germany decreased from 220,902 persons in
1881 to 22,073 persons in 1901 and to 19,883 persons in 1908. The fact,
that more men than women emigrate, accounts in the first place then for the
difference between the numbers of persons of both sexes. Italy furnishes a
good example; for there the male population still predominated at the

beginning of the forties of the last century, while at present the female
population predominates, owing to the large emigration.
Furthermore, more men than women meet with accidents in agriculture,
industry, commerce and traffic. Also more men are temporarily absent
abroad as merchants, sailors, marines, etc. Another fact that has been
statistically proven and that constitutes an important factor is that women
on an average attain a higher age than men and that therefore there are more
old women than old men. According to the census of 1900 the proportion of
the sexes according to age in Germany was the following:

Excess of female
AGE Male Female More male More female popu­lation
Under 10 years 6,904,732 6,871,599 33,133 — —
From 10 to 15 years 2,925,918 2,912,573 13,345 — —
“ 15 “ 21 “ 3,179,813 3,162,448 17,365 — —
“ 21 “ 30 “ 4,251,204 4,293,775 — 42,571 —
“ 30 “ 40 “ 3,669,656 3,731,556 — 61,900 —
“ 40 “ 50 “ 2,770,451 2,923,228 — 152,777 —
“ 50 “ 60 “ 2,053,085 2,320,273 — 267,188 —
“ 60 “ 70 “ 1,300,637 1,545,808 — 245,171 —
“ 70 years up 681,751 868,671 — 186,920 —
27,737,247 28,629,931 63,845 956,527 892,684

This table shows that up to the twenty-first year the number of boys
exceeds the number of girls.[78] This excess of boys is due to the fact that
everywhere more boys than girls are born. The following number of boys
and girls, for instance, were born in the German empire:

During the year 1872 for 100 girls 106.2 boys
“ “ “ 1884 “ 100 “ 106.2 “
“ “ “ 1900 “ 100 “ 106.0 “
“ “ “ 1905 “ 100 “ 106.3 “
“ “ “ 1907 “ 100 “ 106.3 “

But the male sex dies younger than the female sex; especially during
infancy more boys than girls die. Our table shows that from the twenty-first
year on the female population exceeds the male. The following figures
show the death-rate of male and female inhabitants in Germany:

During the years Male Female
1872–1875 29.5 26.3
1876–1880 27.8 24.5
1881–1885 27.3 24.2
1886–1890 25.8 23.1
1891–1895 24.6 22.1
1896–1900 22.6 20.0
1901–1905 21.0 18.8
[79]

[79] Hygienic and ethnological conditions of the German Empire. Berlin,
1907—During the year 1907 for every 100 female deceased there were
109.3 male.

The table on page 159 furthermore shows that at the true marriageable
age, between the twenty-first and fiftieth year the female sex exceeds the
male sex by 257,248 persons (in the year 1890 by 422,519) and between the
fiftieth and seventieth year by 699,279 (in the year 1890 by 566,400). In
Germany as in England the number of old women increases each year. A
great disproportion, that constantly increases, is furthermore met with
among widowed and divorced persons.
According to the census of 1890 and 1900 there were the following
numbers of widowed persons in Germany:

1890 1900
Men 774,967 809,238

1890 1900
Women 2,157,870 2,352,921
More women than men 1,382,903 1,543,683

These widowed persons were of the following ages:

1890 1900
Men Women Men Women
40 to 60 years 222,286 842,920 225,191 900,357
60 years and older 506,319 1,158,712 537,116 1,299,905

The number of divorced persons were during 1890, 25,271 men and
49,601 women. During 1900, 31,279 men and 60,738 women. These were
of the following ages:

1890 1900
Men Women Men Women
40 to 60 years 13,825 24,842 16,976 30,385
60 years and older 4,917 7,244 5,713 8,452

These figures show us that widowed and divorced women are excluded
from remarriage, even during the age best suited to marriage. For during the
years 1890 and 1900 there were respectively 46,362 and 46,931 widowed
men up to the fortieth year of age, while during the same years there were
respectively 156,235 and 152,689 widowed women. There were divorced
men in 1890 and 1900 respectively 6519 and 8590 and divorced women
17,515 and 21,901. Here the disadvantage of divorce to the women is
proved by figures.
The following shows the proportion of unmarried persons during 1900:

Men Women
15 to 40 years 6,700,352 5,824,464
40 to 60 years 426,388 503,406
60 years and older 141,416 252,134[80]

Among the unmarried persons between the fifteenth and fortieth year
there are, as above table shows, 875,888 more men than women, which
appears to be very favorable to women. But men between the fifteenth and
twenty-first year of age,—at which age there are 3,175,453 men to
3,064,567 women,—are, with very few exceptions, unable to marry. The
same may be said of men between the twenty-first and twenty-fifth year of
age, the great majority of whom are unable to support a family, while
women of this age are all marriageable. When we furthermore consider the
fact that for diverse reasons a great many men do not marry at all,—the
number of unmarried men over 40 years were 567,804,—we find that the
position of women in regard to marriage is a highly unfavorable one. A
great many women then, under present-day conditions, are compelled to
deny themselves the legitimate satisfaction of the sexual impulse, while
men seek and find satisfaction in prostitution. The position of women would
become a far more favorable one, as soon as a transformation of social
conditions would abolish the obstacles that at present prevent hundreds of
thousands of men from becoming married.
As already mentioned the disproportion in the numbers of the sexes is
due to a great extent to emigration. Obligatory service in the army also
drives many young men, frequently the strongest, to seek their fortune
abroad. According to official reports of the army, 135,168 men were
convicted of illicit emigration, and 13,055 more cases were being
investigated. These figures include men up to the forty-fifth year. This illicit
emigration of men from Germany causes a considerable loss. Emigration is

especially large in the years following great wars; that was seen after 1866
and during the years 1871 to 1874.
We furthermore have great losses of life among men by accidents. In
Prussia during the period from 1883 to 1905 no less than 297,983 persons
were killed by accidents; of these there were, during the one year 1905,
11,792 men and 2,922 women. From 1886 to 1907, 150,719 persons were
killed by accidents in industry, agriculture and state or municipal
employment; only a small fraction of these were women. Another
considerable portion of persons employed in these occupations become
maimed or crippled for life and therefore unable to maintain a family.
(There were 40,744 of these from 1886 to 1907.) Others die young leaving
their families in the neediest circumstances. Much loss of life among men is
also connected with navigation. From 1882 to 1907, 2,848 sea-going
vessels were sunk, entailing a loss of life of 4,913 members of the crew,—
almost all men,—and 1,275 passengers.
Only when the highest valuation of human life has been established,—
which will be the case in a Socialistic community,—will society be enabled
to prevent a great majority of accidents on land and sea. At present many
persons are killed or maimed as a result of illapplied economy of
employers. In many other cases accidents are due to excessive speed or
over-fatigue of workers. Human life is cheap. When one workingman has
been killed there are many others to take his place.
Especially in navigation many preventable accidents occur. By the
revelations of Plimsoll in the English parliament during the seventies, the
fact became generally known that many owners of unseaworthy vessels,
impelled by criminal greed, insured these vessels at a high rate and then
sent them with their crew to almost certain destruction, in order to obtain
the amount of insurance. These are the so-called death-ships that are not
unknown in Germany either. Every year the marine bureaus are called upon
to pronounce their verdicts in connection with a number of marine

accidents, and those verdicts usually show the accidents to be due to
advanced age or overloading or improper condition of the vessel or
insufficient equipment, or a number of these causes combined. In the cases
of many sunken ships the causes of their sinking can never be determined,
because the disasters occur in mid-ocean and no one survives to tell the tale.
Many crimes are committed in this way. The stations for saving ship-
wrecked persons established at the coasts, are also very insufficient because
they are chiefly maintained by private charity. An organized society that
will regard it as its highest duty to provide equally for all its members, will
succeed in making all these accidents of extremely rare occurrence. But
under the present predatory system, where human lives are regarded as
mere ciphers and the sole aim is to attain the highest possible profit, a
human life is sometimes sacrificed in order that a dollar may be gained.

[74] Throughout India polygamy exists in only a moderate form.
According to the census of 1901 which includes all religions, there were for
every 1000 married men, 1,011 married women. According to this the
monogamic equilibrium is not seriously interfered with.—D. v. Mayer.
[75] Karl Buecher, on the distribution of both sexes upon the earth;
lecture delivered on Jan. 6, 1892, before the Geographical and Statistical
Society of Frankfort on the Main. General Statistic Records published by
Dr. George v. Mayer. Vol. II. Tubingen, 1892.
[76] G. v. Mayer—Dr. G. Schnapper Arndt in his book of Social Statistics
arrives at the same conclusion. “Taken all in all the proportion of both sexes
is approximately equal.”
[77] According to G. Schnapper Arndt; founded on recent census figures,
around the close of the century.
[78] According to the census of 1890, there was an excess of boys only
up to the tenth year of age, and according to the census of 1895, up to the

sixteenth year.
[80] Statistics of the German Empire. Census of Dec. 1, 1900.

2.—Obstacles to Marriage.—The Excess of Women.

There are still other causes that make marriage difficult or prevent it
entirely. A considerable number of men are prevented from marrying by the
state. People condemn the enforced celibacy of the Catholic clergy, but they
do not mention the fact that a far greater number of soldiers are doomed to
celibacy likewise. When an officer of the army wishes to marry, he not only
requires the consent of his superiors, he is also denied the free choice of a
wife, since it is prescribed that he must possess a certain amount of wealth.
In Austria a captain of the army seeking to marry, must give a security of
30,000 florins if he is under thirty years of age, 20,000 florins if he is over
thirty; minor officers must give a security of 16,000 florins. In all cases the
fiancée of an army officer must have lead an immaculate life, and her
standard of living must be suited to his rank. In Germany, officers of the
army may seek permission to marry only when they can prove that they
have an additional income. The required size of this additional income
varies with the different ranks. These are striking proofs of the materialistic
conception of marriage maintained by the state.
Public opinion in general maintains, that men should not marry until they
have attained their twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth year of life. This opinion is
founded on the fact that few men are able to support a family before they
have reached this age. Only persons who are fortunate enough not to be
obliged to win an independent position,—persons of princely rank, for
instance,—form an exception. In their case we regard it as quite proper that
a man should become married at eighteen or nineteen, and a maiden at
fifteen or sixteen years of age. Princes come of age when they are eighteen
years old, and are considered competent to rule the most numerous people.
Common mortals do not come of age until they are twenty-one years old.

This difference of opinion in regard to the age at which marriage is
desirable, shows that only social considerations are taken into account, that
have no bearing upon man as a sex being. But nature will not be fettered by
definite social conditions and the views that have sprung from these
conditions. As soon as a human being has attained maturity, the sexual
impulse manifests itself with all its vigor.
The advent of puberty with the female sex differs according to the
individual, the climate and the mode of life. In the torrid zones it sets in as
early as the ninth or tenth year, and sometimes one meets women of that age
with their first babes in their arms; but they are faded when they have
attained their twenty-fifth or thirtieth year.[81] In the temperate zones girls
usually attain puberty at fourteen or sixteen years of age, in some cases later
still. The age of puberty also differs with girls living in the country from
those living in cities. Among the healthy, robust country girls who work
hard, as a rule menstruation sets in later than among our poorly nourished,
effeminate, ethereal young ladies in the cities, who suffer from over-
excitement of the nerves. In the country puberty usually developes in the
normal way. In the city its normal development is an exception, and not
infrequently it is accompanied by various symptoms of disease that drive
physicians to despair. Often physicians are obliged to say that the only
certain cure would be marriage. But in many cases this cure cannot be
applied, owing to the unsurmountable obstacles.
All these factors show where we must seek a change. To begin with, we
need a complete revolution in our educational methods. We need a system
of education that takes both the physical and intellectual qualities into
consideration. Furthermore, we need an entirely different mode of living
and working. But both cannot be brought about except by a complete
transformation of social conditions.
Our social conditions have created a profound contradiction between
man as a sex being and man as a social being. This contradiction has never

been so noticeable as in the present age, and it leads to many evils and
diseases to which women especially are subjected. In the first place the
woman’s organism is far more influenced by her sex mission than man’s
organism (for instance, the regular recurrence of menstruation); in the
second place she is confronted by the greatest number of obstacles that
prevent her from satisfying her strongest natural impulse in a natural way.
This contradiction between natural impulse and social constraint leads to
anomalies, to secret vices and excesses that are bound to undermine even
strong constitutions. Unnatural satisfaction is frequently aided in a most
shameless manner. In the advertisements of newspapers and periodicals,
certain manufactures are recommended in a more or less veiled manner.
These advertisements appeal to the wealthy classes of society, because the
price of the manufactures are so high that a person of moderate means could
not buy them. Besides we find advertisements of obscene pictures, entire
series of photographs, and poetry and prose of a similar character, whose
very titles are intended to produce sensual excitement. These matters ought
to claim the attention of the police and public prosecutors. But these
gentlemen are too busy persecuting Socialism, “that will destroy the home
and the family,” to give their full attention to such doings. A part of our
novels influence the sentiments of the reading public in the same direction.
It is really not to be wondered at if sexual debauchery, artificially
stimulated, gradually becomes a social disease.
Many women of the wealthy classes lead an idle, self-indulgent life.
They stimulate their nerves by the most extraordinary means, and indulge in
a certain enjoyment of art that creates an exaggerated sentimentality and
heightens their nervous irritability. All this increases the sensual passions
and naturally leads to excesses. Among poor people sexual irritability is
frequently heightened by certain kinds of hard work, especially such work
that compels people to lead a sedentary life which creates congestion of the
blood in the abdominal organs. One of the most dangerous occupations in

this respect is constant work at the sewing machine, an occupation in which
a great many women are employed at present. This work is so detrimental
to the health of women that ten to twelve hours of it daily will shatter the
strongest constitution in a few years. Excessive sexual irritability is also
brought about by long hours of work in a high temperature, for instance in
sugar refineries, laundries, printing establishments, etc. The same may be
said of night work with artificial light in overcrowded work-shops,
especially where members of both sexes work together.
Here again we are confronted by a number of evils that clearly show the
unhealthful and irrational character of present-day conditions. But these
evils that are deeply rooted in our social conditions, cannot be removed by
moralizing or by resorting to palliative measures, such as social and
religious quacks always have in readiness. It is necessary to strike the root
of the evil. The only redemption will be to bring about social conditions that
shall enable all persons to obtain a natural education, to lead a healthful
mode of life and work, and to find normal satisfaction of all natural and
healthy desires.
Many obstacles do not exist for the man that do exist for the woman.
Owing to his position of rulership, his free choice of a mate is in no wise
hampered, except by the social considerations enumerated above. But the
nature of marriage as a means of support, the numerical superiority of
women, and custom,—all prevent the woman from asserting her wishes.
She is obliged to wait until someone seeks her. As a rule she gladly avails
herself of the first opportunity of finding a husband who will save her from
the social disregard and indifference that are the usual portion of that
unfortunate being, the old maid. Many women look down with disdain upon
those of their sisters who are possessed of sufficient human dignity not to
sell themselves into the prostitution of marriage to the first man who comes
along, but prefer to walk on life’s thorny path alone. Nevertheless the man
who wishes to marry for love has social obstacles to consider. He must ask

himself: can I support a wife and the children who are likely to come,
without being weighed down by financial cares? If the man has an ideal
conception of marriage, if he is determined to let his choice be influenced
by love only, this question becomes all the more important. At present
conditions of earning and property are such, that many men must answer
this question in the negative, and they accordingly prefer to remain
unmarried. Many men do not acquire an independent position, suited to
their demands, until late in life, and are not able to support a wife according
to her station in life unless she has a considerable fortune of her own. It
must be admitted of course, that many young men have an exaggerated idea
of what constitutes living according to their station; but owing to the false
education of many women and their social habits, these young men must
indeed be prepared that their wives will make demands upon them that will
exceed their means. They frequently do not make the acquaintance of the
good, modest women who are simple in their tastes, because they are
modest in their manners also and are not met with in society where men
have accustomed themselves to seek wives, while the women they do meet
often are the kind who seek to fascinate a man by outward appearances and
to deceive him in regard to their personal qualities and their material
position. When this type of woman has attained an age at which marriage
becomes urgent, lures of all sorts are resorted to all the more eagerly. When
such a woman has succeeded in capturing a man, she has become so
accustomed to outward show, extravagance in dress and costly enjoyments
that she wishes to maintain them in her married life. Here men find
themselves on the verge of an abyss, and many prefer to leave the flowers
that bloom at this abyss unplucked. They prefer to pursue their path alone
and seek entertainment and enjoyment while maintaining their freedom.
Deception and fraud are common practices in bourgeois society. It is not
surprising that they also play a part in the contracting of marriages and
entail severe suffering of both parties.

