Faithful to our promise, this first part has indicated the general
causes which bring all marriages to the crises which we are about to
describe; and, in tracing the steps of this conjugal preamble, we have
also pointed out the way in which the catastrophe is to be avoided, for
we have pointed out the errors by which it is brought about.
But these first considerations would be incomplete if, after
endeavoring to throw some light upon the inconsistency of our ideas, of
our manners and of our laws, with regard to a question which concerns
the life of almost all living beings, we did not endeavor to make
plain, in a short peroration, the political causes of the infirmity
which pervades all modern society. After having exposed the secret
vices of marriage, would it not be an inquiry worthy of philosophers to
search out the causes which have rendered it so vicious?
The system of law and of manners which so far directs women and
controls marriage in France, is the outcome of ancient beliefs and
traditions which are no longer in accordance with the eternal
principles of reason and of justice, brought to light by the great
Revolution of 1789.
Three great disturbances have agitated France; the conquest of the
country by the Romans, the establishment of Christianity and the
invasion of the Franks. Each of these events has left a deep impress
upon the soil, upon the laws, upon the manners and upon the intellect
of the nation.
Greece having one foot on Europe and the other on Asia, was influenced
by her voluptuous climate in the choice of her marriage institutions;
she received them from the East, where her philosophers, her
legislators and her poets went to study the abstruse antiquities of
Egypt and Chaldea. The absolute seclusion of women which was
necessitated under the burning sun of Asia prevailed under the laws of
Greece and Ionia. The women remained in confinement within the marbles
of the gyneceum. The country was reduced to the condition of a city, to
a narrow territory, and the courtesans who were connected with art and
religion by so many ties, were sufficient to satisfy the first passions
of the young men, who were few in number, since their strength was
elsewhere taken up in the violent exercises of that training which was
demanded of them by the military system of those heroic times.
At the beginning of her royal career Rome, having sent to Greece to
seek such principles of legislation as might suit the sky of Italy,
stamped upon the forehead of the married woman the brand of complete
servitude. The senate understood the importance of virtue in a
republic, hence the severity of manners in the excessive development of
the marital and paternal power. The dependence of the woman on her
husband is found inscribed on every code. The seclusion prescribed by
the East becomes a duty, a moral obligation, a virtue. On these
principles were raised temples to modesty and temples consecrated to
the sanctity of marriage; hence, sprang the institution of censors, the
law of dowries, the sumptuary laws, the respect for matrons and all the
characteristics of the Roman law. Moreover, three acts of feminine
violation either accomplished or attempted, produced three revolutions!
And was it not a grand event, sanctioned by the decrees of the country,
that these illustrious women should make their appearances on the
political arena! Those noble Roman women, who were obliged to be either
brides or mothers, passed their life in retirement engaged in educating
the masters of the world. Rome had no courtesans because the youth of
the city were engaged in eternal war. If, later on, dissoluteness
appeared, it merely resulted from the despotism of emperors; and still
the prejudices founded upon ancient manners were so influential that
Rome never saw a woman on a stage. These facts are not put forth idly
in scanning the history of marriage in France.
After the conquest of Gaul, the Romans imposed their laws upon the
conquered; but they were incapable of destroying both the profound
respect which our ancestors entertained for women and the ancient
superstitions which made women the immediate oracles of God. The Roman
laws ended by prevailing, to the exclusion of all others, in this
country once known as the “land of written law,” or _Gallia togata_,
and their ideas of marriage penetrated more or less into the “land of
customs.”
But, during the conflict of laws with manners, the Franks invaded the
Gauls and gave to the country the dear name of France. These warriors
came from the North and brought the system of gallantry which had
originated in their western regions, where the mingling of the sexes
did not require in those icy climates the jealous precautions of the
East. The women of that time elevated the privations of that kind of
life by the exaltation of their sentiments. The drowsy minds of the day
made necessary those varied forms of delicate solicitation, that
versatility of address, the fancied repulse of coquetry, which belong
to the system whose principles have been unfolded in our First Part, as
admirably suited to the temperate clime of France.
To the East, then, belong the passion and the delirium of passion, the
long brown hair, the harem, the amorous divinities, the splendor, the
poetry of love and the monuments of love.— To the West, the liberty of
wives, the sovereignty of their blond locks, gallantry, the fairy life
of love, the secrecy of passion, the profound ecstasy of the soul, the
sweet feelings of melancholy and the constancy of love.
These two systems, starting from opposite points of the globe, have
come into collision in France; in France, where one part of the
country, Languedoc, was attracted by Oriental traditions, while the
other, Languedoil, was the native land of a creed which attributes to
woman a magical power. In the Languedoil, love necessitates mystery, in
the Languedoc, to see is to love.
At the height of this struggle came the triumphant entry of
Christianity into France, and there it was preached by women, and there
it consecrated the divinity of a woman who in the forests of Brittany,
of Vendee and of Ardennes took, under the name of Notre-Dame, the place
of more than one idol in the hollow of old Druidic oaks.
