It is pathetic to hear women of intelligence arguing in support
of woman's claim to "equality" with man.
Of course, woman is really man's superior in important matters.
She is vastly superior morally, beyond any question.
She does the greatest work in the world; she gives to earth its
thinking population and creates every one of the great men that
move civilization along. ----
But otherwise, in the way of MATERIAL accomplishment, woman
cannot be said to equal man at present, and she cannot be said
ever to have equaled him.
Many of the most intelligent women demand recognition for woman
as equal or superior to man in all ways.
They are deeply hurt if in gentle, patient reply you ask them to
mention a female equivalent to a Newton, Archimedes or
Shakespeare. It annoys them to tell them that a million
autopsies prove fundamental differences between male and female
brains in favor of the former--at least as regards volume and
depth of cerebral convolutions.
Sometimes, after you have listened to a proud, high-spirited
woman trying to prove that women would equal men in material
accomplishment, if only they had a chance, you get so sad that
you find yourself helping her out--digging up De Sevignes,
De Staels, and other "great" women who have made up in brains
for what they perhaps lacked in femininity. ----
It is necessary to bear in mind that this earth, when man was
turned loose upon it, was really a sort of desert island. It was
a conglomeration of swamps, forests, deserts--all filled with
wild beasts. Even the human beings, struggling feebly toward
better days, were not far from the beasts at first. (They are
not very far from them even now.)
Two kinds of work had to be done. The men had to fight, dig,
hunt, drain marshes and murder each other.
The women had to SUPPLY THE MEN to do all the working and
fighting and killing.
Beasts, wars, fevers killed off the sons of women almost as fast
as they could bear them. Women must supply the demand for
soldiers and workers and at the same time a surplus big enough to
populate the globe. Thus far she has put on earth fourteen
hundred millions of her own kind. Quite an achievement, we
should say, when the career of a Napoleon or an Alexander called
for a couple of million of men extra, or a plague like the
black death, due to man's stupid lack of cleanliness, wiped out
two-thirds of Europe's people. ----
Men were the material workers--of course they exceeded in
material achievement the women nursing babies at home.
But woman, caring for her children, sacrificing her life for
them, developed on earth the moral sentiments, started each
generation on its career a little better than its predecessor.
She could not do all this and do the material things as well. In
fact, she could not even THINK except on matters very near to
her cradle, or her affections.
Remember that throughout the world's history it has been the lot
of a vast majority of women to be constantly caring for young
infants, or young children. Families of twenty children, or even
more, have been common. It is probable that woman from the
beginning of our racial existence until now has been the mother
of from fifteen to twenty-five children on an average.
The dullest mind can see what that means.
Atrocious suffering. Endless worry about the children. Constant
warfare against the man's selfish brutality.
How could woman rear her twenty children and at the same time do
other work? How could she keep every thought, every effort of
her brain on her offspring and develop her mind in other ways at
the same time?
Give a man one young child to take care of FOR ONE DAY, and when
you return to him you find a semi-imbecile, half-tearful
creature.
In every great man's life you hear some remark of this sort:
"How can I work, Maria, if you let the children make such a
noise?"
Well, how could the millions of Marias work with the children
hanging to their skirts all through history? ----
But a better day is ahead for woman, and we are proud to point it
out to her.
Wise men begin to wonder what we shall do when the earth is fully
peopled? Shall we kill surplus babies, or what shall we do?
There will be no surplus babies. Nature will arrange that.
For every two human beings on earth two new ones will be born.
Wars will be ended. Common sense will have done away with the
unnecessary illness which now robs millions of mothers.
No woman will have more than two children. Education will be
understood. Women will not be slaves to their babies. They will
be admired and thanked and made happy before the babies arrive
--instead of being half ashamed, as at present.
The rearing of children will be simple. Each woman, instead of
devoting twenty years of her life to child slavery, will have
practically her whole life to devote to other things. She will
be able to cultivate her mind. She will have more of a hold on
Mr. Selfish Man, and he will have to pay more attention to her.
WOMAN'S hour of full mental development will arrive with the
final and complete population of the globe, just as man's day of
real mental growth will come after he shall have mastered the
forces of nature and learned the elements of true social science.
----
Even then we do not anticipate that repulsive "equality" between
men and women which is so much prated about.
The complete human being is not A MAN, nor is it A WOMAN. The
COMPLETE human being is a man AND a woman. The TWO MAKE ONE.
Each
will contribute a share to the perfection of the whole. That was
the way it was planned from the beginning, and we think we could
prove it, if this column were six feet longer.