Statistics show that the educated and wealthy classes as a rule marry later
in life than the lower classes. According to Westergaard the average age of
marriage in Copenhagen was: among professional people, merchants,
manufacturers and bankers, 32.2 years; among mechanics and small
dealers, 31.2 years; among clerks and commercial employees, 29.7 years;
among waiters and domestic servants, 28, and among factory workers,
sailors and day-laborers, 27.5 years. In Prussia from 1881 to 1886 the
average ages at which men married were: miners, 27.6; factory workers,
27.7; metal workers, 28; stone-masons, 28.2; building trades, 28.6; workers
in wood, 28.7; machinists, 29; teaching, 29.1; agriculture, 29.6; railway
service, 30; commerce, 30.9; physicians, clergymen and officials, 31.8 to
33.4. According to Ansell the average age at which the well-to-do and
educated classes married in England from 1840 to 1871, was 29.95 years;
but since then it has been raised. From 1880 to 1885, the average ages at
which men of different professions married, were as follows:

years
Miners 23.56
Textile workers 23.88
Clothing trades 24.42
Mechanics 24.85
Day-laborers 25.06
Clerks 25.75
Merchants 26.17
Farmers 28.73
Professional men and capitalists 30.72

These figures show how marriage is influenced by social position. The
fact that the average age of marriage in most European states has been
somewhat lowered during the last decades, is due to the general growth of
industrialism. This may be seen in Germany, Austria and Sweden where the

increase of early marriages is in connection with the growing number of
persons employed in industry. In older industrial countries, as France and
England, the average age of marriage has been raised. Russia forms an
exception; here the rise in the average age of marriage is due to the
abolition of communal property.
The number of men who are prevented from marrying for numerous
reasons is constantly increasing. This applies especially to the men of the
upper classes and the higher professions; firstly because they are more
pretentious, and secondly because these men are best enabled to find
companionship and pleasure outside of marriage. Conditions are especially
unfavorable to women in places where there are many pensioners with their
families, and few young men. There we find from twenty to thirty women
among hundred who are unable to marry. The lack of men seeking marriage
is most severely felt by those women, who have been accustomed by their
social position to require a certain standard of life but who have no dowery.
This is especially true of the young girls of those numerous families that
depend upon a fixed salary which leaves them socially respectable but poor.
These girls often become dangerous competitors to the working girls who
earn their living by embroidery, making underwear, making artificial
flowers, hats, gloves, etc.; that is, in all those trades in which the employers
prefer to have the work done in the homes of the workers. These ladies
often work for the lowest wages because they are not obliged to earn their
living entirely but only wish to add to the family income or to earn enough
to pay for their clothes. Employers favor the competition of these ladies,
because it enables them to reduce the wages of the poor proletarian workers
and to drive them to the utmost exertion of their strength. Many wives of
government officials, whose husbands are poorly paid and cannot maintain
them according to their standard of living, also employ their spare time in
such sordid competition, which means increased exploitation among large
strata of female proletarians.

The agitation carried on by the bourgeois women’s clubs to elevate
women’s work and to gain admission for women into the higher
professions, is especially destined to improve the position of women of the
upper classes. In order to do this successfully, these clubs seek the
patronage of ladies of high rank. In this respect the bourgeois women only
follow the example of the bourgeois men, who also seek such patronage and
become interested in such endeavors that only show small, never large
results. In this way people waste a tremendous amount of effort, and
deceive themselves and others in regard to the necessity of thorough-going
reform. In these circles no doubt is permitted to arise as to the justice and
wisdom of our present state and social order. The conservative nature of
such endeavors prevent clubs of this kind from being permeated by so-
called destructive tendencies. At a convention of women in Berlin during
the spring of 1894, a minority expressed the thought that it might be well if
the bourgeois women would co-operate with the proletarian women, that is,
the Socialist women; but with a majority of the delegates this suggestion
called forth a storm of protest. But the conservative tendencies of the
bourgeois women will not accomplish the liberation of womankind.
How many women are excluded from marriage owing to the causes
previously stated, cannot be definitely determined. The numerical
superiority of women in Germany is distributed very unevenly, both in
regard to the different countries and districts and in regard to age. The
following table has been compiled from the census of 1900 (Statistic of the
German Empire):

Number of women for every 1000 men
under 15 15 to 40 40 to 60 over 60
Berlin 1012 1044 1191 1659
Kingdom of Saxony 1015 1030 1107 1360
“ “ Bavaria to the right of the Rhine 1015 1024 1083 1163
“ “ Bavaria to the left of the Rhine 986 997 1070 1157
“ “ Wurtemberg 1015 1041 1134 1179

Number of women for every 1000 men
under 15 15 to 40 40 to 60 over 60
Baden 1000 974 1079 1173
Hamburg 999 1031 1038 1454
Province of Brandenburg 993 1015 1089 1276
“ “ Pomerania 989 1035 1099 1214
“ “ the Rhine 991 954 1008 1120
German Empire 995 1008 1087 1218

At the true marriageable age, from 15 to 40 years, the numerical
superiority of women in the entire German Empire is 8 for every 1,000
men. The number of male inhabitants between 15 and 40 years of age is
11,100,673; the number of female inhabitants between 15 and 40 years of
age is 11,187,779. So we have a super-abundance of 87,106 women. In
1900 there were 11,146,833 German women of child-bearing age (18 to
45 years). Among these only 6,432,772 (57.71 percent) were married;
283,629 (2.54 percent) were widowed; 31,176 (0.28 percent) were
divorced, and 4,399,286 (39.47 percent) were single. The following table
shows the proportion of the sexes in other countries:

Number of women for every 1000
men
In the under 15 to 40 to
year 15 40 60 over 60
Germany 1900 995 1008 1087 1218
Austria 1890 1005 1046 1079 1130
Hungary 1900 998 1029 982 1033
Servia 1896 969 952 925 804
Italy 1881 963 1021 1005 980
Switzerland 1888 999 1059 1103 1148
France 1896 998 1012 1029 1108
Louxembourg 1900 992 853 988 1063

Number of women for every 1000
men
In the under 15 to 40 to
year 15 40 60 over 60
Belgium 1890 992 984 1018 1117
Netherlands 1899 986 1031 1031 1145
Denmark 1890 978 1080 1073 1179
Sweden 1899 971 1016 1146 1252
England and Wales 1891 1006 1075 1096 1227
Scotland 1891 973 1073 1165 1389
Ireland 1901 968 1037 1103 1032
United States of
America 1900 979 969 989 987
Egypt 1897 943 996 943 1015
Japan 1891 978 962 951 1146
New South Wales 1891 978 827 679 665
Queensland 1891 976 698 559 611
Tasmania 1891 977 877 898 632
New Zealand 1891 979 927 661 654
Cape of Good Hope 1891 989 1008 939 1019

This table shows that in all countries having a similar economic
structure, similar conditions exist in regard to the proportion of the sexes. In
all these countries then a great many women,—apart from all other
obstacles already mentioned,—have no prospect of becoming married. In
England in 1901 among 1,000 women over 15 years only 496.4 were
married; in Scotland, 442.8; in Ireland, 370.9; in Sweden, 468.2; in Norway,
469.9.
How do these facts impress those persons who oppose the struggle of
women for independence and equal rights by relegating them to marriage

and the home? It is not due to ill will on the part of the women if so many
fail to marry.
But what becomes of these victims of our social conditions? That nature
has been sinned against is expressed in the peculiar features and traits of
character by which old maids and ascetic old bachelors are distinguished
from other persons in all countries and climates, and goes to show the
strong and harmful influence resulting from the suppression of natural
instincts. Many forms of hysteria among women are due to this cause.
Hysteria is also caused by dissatisfaction in marriage, which sometimes
results in sterility.
These are the general characteristics of modern marriage and its results.
From them we must draw the following conclusion: Present-day marriage is
an institution that is closely connected with existing social conditions,
with which it must stand and fall. But this marriage is in a state of
decline and dissolution as bourgeois society itself. Which are the salient
points that we have determined in regard to bourgeois marriage?
1.—The birth-rate is declining although the population is increasing,
which shows that the economic status of the family has deteriorated.
2.—Divorces are increasing more rapidly than the population is growing,
and in most cases women are the ones to seek divorce, although they suffer
most in consequence of it, both economically and socially. This shows that
the unfavorable factors in marriage are increasing, that marriage is in a state
of dissolution.
3.—The marriage-rate is declining, notwithstanding the fact that the
population is increasing; which proves that in the eyes of many persons
marriage no longer accomplishes its social and moral purpose and is
regarded as worthless or of doubtful value.
4.—In almost all civilized states there is a disproportion in the number of
the sexes, the female sex predominating. This is not due to natural causes,

—since more boys than girls are born,—but to unfavorable social and
political factors that are rooted in conditions of state and society.
As all these unnatural conditions that are especially harmful to
women are established by the nature of bourgeois society and increase
with the duration of its existence, this society proves itself incompetent
to abolish the evils and to liberate woman. To accomplish this a
different social order will be necessary.

[81] Ely Metschnikoff—The Nature of Man.

CHAPTER XII.

Prostitution a Necessary Social Institution of Bourgeois
Society.

1.—Prostitution and Society.

Marriage constitutes one phase of the sex relations of bourgeois society;
prostitution constitutes the other. If men fail to find satisfaction in marriage,
they, as a rule, seek it with prostitution; and those men who for one reason
or another refrain from marrying, seek satisfaction with prostitutes also. To
those men then, who voluntarily or involuntarily lead an unmarried life, and
to those who do not find their expectations realized in marriage,
opportunities for satisfaction of the sexual impulse are far more favorable
than to women.
Men have always regarded it as their “just” privilege to employ
prostitution. But they are relentless in condemning a woman who is not a
prostitute, when she has “fallen.” That natural impulses are implanted in
women as well as in men and that these manifest themselves particularly
strongly at certain periods of a woman’s life, does not alter their judgment.
By means of his ruling position man compels woman to suppress her most
powerful instincts, and makes chastity the condition of her social position
and of marriage. Nothing can prove the dependent position of woman in a
more emphatic and revolting way than these vastly differing conceptions in
regard to the satisfaction of the same natural impulse.
Man is especially favored by conditions. The results of sexual
intercourse have been assigned to the woman by nature, while man has the

enjoyment only without trouble or responsibility. This natural advantage of
men over women has fostered the unbridled lust which characterizes a great
many men. But as a great many causes prevent or limit the legitimate
satisfaction of the sexual impulse the result is its illegitimate satisfaction.
Prostitution thus becomes a necessary social institution of bourgeois
society, just as the police, the standing army, the church and the
capitalist class. This is no exaggeration; we can prove it. We have shown
how prostitution was regarded as a necessary institution in ancient society
and how it was organized by the state in both Greece and Rome. We have
also shown what views prevailed in regard to it during the Christian middle
ages. Even St. Augustin who was, after Paul, the staunchest pillar of
Christianity and ardently preached asceticism, could not refrain from
exclaiming: “Suppress the public prostitutes and the force of passion will
overturn everything.” St. Thomas Aquin, who is still considered the greatest
authority on theology, has expressed the same opinion more forcibly still by
saying: “Prostitution in the cities is like the cess-pool in the palace; if you
remove the cess-pool the palace will become an unclean and evil smelling
place.” The provincial council at Milan in 1665 held the same view. But let
us consult some modern opinions.
Dr. F. S. Huegel says: “Advancing civilization will gradually clothe
prostitution in more pleasing forms, but only with the destruction of the
world will it come to an end!”[82] That is a bold assertion, but whoever
cannot think beyond the form of bourgeois society, whoever does not admit
that society will transform itself to attain healthful and natural conditions,
must agree with Dr. Huegel. M. Rubner, an authority on hygiene, professor
at the University of Berlin, and director of the Hygienic Institute, expresses
a similar opinion. He says: “Prostitution of women has existed at all times
and among all peoples. It is indestructable because it serves the sexual
impulse and springs from human nature and because in many cases the
tendency to prostitution is due to an innate vice of some women. Just as we

