Europe, the real grounds which lead to divorce—not the mere legal
pretexts given—are highly ethical ones. We have hinted at this when we
analyzed the religious life; the main reason is the ethical objection to
continuing externally in a marriage which has ceased to be spiritually
congenial. It is the women especially, and generally the very best
women, who prefer to take the step, with all the hardships which it
involves, to prolonging a marriage which is spiritually hypocritical and
immoral. Infidelity of the woman is the ground of divorce in only a
vanishingly small number of cases, and the sexual purity of marriage is
on a high plane throughout the people. The pure atmosphere of this
somewhat unemotional people, which makes it possible for any woman to
wend her way without escort through the streets of a large city in the
evening and to travel alone across the Continent, and which protects the
girl on the street from being stared at or rudely accosted, protects
even more the married woman. Although French society dramas are
presented on the American stage, one feels from the general attitude of
the public that it really fails to understand the psychology of what is
being performed, because all the ethical presuppositions are so entirely
different. What the Parisian finds piquant, the New Englander finds
shameless; and the woman over whom the Frenchman smiles disgusts the
American.
And in still another sense American marriage is purer than the European;
it lacks the commercial element. As characteristic as this fact is in
economic life, it is even more significant in social life. This does not
mean that the man who pays court to the daughter of a millionaire is
entirely unconscious of the economic advantages which such a marriage
would bring. But the systematic searching around for a dowry, with some
woman attached to it, is unknown in the New World, and is thoroughly
un-American. This may be seen in American plays; the familiar German
comedies, in which the search for a rich bride is a favourite motive,
strike the American public as entirely vapid and humourless. Americans
either do not understand or else look down with pity on the marital
depravity of the Old World, and such stage scenes are as intrinsically
foreign as those others, so familiar to Europe, in which the rich young
nobleman who after all marries the poor governess, is held up as a
remarkable example of magnanimity.
The purely human elements are the only ones which count in marriage. It
is a congenial affiliation of two persons, without regard to social
advantage or disadvantage, if only the persons care for each other. And
this idea is common to the whole nation, and gives marriage a high moral
status. Moreover, the surpassing education of the young American woman,
her college life, works in one way to exalt marriage. If she has learned
anything in her college atmosphere, it is moral seriousness. She has
gone there to face duties squarely and energetically, to account small
things small, and large things large; and so, when she approaches the
new duty of making a home, she overcomes all obstacles there with
profound moral determination.
In spite of this, one may ask, Is her development in the right direction
for subsequent events? While so much has contributed to the exaltation
and purity of her marriage, has she not learned a great deal else which
tends rather indirectly and perhaps unnoticeably to disorganize
marriage, the home, the family, and the people? Is the increasing social
self-assertion of woman really in the interests of culture? Let us
picture to ourselves the contrast, say with Germany. There too the
interests in the social advance of women is lively on all sides; but the
situation is wholly different. Four main tendencies may be easily picked
out. One relates to a very small number of exceptional women who have
shown great talent or perhaps real genius. Such women are to be
emancipated and to have their own life career. But the few who are
called to do great things in art or science or otherwise, are not very
apt to wait for others to emancipate them, and the number of these women
is so small that this movement has hardly any social or economic
importance in comparison with the other three which concern large
numbers of women.
Of these other three, the first concerns the women of the lower classes,
who throughout Germany are so poor that they have to earn a livelihood,
and are in danger of sacrificing their family life. The lever is applied
to improve their social condition, to put legal limits to the labour of
women, and to protect them, so that the poor man’s wife shall have more
opportunities in the family. Another movement is to benefit the
daughters of more well-to-do people, to give them when they marry, a
more intellectual career, to elevate the wife through a broader
education above the pettiness of purely domestic interests and the
superficiality of ordinary social life, and so to make her the true
comrade of her husband. And the last movement concerns those millions of
women who cannot marry because women are not only the more numerous, but
also because one-tenth of German men will not marry. They are urged to
replace the advantages which they would have in marriage by a life
occupation; and although women of the lower classes have had enough
opportunity to work, those of the upper classes have until recently been
excluded from any such blessing. A great deal has been done here to
improve the situation and partly in direct imitation of the American
example.
But the real background of all these movements in Germany has been the
conviction that marriage is the natural destiny of woman. The aim has
been to improve marriage in the lower classes by relieving the woman of
degrading labour, in upper classes by giving the woman a superior
education; and the other two movements are merely expedients to supply
some sort of substitute for life’s profoundest blessing, which is found
only in marriage. There is no such background in America; there is a
desire to protect American marriage, but it is not presupposed that
marriage is, in and of itself, the highest good for woman. The
completion of woman’s destiny lies rather in giving to her as to the man
an intrinsically high life content whether she is married or not
married; it is a question of her individual existence, as of his.
