WOMAN AND MANKIND
At last we are ready, clear-eyed and well armed, to deal with the
question of the emancipation of women. Our eyes are clear, for we have
freed them from the thronging specks of dubiety that had hitherto
obscured the question, and we are armed with a well-founded grasp of
theory, and a secure ethical basis. We are far from the maze in which
this controversy usually lies, and our investigation has got beyond the
mere statement of different natural capacity for men and women, to a
point whence the part of women in the world-whole and the meaning of her
relation to humanity can be estimated. I am not going to deal with any
practical applications of my results; the latter are not nearly
optimistic enough for me to hope that they could have any effect on the
progress of political movements. I refrain from working out laws of
social hygiene, and content myself with facing the problem from the
standpoint of that conception of humanity which pervades the philosophy
of Immanuel Kant.
This conception is in great danger from woman. Woman is able, in a quite
extraordinary way, to produce the impression that she herself is really
non-sexual, and that her sexuality is only a concession to man. But be
that as it may, at the present time men have almost allowed themselves
to be persuaded by woman that their strongest and most markedly
characteristic desire lies in sexuality, that it is only through woman
that they can hope to satisfy their truest and best ambitions, and that
chastity is an unnatural and impossible state for them. How often it
happens that young men who are wrapped up in their work are told by
women to whom they appeal and who would prefer to have them paying them
attention, or even as sons-in-law, that “they ought not to work too
hard,” that they ought to “enjoy life.” At the bottom of this sort of
advice there lies a feeling on the woman’s part, which is none the less
real because it is unconscious, that her whole significance and
existence depend on her mission as a procreating agent, and that she
goes to the wall if man is allowed to occupy himself altogether with
other than sexual matters.
That women will ever change in this respect is doubtful. There is
nothing to show that she ever was different. It may be that to-day the
physical side of the question is more to the fore than formerly, since a
great deal of the “woman movement” of the times is merely a desire to be
“free,” to shake off the trammels of motherhood; as a whole the
practical results show that it is revolt from motherhood towards
prostitution, a prostitute emancipation rather than the emancipation of
woman that is aimed at: a bold bid for the success of the courtesan. The
only real change is man’s behaviour towards the movement. Under the
influence of modern Judaism, men seem inclined to accept woman’s
estimate of them and to bow before it.
Masculine chastity is laughed at, and the feeling that woman is the evil
influence in man’s life is no longer understood, and men are not ashamed
of their own lust.
It is now apparent from where this demand for “seeing life,” the
Dionysian view of the music-hall, the cult of Goethe in so far as he
follows Ovid, and this quite modern “coitus-cult” comes. There is no
doubt that the movement is so widespread that very few men have the
courage to acknowledge their chastity, preferring to pretend that they
are regular Don Juans. Sexual excess is held to be the most desirable
characteristic of a man of the world, and sexuality has attained such
pre-eminence that a man is doubted unless he can, as it were, show
proofs of his prowess. Chastity, on the other hand, is so despised that
many a really pure lad attempts to appear a _blasé roué_. It is even
true that those who are modest are ashamed of the feeling; but there is
another, the modern form of shame--not the eroticist’s shame, but the
shame of the woman who has no lover, who has not received appraisement
from the opposite sex. Hence it comes that men make it their business to
tell each other what a right and proper pleasure they take in “doing
their duty” by the opposite sex. And women are careful to let it be
known that only what is “manly” in man can appeal to them: and man takes
their measure of his manliness and makes it his own. Man’s
qualifications as a male have, in fact, become identical with his value
with women, in women’s eyes.
But God forbid that it should be so; that would mean that there are no
longer any _men_.
Contrast with this the fact that the high value set on women’s virtue
originated with man, and will always come from men worthy of the name;
it is the projection of man’s own ideal of spotless purity on the object
of his love.
But there should be no mistaking this true chastity for the shivering
and shaking before contact, which is soon changed for delighted
acquiescence, nor for the hysterical suppression of sexual desires. The
outward endeavour to correspond to man’s demand for physical purity must
not be taken for anything but a fear lest the buyer will fight shy of
the bargain; least of all the care which women so often take to choose
only the man who can give them most value must not deceive any one (it
has been called the “high value” or “self-respect” a girl has for
herself)! If one remembers the view women take of virginity, there can
be very little doubt that woman’s one end is the bringing about of
universal pairing as the only means by which they acquire a real
existence; that women desire pairing, and nothing else, even if they
personally appear to be as uninterested as possible in sensual matters.
All this can be fully proved from the generality of the match-making
instinct.
In order to be fully persuaded of this, woman’s attitude towards the
virginity of those of her own sex must be considered.
It is certain that women have a very low opinion of the unmarried. It
is, in fact, the one female condition which has a negative value for
woman. Women only respect a woman when she is married; even if she is
unhappily married to a hideous, weak, poor, common, tyrannical,
“impossible” man, she is, nevertheless, married, has received value,
existence. Even if a woman has had a short experience of the freedom of
a courtesan’s life, even if she has been on the streets, she still
stands higher in a woman’s estimation than the old maid, who works and
toils alone in her room, without ever having known lawful or unlawful
union with a man, the enduring or fleeting ecstasy of love.
Even a young and beautiful girl is never valued by a woman for her
attractions as such (the sense of the beautiful is wanting in woman
since they have no standard in themselves to measure it by), but merely
because she has more prospect of enslaving a man. The more beautiful a
young girl is, the more promising she appears to other women, the
greater her value to woman as the match-maker in her mission as guardian
of the race; it is only this unconscious feeling which makes it possible
for a woman to take pleasure in the beauty of a young girl. It goes
without saying that this can only happen when the woman in question has
already achieved her own end (because, otherwise, envy of a
contemporary, and the fear of having her own chances jeopardised by
others, would overcome other considerations). She must first of all
attain her own union, and then she is ready to help others.