find in every population geniuses beside idiots, giants besides dwarfs, and
other abnormities, so we also find by the chance of birth abnormities which
must lead to prostitution.”[83]
None of the above-named conceive the thought that a different social
order might remove the causes of prostitution, and none seek to investigate
the causes. Some who take up this problem faintly recognize that
unfortunate social conditions, weighing heavily upon countless women,
might be the chief cause why so many sell their bodies. But they do not
draw the conclusion that if this be the case, it becomes necessary to
bring about different social conditions. Among the few who recognize
that economic conditions form the chief cause of prostitution is Th. Bade.
[84] He says: “The causes of the boundless moral degradation from which
the prostitute girls emerge are founded on social conditions. They are
especially due to the decline of the middle classes, particularly the artisan
class, among whom only very few continue to ply their trade
independently.” Bade concludes his observations by saying: “Material need
which has destroyed many middle class families and continues to destroy
them also leads to their moral degradation, especially to that of the female
sex.”[85]
But prostitution is not an institution of nature that, as R. Schmoelder
says: “Will remain a constant companion of humanity,”[86] it is a social
institution without which we cannot conceive bourgeois society.
The police physician of Leipsic, Dr. J. Kuehn, says: “Prostitution is not
only a bearable, but a necessary evil. It protects women from adultery
(which only men have a right to commit—the author) and guards virtue (of
course the virtue of women because men are not required to be virtuous—
the author) against assault and destruction.”[87] These words grossly
characterize the incarnate selfishness of men. Kuehn maintains the correct
position of a police physician, whose duty it is to guard men against
unpleasant diseases by the police surveillance of prostitution. Only the man

is taken into consideration to whom celibacy is horrible and a torture, but
the millions of women doomed to celibacy must content themselves. What
is considered right in the man’s case, is considered wrong, immoral and
criminal in the woman’s.
Another interesting gentleman is Dr. Fock, who regards prostitution as a
“necessary correlation of our civilization.”[88] He fears an overproduction
of human beings if all persons should marry after having attained maturity,
and therefore considers it important that prostitution should be regulated by
the state. He considers police surveillance of prostitution justifiable, and
that the State should furnish men with prostitutes who are free from
syphilis. He declares himself in favor of closest surveillance of all women
who can be convicted of leading a disorderly life. But can this surveillance
be carried out, if ladies leading a disorderly life belong to the upper classes?
It is the old story. Dr. Fock also recommends that a tax should be levied
upon prostitutes and that they should be confined to certain streets. In other
words, the Christian state should make prostitution a source of income by
state organization and protection of vice in the interest of men.
Dr. Henry Severus,[89] who also favors legal recognition of prostitution
maintains an original point of view. He regards it as a useful institution,
because it is a necessary correlation of marriage, and that without it the free
choice in marriage would be impaired. According to him prostitution is a
sort of safety-valve of bourgeois society. He claims: “Much of the poverty
that leads to such deplorable social conditions may be traced to the fact, that
marriages are recklessly contracted, without questioning how the necessary
means of livelihood might be obtained. It is in the interest of the state, that
such marriages should not be contracted, for the children that spring from
them cannot be sufficiently provided for by their parents, nor do they
belong in the foundling hospital, being legitimate children, and thus become
a peril to society. Prostitution,” he goes on to say, “prevents that the force
of natural instinct should lead to the contracting of marriages that result in

an increase of those elements of the population who, owing to lack of
education and an unfortunate childhood, developes sentiments that are
hostile to the state and become enemies of society.” So according to this,
state regulation of vice furnishes a protection and a remedy against
socialism—a view that may at least lay claim to originality.
So we may reiterate our assertion, prostitution is a necessary social
institution of bourgeois society, just as the police, the standing army, the
church and the capitalist class.

[82] F. Huegel.—History, Statistics and Regulation of Prostitution in
Vienna, 1865.
[83] Max Rubner—Text Book of Hygiene. Leipsic, 1907.
[84] Th. Bade. Procurers and public dance halls.
[85] Statistics gathered by the Berlin police in 1871–72 concerning the
parentage of 2,224 enrolled prostitutes showed the following figures: 1,015
equal 47.9 per cent. came from the artisan class; 467 equal 22.0 per cent.
were daughters of factory laborers; 305 equal 14.4 per cent. of minor
officials; 222 equal 10.4 per cent. of merchants, etc.; 37 equal 4.1 per cent.
of farmers, and 26 equal 1.2 per cent of military men. With 102 the father’s
profession could not be determined.
[86] R. Schmoelder, Punishment of fornication as a trade.
[87] J. Kuehn. Prostitution in the nineteenth century from the standpoint
of police sanitation.
[88] Dr. Fock—Prostitution in its ethical and sanitary aspect.
[89] Dr. H. Severus—Prostitution and the state.

2.—Prostitution and the State.

State supervision and organization of prostitution does not exist in the
German empire as it does in France; prostitution is merely tolerated.
Disorderly houses are prohibited by law and procurers may be severely
punished. But notwithstanding these laws in many German cities, among
others in Mayence, Magdeburg, Altona, Kiel, Nuremberg, Worms, Freiburg,
Leipsic, Regensburg, Hamburg, Augsburg, Wuerzburg, disorderly houses
exist that are tolerated by the police.[90] This seems an incredible state of
affairs and its contradiction to the laws must be well known to our
government officials. According to German law, persons renting an
apartment to a prostitute are subject to punishment. On the other hand, the
police are obliged to tolerate thousands of prostitutes and to protect them in
their trade if they submit to the prescribed rules, for instance, to regular
examination by a physician. But if the state makes concessions to
prostitutes and supports them in the plying of their trade, it is necessary for
them to have a residence also; in fact, it becomes necessary to public health
and order that their trade should be carried on in definite quarters. What
contradictions! On the one hand the state officially recognizes prostitution;
on the other hand it persecutes and punishes prostitutes and procurers.
Moreover, this attitude of the state confirms, that to modern society,
prostitution is a sphynx whose riddle it cannot solve. Religion and morality
condemn prostitution, the laws punish it, and yet the state tolerates and
protects it. In other words, our society that prides itself on its morality, its
piety, its civilization and culture must suffer itself to be polluted by the slow
poison of immorality and corruption. Still another conclusion follows from
these conditions: the Christian state admits that marriage is insufficient
and that the man is justified in seeking illegitimate satisfaction of the
sexual impulse. The woman is taken into consideration by this same state

only, inasmuch as she yields to the illegitimate satisfaction of male lust, that
is, becomes a prostitute. The police supervision and control of enlisted
prostitutes does not include the men who mingle with the prostitutes, which
ought to be a matter of course if the medical surveillance were to be partly
effective at least, quite disregarding the fact that justice demands that the
law should be equally applied to both sexes.
This protection of the man from the woman by the state overturns the
nature of conditions. It appears as if men were the weaker, and women the
stronger sex, as if women were the seducer, and poor, weak man the
seduced. The myth of temptation of Adam and Eve in Paradise continues to
influence our conceptions and laws and sustains the Christian assumption,
that “woman is the great seducer, the source of sin.” Men ought to be
ashamed of the pitiable and unworthy part they are playing, but it is
pleasing to them to be regarded as “weak” and as “victims of seduction” for
the more they are protected the more they may sin.
Wherever men come together in great numbers, they do not seem to be
able to enjoy themselves without prostitution. That was seen among other
instances by the occurrences at the rifle match in Berlin during the summer
of 1890. These occurrences caused 2,300 women to sign a petition to the
mayor of the German capital, which read as follows: “We beg your honor to
permit our quoting what has been reported in regard to this festival by the
press and other sources. These reports, which we read with the greatest
indignation and disgust, among other things thus described the
entertainments provided at the festival: ‘First, German Herold, greatest Café
Chantant of the world’; hundred ladies and forty gentlemen; besides small
variety shows and rifle ranges from which exceedingly obtrusive women
molested the men; furthermore free concerts, where lightly garbed
waitresses boldly and unrestrained, with seductive smiles forced their
attentions alike on men and youths, on college boys and fathers of families.
But the ‘lady’ who was almost nude and who invited them to visit the

booths ‘The Secrets of Hamburg, or a Night in St. Pauli,’ might at least
have been removed by the police. But the worst, something that plain men
and women from the provinces can hardly accredit to the far-famed capital
of the empire, was the fact that the committee on arrangements had
permitted, that instead of waiters, young women in great numbers were
engaged as waitresses and bar-maids without pay. We German women, as
mothers, wives and sisters, frequently have occasion to send our brothers,
husbands, sons and daughters to Berlin in service of the fatherland, and so
we beg your honor, trusting to your influence as chief executive of the
national capital to investigate these occurrences and to prevent a repetition
of these orgies, especially at the forthcoming celebration of the victory at
Sedan.”
During all large festivals, including the national ones, when men come
together in great numbers, similar scenes occur.[91]
The German governments made frequent attempts to do away with the
contradiction that exists between the legal theories and actual practice in
regard to prostitution. They introduced bills among other things, which
authorized the police to assign definite places of residence to the prostitutes.
It was admitted that prostitution could not be suppressed and that it would
therefore be better to limit it to certain places and to control it. Such a law
—on this all were agreed—would have reinstated the public brothels that
had been officially abolished in Prussia during the forties of the last century.
The introduction of these bills caused great excitement and aroused much
protest. It was stated that the state by extending protection to vice spread
the opinion that prostitution was not averse to morality and was an officially
sanctioned trade. These bills that met with much opposition in Parliament,
have until now, remained unsettled. But their very introduction shows the
predicament of the state.
State regulation and control of vice not only create the belief among men
that the state favors prostitution, it also leads them to believe that this

regulation protects them from disease, and this belief makes men more
reckless and increases the employment of prostitution. Public brothels do
not diminish sexual diseases, they promote them, because men become
more reckless and careless. To what conceptions the official protection of
brothels leads may be seen from the term applied to the licensed prostitutes
in England, who were called “Queen’s women” because they had obtained
official recognition through a law enacted by the queen. Experience has
taught, that neither the introduction of public brothels under police
supervision nor regular medical examination insure safety from contagion.
To an inquiry from the woman’s committee of Vienna for combatting the
state regulation of vice Dr. Albert Eulenburg wrote as follows: “In regard to
the question of police supervision of prostitutes I fully share, as a matter of
principle, the point of view set forth in your petition, though, of course I
recognize the practical difficulty of its immediate application. I regard this
practice which has been introduced in most countries as unjust, unworthy,
and moreover as entirely unsuited to attain the object stated with any certain
degree of safety.” On July 20, 1892, the Berlin Medical Society declared
that the reinstatement of public brothels would be undesirable, both from a
hygienic and moral point of view.
The nature of these diseases is such that in many cases it cannot be
recognized easily, or at once, and to attain a certain degree of safety several
daily examinations would be necessary. But this is impossible, owing to the
great number of women in question and the large expense it would entail.
Where 30 to 40 prostitutes have to be examined in one hour, the
examination is nothing more than a farce, and in the same way one or two
weekly examinations are entirely insufficient. Dr. Blaschko[92] says: “The
belief, that control of prostitutes furnishes protection against contagion,
unfortunately is a widespread and detrimental error. Rather can it be
asserted that everyone who associates with a prostitute or a frivolous girl
faces a grave danger each time.”

The success of these measures fails also because the men who carry the
germs of disease from one woman to another remain entirely free from
control. A prostitute who has just been examined and found healthy may
become infected by a diseased man in the very same hour, and before the
next examination takes place, or before she herself has become aware of the
disease, she may have infected a number of other visitors. The control is an
imaginary one. Besides the obligatory examinations by male instead of
female physicians deeply injure the sense of modesty and help to destroy it
completely. This statement is confirmed by a great many physicians who
perform such examinations.[93] The same is admitted even in the official
report of the Berlin police department, where it says it must be admitted
that official enrollment still increases the moral degradation of those
affected by it.[94] The prostitutes do whatever they can to escape this
control.
Another evil result of these measures is, that it is made very difficult,
indeed almost impossible to prostitutes, to return to a decent means of
livelihood. A woman who has fallen into police control is lost to society;
as a rule she miserably perishes after a few years. The fifth congress for
combatting immorality, held in Geneva, thus expressed itself forcibly and
correctly against the state regulation of vice: “The obligatory medical
examination of prostitutes is a cruel punishment to the woman, for in those
who are subjected to it the last remnant of modesty that may still exist in the
most depraved, is forcibly destroyed. The state that seeks to regulate
prostitution by police control forgets that it owes equal protection to both
sexes, it degrades and demoralizes the woman. Every system of official
regulation of vice permits of arbitrary police rule and leads to the
infringement of personal safety against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment,
against which even the lowest criminal is guarded. As these encroachments
occur only at the expense of the woman, they lead to an unnatural

inequality between her and the man. The woman is degraded to a mere
object and is no longer treated as a person. She is excluded from the law.”
How little police and medical control avail has been strikingly shown in
England. Before the beginning of official regulation, in the year 1867, the
number of venereal diseases in the army were, according to a military
report, 91 per 1,000. In 1886, after the regulation had been in effect for
nineteen years they were 110 per 1,000. In 1892, six years after the
regulation laws had been repealed they were only 79 per 1,000. Among
civilians the cases of syphilis were 10 per 1,000 during the years 1879 to
1882, that was during the years of public regulation. After the abolition of
public regulation, from 1885 to 1889 they were only 8.1 per 1,000.
The prostitutes themselves were far more affected by the regulation laws
than the soldiers. In 1866 there were among 1,000 prostitutes, 121 cases of
disease. In 1868 after the law had been in force for two years there were
202 cases among 1,000. After that the number gradually decreased, but in
1874 there still were 16 cases more per thousand than in 1866. The death
rate among prostitutes also increased appallingly during the reign of that
law. When at the close of the sixties of the last century the English
government attempted to extend the regulation laws to include all English
cities, a storm of indignation arose among English women. They regarded
the law as an insult to their entire sex. The habeas corpus, they claimed, that
fundamental law which guaranteed protection to every English citizen, was
to be abolished for women; every brutal police officer impelled by revenge
or other base motives, would be permitted to attack the most respectable
woman if he suspected her of being a prostitute, while the licentiousness of
men would not be interfered with, but would on the contrary be protected
and fostered by law.
The fact that English women under the leadership of Josephine Butler
championed the most degraded of their sex, caused ignorant men to
misconstrue their intentions and to make insulting remarks about them. But

regardless of these attacks they opposed the extension of the obnoxious law
with utmost energy. In newspaper articles and pamphlets arguments in favor
of it and against it were fully discussed, until its extension was prevented,
and in 1886 is was repealed.[95]
The German police has a similar power, and sometimes cases have been
called to public attention in Berlin, Leipsic, Cologne, Hannover and many
other places, showing that abuses or “misunderstandings” easily occur with
the exercise of this power, but not much is heard among us of an energetic
opposition to such transgressions.[96] In Norway, brothels were prohibited
in 1888, and in the capital, Christiania, the obligatory registration of
prostitutes and the medical examination connected with it was abolished.
In January, 1893, the same ordinance was enacted for the entire
country. Very correctly Mrs. Guillaume-Shack says in regard to state
“protection” for men: “To what purpose do we teach our sons to respect
virtue and morality if the state declares vice to be a necessary evil; if young
men, before they have even attained intellectual maturity, are given women
stamped like commodities by the public authorities as playthings of their
passions?”
A man inflicted with a sexual disease may indulge in unbridled
licentiousness and may infect any number of these unfortunate beings, most
of whom have been driven by seducers or by bitterest need into this
abominable trade. The law leaves him unmolested. But woe to the poor,
diseased prostitute who does not immediately submit to medical treatment!
The garrison towns, university towns and sea port towns, where many
strong, healthy men aggregate, are the chief centers of prostitution and its
dangerous diseases, which are disseminated all over the land and
everywhere spread suffering and destruction. The moral qualification of a
great number of our students is described in the following manner in the
“Gazette for Combatting Public Immorality”[97]: “Among a majority of the
students the views concerning moral questions are appallingly base, almost