Marriage is thus not the centre, and an independent career is in no
sense a compensation or a makeshift; even the betterment of marriage is
only intended as a means of bettering the individual. Woman is on
exactly the same footing as man. The fundamental German principle that
woman’s destiny is found in marriage, while the man is married only
incidentally, involves at once the inequality of the sexes; and this
fundamental inequality is only slightly lessened by these four new
German movements. It is a secondary consequence that the woman is
growing to be more nearly like the man. But according to the American
point of view, her fundamental equality is the foundation principle;
both alike aim to expand their individual personalities, to have their
own valuable life content, and by marriage to benefit each other. And
only secondarily, after marriage is accomplished, does the consequence
appear that necessarily the woman has her special duties and her
corresponding special rights; and then the principle of equality between
the two finds its limitations. Now when this takes place, the
self-assertion of the American woman is found to be not wholly
favourable to the institution of marriage; it gives the married woman a
more interesting life content, but it inclines the unmarried woman much
less toward marriage; it robs society of that great support of
marriage—the feeling that it is woman’s destiny.
Here, again, the most diverse factors work together. The social freedom
of communication between men and women, the secure propriety of
associating with men, and the independent freedom to go about which is
peculiar to the American girl’s education give to the unmarried girl all
those rights and advantages which in Europe she does not have until she
is married. The American girl has really nothing but duties to face,
domestic cares and perhaps quite unaccustomed burdens, in case she
marries a man in limited circumstances; externally she has nothing to
gain, and internally she is little disturbed by any great passion. She
flirts from her youth up, and is the incomparable mistress of this
little social art; but the moving passion is apt to be neglected, and
one may question whether all her mischievous roguery and graceful
coquetry are anything more than a social accomplishment, like dancing or
skating or playing golf—whether it in any way touches the heart. It is a
diversion, and not a true life content.
Then, too, the girl has a feeling of intellectual superiority which for
the most part is entirely justified. The European girl has been brought
up to believe in the superiority of the man, accustomed to feel that her
own gifts are incomplete, that they come to have real value only in
conjunction with a man, and her inferior scientific training suggests to
her unconsciously that she will be intellectually exalted when she
allies herself to some man. That will fill out her intellectual
personality. The American girl has hardly ever such an idea; she has
learned in the school-room how foolish boys are, how lazy and careless,
and then, too, she has continued her own education it may be years after
the men of her acquaintance have gone into practical life. Many high
schools have one-third of their pupils boys and two-thirds girls, and
the ratio grows in favour of the girls. Moreover, everything tends to
give the girl her own aspirations and plans independent of any
man—aspirations which are not essentially furthered or completed by her
marriage alliance. American women often laugh at the way in which German
women introduce abstract questions at the Kaffeeklatsch: “Now my husband
says—.” The intellectual personality of the American girl must develop
so much the more independently of male influence as the distinction
which commences in school years is even more actual in the years of
maturity. The older the American man grows the more he concentrates
himself on business or politics, while his wife in a certain way
continues her schooling, devotes her entire time to every sort of
intellectual stimulation; the wife reads books, while the husband reads
newspapers. It is undeniable that in the average American home the woman
makes the profounder intellectual impression on every visitor, and the
number of women is continually growing who instinctively feel that there
is no advantage in marrying a man who is intellectually an inferior;
they would rather remain single than contract a marriage in which they
have to be the intellectual head.
While, therefore, there are neither novel social advantages nor any
emotional urgency, nor yet intellectual inducements, to persuade women
to marry, there are other circumstances which urge her strongly not to
do so. In the first place, marriage may interfere directly with the life
career which she has planned for herself. A woman who has taken an
occupation to save herself from misery looks on marriage with a man who
earns enough to support a family as a sort of salvation; while the woman
who has chosen some calling because her life means so much more if it is
useful to the world, who is earnestly devoted to her work, truly
ambitious and thoroughly competent, ponders a long time before she goes
into a marriage which necessarily puts an end to all this. She may well
prefer to sacrifice some sentimental inclination to the profound
interest she feels in her work.
The American girl is, moreover, not fond of domestic cares. It would not
be fair to say that she is a bad house-keeper, for the number of wives
who have to get along without servants is much greater than in Germany.