Women are altogether to blame for the unpleasant associations which are
so unfortunately connected with “old maids.” One often hears men talking
respectfully of an elderly woman; but every woman and girl, whether
married or single, has nothing but contempt for such a one, even when,
as is often the case, they are unconscious that it is so with them. I
once heard a married woman, whose talents and beauty put jealousy quite
out of the question, making fun of her plain and elderly Italian
governess for repeatedly saying that: “Io sono ancora una virgine” (that
she was still a virgin). The interpretation put on the words was that
the speaker wished to admit she had made a virtue of necessity, and
would have been very glad to get rid of her virginity if she could have
done so without detriment to her position in life.
This is the most important point of all: women not only disparage and
despise the virginity of other women, but they set no value on their own
state of virginity (except that men prize it so highly). This is why
they look upon every married woman as a sort of superior being. The deep
impression made on women by the sexual act can be most plainly seen by
the respect which girls pay to a married woman, of however short a
standing; which points to their idea of their existence being the
attainment of the same zenith themselves. They look upon other young
girls, on the contrary, as being, like themselves, still imperfect
beings awaiting consummation.
I think I have said enough to show that experience confirms the
deduction I made from the importance of the pairing instinct in women,
the deduction that virgin worship is of male, not female origin.
A man demands chastity in himself and others, most of all from the being
he loves; a woman wants the man with most experience and sensuality, not
virtue. Woman has no comprehension of paragons. On the contrary, it is
well known that a woman is most ready to fly to the arms of the man with
the widest reputation for being a Don Juan.
Woman requires man to be sexual, because she only gains existence
through his sexuality. Women have no sense of a man’s love, as a
superior phenomenon, they only perceive that side of him which
unceasingly desires and appropriates the object of his affections, and
men who have none or very little of the instinct of brutality developed
in them have no influence on them.
As for the higher, platonic love of man, they do not want it; it
flatters and pleases them, but it has no significance for them, and if
the homage on bended knees lasts too long, Beatrice becomes just as
impatient as Messalina.
In coitus lies woman’s greatest humiliation, in love her supremest
exaltation. Since woman desires coitus and not love, she proves that she
wishes to be humiliated and not worshipped. The ultimate opponent of the
emancipation of women is woman.
It is not because sexual union is voluptuous, not because it is the
typical example of all the pleasures of the lower life, that it is
immoral. Asceticism, which would regard pleasure in itself as immoral,
is itself immoral, inasmuch it attributes immorality to an action
because of the external consequences of it, not because of immorality in
the thing itself; it is the imposition of an alien, not an inherent law.
A man may seek pleasure, he may strive to make his life easier and more
pleasant; but he must not sacrifice a moral law. Asceticism attempts to
make man moral by self-repression and will give him credit and praise
for morality simply because he has denied himself certain things.
Asceticism must be rejected from the point of view of ethics and of
psychology inasmuch as it makes virtue the effect of a cause, and not
the thing itself. Asceticism is a dangerous although attractive guide;
since pleasure is one of the chief things that beguile men from the
higher path, it is easy to suppose that its mere abandonment is
meritorious.
In itself, however, pleasure is neither moral nor immoral. It is only
when the desire for pleasure conquers the desire for worthiness that a
human being has fallen.
Coitus is immoral because there is no man who does not use woman at such
times as a means to an end; for whom pleasure does not, in his own as
well as her being, during that time represent the value of mankind.
During coitus a man forgets all about everything, he forgets the woman;
she has no longer a psychic but only a physical existence for him. He
either desires a child by her or the satisfaction of his own passion; in
neither case does he use her as an end in herself, but for an outside
cause. This and this alone makes coitus immoral.
There is no doubt that woman is the missionary of sexual union, and that
she looks upon herself, as on everything else, merely as a means to its
ends. She wants a man to satisfy her passion or to obtain children; she
is willing to be used by man as a tool, as a thing, as an object, to be
treated as his property, to be changed and modelled according to his
good pleasure. But we should not allow ourselves to be used by others as
means to an end.
Kundry appealed often to Parsifal’s compassion for her yearnings: but
here we see the weakness of sympathetic morality, which attempts to
grant every desire of those around, however wrong such wishes may be.
Ethics and morality based on sympathy are equally absurd, since they
make the “ought” dependent on the “will,” (whether it be the will of
oneself, or of others, or of society, it is all the same,) instead of
making the “will” dependent on the “ought”; they take as a standard of
morality concrete cases of human history, concrete cases of human
happiness, concrete moments in life instead of the idea.
But the question is: how ought man to treat woman? As she herself
desires to be treated or as the moral idea would dictate?
If he is going to treat her as she wishes, he must have intercourse with
her, for she desires it; he must beat her, for she likes to be hurt; he
must hypnotise her, since she wishes to be hypnotised; he must prove to
her by his attentions how little he thinks of himself, for she likes
compliments, and has no desire to be respected for herself.
If he is going to treat her as the moral idea demands, he must try to
see in her the concept of mankind and endeavour to respect her. Even
although woman is only a function of man, a function he can degrade or
raise at will, and women do not wish to be more or anything else than
what man makes them, it is no more a moral arrangement than the suttee
of Indian widows, which, even though it be voluntary and insisted upon
by them, is none the less terrible barbarity.
The emancipation of woman is analogous to the emancipation of Jews and
negroes. Undoubtedly the principal reason why these people have been
treated as slaves and inferiors is to be found in their servile
dispositions; their desire for freedom is not nearly so strong as that
of the Indo-Germans. And even although the whites in America at the
present day find it necessary to keep themselves quite aloof from the
negro population because they make such a bad use of their freedom, yet
in the war of the Northern States against the Federals, which resulted
in the freedom of the slaves, right was entirely on the side of the
emancipators.
Although the humanity of Jews, negroes, and still more of women, is
weighed down by many immoral impulses; although in these cases there is
so much more to fight against than in the case of Aryan men, still we
must try to respect mankind, and to venerate the idea of humanity (by
which I do not mean the human community, but the being, man, the soul as
part of the spiritual world). No matter how degraded a criminal may be,
no one ought to arrogate to himself the functions of the law; no man has
the right to lynch such an offender.