depraved.” From these circles that boast about their “German spirit” and
“German morals,” our public officials, prosecutors and judges are obtained.
How bad matters must be, especially among students, may be seen from the
following: In the fall of 1901, a large group of professors and physicians,
among them leading men in their professions, published an appeal to
German students, in which they called special attention to the deplorable
results of sexual debauchery, and also warned the young men of excessive
indulgence in alcoholic drinks, which in many cases have a stimulating
influence on sexual debauchery. At last people are beginning to recognize
that the policy of silence is a mistaken one, and that we must call a spade a
spade, if we would check an immeasurable disaster. Among other classes of
society also this warning should not remain unheeded.
The Biblical utterance that the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon
their children applies in its fullest measure to the man afflicted with a
sexual disease; unfortunately also to his innocent wife. “Apoplectic strokes
among young men and women, forms of paralysis of the spine and
softening of the brain, various nervous diseases, weakening of the eye sight,
inflammation of the bowels, sterility and general debility are frequently due
to no other cause than a neglected case of syphilis, that has, for good
reasons been kept secret. As conditions are to-day ignorance and
carelessness transform blooming daughters of the nation into weak and
sickly creatures who must pay with chronic diseases for the extravagances
of their husbands before and outside of marriage.”[98] Dr. A. Blaschko says
among other things: “Epidemics like cholera, small pox, diphtheria and
typhoid terrify the people, because the suddenness of the results are clearly
visible to everybody. But syphilis is regarded by society with an appalling
indifference. And yet syphilis is far more widespread and much more
terrible in its effects than any of the above-mentioned diseases.”[99] The
fact that we regard it as “indecent” to discuss such matters, accounts for this
indifference. Even the German diet could not bring itself to provide legally

for the treatment of persons afflicted with sexual diseases by means of the
sick benefit funds, as in the case of other diseases.[100]
The poison of syphilis is the most tenacious and the hardest to eradicate
of all poisons. Many years after the disease has been apparently cured the
evil results frequently manifest themselves in the wife of the diseased or in
his new-born children, and countless sicknesses of married women and
children are due to the sexual diseases of husbands and fathers. In a petition
addressed to the German Parliament in the fall of 1899 by the society
“Jugendschutz” (protection of the young) it was stated that there are about
30,000 children in Germany who are blind from birth due to contagion from
gonorrhoea, and that among 50 per cent of childless women, sterility is due
to the same cause.[101] As a matter of fact an alarmingly large number of
marriages is childless, and moreover the number of childless marriages is
increasing. Feeble-mindedness and idiocy among children is also not
infrequently due to the same cause, and many instances have shown what
disasters can be caused with vaccination by a single drop of blood
inoculated with the poison of syphilis. The great number of persons
suffering from a sexual disease has caused several suggestions to be made
for the enactment of a national law providing special treatment for persons
so afflicted. But until now no such step was taken, probably because one
feared the enormity of the evil that would then become manifest. Medical
authorities have generally gained the conviction, that gonorrhoea, which
was formerly regarded as harmless, is one of the most dangerous of these
diseases. This disease continues to act upon the human system even after it
has been apparently cured. As Dr. Blaschko reported in a lecture in Berlin
on the 20th of February, 1898, the medical examinations of prostitutes
reveal only one-fourth, or at best one-third of the actual number of cases. As
a matter of fact, the overwhelmingly great majority of prostitutes are
afflicted with this disease, while only a small percentage of the cases are
properly diagnosed. Of those in whom the disease is recognized it is again

only a small percentage with whom a permanent cure is effected. Here
society is confronted by an evil for which it has no remedy as yet, but
which is an imminent peril to mankind, especially to its female half.

[90] Paul Kampffmeyer—Prostitution as a social class phenomenon and
the social and political struggle against it.
[91] “When the Farmers’ Association convenes in the Circus Bush, or
large conventions are being held in Berlin, there is a rise in price of human
flesh.” Satyr—Life at Night in the Friedrich Strasse, Berlin, 1907.
[92] Handbook of Hygiene, published by Th. Weyl, M. D. Hygiene of
Prostitution and Venereal Diseases, compiled by Dr. A. Blaschko, Berlin.
[93] “As a matter of fact the system of regulation does not successfully
fight the venereal diseases, nor even noticeably diminish them. The delusive
feeling of safety given to men makes them more reckless. The increase in
the number of correlation heightens the danger of contagion by at least as
much as it has been diminished by the removal of a few who were seriously
diseased.” August Forel—The Sex Question, Munich, 1907.
[94] Third report of the royal police department of Berlin for the years
1881 to 1890.
[95] The most reliable supporters of the women were the English
workingmen. In her famous publication on “The History of a Crusade,”
Josephine Butler says: “We resolved to appeal to the nation. In the fall of
1869 we sent personal letters to every member of Parliament of both houses
and to many other leaders of political and religious parties. Of all the replies
received only very few expressed complete agreement with our point of
view. As we obtained so little encouragement from those circles whose
interest we had hoped to win, we turned to the working class population of
the country. I am conscious of the fact that the working class has its faults
and is no less devoid of egotism than other classes of the population. But I

am firmly convinced that when the people are appealed to in the name of
justice they almost invariably show a loyal and reliable conviction.”
[96] In 1901 it occurred in Vienna that a French lady was abused by the
police agent, Newhofer, amidst the shouts of a mob, was imprisoned among
prostitutes and subjected to a forcible medical examination. This case led to
five interpellations in the diet. In 1902 in Hamburg and Kiel ladies were
arrested as prostitutes and were treated with brutality. These occurrences led
to a gigantic meeting of protest in Hamburg on September 8, that was
attended by members of all parties.
[97] August 15, 1893, Berlin.

[98] The detrimental results of prostitution. Dr. Oscar Lassar, Berlin,
1892, August Hirschwald.
[99] Treatment of sexual diseases in sick benefit fund institutions and
hospitals, Berlin, 1890.
[100] The ordinance of the insurance laws which enabled communities to
refuse the payment of sick benefits in cases of sexual diseases was repealed
by a law on May 25, 1903, that went into effect January 1, 1904.
[101] Examinations in asylums for the blind showed that the following
number of persons were blind from birth through infection: Berlin, 21.3;
Vienna, 31; Breslau, 35.1; Budapest, 47.9; Munich, 73.8.—Th. Weyl, Social
Hygiene, Jena, 1904.

3.—The White Slave Trade.

As the number of men increases who refrain from marriage, be it by
choice or under the pressure of circumstances, and who seek illegitimate
satisfaction of the sexual impulse, the temptations and opportunities for
illegitimate satisfaction increase likewise. Because immoral enterprises
yield high profits many unscrupulous persons are engaged in them, and
resort to the craftiest methods to attract customers. Every requirement of the
patrons according to position and rank and means is taken into
consideration. If the public brothels could reveal their secrets, it would
become known that their inmates, who are of lowly birth, ignorant and
uneducated, but possessed of physical charms, have intimate relations with
educated and cultured men who occupy prominent social positions. Here
they freely come and go, public officials, military men, representatives of
the people, judges, the aristocracy of birth and finance, of commerce and
industry. Many of these men are regarded as upholders of public morality
and guardians of the sanctity of marriage and the family, and some are
leaders of Christian charitable undertakings and members of organizations
“to combat prostitution.” In Berlin, the owner of one of these
establishments serving immoral purposes even publishes an illustrated
gazette, in which the doings of his patrons are described. In this
establishment 400 persons can be seated, and every evening a fashionable
gathering assembles there, among them (so the gazette tells us) many
members of the aristocracy. Frequently well known actresses and famed
belles of the demi-monde are present. The merriment reaches its height
when in the wee hours of the morning the proprietors arrange an eel-
catching tournament. Then the fair patronesses squat about the tanks with
their clothes tucked up and try to catch the eel, and so forth. The police is
well aware of these doings, but carefully refrains from interfering with the

amusements of fashionable society. The following circular, sent by the
management of a Berlin dancing establishment to fashionable men, is
another shameless form of pandering. It reads: “The undersigned
management of the hunting establishment to whom you, dear sir, have been
recommended as a passionate hunter, beg to call your attention to a newly-
opened hunting ground with a splendid stock of deer and to invite you to
the first chase on August 26th. Special circumstances make our new hunting
grounds particularly convenient and pleasant: they are located in the heart
of the city and the game-laws are not enforced.” Our bourgeois society is
like a great masquerade in which all seek to deceive one another. Every one
wears his official gown with dignity, while inofficially he indulges his
passions without restraint. Yet, outwardly, all feign decency, religiousness
and morality. In no age was hypocrisy as widespread as in ours.
The supply of women for immoral purposes increases faster than the
demand. Unfavorable social conditions, poverty, seduction, and the fact that
many women are attracted by the outward glitter of an apparently free life,
help to furnish victims from all strata of society. In a novel by Hans
Wachenhusen[102] we find a characteristic description of the conditions
that prevail in the German capital. The author thus describes the purpose of
his novel: “My book especially tells of the victims of the female sex and
their increasing depreciation as a result of our unnatural social conditions,
partly through their own fault, partly through a neglected education and the
love of luxury. It tells of the surplus of this sex that makes the lives of
those, who are born and grow up, more hopeless each day. I wrote as a
public prosecutor might write, who had gathered data from the life of a
criminal to determine his guilt. If a novel is supposed to be drawn from
imagination, then the following is not a novel, but a faithful portrayal of
life.” In Berlin conditions are neither better nor worse than in other large
cities. Whether orthodox St. Petersburg or Catholic Rome, Christian Berlin,
or heathenish Paris, Puritan London or frivolous Vienna is more nearly like

ancient Babylonia, it is hard to determine. Similar social conditions bring
forth similar results. “Prostitution has its written and unwritten laws, its
resources, its various resorts from the lowliest, to the glittering palace, its
countless degrees from the lowest to the most cultured and refined. It has its
special amusements and its special places of meeting, its police, its
hospitals, its prisons and its literature.”[103] “We no longer celebrate the
festivals of Osiris, the Bacchanalia and the Indian orgies in the spring
month, but in Paris and other large cities in the darkness of night behind the
walls of public and private houses, orgies and Bacchanalia take place that
beggar description.”[104]
Under such conditions the traffic in women assumes huge dimensions. It
is carried on in the midst of civilization on a large scale and in a well
organized manner, and is but rarely detected by the police. An army of male
and female jobbers, agents and transporters carry on the trade in as cold-
blooded a manner as if they were bartering a commodity. Certificates are
made out that contain an exact description and qualification of the various
“pieces” and are handed to the transporters as a bill of lading for the
customer. As with all merchandise, the price varies according to the quality,
and the “goods” are assorted and shipped from different places and
countries according to the taste and requirements of the customers. By
skilful manipulations the traders seek to escape the pursuit of the police,
and sometimes large sums are employed to bribe the guardians of law and
order. A number of such cases have been revealed in Paris.[105]
To Germany belongs the deplorable reputation of being a market for
women to half the world. The rambling spirit, which is innate in the
German people, also seems to affect a portion of the German women, so
that they furnish a larger quota to international prostitution than the women
of other nations, with the exception of Austria and Hungary. German
women populate the harems of the Turks and the public brothels in the
interior of Siberia and as far as Bombay, Singapore, San Francisco and

Chicago. In his book on travel “From Japan, through Siberia to Germany,”
the author, W. Joest, says the following about the German white-slave trade:
“In our moral Germany, people often grow indignant over the slave trade
carried on by some negra sovereign in western Africa, or over conditions in
Cuba or Brazil, while we ought to consider the beam in our own eye. In no
other country of the world white slaves are bartered to the same extent,
from no other countries are such large quantities of this living merchandise
shipped as from Germany and Austria. The course taken by these girls can
be clearly traced. From Hamburg they are shipped to South America, Bahie,
Rio de Janeiro; the greater part are bound for Montevideo and Buenos
Ayres, while a few go through the Straits of the Magellan to Valparaiso.
Another stream is directed over England to North America, but there
competition with the domestic product is unfavorable to the trade, so the
girls are shipped down the Mississippi to Texas and Mexico. From New
Orleans the coasts down to Panama are furnished. Other troops of girls are
sent across the Alps to Italy and on to Alexandria, Suez, Bombay, even to
Hongkong and Shanghai, Dutch India and eastern India, especially Japan
are poor markets, because Holland will not tolerate white girls of this sort in
its colonies, and because in Japan the native girls are far too pretty and
cheap. Moreover, the trade must reckon with American competition from
San Francisco. Russia is supplied by eastern Prussia, Pomerania and
Poland. The first station is Riga. Here the dealers from St. Petersburg and
Moscow assort their merchandise and send it in great quantities to Nishny
Novgorod across the Ural Mountains to Irbit and Krestowsky and even into
the interior of Siberia. In Tschita, for instance, I met a German girl who had
been traded in this way. This trade is thoroughly organized—agents and
traveling salesmen carry on the negotiations. If the foreign office of the
German Empire would ask its consuls for reports on this trade
interesting tables might be compiled.”

That this traffic is flourishing, has been repeatedly stated by Socialist
deputies in the German Parliament.
Other centers of the white-slave trade are Galicia and Hungary, from
where women are sent to Constantinople and other Turkish cities.
Especially many Jewesses, who are otherwise rarely met with in public
brothels are bartered to the Turks. The prices for the journey and other
expenses are usually paid to the agents in advance. In order to deceive the
public authorities, fictitious telegrams, that are not likely to attract attention,
are sent to the customer. Some of these telegrams read: “Five kegs of
Hungarian wine will arrive in Varna to-morrow,” meaning five beautiful
girls; or “Have shipped three barrels of potatoes by S. S. Minerva.” This
refers to three less beautiful girls: “Common goods.” Another telegram
reads: “Will arrive next Friday per S. S. Kobra; have two bales of fine silk
on board.”

[102] “What the street engulfs.” Social novel in 3 vols., Berlin.
A. Hoffmann & Co.
[103] Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell—The Moral Education.
[104] Mantegazza—L’Amour Dans L’Humanitè.
[105] The relation of the police to prostitution is an interesting one in
more than one respect. In 1899 it was shown in a trial in Berlin that a police
commissioner employed a prostitute to watch and question a student whom
he suspected of being an anarchist. In Prague the wife of a common
policeman had her license for maintaining a disorderly house revoked
because her husband had ill-treated a prisoner. So the police rewards its
officers by giving them licenses for the maintenance of disorderly houses.
What lovely conditions!