If the religion of Christ, which is above all things a code of morality
and politics, gave a soul to all living beings, proclaimed that
equality of all in the sight of God, and by such principles as these
fortified the chivalric sentiments of the North, this advantage was
counterbalanced by the fact, that the sovereign pontiff resided at
Rome, of which seat he considered himself the lawful heir, through the
universality of the Latin tongue, which became that of Europe during
the Middle Ages, and through the keen interest taken by monks, writers
and lawyers in establishing the ascendency of certain codes, discovered
by a soldier in the sack of Amalfi.
These two principles of the servitude and the sovereignty of women
retain possession of the ground, each of them defended by fresh
arguments.
The Salic law, which was a legal error, was a triumph for the principle
of political and civil servitude for women, but it did not diminish the
power which French manners accorded them, for the enthusiasm of
chivalry which prevailed in Europe supplanted the party of manners
against the party of law.
And in this way was created that strange phenomenon which since that
time has characterized both our national despotism and our legislation;
for ever since those epochs which seemed to presage the Revolution,
when the spirit of philosophy rose and reflected upon the history of
the past, France has been the prey of many convulsions. Feudalism, the
Crusades, the Reformation, the struggle between the monarchy and the
aristocracy. Despotism and Priestcraft have so closely held the country
within their clutches, that woman still remains the subject of strange
counter-opinions, each springing from one of the three great movements
to which we have referred. Was it possible that the woman question
should be discussed and woman’s political education and marriage should
be ventilated when feudalism threatened the throne, when reform menaced
both king and barons, and the people, between the hierarchy and the
empire, were forgotten? According to a saying of Madame Necker, women,
amid these great movements, were like the cotton wool put into a case
of porcelain. They were counted for nothing, but without them
everything would have been broken.
A married woman, then, in France presents the spectacle of a queen out
at service, of a slave, at once free and a prisoner; a collision
between these two principles which frequently occurred, produced odd
situations by the thousand. And then, woman was physically little
understood, and what was actually sickness in her, was considered a
prodigy, witchcraft or monstrous turpitude. In those days these
creatures, treated by the law as reckless children, and put under
guardianship, were by the manners of the time deified and adored. Like
the freedmen of emperors, they disposed of crowns, they decided
battles, they awarded fortunes, they inspired crimes and revolutions,
wonderful acts of virtue, by the mere flash of their glances, and yet
they possessed nothing and were not even possessors of themselves. They
were equally fortunate and unfortunate. Armed with their weakness and
strong in instinct, they launched out far beyond the sphere which the
law allotted them, showing themselves omnipotent for evil, but impotent
for good; without merit in the virtues that were imposed upon them,
without excuse in their vices; accused of ignorance and yet denied an
education; neither altogether mothers nor altogether wives. Having all
the time to conceal their passions, while they fostered them, they
submitted to the coquetry of the Franks, while they were obliged like
Roman women, to stay within the ramparts of their castles and bring up
those who were to be warriors. While no system was definitely decided
upon by legislation as to the position of women, their minds were left
to follow their inclinations, and there are found among them as many
who resemble Marion Delorme as those who resemble Cornelia; there are
vices among them, but there are as many virtues. These were creatures
as incomplete as the laws which governed them; they were considered by
some as a being midway between man and the lower animals, as a
malignant beast which the laws could not too closely fetter, and which
nature had destined, with so many other things, to serve the pleasure
of men; while others held woman to be an angel in exile, a source of
happiness and love, the only creature who responded to the highest
feelings of man, while her miseries were to be recompensed by the
idolatry of every heart. How could the consistency, which was wanting
in a political system, be expected in the general manners of the
nation?
And so woman became what circumstances and men made her, instead of
being what the climate and native institutions should have made her;
sold, married against her taste, in accordance with the _Patria
potestas_ of the Romans, at the same time that she fell under the
marital despotism which desired her seclusion, she found herself
tempted to take the only reprisals which were within her power. Then
she became a dissolute creature, as soon as men ceased to be intently
occupied in intestine war, for the same reason that she was a virtuous
woman in the midst of civil disturbances. Every educated man can fill
in this outline, for we seek from movements like these the lessons and
not the poetic suggestion which they yield.
The Revolution was too entirely occupied in breaking down and building
up, had too many enemies, or followed perhaps too closely on the
deplorable times witnessed under the regency and under Louis XV, to pay
any attention to the position which women should occupy in the social
order.
The remarkable men who raised the immortal monument which our codes
present were almost all old-fashioned students of law deeply imbued
with a spirit of Roman jurisprudence; and moreover they were not the
founders of any political institutions. Sons of the Revolution, they
believed, in accordance with that movement, that the law of divorce
wisely restricted and the bond of dutiful submission were sufficient
ameliorations of the previous marriage law. When that former order of
things was remembered, the change made by the new legislation seemed
immense.
At the present day the question as to which of these two principles
shall triumph rests entirely in the hands of our wise legislators. The
past has teaching which should bear fruit in the future. Have we lost
all sense of the eloquence of fact?
The principles of the East resulted in the existence of eunuchs and
seraglios; the spurious social standing of France has brought in the
plague of courtesans and the more deadly plague of our marriage system;
and thus, to use the language of a contemporary, the East sacrifices to
paternity men and the principle of justice; France, women and modesty.