And even in spite of the various economic advantages which she enjoys,
it is undeniable that the American woman takes her home duties
seriously, looks after every detail, and keeps the whole matter well in
hand. But nevertheless, she feels very differently toward her capacities
along this line. The German woman feels that her household is a source
of joy; the American woman, that it is a necessary evil. The American
woman loves to adorn her home and tries to express in it her own
personality, not less than her German sister; but everything beyond
this—the mere technique of house-keeping, cleaning, purchasing,
repairing, and hiring servants—she feels to be, after all, somewhat
degrading. The young woman who has been to college attacks her household
duties seriously and conscientiously, but with the feeling that she
would rather sacrifice herself by nursing the suffering patients in a
hospital. The perfect economic appliances for American house-keeping
save a great deal of labour which the German wife has to perform, and
perhaps just on that account the American woman feels that the rest of
it is vexatious work which women have to do until some new machines can
be devised to take their places. This disinclination to household
drudgery pervades the whole nation, and it is only the older generations
in country districts that take a pride in their immaculate
house-keeping, while the younger generations even there have the
tendency to shirk household work. The daughters of farmers would rather
work in a factory, because it is so much more stimulating and lively,
than ironing or washing dishes or tending baby brother and sister at
home; for the same reason, they will not become domestic servants for
any one else. And so, for the upper and the lower classes, the
disinclination to house-work stands very much in the way of marriage.
This disinclination affects marriage in still another way. Families are
tending more and more to give up separate houses and live in family
hotels, or, if more modestly circumstanced, in boarding-houses. The
expense of servants has something to do with this, but the more
important factor is the saving of work for the wife. The necessary
consequence is the dissolution of intimate family life. When a dozen
families eat year in and year out in the same dining-room, the close
relations which should prevail in the family take on a very different
shading. And thus it is that the intellectual self-assertion of women
works, in the most diverse ways, against the formation of marriages and
against family life. There is one argument, however, which is always
urged by the opponents of woman’s emancipation which is not valid—at
least, not for America. It is the blue-stocking bugbear. This
unattractive type of woman is not produced by higher education in
America. Many a young American girl, who has arrived at years of
personal independence during her college life, may have lost her
interest in the average sort of marriage; but she has by no means lost
the attraction she exerts on men.
The tendency of woman’s self-assertion against marriage appears to go
even further; the exaggerated expression, “race suicide,” has sometimes
been used. It is true that the increase of native population, especially
in the more civilized parts of the country, is ominously small; this is
probably the result of diverse factors. There are physicians, for
instance, who claim that the intellectual training of women and the
nervous excitement incident to their independent, self-reliant attitude
are among the main causes; but more important, others say, are the
voluntary precautions which are dictated by the desire of ease and
comfort. This last is a serious factor, and there lies behind it again
the spirit of self-assertion; the woman wants to live out her own life,
and her individualistic instinct works against the large family. But
there is nothing here which threatens the whole nation; since, even
aside from the very large immigration which introduces healthy,
prolific, and sturdy elements, the births of the whole country exceed
those of almost any of the European nations. In Germany, between 1890
and 1900, for every thousand inhabitants the births numbered annually
36.2 and the deaths 22.5—so that there were 13.7 more births; in England
the births were 30.1 and deaths 18.4, with a difference of 11.7; in the
United States the births were 35.1 and deaths 17.4, with a difference of
17.7 more births.
Of course, these figures would make all anxiety seem ridiculous, if the
proportions were equally distributed over the country, and through all
the elements of the population. As a matter of fact, however, there are
the greatest differences. In Massachusetts, for instance, we may
distinguish three classes of population; those white persons whose
parents were born in the country, and those whose parents were
foreigners, and the blacks. This negro population of Massachusetts has
the same birth and death rate as the negro elsewhere; for every thousand
persons there are 17.4 more births than deaths. For the second
class—that is, the families of foreign parentage—there are actually 45.6
more births than deaths; while in the white families of native parentage
there are only 3.8. In some other North Atlantic States, the condition
is still worse; in New Hampshire, for instance, the excess of births in
families of foreign parentage is 58.5, while in those of native
parentage the situation is actually reversed, and there are 10.4 more
deaths than births. So it happens that for all the New England States,
the native white population, in the narrower sense, has a death
preponderance of 1.5 for every thousand inhabitants; so that, in the
intellectually superior part of the country, the strictly native
population is not maintaining itself.