The problem of woman and the problem of the Jews are absolutely
identical with the problem of slavery, and they must be solved in the
same way. No one should be oppressed, even if the oppression is of such
a kind as to be unfelt as such. The animals about a house are not
“slaves,” because they have no freedom in the proper sense of the word
which could be taken away.
But woman has a faint idea of her incapacity, a last remnant, however
weak, of the free intelligible ego, simply because there is no such
thing as an absolute woman. Women are human beings, and must be treated
as such, even if they themselves do not wish it. Woman and man have the
same rights. That is not to say that women ought to have an equal share
in political affairs. From the utilitarian standpoint such a concession,
certainly at present and probably always, would be most undesirable; in
New Zealand, where, on ethical principles, women have been enfranchised,
the worst results have followed. As children, imbeciles and criminals
would be justly prevented from taking any part in public affairs even if
they were numerically equal or in the majority; woman must in the same
way be kept from having a share in anything which concerns the public
welfare, as it is much to be feared that the mere effect of female
influence would be harmful. Just as the results of science do not depend
on whether all men accept them or not, so justice and injustice can be
dealt out to the woman, although she is unable to distinguish between
them, and she need not be afraid that injury will be done her, as
justice and not might will be the deciding factor in her treatment. But
justice is always the same whether for man or woman. No one has a right
to forbid things to a woman because they are “unwomanly”; neither should
any man be so mean as to talk of his unfaithful wife’s doings as if they
were his affair. Woman must be looked upon as an individual and as if
she were a free individual, not as one of a species, not as a sort of
creation from the various wants of man’s nature; even though woman
herself may never prove worthy of such a lofty view.
Thus this book may be considered as the greatest honour ever paid to
women. Nothing but the most moral relation towards women should be
possible for men; there should be neither sexuality nor love, for both
make woman the means to an end, but only the attempt to understand her.
Most men theoretically respect women, but practically they thoroughly
despise them; according to my ideas this method should be reversed. It
is impossible to think highly of women, but it does not follow that we
are to despise them for ever. It is unfortunate that so many great and
famous men have had mean views on this point. The views of Schopenhauer
and Demosthenes as to the emancipation of women are good instances. So
also Goethe’s
Immer is so das Mädchen beschäftigt und reifet im stillen
Häuslicher Tugend entgegen, den klugen Mann zu beglücken.
Wünscht sie dann endlich zu lesen, so wählt sie gewisslich ein
Kochbuch,
is scarcely better than Molière’s
... Une femme en sait toujours assez,
Quand la capacité de son esprit se hausse
A connaître un pourpoint d’avec un haut de chausse.
Men will have to overcome their dislike for masculine women, for that is
no more than a mean egoism. If women ever become masculine by becoming
logical and ethical, they would no longer be such good material for
man’s projection; but that is not a sufficient reason for the present
method of tying woman down to the needs of her husband and children and
forbidding her certain things because they are masculine.
For even if the possibility of morality is incompatible with the idea of
the absolute woman, it does not follow that man is to make no effort to
save the average woman from further deterioration; much less is he to
help to keep woman as she is. In every living woman the presence of what
Kant calls “the germ of good” must be assumed; it is the remnant of a
free state which makes it possible for woman to have a dim notion of her
destiny. The theoretical possibility of grafting much more on this “germ
of good” should never be lost sight of, even although nothing has ever
been done, or even if nothing could ever be done in that respect.
The basis and the purpose of the universe is the good, and the whole
world exists under a moral law; even to the animals, which are mere
phenomena, we assign moral values, holding the elephant, for instance,
to be higher than the snake, notwithstanding the fact that we do not
make an animal accountable when it kills another. In the case of woman,
however, we regard her as responsible if she commits murder, and in this
alone is a proof that women are above the animals. If it be the case
that womanliness is simply immorality, then woman must cease to be
womanly and try to be manly.
I must give warning against the danger of woman trying merely to liken
herself outwardly to man, for such a course would simply plunge her more
deeply into womanliness. It is only too likely that the efforts to
emancipate women will result not in giving her real freedom, in letting
her reach free-will, but merely in enlarging the range of her caprices.
It seems to me that if we look the facts of the case in the face there
are only two possible courses open for women: either to pretend to
accept man’s ideas, and to think that they believe what is really
opposed to their whole, unchanged nature, to assume a horror of
immorality (as if they were moral themselves), of sexuality (as if they
desired platonic love); or to openly admit that they are wrapped up in
husband and children, without being conscious of all that such an
admission implies, of the shamelessness and self-immolation of it.
Unconscious hypocrisy, or cynical identification with their natural
instincts; nothing else seems possible for woman.
But it is neither agreement nor disagreement with, but rather the denial
and overcoming of her womanishness that a woman should aim at. If a
woman really were to wish, for instance, for man’s chastity, it would
mean that she had conquered the woman in her, it would mean that pairing
was no longer of supreme importance to her and that her aim was no
longer to further it. But here is the trouble: such pretensions must not
be accepted as genuine, even although here and there they are actually
put forward. For a woman who longed for man’s purity is, apart from her
hysteria, so stupid and so incapable of truthfulness that she is unable
to perceive that she is in this way negating herself, making herself
absolutely worthless, without existence!
It is difficult to decide which is preferable: the unlimited hypocrisy
which can appropriate the thing that is most foreign to it, _i.e._, the
ascetic ideal, or the ingenuous admiration for the reformed rake, the
complacent devotion to him. The principal problem of the woman question
lies in the fact that in each case woman’s one desire is to put all
responsibility on man, and in this it is identical with the problem of
mankind.
