FURTHER CHECKS AND OBSTRUCTIONS TO MARRIAGE--NUMERICAL PROPORTION OF THE
SEXES--ITS CAUSES AND EFFECTS.
Cast in the mold of the conditions above described, many a feature of
woman's character took shape, and they reached ever fuller development
from generation to generation. On these features men love to dwell with
predilection, but they forget that they are themselves the cause
thereof, and have promoted with their conduct the defects they now make
merry about, or censure. Among these widely censured female qualities,
belong her dreaded readiness of tongue, and passion for gossip; her
inclination to endless talk over trifles and unimportant things; her
mental bent for purely external matters, such as dress, and her desire
to please, together with a resulting proneness to all the follies of
fashion; lastly, her easily arousable envy and jealousy of the other
members of her sex.
These qualities, though in different degrees, manifest themselves
generally in the female sex from early childhood. They are qualities
that are born under the pressure of social conditions, and are further
developed by heredity, example and education. A being irrationally
brought up, can not bring up others rationally.
In order to be clear on the causes and development of good or bad
qualities, whether with the sexes or with whole peoples, the same
methods must be pursued that modern natural science applies in order to
ascertain the formation and development of life according to genus and
species, and to determine their qualities. They are the laws that flow
from the material conditions for life, laws that life demands, that
adapt themselves to it, and finally became its nature.
Man forms no exception to that which holds good in Nature for all
animate creation. Man does not stand outside of Nature: looked at
physiologically, he is the most highly developed animal,--a fact,
however, that some would deny. Thousands of years ago, although wholly
ignorant of modern science, the ancients had on many matters affecting
man, more rational views than the moderns; above all, they gave
practical application to the views founded on experience. We praise with
enthusiastic admiration the beauty and strength of the men and women of
Greece; but the fact is overlooked that, not the happy climate, nor the
bewitching nature of a territory that stretched along the bay-indented
sea, but the physical culture and maxims of education, consistently
enforced by the State, thus affected both the being and the development
of the population. These measures were calculated to combine beauty,
strength and suppleness of body with wit and elasticity of mind, both of
which were transmitted to the descendants. True enough, even then, in
comparison with man, woman was neglected in point of mental, but not of
corporal culture.[86] In Sparta, that went furthest in the corporal
culture of the two sexes, boys and girls went naked until the age of
puberty, and participated in common in the exercises of the body, in
games and in wrestling. The naked exposure of the human body, together
with the natural treatment of natural things, had the advantage that
sensuous excitement--to-day artificially cultivated by the separation of
the sexes from early childhood--was then prevented. The corporal make-up
of one sex, together with its distinctive organs, was no secret to the
other. There, no play of equivocal words could arise. Nature was Nature.
The one sex rejoiced at the beauty of the other. Mankind will have to
return to Nature and to the natural intercourse of the sexes; it must
cast off the now-ruling and unhealthy spiritual notions concerning man;
it must do that by setting up methods of education that fit in with our
own state of culture, and that may bring on the physical and mental
regeneration of the race.
Among us, and especially on the subject of female education, seriously
erroneous conceptions are still prevalent. That woman also should have
strength, courage and resolution, is considered heretical, "unwomanly,"
although none would dare deny that, equipped with such qualities, woman
could protect herself against many ills and inconveniences. Conversely,
woman is cramped in her physical, exactly as in her intellectual
development. The irrationalness of her dress plays an important _role_
herein. It not only, unconscionably hampers her in her physique, it
directly ruins her;--and yet, but few physicians dare take a stand
against the abuse, accurately informed though they are on the
injuriousness of her dress. The fear of displeasing the patient often
causes them to hold their tongues, if they do not even flatter her
insane notions. Modern dress hinders woman in the free use of her limbs,
it injures her physical growth, and awakens in her a sense of impotence
and weakness. Moreover, modern dress is a positive danger to her own and
the health of those who surround her: in the house and on the street,
woman is a walking raiser of dust. And likewise is the development of
woman hampered by the strict separation of the sexes, both in social
intercourse and at school--a method of education wholly in keeping with
the spiritual ideas that Christianity has deeply implanted in us on all
matters that regard the nature of man.
