This was not always the case. No more than a century ago, even by
American law, the most sentimental in the world, the husband was the
head of the family firm, lordly and autonomous. He had authority over
the purse-strings, over the children, and even over his wife. He could
enforce his mandates by appropriate punishment, including the corporal.
His sovereignty and dignity were carefully guarded by legislation, the
product of thousands of years of experience and ratiocination. He was
safeguarded in his self-respect by the most elaborate and efficient
devices, and they had the support of public opinion.
Consider, now, the changes that a few short years have wrought. Today,
by the laws of most American states—laws proposed, in most cases, by
maudlin and often notoriously extravagant agitators, and passerby
sentimental orgy—all of the old rights of the husband have been
converted into obligations. He no longer has any control over his
wife’s property; she may devote its income to the family or she may
squander that income upon idle follies, and he can do nothing. She has
equal authority in regulating and disposing of the children, and in the
case of infants, more than he. There is no law compelling her to do her
share of the family labour: she may spend her whole time in cinema
theatres or gadding about the shops as she will. She cannot be forced
to perpetuate the family name if she does not want to. She cannot be
attacked with masculine weapons, e.g., fists and firearms, when she
makes an assault with feminine weapons, e.g., snuffling, invective and
sabotage. Finally, no lawful penalty can be visited upon her if she
fails absolutely, either deliberately or through mere incapacity, to
keep the family habitat clean, the children in order, and the victuals
eatable.
Now view the situation of the husband. The instant he submits to
marriage, his wife obtains a large and inalienable share in his
property, including all he may acquire in future; in most American
states the minimum is one-third, and, failing children, one-half. He
cannot dispose of his real estate without her consent; he cannot even
deprive her of it by will. She may bring up his children carelessly and
idiotically, cursing them with abominable manners and poisoning their
nascent minds against him, and he has no redress. She may neglect her
home, gossip and lounge about all day, put impossible food upon his
table, steal his small change, pry into his private papers, hand over
his home to the Periplaneta americana, accuse him falsely of
preposterous adulteries, affront his friends, and lie about him to the
neighbours—and he can do nothing. She may compromise his honour by
indecent dressing, write letters to moving-picture actors, and expose
him to ridicule by going into politics—and he is helpless.
Let him undertake the slightest rebellion, over and beyond mere
rhetorical protest, and the whole force of the state comes down upon
him. If he corrects her with the bastinado or locks her up, he is good
for six months in jail. If he cuts off her revenues, he is incarcerated
until he makes them good. And if he seeks surcease in flight, taking
the children with him, he is pursued by the gendarmerie, brought back
to his duties, and depicted in the public press as a scoundrelly
kidnapper, fit only for the knout. In brief, she is under no legal
necessity whatsoever to carry out her part of the compact at the altar
of God, whereas he faces instant disgrace and punishment for the
slightest failure to observe its last letter. For a few grave crimes of
commission, true enough, she may be proceeded against. Open adultery is
a recreation that is denied to her. She cannot poison her husband. She
must not assault him with edged tools, or leave him altogether, or
strip off her few remaining garments and go naked. But for the vastly
more various and numerous crimes of omission—and in sum they are more
exasperating and intolerable than even overt felony—she cannot be
brought to book at all.
The scene I depict is American, but it will soon extend its horrors to
all Protestant countries. The newly enfranchised women of every one of
them cherish long programs of what they call social improvement, and
practically the whole of that improvement is based upon devices for
augmenting their own relative autonomy and power. The English wife of
tradition, so thoroughly a femme covert, is being displaced by a
gadabout, truculent, irresponsible creature, full of strange new ideas
about her rights, and strongly disinclined to submit to her husband’s
authority, or to devote herself honestly to the upkeep of his house, or
to bear him a biological sufficiency of heirs. And the German Hausfrau,
once so innocently consecrated to Kirche, Kuche und Kinder, is going
the same way.