Friedrich Nietzsche says in one of his books: “To underestimate the real
difficulties of the man and woman problem, to fail to admit the abysmal
antagonism and the inevitable nature of the constant strain between the
two, to dream of equal rights, education, responsibilities and duties,
is the mark of the superficial observer, and any thinker who has been
found shallow in these difficult places--shallow by nature--should be
looked upon as untrustworthy, as a useless and treacherous guide; he
will, no doubt, be one of those who ‘briefly deal with’ all the real
problems of life, death and eternity--who never gets to the bottom of
things. But the man who is not superficial, who has depth of thought as
well as of purpose, the depth which not only makes him desire right but
endows him with determination and strength to do right, must always look
on woman from the oriental standpoint:--as a possession, as private
property, as something born to serve and be dependent on him--he must
see the marvellous reasonableness of the Asiatic instinct of superiority
over women, as the Greeks of old saw it, those worthy successors and
disciples of the Eastern school. It was an attitude towards woman which,
as is well known, from Homer’s time till that of Pericles, grew with the
growth of culture, and increased in strength step by step, and gradually
became quite oriental. What a necessary, logical, desirable growth for
mankind! if we could only attain to it ourselves!”
The great individualist is here thinking in the terms of social ethics,
and the autonomy of his moral doctrine is overshadowed by the ideas of
caste, groups, and divisions. And so, for the benefit of society, to
preserve the place of men, he would place woman in subjection, so that
the voice of the wish for emancipation could no longer be heard, and so
that we might be freed from the false and foolish cry of the existing
advocates of women’s rights, advocates who have no suspicion of the real
source of woman bondage. But I quoted Nietzsche, not to convict him of
want of logic, but to lead to the point that the solution of the problem
of humanity is bound up with the solution of the woman problem. If any
one should think it a high-flown idea that man should respect woman as
an entity, a real existence, and not use her merely as a means to an
end, that he should recognise in her the same rights and the same duties
(those of building up one’s own moral personality) as his own, then he
must reflect that man cannot solve the ethical problem in his own case,
if he continues to lower the idea of humanity in the women by using her
simply for his own purposes.
Coitus is the price man has to pay to women, under the Asiatic system,
for their oppression. And although it is true that women may be more
than content with such recompence for the worst form of slavery, man has
no right to take part in such conduct, simply because he also is morally
damaged by it.
Even technically the problem of humanity is not soluble for man alone;
he has to consider woman even if he only wishes to redeem himself; he
must endeavour to get her to abandon her immoral designs on him. Women
must really and truly and spontaneously relinquish coitus. That
undoubtedly means that woman, as woman, must disappear, and until that
has come to pass there is no possibility of establishing the kingdom of
God on earth. Pythagoras, Plato, Christianity (as opposed to Judaism),
Tertullian, Swift, Wagner, Ibsen, all these have urged the freedom of
woman, not the emancipation of woman from man, but rather the
emancipation of woman from herself.
It is easy to bear Nietzsche’s anathema in such company! But it is very
hard for woman to reach such a goal by her own strength. The spark in
her is so flickering that it always needs the fire of man to relight it;
she must have an example to go by. Christ is an example; He freed the
fallen Magdalen, He swept away her past and expiated it for her. Wagner,
the greatest man since Christ’s time, understood to the full the real
significance of that act: until woman ceases to exist as woman for man
she cannot cease being woman. Kundry could only be released from
Klingsor’s curse by the help of a sinless, immaculate man--Parsifal.
This shows the complete harmony between the psychological and
philosophical deduction which is dealt with in Wagner’s “Parsifal,” the
greatest work in the world’s literature. It is man’s sexuality which
first gives woman existence as woman. Woman will exist as long as man’s
guilt is inexpiated, until he has really vanquished his own sexuality.
It is only in this way that the eternal opposition to all
anti-feministic tendencies can be avoided; the view that says, since
woman is there, being what she is, and not to be altered, man must
endeavour to make terms with her; it is useless to fight, because there
is nothing which can be exterminated. But it has been shown that woman
is negative and ceases to exist the moment man determines to be nothing
but true existence.
That which must be fought against is not an affair of ever unchangeable
existence and essence: it is something which can be put an end to, and
which ought to be put an end to.
* * * * *
This is the way, and no other, to solve the woman question, and this
comes from comprehending it. The solution may appear impossible, its
tone exaggerated, its claims overstated, its requirements too exacting.
Undoubtedly there has been little said about the woman question, as
women talk of it; we have been dealing with a subject on which women
are silent, and must always remain silent--the bondage which sexuality
implies.
This woman question is as old as sex itself, and as young as mankind.
And the answer to it? Man must free himself of sex, for in that way, and
that way alone, can he free woman. In his purity, not, as she believes,
in his impurity, lies her salvation. She must certainly be destroyed, as
woman; but only to be raised again from the ashes--new, restored to
youth--as a real human being.
So long as there are two sexes there will always be a woman question,
just as there will be the problem of mankind. Christ was mindful of this
when, according to the account of one of the Fathers of the
Church--Clemens--He talked with Salome, without the optimistic
palliation of the sex which St. Paul and Luther invented later: death
will last so long as women bring forth, and truth will not prevail until
the two become one, until from man and woman a third self, neither man
nor woman, is evolved.
* * * * *
Now for the first time, looking at the woman question as the most
important problem of mankind, the demand for the sexual abstinence on
the part of both sexes is put forward with good reason. To seek to
ground this claim on the prejudicial effects on the health following
sexual intercourse would be absurd, for any one with knowledge of the
physical frame could upset such a theory at all points; to found it on
the immorality of passion would also be wrong, because that would
introduce a heteronomous motive into ethics. St. Augustine, however,
must certainly have been aware, when he advocated chastity for all
mankind, that the objection raised to it would be that in such a case
the whole human race would quickly disappear from the face of the earth.
This extraordinary apprehension, the worst part of which appears to be
the thought that the race would be exterminated, shows not only the
greatest unbelief in individual immortality and eternal life for moral
well-doers; it is not only most irreligious, but it proves at the same
time the cowardice of man and his incapacity to live an individual life.