The woman who does not reach the development of her faculties, who is
crippled in her powers, who is held imprisoned in the narrowest circle
of thought, and who comes into contact with hardly any but her own
female relatives,--such a woman can not possibly raise herself above the
routine of daily life and habits. Her intellectual horizon revolves only
around the happenings in her own immediate surroundings, family affairs
and what thereby hangs. Extensive conversations on utter trifles, the
bent for gossip, are promoted with all might; of course her latent
intellectual qualities strain after activity and exercise;--whereupon
the husband, often involved thereby in trouble, and driven to
desperation, utters imprecations upon qualities that he, the "chief of
creation," has mainly upon his own conscience.
With woman--whose face all our social and sexual relations turn toward
marriage with every fibre of her being--marriage and matrimonial matters
constitute, quite naturally, a leading portion of her conversation and
aspirations. Moreover, to the physically weaker woman, subjected as she
is to man by custom and laws, the tongue is her principal weapon against
him, and, as a matter of course, she makes use thereof. Similarly with
regard to her severely censured passion for dress and desire to please,
which reach their frightful acme in the insanities of fashion, and often
throw fathers and husbands into great straits and embarrassments. The
explanation lies at hand. To man, woman is, first of all, an object of
enjoyment. Economically and socially unfree, she is bound to see in
marriage her means of support; accordingly, she depends upon man and
becomes a piece of property to him. As a rule, her position is rendered
still more unfavorable through the general excess of women over men,--a
subject that will be treated more closely. The disparity intensifies the
competition of women among themselves; and it is sharpened still more
because, for a great variety of reasons, a number of men do not marry at
all. Woman is, accordingly, forced to enter into competition for a
husband with the members of her own sex, by means of the most favorable
external presentation of her person possible.
Let the long duration, through many generations, of these evils be taken
into account. The wonder will cease that these manifestations, sprung
from equally lasting causes, have reached their present extreme form.
Furthermore, perhaps in no age was the competition of women for husbands
as sharp as it is in this, due partly to reasons already given, and
partly to others yet to be discussed. Finally, the difficulties of
obtaining a competent livelihood, as well as the demands made by
society, combine, more than ever before, to turn woman's face towards
matrimony as an "institute for support."
Men gladly accept such a state of things: they are its beneficiaries. It
flatters their pride, their vanity, their interest to play the _role_ of
the stronger and the master; and, like all other rulers, they are, in
their _role_ of masters, difficult to reach by reason. It is, therefore,
all the more in the interest of woman to warm towards the establishment
of conditions that shall free her from so unworthy a position. Women
should expect as little help from the men as workingmen do from the
capitalist class.
Observe the characteristics, developed in the struggle for the coveted
place, on other fields, on the industrial field, for instance, so soon
as the capitalists face each other. What despicable, even scampish,
means of warfare are not resorted to! What hatred, envy and passion for
calumny are not awakened!--observe that, and the explanation stands out
why similar features turn up in the competition of women for a husband.
Hence it happens that women, on the average, do not get along among
themselves as well as men; that even the best female friends lightly
fall out, if the question is their standing in a man's eye, or
pleasingness of appearance. Hence also the observation that wherever
women meet, be they ever such utter strangers, they usually look at one
another as enemies. With one look they make the mutual discovery of
ill-matched colors, or wrongly-pinned bows, or any other similar
cardinal sin. In the look that they greet each other with, the judgment
can be readily read that each has passed upon the other. It is as if
each wished to inform the other: "I know better than you how to dress,
and draw attention upon myself."
On the other hand, woman is by nature more impulsive than man; she
reflects less than he; she has more abnegation, is naiver, and hence is
governed by stronger passions, as revealed by the truly heroic
self-sacrifice with which she protects her child, or cares for
relatives, and nurses them in sickness. In the fury, however, this
passionateness finds its ugly expression. But the good as well as the
bad sides, with man as well as woman, are influenced, first of all, by
their social position; favored, or checked, or transfigured. The same
impulse, that, under unfavorable circumstances, appears as a blemish,
is, under favorable circumstances, a source of happiness for oneself and
others. Fourier has the credit of having brilliantly demonstrated how
the identical impulses of man produce, under different conditions,
wholly opposite results.