Interesting statistics recently gathered at Harvard University show that
its graduates are also not holding their own. Out of 881 students who
were graduated more than twenty-five years ago, 634 are married, and
they have 1,262 children. On the probable assumption that they will have
no more children, and that these are half males, we find that 881
student graduates in 1877 leave in 1902 only 631 sons. The climatic
conditions cannot be blamed for this, since the surplus of births in
families born of foreign parents is not only very great, but is far
greater than in any of the European countries from which these immigrant
parents came. Of European countries, Hungary has the greatest excess of
births—namely, 40.5, as compared with 13.7 in Germany. That population
of America which comes from German, Irish, Swedish, French, and Italian
parentage has, even in New England, a birth surplus of 44.5. The general
conditions of the country seem, therefore, favourable to fecundity, and
this casts a greater suspicion on social conditions and ideals. And the
circumstance must not be overlooked, that the increased pressure of
women into wage-earning occupations lessens the opportunities of the
men, and so contributes indirectly to prevent the man from starting his
home early in life. In short, from whatever side we look at it, the
self-assertion of woman exalts her at the expense of the family—perfects
the individual, but injures society; makes the American woman perhaps
the finest flower of civilization, but awakens at the same time serious
fears for the propagation of the American race.
There are threatening clouds in other quarters of the horizon. The
much-discussed retroactive effect of feminine emancipation on the family
should not distract attention from its effect on culture as a whole.
Here the dissimilarity to the German conditions is obvious. The German
woman’s movement aims to give the woman a most significant rôle in
general matters of culture, but still does not doubt, as a matter of
course, that the general trend of culture will be determined by the men.
Just as it is a dogmatic presupposition in Germany that marriage is the
most desirable occupation for women, so it is tacitly presupposed that
intellectual culture will take its actual stamp from the men. In America
not only this view of marriage, but even this view of culture, has been
opposed for a long time; and the people behave as if both were
antiquated and superstitious notions, devised by the stronger sex for
its own convenience, and as if their reversal would benefit the entire
race.
Anybody who looks the matter squarely in the face is not left to doubt
that everything in America is tending not only to sacrifice the
superiority of man and to give the woman an equal position, but to
reverse the old situation and make her very much the superior. In
business, law, and politics, the American man is still sovereign, and in
spite of the many women who press into the mercantile professions he is
still in a position where he serves rather than directs. And it is very
characteristic of the moral purity of the people that, in spite of the
incomparable social power of women, they have not a trace of personal
influence on important political events. On the other hand, they dictate
in matters of education, religion, literature and art, social problems,
and public morals. Painting, music, and the theatre cater to woman, and
for her the city is beautified and purified; although she does not do it
herself, it is her taste and feeling which decide everything; she
determines public opinion, and distributes all the rewards at her good
pleasure. If the family problem is shown in a lurid light by the
decrease of births in the native New England population, the problem of
culture comes out into broad daylight only in those figures which we
have seen before; the 327,614 women teachers and the 111,710 men.
Thus three-quarters of American education is administered by women; and
even in the high school where the boys go till they are eighteen or
nineteen years old, 57.7 per cent. of the teachers are women; and in
those normal schools where both men and women go to fit themselves for
teaching, 71.3 per cent. of the instructors are women. It appears, then,
that the young men of the country, even in the years when boyhood ripens
to youth, receive the larger part of their intellectual impetus from
women teachers, and that all of those who are going to be school
teachers and shape the young souls of the nation are in their turn
predominantly under the influence of women. In colleges and universities
this is still not the case, but soon will be if things are not changed;
the great number of young women who pass their doctorial examinations
and become specialists in science will have more and more to seek
university professorships, or else they will have studied in vain. And
here, as in the school, the economic conditions strongly favour the
woman; since she has no family to support, she can accept a position on
a salary so much smaller that the man is more and more crowded from the
field. And it may be clearly foreseen that, if other social factors do
not change, women will enter as competitors in every field where the
labour does not require specifically masculine strength. So it has been
in the factories; so it is in the schools; and so, in a few decades, it
may be in the universities and in the churches.
Even although the professorial chairs still belong for the most part to
men, the presence of numerous women in the auditorium cannot be wholly
without influence on the routine of work. The lecturer is forced to
notice, as is the speaker in any public gathering, that at least
two-thirds of his hearers present the cheerful aspect of gay millinery
and lace collar, so that intellectual culture and public opinion on
non-political questions come more and more to be dominated by women—as
many persons are beginning to see. Most of them greet this unique turn
in human history as the peculiar advantage of this nation; the man looks
after the industry and politics, and the woman after moral, religious,
artistic, and intellectual matters. If there is any doubt that she is
competent to do this, most Americans are satisfied to observe the
earnestness and conscientiousness with which the American woman attends
to her duties, at the zeal and success with which she applies herself to
her studies, and at her victory over men wherever she competes.