To any one who thinks thus, the earth can only mean the turmoil and
press of those on it; death must seem less terrible to such a man than
isolation. If the immortal, moral part of his personality were really
vigorous, he would have courage to look this result in the face; he
would not fear the death of the body, nor attempt to substitute the
miserable certainty of the continuation of the race for his lack of
faith in the eternal life of the soul. The rejection of sexuality is
merely the death of the physical life, to put in its place the full
development of the spiritual life.
Hence it follows that it cannot be a moral duty to provide for the
continuance of the race. This common argument appears to me to be so
extraordinarily false that I am almost ashamed to meet it. Yet at the
risk of making myself ridiculous I must ask if any one ever consummated
coitus to avoid the great danger of letting the human race die out, if
he failed in his duty? And would it not follow that any man who prefers
chastity would be open to the charge of immoral conduct? Every form of
fecundity is loathsome, and no one who is honest with himself feels
bound to provide for the continuity of the human race. And what we do
not realise to be a duty, is not a duty.
On the contrary, it is immoral to procreate a human being for any
secondary reason, to bring a being into the limitations of humanity, the
conditions made for him by his parentage; the fundamental reason why the
possible freedom and spontaneity of a human being is limited is that he
was begotten in such an immoral fashion. That the human race should
persist is of no interest whatever to reason; he who would perpetuate
humanity would perpetuate the problem and the guilt, the only problem
and the only guilt. The only true goal is divinity and the union of
humanity with the Godhead; that is the real choice between good and
evil, between existence and negation. The moral sanction that has been
invented for coitus, in supposing that there is an ideal attitude to
the act in which only the propagation of the race is thought of, is no
sufficient defence. There is no such imperative in the mind of man; it
is merely an ingenious defence of a desire, and there is the fundamental
immorality in it, that the being to be created has no power of choice
with regard to his parents. As for the sexual union in which the
production of children is prevented, there is no possible justification.
Sexual union has no place in the idea of mankind, not because ascetism
is a duty, but because in it woman becomes the object, the cause, and
man does what he will with her, looks upon her merely as a “thing,” not
as a living human being with an inner, psychic, existence. And so man
despises woman the moment coitus is over, and the woman knows that she
is despised, even although a few minutes before she thought herself
adored.
The only thing to be respected in man is the idea of mankind; this
disparagement of woman (and himself), induced by coitus, is the surest
proof that it is opposed to that idea of mankind. Any one who is
ignorant of what this Kantian “idea of mankind” means, may perhaps
understand it when he thinks of his sisters, his mother, his female
relatives; it concerns them all: for our own sakes, then, woman ought to
treated as human, respected and not degraded, all sexuality implying
degradation.
But man can only respect woman when she herself ceases to wish to be
object and material for man; if there is any question of emancipation it
should be the emancipation from the prostitute element. It has never
until now been made clear where the bondage of woman lies; it is in the
sovereign, all too welcome power wielded on them by the Phallus. There
can be no doubt that the men who have really desired the emancipation of
women are the men who are not very sexual, who have no great craving for
love, who are not very profound, but who are men of noble and spiritual
minds. I am not going to try to palliate the erotic motives of man, nor
to represent his antipathy to the “emancipated woman” as being in any
sense less than it is; it is much easier to go with the majority, than,
as Kant did, to climb, painfully and slowly, to the heights of
isolation.
But a great deal of what is taken for enmity to emancipation is due to
the want of confidence in its possibility. Man does not really want
woman as a slave: he is usually only too anxious for a companion. The
education which the woman of the present day receives is not calculated
to fit her for the battle against her real bondage. The last resource of
her “womanly” teacher, if she declines to do this or that, is to say
that no man will have her unless she does it. Women’s education is
directed solely to preparing them for their marriage, the happy state in
which they are to find their crown. Such training would have little
effect on man, but it serves to accentuate woman’s womanishness, her
dependence, and her servile condition. The education of woman must be
taken out of the hands of woman; the education of mankind must be taken
out of the hands of the mother. This is the first step towards placing
woman in a relation to the idea of mankind, which since the beginning
she has done more than anything else to hinder.
* * * * *
A woman who had really given up her sexual self, who wished to be at
peace would be no longer “woman.” She would have ceased to be “woman,”
she would have received the inward and spiritual sign as well as the
outward form of regeneration.
Can such a thing be?
There is no absolute woman, but even so to say “yes” to the above
question is like giving one’s assent to a miracle. Emancipation will not
make woman happier; it will not ensure her salvation, and it is a long
road which leads to God. No being in the transition stage between
freedom and slavery can be happy. But will woman choose to abandon
slavery in order to become unhappy? The question is not merely if it be
possible for woman to become moral. It is this: is it possible for
woman really to wish to realise the problem of existence, the conception
of guilt? Can she really desire freedom? This can happen only by her
being penetrated by an ideal, brought to the guiding star. It can happen
only if the categorical imperative were to become active in woman; only
if woman can place herself in relation to the moral idea, the idea of
humanity.
In that way only can there be an emancipation of woman.