Running parallel with the effects of mistaken education, are the no less
serious effects of mistaken or imperfect physical culture upon the
purpose of Nature. All physicians are agreed that the preparation of
woman for her calling as mother and rearer of children leaves almost
everything to be wished. "Man exercises the soldier in the use of his
weapons, and the artisan in the handling of his tools; every office
requires special studies; even the monk has his novitiate. Woman alone
is not trained for her serious duties of mother."[87] Nine-tenths of the
maidens who marry enter matrimony with almost utter ignorance about
motherhood and the duties of wedlock. The inexcusable shyness, even on
the part of mothers, to speak with a grown-up daughter of such important
sexual duties, leaves the latter in the greatest darkness touching her
duties towards herself and her future husband. With her entrance upon
married life, woman enters a territory that is wholly strange to her.
She has drawn to herself a fancy-picture thereof--generally from novels
that are not particularly to be commended--that does not accord with
reality.[88] Her defective household knowledge, that, as things are
to-day, is inevitable, even though many a function, formerly naturally
belonging to the wife, has been removed from her, also furnishes many a
cause for friction. Some know nothing whatever of household matters:
They consider themselves too good to bother about them, and look upon
them as matters that concern the servant girl; numerous others, from the
ranks of the masses, are prevented, by the struggle for existence, from
cultivating themselves for their calling as householders: they must be
in the factory and at work early and late. It is becoming evident that,
due to the development of social conditions, the separate household
system is losing ground every day; and that it can be kept up only at
the sacrifice of money and time, neither of which the great majority is
able to expend.
Yet another cause that destroys the object of marriage to not a few men
is to be found in the physical debility of many women. Our food,
housing, methods of work and support, in short, our whole form of life,
affects us in more ways than one rather harmfully than otherwise. We can
speak with perfect right of a "nervous age." Now, then, this nervousness
goes hand in hand with physical degeneration. Anaemia and nervousness
are spread to an enormous degree among the female sex: They are assuming
the aspect of a social calamity, that, if it continue a few generations
longer, as at present, and we fail to place our social organization on a
normal footing, is urging the race towards its destruction.[89]
With an eye to its sexual mission, the female organism requires
particular care,--good food, and, at certain periods, the requisite
rest. Both of these are lacking to the great majority of the female sex,
at least in the cities and industrial neighborhoods, nor are they to be
had under modern industrial conditions. Moreover, woman has so
habituated herself to privation that, for instance, numberless women
hold it a conjugal duty to keep the tid-bits for the man, and satisfy
themselves with insufficient nourishment. Likewise are boys frequently
given the preference over girls in matters of food. The opinion is
general that woman can accommodate herself, not with less food only, but
also with food of poorer quality. Hence the sad picture that our female
youth, in particular, presents to the eyes of the expert. A large
portion of our young women are bodily weak, anaemic, hypernervous. The
consequences are difficulties in menstruation, and disease of the organs
connected with the sexual purpose, the disease often assuming the
magnitude of incapacity to give birth and to nurse the child, even of
danger to life itself. "Should this degeneration of our women continue
to increase in the same measure as before, the time may not be far away
when it will become doubtful whether man is to be counted among the
mammals or not."[90] Instead of a healthy, joyful companion, of a
capable mother, of a wife attentive to her household duties, the husband
has on his hands a sick, nervous wife, whose house the physician never
quits, who can stand no draught, and can not bear the least noise. We
shall not expatiate further on this subject. Every reader--and as often
as in this book we speak of "reader," we mean, of course, the female as
well as the male--can himself further fill the picture: he has
illustrations enough among his own relatives and acquaintances.
Experienced physicians maintain that the larger part of married women,
in the cities especially, are in a more or less abnormal condition.