Neither the East nor France has attained the goal which their
institutions point to; for that is happiness. The man is not more loved
by the women of a harem than the husband is sure of being in France, as
the father of his children; and marrying is not worth what it costs. It
is time to offer no more sacrifice to this institution, and to amass a
larger sum of happiness in the social state by making our manners and
our institution conformable to our climate.
Constitutional government, a happy mixture of two extreme political
systems, despotism and democracy, suggests by the necessity of blending
also the two principles of marriage, which so far clash together in
France. The liberty which we boldly claim for young people is the only
remedy for the host of evils whose source we have pointed out, by
exposing the inconsistencies resulting from the bondage in which girls
are kept. Let us give back to youth the indulgence of those passions,
those coquetries, love and its terrors, love and its delights, and that
fascinating company which followed the coming of the Franks. At this
vernal season of life no fault is irreparable, and Hymen will come
forth from the bosom of experiences, armed with confidence, stripped of
hatred, and love in marriage will be justified, because it will have
had the privilege of comparison.
In this change of manners the disgraceful plague of public prostitution
will perish of itself. It is especially at the time when the man
possesses the frankness and timidity of adolescence, that in his
pursuit of happiness he is competent to meet and struggle with great
and genuine passions of the heart. The soul is happy in making great
efforts of whatever kind; provided that it can act, that it can stir
and move, it makes little difference, even though it exercise its power
against itself. In this observation, the truth of which everybody can
see, there may be found one secret of successful legislation, of
tranquillity and happiness. And then, the pursuit of learning has now
become so highly developed that the most tempestuous of our coming
Mirabeaus can consume his energy either in the indulgence of a passion
or the study of a science. How many young people have been saved from
debauchery by self-chosen labors or the persistent obstacles put in the
way of a first love, a love that was pure! And what young girl does not
desire to prolong the delightful childhood of sentiment, is not proud
to have her nature known, and has not felt the secret tremblings of
timidity, the modesty of her secret communings with herself, and wished
to oppose them to the young desires of a lover inexperienced as
herself! The gallantry of the Franks and the pleasures which attend it
should then be the portion of youth, and then would naturally result a
union of soul, of mind, of character, of habits, of temperament and of
fortune, such as would produce the happy equilibrium necessary for the
felicity of the married couple. This system would rest upon foundations
wider and freer, if girls were subjected to a carefully calculated
system of disinheritance; or if, in order to force men to choose only
those who promised happiness by their virtues, their character or their
talents, they married as in the United States without dowry.
In that case, the system adopted by the Romans could advantageously be
applied to the married women who when they were girls used their
liberty. Being exclusively engaged in the early education of their
children, which is the most important of all maternal obligations,
occupied in creating and maintaining the happiness of the household, so
admirably described in the fourth book of _Julie_, they would be in
their houses like the women of ancient Rome, living images of
Providence, which reigns over all, and yet is nowhere visible. In this
case, the laws covering the infidelity of the wife should be extremely
severe. They should make the penalty disgrace, rather than inflict
painful or coercive sentences. France has witnessed the spectacle of
women riding asses for the pretended crime of magic, and many an
innocent woman has died of shame. In this may be found the secret of
future marriage legislation. The young girls of Miletus delivered
themselves from marriage by voluntary death; the senate condemned the
suicides to be dragged naked on a hurdle, and the other virgins
condemned themselves for life.
Women and marriage will never be respected until we have that radical
change in manners which we are now begging for. This profound thought
is the ruling principle in the two finest productions of an immortal
genius. _Emile_ and _La Nouvelle Heloise_ are nothing more than two
eloquent pleas for the system. The voice there raised will resound
through the ages, because it points to the real motives of true
legislation, and the manners which will prevail in the future. By
placing children at the breast of their mothers, Jean-Jacques rendered
an immense service to the cause of virtue; but his age was too deeply
gangrened with abuses to understand the lofty lessons unfolded in those
two poems; it is right to add also that the philosopher was in these
works overmastered by the poet, and in leaving in the heart of _Julie_
after her marriage some vestiges of her first love, he was led astray
by the attractiveness of a poetic situation, more touching indeed, but
less useful than the truth which he wished to display.
Nevertheless, if marriage in France is an unlimited contract to which
men agree with a silent understanding that they may thus give more
relish to passion, more curiosity, more mystery to love, more
fascination to women; if a woman is rather an ornament to the
drawing-room, a fashion-plate, a portmanteau, than a being whose
functions in the order politic are an essential part of the country’s
prosperity and the nation’s glory, a creature whose endeavors in life
vie in utility with those of men—I admit that all the above theory, all
these long considerations sink into nothingness at the prospect of such
an important destiny!——
But after having squeezed a pound of actualities in order to obtain one
drop of philosophy, having paid sufficient homage to that passion for
the historic, which is so dominant in our time, let us turn our glance
upon the manners of the present period. Let us take the cap and bells
and the coxcomb of which Rabelais once made a sceptre, and let us
pursue the course of this inquiry without giving to one joke more
seriousness than comports with it, and without giving to serious things
the jesting tone which ill befits them.