INDEX
Æsthetics and Erotics, Chap. XI., 236-251
Affinity, sexual, compared with chemical, 41
Ahriman, 183
Alcmæon, of Kroton, 81
Alexander the Great, 229
Amphibia, hermaphroditism, 22
Anæsthesia, sexual, 274
Anatomical distinctions of the sexes, 3
Anatomy, as guide to sexuality, 3, 4
Animals, women and the sexual union of, 257
Angelo, M., 105
Anti-Christ, 183
Antisemitism, 303, 304, 312
Apprehension, 116
Architecture, 119
Aristotle, 18, 140, 187, 293
Arrhenoplasm, Chap. II., 11-25
Aryans, 302
Asceticism, 329, 336, 347
Attraction, between the sexes, 26, 27
Autobiography, 122
Avenarius, 31, 82, 94, 100, 128, 144, 322
Bach, 103, 323
Bachelors, and women, 258
Bacon, 182
Bashkirtseff, Marie, 69
Bateson, on dimorphic earwigs, 34
Beatrice, 240, 336
Beauty, analysis of, 240, 242
Beethoven, 96, 112, 317
Bentham, 176, 317
Berkeley, 141, 317
Bisexuality, oscillations in, 55
Bischoff, 12, 217
Björnson, 108
Blavatsky, Mdme., 68
Blindness, colour, 110
Blood, transfusion of, 20
Bölsche, 329
Bonheur, Rosa, 68
Bonnet, 143
Boys and girls, education of, 58
Breeding, application of laws of sexual attraction to, 43
Breuer, on hysteria, 265, 269, 270
Bridgman, Laura, 66
Brünnhilde, 223
Bruno, 141, 240, 316
Buchner, 315
Buddha, 325, 328
Burckhardt, 72
Burns, Robert, 317
Byron, Lord, 236
Cæsar, 134, 229, 230, 326
Carlyle, 113, 136, 140, 175, 229, 307, 317
Castration, effect of, 18
Catharsis, 269
Catherine II. of Russia, 66
Catholic view of marriage, 221
Catholicism and women, 207
Cattle, homosexuality in, 49
Causality, invented by man, 279
Cells, sexuality of, 15, 17, 22, 23
Ceres, 224
Chamberlain on Jews, 312, 321, 323, 328
on origin of Christianity, 328
“Character” of Avenarius, 94, 95, 96
Characterology, Chap. V., 52-63
Characters, classification of, 14
secondary sexual, 43
Chastity, 331, 332, 334, 335, 341, 346
Chemistry, Kepler’s estimate of, 315
Chemotropism, 39, 41
Child, relation of mother and prostitute to, 219
Chinese, 187, 302
Chivalry, 204
Chopin, 67
Christ, 313, 325, 329
Christianity and Judaism, 325, 327, 328
Clairvoyance, 277
Classification, 97
Clemens, 345
Cleopatra, 230
Coitus, 332, 337, 343
Colour blindness, 110
Commerce, and Jews, 325
Communism, 307
Comparisons, in poetry, 118
Compassion, womanly, 197
Compliments, and women, 203
Comprehension, power of by genius, 105
Comte, A., 141, 204, 244
Confucius, 328
Consciousness, male and female, Chap. III., 93-102
Conventions, women and, 262, 263
Conversion, Jews and, 323
Copernicus, 140, 315
Coquetry, and sexuality, 232
Correlations, importance of, 61
Cromwell, 229
Crustacea, hermaphroditism in, 19
Cuvier, 61, 62, 315
Cyrano de Bergerac, 211
Danäe, 231
Dante, 249, 299
Darwin, 97, 130, 140, 217
on correlation, 61
on female talent, 71
on heterostylism, 33, 34
on sexual tastes of animals, 27
on union of those akin, 44
Da Vinci, 97
Death, 346
Death, consciousness at, 128, 129
De Bergerac, 211
Decalogue, 313
Demeter, 224
Demosthenes, 340
Descartes, 149
Determinants, in psychology, 81
Determination of sex, 23
De Vries, on cell characters, 16
Dilthey, 82
Dimorphism, sexual, 6
Divorce, 221
Don Juan, 90, 233, 299, 332, 335
Doppelganger, 210
Drawing, and women, 120
Dualism of the world, 166
Dürer, 322
Eckhard, 313
Education, 57
of the race, 348
of women, 348
Ego, awakening of, 164
Ego, conception of, Chap. VII., 153-162
“Elective Affinities,” 69, 218
“Element” of Avenarius, 94
Eliot, George, 67
Emancipation of Women, Chap. VI., 64-75, 338
Embryoes, sexual differentiation of, 5
Emerson, 141, 230
Empedocles, 172
Emperors and genius, 139
Empiricism, and English philosophy, 317
English philosophy, 153
English and Jew compared, 317, 319
Erotics, and æsthetics, Chap. XI., 236-251
Eroticism and humour, 318
Ethics and Logic, Chap. VI., 142-152, Chap. VII., 153-162
Euler, 315
Euripides, 105, 187
Exner, 98
Faithfulness, sexual, 220
Falkenberg, on fertilisation in seaweeds, 40
Fall, meaning of, 283
Familiarity, quality of, 144
Family, origin of, 205
amongst the Jews, 310
Faraday, 315
Fechner, 82, 292, 313, 322
Female, contrasted with male, Chap. I., 79-84
Féré, on sexual inversion, 45
Ferns, sexual attraction caused by malic acid, 39
Fertility, limited in prostitutes, 216
Feuerbach, 141, 305
Fichte, 140, 150, 307
Fischart, 226
Flowers, heterostylous, 33, 34
Forgetting, analysis of process, 97
Form, matter and form, 293
Formula, of sexual attraction, 29, 37, 38
of sexual constitution, 8
Fouqué, 188
Free love, 221
Free will, 209
Freud, on hysteria, 265-277
Friendship, 49, 288
Galileo, 140, 315
Gall, on physiognomy, 59
Gauss, 140
Gaule, 12
Genesis, Book of, 295
Genital, glands, effect of transplantation, 21
Genius, compared with talent, Chap. IV., 103-113
and the Ego, Chap. VIII., 163-185
in evolution of race, 137
and language, 137
and maleness, 113
and memory, Chap. V., 114-141
and morality, 183
and time, 136
summary of, 169, 182, 183
Germain, Sophie, 194
Girls and boys, education of, 58
God, Schopenhauer’s definition, 313