According to the degree of the evil and the character of the couple,
such unions can not choose but be unhappy, and, they give the husband
the right, in public opinion, to allow himself freedoms outside of the
marriage bed, the knowledge of which throws the wife into the most
wretched of moods. Furthermore the, at times, very different sexual
demands of one party or the other give occasion to serious friction,
without the so much wished-for separation being possible. A great
variety of considerations render that, in most cases, out of all
question.
Under this head the fact may not be suppressed that a _considerable
number of husbands are themselves responsible for certain serious
physical ailments of their wives, ailments that these are not
infrequently smitten with in marriage_. As consequences of the excesses
indulged in during bachelorship, a considerable number of men suffer of
chronic sexual diseases, which, seeing these cause them no serious
inconvenience, are taken lightly. Nevertheless, through sexual
intercourse with the wife, these diseases bring upon her disagreeable,
even fatal troubles of the womb, that set in, soon after marriage, and
often develop to the point of rendering her unable to conceive or to
give birth. The wretched woman usually has no idea of the cause of the
sickness, that depresses her spirits, embitters her life, and uproots
the purpose of marriage. She blames herself, and accepts blame for a
condition, that the other party is alone responsible for. Thus many a
blooming wife falls, barely married, a prey to chronic malady,
unaccountable to either herself or her family.
"As recent investigations have proved, this circumstance--that, as a
result of gonorrhea, the male sperm no longer contains any seed-cells,
and the man is, consequently, incapacitated for life from begetting
children--_is a comparatively frequent cause of matrimonial barrenness,
in contradiction to the old and convenient tradition of the lords of
creation, who are ever ready to shift to the shoulder of the wife the
responsibility for the absence of the blessing of children_."[91]
Accordingly, a large number of causes are operative in preventing modern
married life, in the large majority of instances, from being that which
it should be:--a union of two beings of opposite sexes, who, out of
mutual love and esteem, wish to belong to each other, and, in the
striking sentence of Kant, mean, jointly, to constitute the complete
human being. It is, therefore, a suggestion of doubtful value--made even
by learned folks, who imagine thereby to dispose of woman's endeavors
after emancipation--that she look to domestic duties, to marriage,--to
marriage, that our economic conditions are ever turning into a viler
caricature, and that answers its purpose ever less!
The advice to woman that she seek her salvation in marriage, this being
her real calling,--an advice that is thoughtlessly applauded by the
majority of men--sounds like the merest mockery, when both the advisers
and their _claqueurs_ do the opposite. Schopenhauer, the philosopher,
has of woman only the conception of the philistine. He says: "Woman is
not meant for much work. Her characteristicon is not action but
_suffering_. She pays the debt of life with the pains of travail,
anxiety for the child, _subjection to man_. The strongest utterances of
life and sentiment are denied her. Her life is meant to be quieter and
less important than man's. Woman is destined for nurse and educator of
infancy, _being herself infant-like, and an infant for life_, a sort of
intermediate stage between the child and the man, _who is the real
being_.... Girls should be trained for domesticity and _subjection....
Women are the most thorough-paced and incurable Philistines._"
In the same spirit as Schopenhauer, who, of course, is greatly quoted,
is cast Lombroso and Ferrerro's work, "Woman as a Criminal and a
Prostitute." We know no scientific work of equal size--it contains 590
pages--with such a dearth of valid evidence on the theme therein
treated. The statistical matter, from which the bold conclusions are
drawn, is mostly meager. Often a dozen instances suffice the joint
authors to draw the weightiest deductions. The matter that may be
considered the most valuable in the work is, typically enough, furnished
by a woman,--Dr. Tarnowskaja. The influence of social conditions, of
cultural development, is left almost wholly on one side. Everything is
judged exclusively from the physiologico-psychologic view-point, while a
large quantity of ethnographic items of information on various peoples
is woven into the argument, without submitting these items to closer
scrutiny. According to the authors, just as with Schopenhauer, woman is
a grown child, a liar _par excellence_, weak of judgment, fickle in
love, incapable of any deed truly heroic. They claim the inferiority of
woman to man is manifest from a large number of bodily differences.