4.—The Increase of Prostitution.—Illegitimate Motherhood.

It is difficult to estimate the number of prostitutes—impossible to
determine it exactly. The police may approximately determine the number
of women for whom prostitution is the sole or chief source of income, but
they can not determine the far greater number of those who resort to
prostitution as a partial support. Nevertheless the numbers that have been
determined are enormous. According to Oettingen at the close of the sixties
of the last century the number of prostitutes in London was estimated to be
80,000. In Paris on January 1, 1906, the number of enrolled prostitutes was
6,196, but more than one-third of these manage to evade police and medical
control. In 1892 there were about 60 public brothels in Paris, harboring
from 600 to 700 prostitutes; in 1900 there were only 42. Their number is
constantly decreasing (In 1852 there were 217 public brothels). At the same
time the number of private prostitutes has greatly increased. An
investigation, undertaken by the municipal council of Paris in 1889,
estimated that the number of women who sell their bodies had reached the
enormous figure of 120,000. The chief of police of Paris, Léfrine, estimates
the number of enrolled prostitutes at 6,000 and the number of private
prostitutes at 70,000. During the years 1871 to 1903 the police inhibited
725,000 harlots and 150,000 were imprisoned. During the year 1906, the
number of those who were inhibited amounted to no less than 56,196.[106]
The following numbers of prostitutes were enrolled with the Berlin
police: In 1886, 3006; in 1890, 4,039; in 1893, 4,663; in 1897, 5,098; in
1899, 4,544, and in 1905, 3,287. In 1890 six physicians were employed,
who performed examinations for two hours daily. Since then the number of
physicians has been increased to twelve, and since several years a female
physician has been employed to perform these examinations,

notwithstanding the objections of many male physicians. In Berlin, as in
Paris, the enrolled prostitutes only constitute a small fraction of the entire
number, that authorities on this subject have estimated to be at least 50,000.
In the single year 1890 there were 2,022 waitresses in the cafés of Berlin,
who, with very few exceptions were given to prostitution. The yearly
increase in the number of harlots inhibited by the police also shows that
prostitution in Berlin is growing. The numbers of those inhibited were: In
1881, 10,878; in 1890, 16,605; in 1896, 26,703: in 1897, 22,915. In the year
1907 17,018 harlots were brought to trial before the magistrates, which was
about 57 for each day the court was in session.
How large is the number of prostitutes throughout Germany? Some claim
that there are about 200,000. Stroehmberg estimates the number of enrolled
and private prostitutes in Germany to be between 75,000 and 100,000. In
1908 Kamillo K. Schneider attempted to determine the exact number of
enrolled prostitutes. His table for the year 1905 includes 79 cities. “As
besides these there are other large places in which a considerable number of
girls may be found, he believes 15,000 to be a fairly correct estimate of the
entire number. With a population of approximately 60,600,000 inhabitants
that means one enrolled prostitute for 4,040 inhabitants.” In Berlin there is
one prostitute for 608, in Breslau for 514, in Hannover for 529, in Kiel for
527, in Danzig for 487, in Cologne for 369, and in Brunswick for 363
inhabitants. The number of enrolled prostitutes is constantly decreasing.
[107] According to various estimates the ratio of the number of public
controlled prostitutes is to the number of private prostitutes, as 1 to 5, or 1
to 10. We are, accordingly dealing with a vast army of those to whom
prostitution is a means of subsistence, and conformably great is the number
of victims claimed by disease and death.
That the great majority of prostitutes grows thoroughly tired of their
mode of life, that it even becomes revolting to them, is an experience on
which all authorities are agreed. But very few of those who have fallen

victims to prostitution ever find an opportunity to escape from it. In 1899
the Hamburg branch of the British, Continental and General Federation
undertook an investigation among prostitutes. Although only few answered
the questions put to them, these answers are quite characteristic. To the
question “Would you continue in this trade if you could find some other
means of support?” one replied, “What can one do when one is despised by
all people?” Another replied, “I appealed for help from the hospital”; a
third, “My friend released me by paying my debts.” All suffer from the
slavery of their liabilities to the brothel keepers. One gave the information
that she owed her landlady $175. Clothes, underwear, finery, everything is
furnished by the keepers at fabulous prices; they are also charged the
highest prices for food and drink. Besides, they must pay the keeper a daily
sum for their room. This rent amounts to $1.50, $2 or $3 daily. One wrote
that she was compelled to pay her procurer from $5 to $6 daily. No keeper
will permit a girl to depart unless she has paid her debts. The statements
made by these girls also cast an unfavorable light on the actions of the
police, who side more with the brothel keepers than with the helpless girls.
In short, we here behold in the midst of Christian civilization, the worst
kind of slavery. In order to better maintain the interests of their trade, the
brothel keepers have even founded a trade paper that is international in
character.
The number of prostitutes increases at the same rate at which the number
of working women increases, who find employment in various lines of
trade at starvation wages. Prostitution is fostered by the industrial crises that
have become inevitable in bourgeois society, and to hundreds of thousands
of families mean bitter need and desperate poverty. A letter sent by the chief
of police, Bolton, to a factory inspector on October 31, 1865, shows that
during the crisis of the English cotton industry caused by the Civil War in
the United States, the number of young prostitutes increased more than
during the preceding twenty-five years.[108] But not only working girls fall

victims to prostitution. Its victims are also recruited from the “higher
professions.” Lombroso and Ferrero quote Macé,[109] who says of Paris:
“The certificate of a governess of a higher or lower grade is far less an
assignment to a means of support than to suicide, theft and prostitution.”
Parent-Duchatelet has at one time compiled statistics which showed the
following. Among 5,183 prostitutes there were 1,441 who were driven to
prostitution by utmost need and misery. 1,225 were orphans and poor. 86
had become prostitutes to support old parents, young brothers and sisters, or
their own children. 1,425 had been deserted by their lovers; 404 had been
seduced by officers and soldiers and had been carried off to Paris. 289 had
been servant girls who were seduced by their employers and subsequently
discharged, and 280 had come into Paris to seek employment.
Mrs. Butler, the ardent champion of the poorest and most unfortunate of
her sex, says: “Accidental circumstances, the death of a father or a mother,
unemployment, insufficient wages, poverty, false promises, seduction, the
laying of snares may have driven her into her misfortune.” Very instructive
is the information given by Karl Schneidt in a pamphlet on “The Misery of
Waitresses in Berlin,”[110] in regard to the causes that drive so many of
them to prostitution. He says that a surprisingly large number of servant
girls become waitresses, which means in nearly all cases that they become
prostitutes. Among the answers Schneidt received to his list of questions
that he circulated among waitresses are the following: “Because I became
pregnant by my employer and had to support my child”; “because my book
of references was spoiled”; “because I could not earn enough by sewing and
such work”; “because I had been discharged from the factory and could not
find other employment”; “because my father died and there were four
younger ones at home,” etc. That servant girls, who have been seduced by
their employers, constitute a large quota of the prostitutes is a well known
fact. Dr. Max Taube[111] makes some very incriminating statements
concerning the great number of seductions of servant girls by employers or

their sons. The upper classes also furnish their quota to prostitution. Here
poverty is not the cause, but seduction, the inclination to lead a frivolous
life, the love of dress and enjoyment. A pamphlet on “Fallen Girls and
Police Control”[112] contains the following statement in regard to the
prostitutes from these classes: “Horror stricken many a worthy citizen,
minister, teacher, public official or military man learns that his daughter is
secretly addicted to prostitution. If all these daughters could be named a
social revolution would have to take place, or the public ideas
concerning virtue and morality would be seriously impaired.” The high
class prostitutes, the smart set among them, are drawn from these circles. A
great many actresses also owing to a glaring disparity between their salary
and the cost of their wardrobe, are compelled to resort to this vile means of
support.[113] The same is true of many other girls who are employed as
salesladies and in similar positions. Many employers are so infamous that
they seek to justify low wages by hinting at the assistance from “friends.”
Seamstresses, dressmakers, milliners, factory workers numbering many
thousands are subjected to the same conditions. Employers and their
assistants, merchants, landed proprietors, etc., frequently regard it as their
privilege to make female workers and employees subservient to their lusts.
Our pious conservatives like to point to the rural conditions in regard to
morality as a sort of ideal compared to the large cities and industrial
districts. But whoever is acquainted with the conditions knows that they are
not ideal. We find this opinion confirmed by a lecture delivered by the
owner of a knightly estate in the fall of 1889, which newspapers in Saxony
reported in the following manner:
“Grimma. Dr. v. Waechter, owner of a knightly estate, at a meeting of the
diocese which was held here delivered a lecture on sexual immorality in
our rural communities, in which local conditions were depicted in no
favorable light. With great frankness the lecturer admitted that the
employers themselves, even the married ones, frequently maintained

intimate relations with their female employees, and that the results of such
relations were either atoned for by a payment of money or were hidden
from the eyes of the world by a crime. Unfortunately it could not be denied,
that immorality was introduced into the rural districts not only by country
girls who had been employed in the cities as wet nurses and by boys who
had become demoralized while serving in the army, but also by educated
men, by managers of the large estates and army officers, who come into the
country during manoeuvres. Dr. v. Waechter claims that here in the country
there actually are few girls who have attained their seventeenth birthday
without having fallen.” The honest lecturer had to pay for his love of truth
by being socially ostracised by the offended officers. Reverend Dr. Wagner
had a similar experience when he ventured to say some disagreeable truths
to the landed proprietors in his book on “Morality in the Country.”[114]
The majority of prostitutes are driven into their unfortunate trade at an
age at which they cannot be regarded as competent to judge their actions.
Among the women who secretly prostituted themselves arrested in Paris
from 1878 until 1887, 12,615 equal 46.7 per cent. were minors. Of those
arrested from 1888–1898, 14,072 equal 48.8 per cent. were minors.
Le Pilleurs gives the following resumé of the prostitutes of Paris, which is
as concise as it is pathetic: “Defloured at 16, prostituted at 17, afflicted with
syphilis at 18.”[115] Among 846 newly enrolled prostitutes in Berlin in
1898 there were 229 minors. There were:

7 at the age of 15
21 “ “ “ “ 16
33 “ “ “ “ 17
59 “ “ “ “ 18
49 “ “ “ “ 19
66 “ “ “ “ 20[116]

In September, 1894, a scandalous affair was revealed in Budapest, where
it became known that about 400 girls not more than fifteen years of age had
become the victims of rich libertines. The sons of our “propertied and
cultured classes” not infrequently consider it their right to seduce the
daughters of the poor and then to forsake them. These confiding,
inexperienced daughters of the poor, whose lives are often devoid of all joy
and who sometimes have no friend or relative to protect them, easily fall
victims to the art of the seducer, who approaches them with all the
temptations of pleasure and affection. Bitter disappointments and despair
and eventually crime are the results. Among 2,060,973 children born in
Germany in 1907 179,178 were illegitimate. One can imagine the amount
of care and heart-ache that the births of these illegitimate children mean to
their mothers, even if some of them are legally married later on by the
fathers of their children. Infanticide and the suicide of women are in a
great many cases caused by the misery and need of forsaken women.
The trials for infanticide present a sombre but instructive picture. In the fall
of 1894 a young woman was on trial in Krems, Austria. Eight days after her
confinement she had been discharged from the lying-in hospital in Vienna,
with her infant and penniless, and being desperate she had killed her child.
She was condemned to death. In the spring of 1899 the following was
reported from the province of Posen: “On Monday last the 22-year-old
working girl, Katherine Gorbacki, from Alexanderruh, near Neustadt was
on trial for murder. During the years 1897 and 1898 the defendant had been
employed by the Provost Merkel in Neustadt. As a result of intimate
relations with her employer, she gave birth to a daughter in June last. The
child was placed with her relatives. The provost paid $2 for the child’s
board during each of the first two months, but then refused to meet any
further expenses. As the girl could not meet the expenses for the child’s
maintenance, she decided to do away with it. On a Sunday during
September last she smothered the child with a pillow. The jury convicted

her of murder in the second degree and admitted extenuating circumstances.
The public prosecutor moved to inflict the maximum penalty, five years
imprisonment. The judge sentenced her to three years in prison.”
Thus the seduced and forsaken woman, disgraced and desperate, is
driven to the utmost, and kills her own offspring. Then she is brought to
trial and is sentenced to long periods of imprisonment, or even to death. But
the real unscrupulous murderer is allowed to go unpunished. Perhaps
shortly after the tragedy he will marry a girl from some good and righteous
family, and will become a highly honored and pious man. Many a man is
held in great esteem who thus polluted his honor and his conscience. If
women had a voice in the making and administration of the laws things
would be different. Evidently many cases of infanticide are never
discovered. In July, 1899, in Frankenthal on the Rhine a servant girl was
accused of having drowned her new-born, illegitimate child in the Rhine.
The public prosecutor asked all police departments along the Rhine from
Ludwigshafen to the boundary of Holland to report whether within a
definite time the body of a child had been washed ashore. The surprising
result of this inquest was, that the police departments within the stated time
reported no less than 38 bodies of infants that had been fished from the
Rhine, but whose mothers had not been found.
The most cruel system is resorted to, as previously stated, by the French
legislation, which forbids to seek the father, but instead maintains foundling
hospitals. The law framed at the convention of June 28, 1793, reads: “La
nation se charge de l’éducation physique et morale des enfants abandonnés.
Désormais, ils seront désignés sous le seul nom d’orphelins. Aucune autre
qualification ne sera permis” (The nation undertakes the physical and moral
education of abandoned children. Henceforward they will be known only by
the name of orphans. No other designation will be permitted.). That was a
very convenient method to men, for thereby they could turn over their
individual obligations to the community and were spared from being

publicly exposed. National orphan and foundling asylums were erected. In
1833 the number of orphans and foundlings amounted to 130,945. It was
estimated that every tenth child was a legitimate one that its parents wished
to get rid of. As these children were not properly cared for, their mortality
was very great. At that time 59 per cent. died during the first year; up to the
twelfth year 78 per cent. died; so only 22 from 100 children attained the
twelfth year. At the beginning of the sixties of the last century there were
175 foundling asylums; in 1861 there were admitted into these 42,934
enfants trouvés (foundlings), 26,156 enfants abandonnés (abandoned
children) and 9,716 orphans; together this made 78,066 children who were
maintained at public expense. All in all the number of abandoned children
has not decreased during recent decades.
Foundling asylums maintained by the state were also established in
Austria and Italy. “Ici on fait mourir les enfants” (here children are made to
die); a monarch is said to have suggested these words as a suitable
inscription for foundling asylums. In Austria the foundling asylums are
gradually disappearing. At present only eight remain, but at the close of the
nineties of the last century these still contained over 9,000 children, while
more than 30,000 children were placed outside of the asylums. During
recent years the number of foundlings has greatly decreased, for in 1888
there still were 40,865 children who were public charges in Austria; 10,466
were in asylums; 30,399 were placed in private care. Their maintenance
cost 1,817,372 florins. Mortality was not as great among the children placed
in asylums as among those privately cared for; this was especially so in the
province of Galicia. Here, during the year 1888 31.25 per cent. died in
asylums—far more than in the asylums of other countries; but of those who
were privately cared for 84.21 per cent. died; a wholesale butchery. It seems
as if Polish mismanagement endeavored to kill off these poor, little
creatures as quickly as possible.