Goethe, 40, 41, 43, 69, 97, 106, 107, 120, 126, 174, 203, 218, 228,
313, 316, 332, 340
Gonochorism, 6, 73
Grafting, of sexual organs, 20
Greeks and religion, 323
Guilt, hysterical consciousness of, 275
Hæckel’s “gonochorism,” 6
“Hakon,” King, 328
Hamilton, 317
Handel, 322
Happiness, impossibility of, 285
Hartley, 143, 317
Hatred, 236
Hauptmann, 276
Havelock Ellis, 11, 12
Hebbel, 279
Hegel, 155
Heine, 316, 323
Hellenbach, 287
Helmholtz, 82, 97
Henids, 99
Herbart, 93, 94, 141, 246
Hering, 143
Hermaphroditism, 6, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 45
“Hero-worship,” 113
Hertwig, 16
Heterostylism, 33, 34
Hildebrand, on heterostylism, 33
Hobbes, 316, 317
Homosexuality, Chap. IV., 45-52
of famous women, 66
Horwicz, 93, 94
Hume, 81, 141, 153, 164, 175, 193, 208, 218, 317
Humour, analysis of, 318
Hunter, John, 14
Hutcheson, 175
Huxley, 193, 317
Hydrocele, 25
Hypnotism, 50
Hypnotism and hysteria, 277
Hysteria, analysis of, 265
Ibsen, 160, 187, 218, 224, 231, 258, 290, 325, 343
Idealism, 176
Idioplasm, 16, 21, 155
Imagination, of women, 119
Immortality, 127, 135, 314, 346
“Impressions,” maternal, 217
Impulse, sexual, 87, 88, 282
Individualism, 176
Individuality, 282
Individuation, 282
Infants, sex of, 23, 24
Innocence, 243
Intermediate sexual forms, 7
Inversion, sexual, 45
Irony, 323
Israels, 316
James, W., 82, 144
Janet, on hysteria, 265, 267, 268
Jealousy, and women, 205, 289
Jewish race, 303
Jews and English compared, 319
and women compared, 320
Joshua, 328
Judaism, Chap. XIII., 301-330
and Christianity, 325
and the Messiah, 329
Kant, 42, 85, 105, 138, 150, 153, 158, 159, 161, 164, 192, 208, 237,
246, 270, 313, 320, 331, 340
Karneades, 141
Karsch, 49
Kaufmann, 119
Kepler, 315
Kleptomania, 205
Kowalevsky, Sonia, 67
Kraepelin, 45
Kundry, 270, 319, 337, 344
“Lady from the Sea,” 218
Lamarck, 97, 143, 315
Lange, 129, 208
Language, origin of, 137
Latin, women and, 89
Lavater, 174
Laws against homosexuality, 51
of sexual attraction, 29
Leda, 231, 291
Leibnitz, 140, 171, 172, 316
Lepage, Bastien, 69
Lewes, 317
Liars, and memory, 145
Libraries, and women, 206
Lichtenberg, 153
Linnæus, 140, 315
Locke, 141, 317
Logic and the Ego, Chap. VII., 153, 162
Logic and ethic, Chap. VII., 153-162
and memory, Chap. VI., 142-152
Lohengrin, 324
Lombroso, 138
Lotze, 125
Love, analysis of, 236, 251
maternal, 225
and sexuality, 239
Luther, 325
Luxemburg, 69
Mach, 143, 154, 201, 208, 210, 322
Madness, and genius, 183
Madonna worship, 249
Maeterlinck, 108
Mahomet, 187, 325
Male and Female, Chap. I., 79-84
minds, 284
plasmas, 11
Malic acid in ferns, 39
Marriage, effect on progeny of loveless, 44
ideas of boys and girls on, 90
religious, 221
Marx, 307
Marxism, 329
Masculine women, 2, 8, 17
Match-making, and women, 252-300
amongst Jews, 311
Materialism, and Jews, 314
Matriarchy, 222
Matter, and form, 293
and woman, 292
Maupas, on rotifers, 24
Maupassant, 276
Mayer, 97
Medicine, Jewish influence on, 315
Medical view of hysteria, 271
“Meistersingers,” 305
Memory, 282
and genius, Chap. V., 114-141
in boys and girls, 294
in relation to logic, Chap. VI., 142-152
Messalina, 336
Messiah, 325, 329
Meta-organisms, 287
Metaphysics, Jews and, 322
Microcosm, 171
Mill, J. S., 176, 317
Milne-Edwards, 291
Mirandola, 188
Modesty, 261, 274
womanly, 200
Molière, 340
Moll, 52, 88
Monads, 198, 287, 294, 297
Monogamy, 43, 220
Morality, 176
Morality of women, 196, 278, 340
More, 73
Morphology, in relation to character, Chap. V., 52-63
Motherhood, analysis of, Chap. X., 214-235
Mozart, 323
Müller, Joh., 217
Murder, 109
Music, and women, 118
Myxodema, 25
Naegeli, 16
Names, and women, 206
“Nana,” 231
Napoleon, 182, 228, 326, 327
Newton, 140, 315
New Testament, 325
New Zealand, 339
Nietzsche, 104, 108, 140, 167, 329, 342, 344
Nirwana, 174
Nobility, Jews and, 308
Nörgler, 174
Novalis, 103, 165, 258
Nudity, 240, 241
Organotherapy, 21
Oriental view of women, 342
Origen, 187
Oscillations, in sexuality, 54
Ostwald, 31, 315
Ovid, 332
Owen, 307
Painting, and women, 120
Pairing, woman’s chief instinct, 252-300
and Jews, 311
“Parsifal,” 305, 337, 344
Pascal, 179, 205
Pasiphäe, 291
Pasteur, 315
Paternity, 232, 346
Pathology, 25
Paul, Jean, 103, 164, 318
Pederasty, Chap. IV., 45-52
“Peer Gynt,” 224, _foot note_
Periodicity, of genius, 107
Personality, multiple, 211, 267
Persoon, 33
Petzoldt, 96, 100
Pfeffer, 39
Phallus, relation of, to women, 298, 347
Philosophy, English, 153
Philosophers, and genius, 141
Physiognomy, 59, 60
Piety, 322
Pity, 199
Plasmas, male and female, 11
Plato, 149, 150, 240, 246, 293, 313, 343
Platonic love, 239
Pleasure, 282
Politeness, and women, 203
Politician, character of, 230
Politicians and genius, 139
and value, 134
Pollen, in heterostylous flowers, 35
Polyandry, 222
Polygamy, 220
Pregnancy, 86, 222
Pre-Raphaelites, 73
Prévost, 256
Preyer, 315
Pride, of women, 201
Property, Jewish relation to, 306
Prostitution, analysis of, Chap. X., 214-235
Protestantism, and women, 207
Psychology, 142
male and female, Chap. IX., 186-213
Puberty, effect of, 90
Pythagoras, 343
Rabbis, Jewish, 311
Race, persistence of human, 224, 346
Raphael, 226
Recognition, 282
Red Sea, crossing of, 323
Regeneration, of lost parts, 16
moral, 283
Religion, founders of, 326, 327
importance of, 323
Jews and, 321
women and, 261
Revenge, 289
Reverence, 322
Richepin, 226
Rousseau, 307
Rudiments, of embryonic sexual organs, 3
Ruskin, 307
St. Augustine, 345
Salome, 345
Samson, 328
Sand, George, 66
Sappho, 65, 66
Schelling, 81, 105, 138, 165, 246
Schiller, 230, 246
Schleiermacher, 140
Schoolmasters, and types, 57
Schopenhauer, 95, 167, 174, 199, 218, 223, 236, 237, 238, 281, 295,
305, 313, 318, 340
Schrenk-Notzing, 45
Schurtz, 205
Schwammerdam, 315
Science, and genius, 140
Judaism, in, 314
Secretion, internal, and sexual characters, 15
Sellheim and Foges, experiments on castration, 18
Servant, type of woman, 272
Sex, appearance of, in embryos, 5
assignment of, to infants, 22, 23, 24
Sexual attraction, laws of, Chap. III., 26-44
characters, secondary, 14, 43
impulses, 88
Sexuality, of male and female compared, 85, 92
opposed to love, 239
of women, 260, 331, 332, 334, 335
Shaftesbury, 246
Shakespeare, 105, 109, 110, 317
Shelley, 168, 317
Shrew, type of woman, 272
“Siegfried,” 223, 305
Sigwart, 156
Simmel, George, 148
Slavery, compared with Jewish problem, 338
Smith, Adam, 175, 317
Socialism, 307
Society, origin of, 205
Socrates, 150, 246, 326
Solidarity, of the Jews, 310
Solitude, and women, 205
Solliers, on sexual anæsthesia, 274
Somerville, Mary, 194
Sophocles, 184
Soul, 313
denied by modern science, 315
and great men, 168
and modern psychology, 209
and women, 187
Spencer, Herbert, 128, 130, 263, 317
Spinoza, 316, 317
Sprengel, 315
State, 307
Steenstrup, 12, 13
Sterility, 216
Stern, L. W., 82
Sterne, 317
“Stockman, Dr.,” 325
Strauss, 112
Strindberg, 187
Sudermann, 256
Suggestibility, of women, 294
Suicide, of women, 286
Sulpicia, 319
Superstition, of women, 127
Swift, 317, 343
Sympathy, 177, 197
“Tannhäuser,” 240, 305
Telegony, 233
Teresa, St., 277
Tertullian, 187, 314, 343
“Tesman,” in Hedda Gabler, 258
Thelyplasm, Chap. II., 11-25
Time, relation to value, 133
Tolstoy, 231
Touch, sense of, in women, 191
Tragedy, 319
Transcendentalism, 314
Transfusion, of blood, 20
Travel, desire of, 237, _note_
Truth, 150
Türck, 138
Tylor, 128
Types, male and female, mental, 53
Undine, 188
Universality, of genius, 112
Untruthfulness, of women, 266
Value, theory of, 133
Vanity, of women, 202
Variation in sexual characters, 18
Virginity, a male idea, 333
woman’s attitude to, 334
Virtue of women, 333
Vogt, on hysteria, 265, 274, 277
Von Eschenbach, 264
Von Höffding, 144
Von Humboldt, 140
Von Kleist, 105
Von Möbius, 59
Wagner, 67, 109, 211, 240, 279, 305, 319, 343
Weill, 36
Weismann, 81
Wier, 81
Will, 282
Wit and humour, 318
Woman and animals, 290, 291
character of, 280
emancipated, 64
famous, 69
future of, Chap. XIV., 331-340
compared with Jews, 320
and matter, 292
sexuality of, 260
summary of her nature, Chap. XII., 252-300
Wundt, 94, 131, 140
“Zarathustra,” 108, 167
Zionism, 307, 312
Zola, 105, 231, 304
Printed by BALLANTYNE & CO. LIMITED
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Transcriber’s Notes
The language of the source document (including inconsistencies in
spelling, hyphenation, etc.) has been retained, unless listed below.
Many of the proper names mentioned in the book are spelled differently
from what is usual. These have been left as printed as well, unless
listed below.
Page xviii, Continuous and discontinuance memory: as printed in the
source document.
Page 36, so many other actors: possibly an error for so many other
factors.
Page 141, Prospera: possibly an error for Prospero.
Page 205, much more developed in men than in women: probably an error
for much more developed in women than in men (cf. remainder of
paragraph).
Page 282, The terms in the left-hand row: as printed in the source
document.
Page 307, in the left row: as printed in the source document.
Changes made
Some minor obvious typographical and punctuation errors and misprints
have been corrected silently.
Footnotes have been moved to directly underneath the paragraph where
they are referenced.
Page 7: Boyle-Guy-Lussac changed to Boyle-Gay-Lussac
Page 25: thelyplastic changed to thelyplasmic
Page 29: closing quote mark added after ... in different proportions.
Page 38: Postwangen changed to Postwagen
Page 69: Jeanna de la Mothe Guyon changed to Jeanne de la Mothe Guyon;
Footnote 6: Hysterias if ... changed to Hysteria is ...
Page 97: Helmholz changed to Helmholtz as elsewhere
Page 118: Kloppstock changed to Klopstock
Page 160: Nebbel’s epigram changed to Hebbel’s epigram
Page 181: Ernest Mack changed to Ernest Mach
Page 185: closing quote mark added after Latin text
Page 217: Th. Bischof changed to Th. Bischoff
Page 305: Tannhaüser changed to Tannhäuser
Index: some minor spelling changes made to conform to the text.