In Italy 118,531 children were admitted into asylums from 1894 to 1896.
Annual average: 29,633; boys: 58,901; girls: 59,630; illegitimate, 113,141;
legitimate, 5,390 (only 5 per cent.). How great the mortality has been may
be seen from the following table.[117]

1890–1892 1893–1896 1897
Number of children admitted 91,549 109,899 26,661
Died during first year 34,186 41,386 9,711
Percentage 37.3 37.6 36.4
Mortality of illegitimate children in
Italy 25.0 27.2 23.4
Mortality of legitimate children 18.0 17.5 15.9

The record was broken by the foundling asylum Santa Cosa
dell’Annunziata in Naples, where in 1896 of 853 infants 850 died. In the
year 1907 the foundling asylums admitted 18,896 children. During the
years 1902 to 1906 the mortality of these unfortunate little ones was
37.5 per cent; that means that more than one-third of the children
maintained by the state die during the first year.[118] It is a generally
known fact, that the rate of mortality is always higher among illegitimate
children than among legitimate ones. According to Prusian statistics the
following number of deaths of infants occurred for every 10,000 births.
1881–1885 1886–1890 1891–1895 1896–1900 1904
City 211 210 203 195 179
Legitimate
Country 186 187 187 185 172
City 398 395 385 374 333
Illegitimate
Country 319 332 336 336 306

“It is a striking fact which clearly shows the connection between
prostitution and the unfortunate condition of servant girls and menials
employed in the country, that of 94,779 illegitimate children born in 1906,
21,164 were the children of servant girls and 18,869 were the children of

girls otherwise employed in the country. Together this made 40,033 or
42 per cent. If servants employed in the country and female farm hands are
taken together, they constitute 30 per cent., while girls industrially
employed constitute 14 per cent (13,460).”[119]
The difference in the rate of mortality between legitimate and illegitimate
children is especially marked during the first month, when the mortality of
illegitimate children is on an average three times as great as that of
legitimate children. Lack of care during pregnancy and during the
confinement and improper care of the child after birth are the simple causes
of this great mortality of illegitimate children. Ill treatment and neglect help
to increase the number of the victims. The number of still-born children is
greater among the illegitimate than among the legitimate also. This is
probably chiefly due to attempts on the part of the mother to bring about the
death of the child during pregnancy.
To this must be added the cases of infanticide that are not found out
because the murdered child is counted among the still-born. Bertillon
claims, that to the 205 cases of infanticide recorded in the legal documents
of France, should be added at least 1,500 alleged still-births and 1,400 cases
of intentional killing by starvation.[120]
The following table shows the number of legitimate and illegitimate
children in various European countries for every 100 still-births.

During the years Legit­imate Illegit­imate
Germany 1891–1900 3.15 4.25
Prussia 1900–1902 3.02 4.41
Saxony 1891–1900 3.31 4.24
Bavaria 1891–1900 2.98 3.61
Wurtemberg 1891–1900 3.30 3.48
Baden 1891–1900 2.62 3.35

During the years Legit­imate Illegit­imate
Austria 1895–1900 2.64 3.86
Switzerland 1897–1903 3.40 6.14
France 1891–1895 4.40 7.54
Netherlands 1891–1900 4.38 8.13
Denmark 1893–1894 2.40 3.20
Sweden 1891–1895 2.46 3.30
Norway 1891–1900 2.47 4.06
Finland 1891–1900 2.54 4.43
Italy 1891–1896 3.89 5.16[121]

The survivors revenge themselves on society for the ill-treatment
accorded them by furnishing an unusually high percentage of the criminals
of all grades.

[106] Dr. Licard de Planzoles—La Fonction Sexuelle. Paris, 1908.
[107] Kamillo Karl Schneider—The Prostitute and Society—a
Sociological and Ethical Study, Leipsic, 1908.
[108] Karl Marx, Capital.
[109] Ibid.
[110] Berlin, 1893.
[111] Max Taube, M. D.—Protection of Illegitimate Children, Leipsic,
1893, Veit & Co.
[112] Berlin, 1889, Wm. Iszleib.
[113] In a pamphlet on “Capital and the Press,” Berlin, 1891, Dr. F.
Mehring relates that a talented actress was employed at a well known
theatre at a monthly salary of $25, while the expenses for her wardrobe

amounted to $250 in a single month. The difference was made up by a
“friend.”
[114] At the conference of the purity societies on September 20, 1894, at
the instance of Dr. Wagner an investigation was decided upon. The results
of this investigation have been published in two volumes, entitled: The
Sexual Morality of Protestant Country People in the German Empire, 1895–
1896.
[115] Prof. S. Bettman—Medical Supervision of Prostitutes. Handbook of
the social science of medicine, Jena, 1905.
[116] Ibid.
[117] S. Turcranji and S. Engel. The Foundling System in Italy. Quarterly
journal of public hygiene, 1903.
[118]Encyclopedia of Social Science; 3d edition, vol. iv., 1909. Article:
Foundling Asylums.
[119] Encyclopedia of Social Science, 1909.
[120] Schnapper Arndt.
[121] F. Prinzing—The Causes of Still-Births. General records of
statistics, 1907.

5.—Crimes Against Morality and Sexual Diseases.

We must still briefly dwell upon another evil that is often met with. An
excess of sexual enjoyment is far more harmful than the want of same. An
organism abused by excesses is eventually destroyed. Impotence, sterility,
idiocy, feeble mindedness and other diseases result. Temperance in sexual
intercourse is as necessary as temperance in eating and drinking, and other
human requirements. But young men living in luxury seem to find it very
difficult to be temperate. Therefore we often find senility among young men
of the upper classes. The number of old and young roués is large, and
because they are satiated and dulled by excesses, they require special
stimulants. Beside those in whom love for their own sex (sodomy) is innate,
there are many who succumb to this perversity of the Greek age. Sodomy is
far more widespread than most of us imagine; the secret documents of
many police departments might reveal appalling facts.[122] Among the
women, too, the perversities of ancient Greece have been revived. Lesbian,
or Sapphic love is, so Taxel claims, prevalent to an enormous degree among
the fashionable ladies of Paris. In Berlin about a quarter of the prostitutes
indulge in this perverse passion and it is not unknown among the
fashionable women, either.
Another unnatural satisfaction of the sexual desire are the criminal
assaults upon children that have greatly increased during the last decades.
The following numbers of persons were convicted of crimes against
morality in Germany: In 1895, 10,239; in 1905, 13,432; in 1906, 13,557.
Among those were 58 persons in 1902 and 72 in 1907, who were convicted
of criminal assaults upon children. The following number was convicted of
fornication with persons under fourteen: In 1902, 4,090; in 1906, 4,548; in
1907, 4,397. In Italy the number of crimes against morality was: 1887 to

1889, 4,590; 1903, 8,461; which is 19.44 per cent. and 25.67 per cent. for
every 100,000 inhabitants. The same fact has been observed in Austria.
Very correctly H. Herz says: “The rapid increase in crimes against morality
during the period 1880–1890 shows that the present economic structure
with its decrease in the marriage rate and its instability of employment is in
no small degree the cause of the low standard of morality.”[123]
In Germany members of the learned professions furnish about 5.6 per
cent of the criminals; but they furnish about 13 per cent. of those convicted
of criminal assaults upon children. This percentage would be higher still if
members of those circles would not have ample means to conceal their
crimes. The terrifying revelations made by the “Pall Mall Gazette” at the
close of the eighties of the last century concerning the criminal abuses of
children in England, have shown the widespread existence of frightful
conditions.
Concerning venereal diseases and their increase, the following table,
showing the number of cases treated in German hospitals, contains valuable
information:

Gonorrhoea Syphilis
1877–1879 23,344 67,750
1880–1882 28,700 79,220
1883–1885 30,038 65,980
1886–1888 32,275 53,664
1889–1891 41,381 60,793
1892–1894 50,541 78,093
1895–1897 53,587 74,092
1898–1901 83,374 101,225
1902–1904 68,350 76,678

If we take the average annual number of persons afflicted we find that
within a period of 25 years the cases of gonorrhoea have increased from
7,781 to 22,750 and those of syphilis from 22,583 to 25,559. The
population has increased only by 25 per cent. while the cases of gonorrhoea
have increased by 182 per cent and those of syphilis 19 per cent! We have
another statistic that does not cover many years, but just one single day
which shows how many patients afflicted with venereal diseases were under
medical treatment on April 30, 1900. The Prusian minister of public
instruction has caused this investigation to be made. A list of questions was
sent to every physician in Prussia. Although only 63.5 per cent. of these
replied, the investigation showed that on April 30, 1900, there were about
41,000 persons in Prusia afflicted with venereal diseases. 11,000 were
newly infected with syphilis. In Berlin alone there were on this day 11,600
persons afflicted with venereal diseases, among them 3,000 fresh cases of
syphilis. For every 100,000 adult inhabitants, the following number were
under medical treatment for venereal diseases.

Men. Women.
In Berlin 1419 457
“ 17 cities having more than 100,000 inhabitants 999 457
“ 42 cities having 30,000 to 100,000 584 176
“ 47 cities having less than 30,000 450 169
“ other cities and rural communities 80 27
In the entire German Empire 282 92

The cities mainly afflicted are those situated at harbors, college and
garrison towns and large industrial centers (In Koenigsberg for every
100,000 inhabitants, 2,152 men and 619 women are diseased; in Cologne
1309 men and 402 women; in Frankfort 1,505 men and 399 women).

Of Berlin Dr. Blaschko says: “In a large city like Berlin annually of
1,000 young men between 20 and 30 years, almost 200, about one-fifth,
become diseased with gonorrhoea and about 24 with syphilis. But the time
during which young men are exposed to venereal infection is much longer
than one year. For some it is five years, for others ten years and more. After
five years of unmarried life then a young man will become diseased with
gonorrhoea once and twice in ten years. After five years every tenth young
man, after eight to ten years every fifth young man would acquire syphilis.
In other words, of the men who marry after their thirtieth year every one
would have had gonorrhoea twice, and every fourth or fifth one would be
inflicted with syphilis. These figures have been compiled by careful
calculation, and to us physicians who learn of so many misfortunes that are
concealed from the eyes of the world, they do not appear exaggerated.”
The results of the research of April 30, 1900, are confirmed by a careful
study of this problem in connection with the Prussian army compiled in
1907 by the surgeon-major, Dr. Schwiening.[124] It was shown that the
various divisions of the army annually show about the same number of
recruits afflicted with venereal diseases. Some divisions have a particularly
large number of cases, especially the division recruited from the province of
Brandenburg. Berlin is mainly to blame that 2 per cent. of these recruits are
diseased. Dr. Schwiening’s compilation of the percentage of diseased
recruits from the various government districts clearly shows the extension
of venereal diseases among civilians. Of 1,000 enrolled recruits the
following number was afflicted:

1903 1904 1905
Berlin 40.9 37.2 45.2
27 cities having more than 100,000 inhabitants 14.9 16.7 15.8
26 cities having 50,000 to 100,000 inhabitants 11.6 9.6 9.5
33 cities having 25,000 to 50,000 inhabitants 8.2 6.8 9.1

1903 1904 1905
Cities having less than 25,000 inhabitants and rural
communities 4.3 5.0 4.0
State 7.6 8.1 7.8

The greatest number of diseased recruits came from Shoeneberg, having
58.4 for every 1,000 enrolled. In large cities outside of Prussia, the
following numbers were recorded: Hamburg, 29.8; Leipsic, 29.4; Dresden,
19; Chemnitz, 17.8; Munich, 16.4. According to G. v. Mayer the increase of
venereal diseases for every 1,000 inhabitants from 1903 to 1904 was:
Prussia, 19.6; Austria and Hungary, 60.3; France, 27.1; Italy, 85.2; England,
125; Belgium, 28.3; the Netherlands, 31.4; Russia, 40.5; Denmark, 45. The
increase in venereal diseases is especially great in the navy. In the German
navy from 1905 to 1906 the number of cases were: On ship-board abroad,
113.6 per thousand; in domestic waters, 58.8; on land, 57.8. In the English
navy there were in 1905 121.55 cases and in 1906 121.94 cases.
We have seen that our social conditions have produced all sorts of vices,
excesses and crimes that are constantly increasing. The whole social
organism is in a state of unrest by which the women are most deeply
affected. Women are beginning to realize this more and more and to seek
redress. They demand in the first place economic independence. They
demand that women, like men, should be admitted to all trades and
professions according to their strength and ability. They especially demand
the right to practice learned professions. Are these endeavors justified? Can
their aims be realized? Will they bring relief? These are the questions we
must seek to answer.

[122]The trials of Moltke, Lynar and Eulenburg have since revealed a
more revolting picture than one could suspect. They have shown how

widespread is this perversity among the higher strata of society, especially
among military men and in court circles.
[123] Dr. Hugo Herz—Crimes and Criminals in Austria, Tuebingen,
1908.
[124]Director general of the army medical department, Dr. Chumburg,
The Venereal Diseases, Their Nature and Dissemination.

CHAPTER XIII.

Woman in Industry.

1.—Development and Extension of Female Labor.

The endeavor of women to earn their own living and to attain personal independence is,
to some extent at least, regarded as a just one by bourgeois society. The bourgeoisie
requires an unhampered release of male and female labor power in order that industry
may attain its highest degree of development. The perfection of machinery and the
division of labor, whereby each single function in the process of production requires less
strength and mechanical training than formerly, and the growing competition, not only
between individual manufacturers, but also between entire manufacturing regions, states
and countries—causes the labor power of woman to be sought more and more.
The special causes which lead to an increased employment of female labor in a
growing number of trades have been set forth in a previous chapter. One reason why
employers resort more and more to the employment of women beside men, or instead of
men, is, that women are accustomed to require less than men. Owing to their nature as sex
beings, women are obliged to offer their labor power cheaper than men. They are, as a
rule, more subjected to physical derangements that cause an interruption of their work,
and owing to the complication and organization of modern industry, this may lead to an
interruption in the whole process of production. Pregnancy and child-birth lengthen such
periods of interruption.[125] The employer makes the most of this fact and finds ample
indemnification for these occasional interruptions by the payment of considerably
lower wages. Moreover the woman is tied to her particular abode or its immediate
environment. She cannot change her abode as men are enabled to do in most cases.
Female labor, especially the labor of married women workers appears particularly
desirable to employers in still another way, as may be seen from the quotation from
“Capital,” by Karl Marx on page 129. As a worker the married woman is “far more
attentive and docile” than the unmarried one. Consideration for her children compels her
to exert her strength to the utmost in order to earn what is needful for their livelihood, and
she therefore quietly submits to much that the unmarried working woman would not
submit to, far less so the working man. As a rule working women rarely combine with

their fellow workers to obtain better working conditions. That also enhances their value in
the eyes of the employers; sometimes they even are a good means to subdue rebellious
male workers. Women moreover are more patient, they possess greater nimbleness and a
more developed taste, qualities that make them better suited to many kinds of work than
men.
These womanly virtues the virtuous capitalist appreciates fully; and so, with the
development of industry, the field of woman’s work is extended each year, but—and this
is the decisive factor—without materially improving her social condition. Where
female labor power is employed, it frequently releases male labor power. But the
displaced male workers must earn their living; so they offer their labor power at lower
wages, and this offer again depresses the wages of the female workers. The depression of
wages becomes a screw set in motion by the constantly revolving process of developing
industry, and as this process of revolution by labor-saving devices also releases female
workers, the supply of “hands” is increased still more. New branches of industry
counteract this constant production of surplus labor power, but not sufficiently to create
better conditions of labor. In the new branches of industry also, as for instance in the
electrical, male workers are being displaced by female workers. In the motor factory of
the General Electric Company most of the machines are tended by girls. Every increase in
wages above a certain standard causes the employer to seek further improvement of his
machinery, and to put the automatic machine in the place of human hands and human
brains. In the beginning of the capitalistic era only male workers competed with one
another on the labor market. Now sex is arrayed against sex, and age against age. Women
displace men, and women in turn are displaced by young people and children. That is the
“moral regime” of modern industry.
This state of affairs would eventually become unbearable if the workers, by
organization in their trade unions, would not counteract it with all their might. To the
working woman, too, it is becoming a sheer necessity to join these industrial
organizations, for as an individual she has still far less power of resistance than the
working man. Working women are beginning to recognize this necessity. In Germany the
following numbers were organized: in 1892, 4,355; in 1899, 19,280; in 1900, 22,884; in
1905, 74,411; in 1907, 136,929; in 1908, 138,443. In 1892 women constituted only
1.8 per cent. of all members of trade unions; in 1908 they constituted 7.6 per cent.
According to the fifth international report of the trade union movement the numbers of
female members were in Great Britain, 201,709; in France, 88,906; in Austria, 46,401.

The endeavors of employers to lengthen the work day in order to extract larger profits
from their workers is met with little resistance by women workers. That explains why in
the textile industry, for instance, in which more than half of the workers are women the
work day is longest. It was necessary therefore that government protection by limiting the
hours of work should begin with this industry. Women being accustomed to an endless
work day by their domestic activity, submit to the increased demands upon their labor
power without offering resistance.
[Version of the table for narrower screens]

PERSONS EMPLOYED IN GAINFUL OCCUPATIONS.

Persons gainfully
employed in
percentage of
Year Entire Population Gainfully employed population
of Fe­‐
COUNTRIES Census Male Female Both Male Female Both Male male Both
German
Empire 1907 30,461,100 31,259,429 61,720,529 18,599,236 9,429,881 28,092,117 61.1 30.4 45.5
Austria 1900 12,852,693 13,298,015 26,150,708 8,257,294 5,850,158 14,107,452 64.2 44.0 53.9
Hungary 1900 9,582,152 9,672,407 19,254,559 6,162,298 2,668,697 8,830,995 64.3 27.6 45.9
Russia 1897 62,477,348 63,162,673 125,640,021 25,995,237 5,276,112 31,271,349 41.6 8.4 24.9
Italy 1901 16,155,130 16,320,123 32,475,253 10,998,462 5,284,064 16,272,526 68.0 32.4 50.1
Switzerland 1900 1,627,025 1,688,418 3,315,433 1,057,187 498,760 1,556,577 65.0 29.5 46.9
France 1901 18,916,889 19,533,899 38,450,788 12,910,565 6,804,510 19,715,075 68.2 34.8 51.3
Belgium 1900 3,324,834 3,368,714 6,693,548 2,123,072 948,229 3,071,301 63.8 28.1 45.9
Netherlands 1899 2,520,603 2,583,535 5,104,138 1,497,159 433,548 1,930,707 59.4 16.8 37.8
Denmark 1901 1,193,448 1,256,092 2,449,540 752,559 353,980 1,106,539 63.1 28.2 45.2
Sweden 1900 2,506,436 2,630,005 5,136,441 1,422,979 551,021 1,974,000 56.8 21.0 38.4
Norway 1900 1,066,693 1,154,784 2,221,477 599,057 277,613 876,670 56.1 24.0 39.5
England and
Wales 1901 15,728,613 16,799,230 32,527,843 10,156,976 4,171,751 14,328,727 64.6 24.8 44.1
Scotland 1901 2,173,755 2,298,348 4,472,103 1,391,188 591,624 1,982,812 64.0 25.8 44.3
Ireland 1901 2,200,040 2,258,735 4,458,775 1,413,943 549,874 1,963,817 64.3 24.3 44.0
Great Britain
and Ireland 1901 20,102,408 21,356,313 41,458,721 12,962,107 5,313,249 18,275,356 64.5 24.9 44.1
United States
of Ame­‐
rica[126] 1900 39,059,242 37,244,145 76,303,387 23,956,115 5,329,807 29,285,922 61.3 14.3 38.4

[126] These figures include 91,219 persons of the army and navy who were absent from
the country while the census was taken.

In other trades, such as millinery, manufacture of artificial flowers, etc.,[127] they
reduce their own wages and lengthen their own work day by taking home extra work.

They frequently do not even notice that thereby they become their own competitors and
do not earn more in a sixteen hour day than they might in a well regulated ten-hour day.
The table on page 212 shows to what extent female labor has grown among various
civilized nations, both in relation to the other sex and in relation to the entire
population.[128] Our table shows that the number of women employed in gainful
occupations constitutes a considerable percentage of the entire population. The percentage
is largest in Austria, France and Italy. This may be partly due to the manner of census-
taking, as not only those female persons are counted, whose principal occupation is a
gainful employment, but also those who perform incidental work for wages. The
percentage is lowest in the United States. It is also important to compare the growth of the
laboring population with former periods. Let us begin with Germany:
[Version of the table for narrower screens]

Persons gainfully
employed in
Years in which Persons gainfully percentage of Of 100 persons
census was Entire Population employed population gainfully employed
taken Male Female Male Female Male Female Male Female
1882 22,150,749 23,071,364 13,415,415 5,541,517 60.57 24.02 71.24 28.76
1895 25,409,161 26,361,123 15,531,841 6,578,350 61.13 24.96 70.25 29.75
1907 30,461,100 31,159,429 18,599,236 9,492,881 61.06 30.37 66.21 33.79

This table shows firstly, that the number of persons gainfully employed increases more
rapidly than the population; secondly, that the growth of female labor still exceeds this
increase; thirdly, that the male laboring population is relatively stationary, while the
female laboring population shows a relative and absolute growth, and lastly, that female
labor at an increasing rate displaces male labor. The number of persons gainfully
employed has increased from 1882 to 1895 by 16.6 per cent.; the number of men, by
15.8 per cent. and 19.35 per cent.; the number of women by 18.7 per cent. from 1882 to
1895, and by 44.44 per cent. from 1895 to 1907. The increase of the population from 1882
to 1895 was only 19.8 per cent., and from 1895 to 1907 only 19.34 per cent. So the entire
number of persons gainfully employed has increased; but as the growth of the number of
men gainfully employed has approximately kept pace with the growth of the population,
the number of women gainfully employed has grown mostly. This shows that the struggle
for existence requires greater efforts than formerly.
From 1882 to 1895 and from 1895 to 1907 we find the following increase (+) and
decrease (−) among the population of Germany:

From 1882 to 1895 From 1895 to 1907

Female persons gainfully employed
+ 1,005,290 = 23.60 per cent + 2,979,105 = 56.59 per cent

Male persons gainfully employed
+ 2,133,577 = 15.95 per cent + 3,077,382 = 19.85 per cent

Female servants
+ 31,543 = 2.46 per cent − 64,574 = 4.91 per cent

Male servants
− 17,151 = 40.35 per cent − 9,987 = 39.38 per cent

The following table shows the number of persons gainfully employed in various trades:
[Version of the table for narrower screens]

1882 1895 1907
Male Female Male Female Male Female
Agriculture, Forestry 5,701,587 2,534,909 5,539,538 2,753,154 5,284,271 4,598,986
Industry and Mining 5,269,489 1,126,976 6,760,102 1,521,118 9,152,330 2,103,924
Commerce and Traffic 1,272,208 298,110 1,758,903 579,608 2,546,253 931,373
Various kinds of wage labor 213,746 183,836 198,626 233,685 150,791 320,904
Public service and learned professions 373,593 115,272 618,335 176,648 799,025 288,311
Army and Navy 542,282 — 630,978 — 651,194 —

The following table shows the increase and decrease in various trades:
[Version of the table for narrower screens]

From 1882 to 1895 From 1895 to 1907
Female % Male % Female % Male %
Agriculture, Forestry + 218,245 8.60 − 162,049 2.80 +1,845,832 67.04 − 255,267 4.61
Industry and Mining + 394,142 35.00 +1,490,613 28.30 + 582,806 38.31 +2,392,228 35.39
Commerce and Traffic + 281,498 98.40 + 486,695 38.30 + 351,765 60.69 + 787,350 44.76
Various kinds of wage labor + 50,029 27.20 − 15,120 7.10 + 87,039 37.22 − 47,835 24.08
Public service and learned
professions + 61,376 53.25 + 154,285 33.25 + 111,663 — + 180,690 —
Army and Navy — — + 179,153 39.65 — — + 20,216 —
Total +1,005,290 23.60 +2,133,577 15.90 +2,979,105 — +3,077,382 —

Among the persons gainfully employed there were:
[Version of the table for narrower screens]

1895 1907
Female % Male % Female % Male %
Independent 1,069,007 22.1 4,405,039 31.3 1,052,165 — 4,438,123 —
Employees 39,418 0.81 582,407 4.1 159,889 — 1,130,839 —

1895 1907
Female % Male % Female % Male %
Laborers, etc., excl.
servants 3,745,455 77.09 9,071,097 64.6 6,422,229 — 11,413,892 —
Total 4,853,880 = 100.00 14,058,543 = 100.00 7,634,283 = 100.00 16,982,854 = 100.00

The following shows the increase and decrease of women holding independent
positions from 1895 to 1907:

[1907] [1895] [%]
Industry (domestic industry) 477,290 519,492 − 42,202 = 8.10
Commerce and traffic 246,641 202,616 + 44,025 = 21.77
Agriculture 328,237 346,896 − 18,659 = 9.04

The greatest number of female persons were employed in the following trades:

1907. 1895.
Agriculture 4,585,749 2,745,840
Clothing and cleaning 883,184 713,021
Commercial lines 545,177 299,829
Textile industry 528,235 427,961
Restaurants and cafés 339,555 261,450
Articles of food and luxury 248,962 140,333
Metal works 73,039 36,210
Stone and pottery 72,270 39,555
Paper industry 67,322 39,222
Wood and carving industry 48,028 30,346

The following are the trades in which more women than men are employed in
Germany:

Women. Men.
Agriculture 4,217,132 2,737,768
Textile industry 466,210 390,312
Clothing trades 403,879 303,264
Cleaning trades 85,684 58,035
Restaurants and cafés 266,930 139,002
Domestic service 279,208 36,791

Women. Men.
Nursing 129,197 78,520

These figures clearly show us the prevailing state of affairs in Germany. Although the
number of persons gainfully employed has increased more rapidly than the population, the
growth of female labor still exceeds this increase. The employment of women is rapidly
growing in all lines of industry. While the male laboring population is relatively
stationary, the female laboring population shows a relative and absolute growth. In fact
the increase in female labor constitutes the chief portion of the general increase of persons
gainfully employed in the entire population. The number of female members of families
supported by men rank from 70.81 per cent. in 1895 to 63.90 per cent. in 1907. Woman
has become such a powerful factor in industry that the Philistine saying, the woman’s
place is in the home, seems utterly void and ridiculous. In England the following numbers
of persons were industrially employed:
For every 100 persons
gainfully employed
Total Male Female Male Fem.
1871 11,593,466 8,270,186 3,323,280 — —
1881 11,187,564 7,783,646 3,403,918 69.59 30.41
1891 12,751,995 8,883,254 4,016,230 68.09 31.91
1901 14,328,727 10,156,976 4,171,751 70.09 29.91

Within thirty years the number of men gainfully employed increased by 1,886,790
persons = 22.8 per cent.; the number of women gainfully employed increased by 848,471
= 25.5 per cent. It is especially noteworthy that during 1881, the year of a crisis, the
number of men emparent one, since most of the wives and daughters of number of women
employed increased by 80,638. The relative decrease of female labor in 1901 is only an
apparent one, since most of the wives and daughters of farmers are now counted as having
no profession. Besides, during the last twenty years those industries have grown mostly in
which male labor is chiefly employed, while the textile industry has relatively, and since
1891, positively declined.

Female
Percentage of workers
1881 [1901] increase among these
Stone and pottery industry 582,474 805,185 53 5,006
Metal works and manufacture
of machinery 812,915 1,228,504 52 61,233

Female
Percentage of workers
1881 [1901] increase among these
Building trades 764,911 1,128,680 47 2,485
Textile trades 1,094,636 1,155,397 5 663,222

Nevertheless female labor has again increased at the expense of male labor. Only the
share in increase of female labor that was 12.6 per cent. from 1851 to 1861 and 7.6 per
cent. from 1871 to 1881 was reduced to 1.8 per cent. from 1891 to 1901. In the year 1907
the following numbers were counted in the textile industry: 407,360 men = 36.6 per cent.
and 679,863 women = 63.4 per cent. In the clothing trades and in commerce female labor
has increased much more. But it is furthermore seen that older women are displaced by
younger ones, and as women under 25 are mostly unmarried and the older ones are mostly
married, or widowed, it is seen that women are displaced by girls.
The following are trades in which more women than men are employed in England:

Women Men
Domestic service 1,690,686 124,263
Clothing trades 711,786 414,637
Textile trades 663,222 492,175
Among these cotton 328,793 193,830
wool and yarn 153,311 106,598
hemp and jute 104,587 45,732
silk 22,589 8,966
embroidery 28,962 9,587

In almost all the branches women receive considerable less pay than men for the same
amount of work. A recent inquiry showed that the average weekly wage in the textile
industry was 28 shillings 1 penny for men, and only 15 shillings 5 pence for women.[129]
In the bicycle industry where female labor has rapidly increased as a result of the
introduction of machinery, women receive only from 12 to 18 shillings per week, where
men received from 30 to 40 shillings.[130] The same conditions are met with in the
manufacture of paper goods and shoes and in binderies. Women are paid especially low
wages for the manufacture of underwear; 10 shillings per week is considered a good
wage. “As a rule a woman earns half or one-third of a man’s wage.”[131] A similar
difference in remuneration between men and women is met with in the postal service and

in teaching. Only in the cotton industry in Lancashire both sexes working an equal length
of time earned almost equal wages.
In the United States we find the following development of female labor:
1880 1890 1900
Agriculture 594,510 678,884 977,336
Learned professions 177,255 311,687 430,597
Domestic and personal service 1,181,300 1,667,651 2,095,449
Commerce and transportation 63,058 228,421 503,347
Manufacture 631,034 1,027,928 1,312,668
% % %
Total, women 2,647,157 14.7 3,914,571 17.4 5,319,397 18.8
“ men 14,774,942 85.3 18,821,090 82.6 23,753,836 81.2
17,422,099 100 22,735,661 100 29,073,233 100

Here we see that the number of women gainfully employed has grown from 3,914,571
in 1890 to 5,319,397 in 1900. It has increased more rapidly than the population which
increased from 62,622,250 persons in 1890 to 76,303,387 in 1900; only by 21 per cent. In
the same inexorable way the number of employed men is decreasing, since they are being
displaced by women. Now for 100 persons gainfully employed there are 18.8 women,
while in 1880 there were not more than 14.7 per cent. Of 312 occupations there are only 9
in which no women are employed. According to the census of 1900, we even find among
them 5 pilots, 45 engineers and firemen, 185 blacksmiths, 508 machinists, 11 well-borers,
8 boilermakers. “Of course these figures are not of great sociological importance, but they
show that there are very few occupations from which women are absolutely excluded,
either by their natural capacity or by law.”[132] Women are especially numerous in the
following occupations: Servants and waitresses, 1,213,828; dressmaking, 338,144; farm
labor, 497,886; laundresses, 332,665; teachers, 327,905; independent farmers, 307,788;
textile workers, 231,458; housekeepers, 147,103; salesladies, 146,265; seamstresses,
138,724; nurses and midwives, 108,691; unqualified trades, 106,916. In these 12
occupations 3,583,333 = 74.1 per cent. of all bread-earning women have been counted.
Besides there are 85,086 stenographers; 82,936 milliners; 81,000 clerks; 72,896
bookkeepers, etc., together 19 occupations, comprising over 50,000 women = 88.8 per
cent. of all women breadwinners. Women predominate in the following trades:

For every 100 persons employed.
Manufacture of underwear Women 99.4 Men 0.6
Millinery “ 98.0 “ 2.0
Dressmaking “ 96.8 “ 3.2

For every 100 persons employed.
Manufacture of collars “ 77.6 “ 22.4
Weaving “ 72.8 “ 27.2
Manufacture of gloves “ 62.6 “ 37.4
Bookbinding “ 50.5 “ 49.5
Textile trades “ 50.0 “ 50.0
Housekeeping “ 94.7 “ 5.3
Nursing “ 89.9 “ 10.1
Laundry work “ 86.8 “ 13.2
Domestic service “ 81.9 “ 18.1
Boarding “ 83.4 “ 16.6
Stenographers “ 76.7 “ 23.3
Teachers “ 73.4 “ 26.6
Music teachers “ 56.9 “ 43.1

Of 4,833,630 women employed in gainful occupations aged 16 years and more,
3,143,712 were single, 769,477 were married, 857,005 were widowed, 63,436 were
divorced. The American report says: “The increase in the percentage of persons gainfully
employed was greatest for the married women, since it was by one-fourth greater in 1900
than in 1890. In 1890 there was only one married working woman among 22; in 1900
there was one among 18.” The number of widowed and divorced women is very great,
both relatively and actually. In 1900 among 2,721,438 widowed women 857,005 = 31.5
were earning their living, and among divorced women the percentage was still greater. Of
114,935, these 49 per cent. were earning their own living in 1890 and 55.3 per cent. in
1900. Thus more women became self-supporting each year. Among the 303 occupations
in which women are employed there are:

79 with less than 100 women
59 “ “ “ 100 to 500 “
31 “ “ “ 500 to 1000 “
125 “ more “ 1000 “
63 “ “ “ 5000 “

Among 100 persons from 16 years up we find the following wage-scale:
Men Women
Less than 7 dollars 18 Less than 7 dollars 66.3
7 to 9 dollars 15.4 7 to 9 dollars 19.6

Men Women
9 to 20 dollars 60.6 9 to 15 dollars 13.2
20 to 25 dollars 4.8 15 to 20 dollars 0.8
More than 25 dollars 2 20 to 25 dollars 0.1
Average weekly wage $11.16 $6.17

We see that 60.6 per cent. of the men earn more than $9, while only 13.2 per cent. of
the women earn more than $9, and more than two-thirds (66.3 per cent.) earn less than $7.
[133] The average weekly wage for men is $11.16; the average weekly wage for women
$6.17, almost half of the man’s wages. Among government employes the difference is
equally great. Among 185,874 persons engaged in civil service there were 172,053 men
= 92.6 per cent., and 13,821 women—7.4 per cent. In the District of Columbia, the seat of
the national administration, the percentage of female labor amounts to 29 per cent. And
yet 47.2 per cent. of the women earn less than $720, while only 16.7 per cent. of the men
earn less than $720.[134]
In France, according to the census of 1901, the laboring population amounted to
19,715,075 persons, 12,910,565 men and 6,804,510 women. They are distributed among
various trades as follows:

Men. Per Cent. Women. Per Cent.
Agriculture 5,517,617 72 2,658,952 28
Commerce 1,132,621 65 689,999 35
Dom’tic service 223,861 23 791,176 77
Learned prof. 226,561 67 173,278 33
Industry 3,695,213 63.5 2,124,642 36.5

“The female laboring population amounts to one-half of the male laboring
population.”[135] As in all other countries, fewest women are employed at those
occupations that require greatest physical strength (In mining 2.03 women for 100 men; in
quarries 1.65; in metallurgy, 1.06). The greatest number of women are employed in the
textile trades, 116 women for 100 men—in the clothing trades, in laundries, 1,247 women
for 100 men, and in the manufacture of underwear 3,286 women for 100 men.[136] It
generally holds true, as Mme. C. Milhand states, that the greatest number of women are
employed in those industries where the hours of work are particularly long and wages
particularly low. “It is a sad fact that while the industries, where the hours of labor are
short, only employ a few thousand women, those where the hours of work are long,
employs hundreds of thousands of them.”[137] In regard to the wage scale E. Levasseur

says that a woman’s wage rarely amounts to two-thirds of a man’s wage and more
frequently only to one-half.[138]

[125] A number of lists from sick-benefit funds, compiled by the factory inspector
Schuler, showed that female members were ill 7.17 days annually, while male members
were ill only 4.78 days annually. The duration of each illness was 24.8 for female
members and 21.2 for male members. O. Schwartz, The results of the employment of
married women in factories from the standpoint of public hygiene.—German quarterly
gazette for public hygiene.
[127] “This is especially the case in the clothing trade, but also in other industries such
as the manufacture of toys, underwear, cigarettes, paper goods etc.” R. Wilbrandt—
Protection of working women and domestic industry.—Jena 1906.
[128] Encyclopedia of Social Sciences.—H. Zahn, Statistics of professions and trades.
[129] Textile Trades in 1906. London, 1909.
[130] E. Cadbury, C. Matheson and C. Shaun—Women’s work and wages. London,
1906.
[131] E. Cadbury and F. Shaun—Sweating. London. 1907.
[132] Statistics of women at work. Washington, 1908.
[133] Earnings of wage-earners. Bulletin 93, page 11. Washington, 1908.
[134] Executive civil service of the United States. Washington, 1908.
[135] C. Milhand—L’ouvrière en France. Paris, 1907.
[136] E. Levasseur—Questions ouvrières et industrielles en France sous la troisième
république. Paris, 1907.
[137] C. Milhand—L’ouvrière en France. Paris, 1907.
[138] E. Levasseur—Questions ouvrières et industrielles en France sous la troisième
république. Paris, 1907.

2.—Factory Work of Married Women.—Sweatshop Labor and
Dangerous Occupations.

Married women form a large percentage of working women and their
number is steadily increasing, which means a serious problem in regard to
the family life of the working class. In 1899, German factory inspectors
were instructed to investigate the work of married women and to inquire
into the causes which lead them to seek employment.[139] This
investigation showed that 229,334 married women were employed in
factories. Besides 1,063 married women were employed in mining above
the ground, as was shown by the report of the Prussian mining authorities.
In Baden the number of married working women increased from 10,878 in
1894 to 15,046 in 1899, which is 31.27 per cent. of all adult female
workers. The following table shows the distribution of married women
factory laborers among the various trades:

Textile industry 111,194
Articles of food and luxury 39,080
Stone and pottery industry 19,475
Clothing and cleaning trades 13,156
Paper industry 11,049
Metal works 10,739
Wood and carving industry 5,635
Polygraphic trades 4,770
Manufacture of machinery 4,493
Chemical industry 4,380
Various 5,363
Total 229,334

Besides the textile industry, the manufacture of articles of food and
luxury, especially the manufacture of tobacco, gives many married women
employment. Then comes the paper industry, especially employment in
work shops for the assorting of rags, and employment in brick yards.
“Married women are mainly employed in difficult occupations (quarries,
brick yards, dyeing establishments, manufacture of chemicals, sugar
refineries, etc.), implying hard and dirty work, while young working girls
under twenty-one find employment in porcelain factories, spinning and
weaving mills, paper mills, cigar factories, and in the clothing trade. The
worst kinds of work, shunned by others, are taken up by the elder working
women, especially the married ones.”[140]
Of the many replies in regard to the causes which lead married women to
seek work only a few need to be mentioned. In the district of Potsdam the
main reason given for the factory labor of married women was, that the
earnings of the men were insufficient. In Berlin according to the reports of
two inspectors 53.62 per cent. of the women who helped to support their
families stated, that the earnings of their husbands were insufficient to
support them. Similar information was given by the factory inspectors for
the districts of western Prussia, Frankfort on the Oder, Franconia,
Wurtemberg, Elsatia, etc. The inspector for Magdeburg gives the same
cause for the majority of married working women, but also states that some
married women must work because their husbands are dissolute and spend
all their earnings on themselves. Others again, it was reported, worked as a
matter of habit and because they had not been trained to be housekeepers. It
may be true that these causes hold good in a minority of cases; but the great
majority of these women work because they must. The factory inspector for
Alsace states as the main cause for gainful employment of married women
in modern industry, the demand for cheap labor, created by the means of
transportation and by unrestricted competition. He furthermore states that
manufacturers like to employ married women because they are more

reliable and steady. The factory inspector for Baden, Dr. Woerishoffer,
says: “The low wages paid to women workers is the main cause why
employers resort to female labor wherever it can be made use of. Ample
proof of this assertion can be found in the fact, that wages are lowest in
those industries in which the greatest number of women are employed. As
female labor can be employed to a great extent in these industries, it
becomes a necessity to the working class families that the women should
seek employment.” The factory inspector for Coblentz says: “Women
usually are more industrious and reliable than young girls. Young working
girls generally have an aversion against disagreeable and dirty work, which
is accordingly left to the more unassuming married workers. Thus, for
instance, dealers in rags frequently employ married women.”
That the wages of working women are lower everywhere than those of
workingmen, even for equal work, is a well known fact. In this respect the
private employer does not differ from the state or community. Women
employed in the railroad and postal service receive less than men for the
same kind of work. In every community women teachers receive a lower
salary than men teachers. This may be explained by the following causes:
Women have fewer needs and are, above all, more helpless; their earnings
are in many cases only additional to the incomes of fathers or husbands, the
main supporters of the families; the character of female labor is amateurish,
temporary and accidental; there is an immense reserve force of female
workers which increases their helplessness; there is much competition from
middle class women in dressmaking, millinery, flower and paper goods
manufactory, etc.; women are usually tied to their place of residence. All
these causes make the hours of work longest for women unless they are
protected by legislation.
In a report on the wages of factory laborers in Mannheim in 1893 the late
Dr. Woerishoffer divides the weekly wages into three classes.[141] The
lowest class comprises weekly wages up to 15 marks ($3.75), the middle

class from 15 to 24 marks ($3.75 to $6), and the high class above 24 marks
($6). These wages were distributed among the workers as follows:
Low class Middle class High class
All the workers 29.8 per cent 49.8 per cent 20.4 per cent
Male “ 20.9 “ 56.2 “ 22.9 “
Female “ 99.2 “ 0.7 “ 0.1 “

The majority of the working women were paid starvation wages, as the
following table shows:
A weekly wage of less than 5 marks ($1.25) was paid to 4.62 per cent
“ from 5 to 6 “ ($1.25 to $1.50) “ 5.47 “
“ “ 6 “ 8 “ ($1.50 “ $2.00) “ 43.96 “
“ “ 8 “ 10 “ ($2.00 “ $2.50) “ 27.45 “
“ “ 10 “ 12 “ ($2.50 “ $3.00) “ 12.38 “
“ “ 12 “ 15 “ ($3.00 “ $3.50) “ 5.30 “
“ more than 15 “ ($3.75) “ 0.74 “

An inquiry by the department of factory inspection of Berlin showed that
the average weekly wages of working women was 11.36 marks ($2.82);
4.3 per cent. received less than 6 marks; 7.8 per cent. 6 to 8 marks; 27.6 per
cent. 12 to 15 marks; 11.1 per cent. 15 to 20 marks, and 1.1 per cent. 20 to
30 marks. The majority (75.7 per cent) earn from 8 to 15 marks. In
Karlsruhe the average weekly wages of all working women amounts to
10.02 marks.[142]
Wages are lowest in the domestic industries for both men and women,
but especially for women, and the hours of work are unlimited. Also
domestic industry frequently implies the so-called sweating system. A sub-
contractor distributes the work among the workers and receives for his
remuneration a considerable amount of the wages paid by the employer.
How wretchedly female labor is paid in these sweated trades, may be seen
from the following reports on conditions in Berlin. For men’s colored shirts,
manufacturers paid from 2 to 2½ marks in 1889. In 1893 they obtained