"Love, with woman, is as a rule nothing but a secondary feature of
maternity,--all the feelings of attachment that bind woman to man arise,
not from sexual impulses, but from the instincts of subjection and
resignation, acquired through habits of conformancy." How these
"instincts" were acquired and "conformed" themselves, the joint authors
fail to inquire into. They would then have had to inquire into the
social position of woman in the course of thousands of years, and would
have been compelled to find that it is that that made her what she now
is. It is true, the joint authors describe partly the enslaved and
dependent position of woman among the several peoples and under the
several periods of civilization; but as Darwinians, with blinkers to
their eyes, they draw all that from physiologic and psychologic, not
from social and economic reasons, which affected in strongest manner the
physiologic and psychologic development of woman.
The joint authors also touch upon the vanity of woman, and set up the
opinion that, among the peoples who stand on a lower stage of
civilization, man is the vain sex, as is noticeable to-day in the New
Hebrides and Madagascar, among the peoples of the Orinoco, and on many
islands of the Polynesian archipelago, as also among a number of African
peoples of the South Sea. With peoples standing on a higher plane,
however, woman is the vain sex. But why and wherefor? To us the answer
seems plain. Among the peoples of a lower civilization, mother-right
conditions prevail generally, or have not yet been long overcome. The
_role_ that woman there plays raises her above the necessity of seeking
for the man, the man seeks her, and to this end, ornaments himself and
grows vain. With the people of a higher grade, especially with all the
nations of civilization, excepting here and there, not the man seeks the
woman, but the woman him. It happens rarely that a woman openly takes
the initiative, and offers herself to the man; so-called propriety
forbids that. In point of fact, however, the offering is done by the
manner of her appearance; by means of the beauty of dress and luxury,
that she displays; by the manner in which she ornaments herself, and
presents herself, and coquets in society. The excess of women, together
with the social necessity of looking upon matrimony as an institute for
support, or as an institution through which alone she can satisfy her
sexual impulse and gain a standing in society, forces such conduct upon
her. Here also, we notice again, it is purely economic and social causes
that call forth, one time with man, another with woman, a quality that,
until now, it was customary to look upon as wholly independent of social
and economic causes. Hence the conclusion is justified, that so soon as
society shall arrive at social conditions, under which all dependence of
one sex upon another shall have ceased, and both are equally free,
_ridiculous vanity and the folly of fashion will vanish, just as so many
other vices that we consider to-day uneradicable, as supposedly inherent
in man_. Schopenhauer, as a philosopher, judges woman as one-sidedly as
most of our anthropologists and physicians, who see in her only the
sexual, never the social, being. Schopenhauer was never married. He,
accordingly, has not, on his part, contributed towards having one more
woman pay the "debt of life" that he debits woman with. And this brings
us to the other side of the medal, which is far from being the
handsomer.
Many women do not marry, simply because they cannot. Everybody knows
that usage forbids woman to offer herself. She must allow herself to be
wooed, i. e., chosen. She herself may not woo. Is there no wooer to be
had, then she enters the large army of those poor beings who have missed
the purpose of life, and, in view of the lack of safe material
foundation, generally fall a prey to want and misery, and but too often
to ridicule also. But few know what the discrepancy in numbers between
the two sexes is due to; many are ready with the hasty answer: "There
are too many girls born." Those who make the claim are wrongly
informed, as will be shown. Others, again, who admit the unnaturalness
of celibacy, conclude from the fact that women are more numerous than
men in most countries of civilization, that polygamy should be allowed.
But not only does polygamy do violence to our customs, it, moreover,
degrades woman, a circumstance that, of course, does not restrain
Schopenhauer, with his underestimation of and contempt for women, from
declaring: "For the female sex, as a whole, polygamy is a benefit."
Many men do not marry because they think they cannot support a wife, and
the children that may come, according to their station. To support _two_
wives is, however, possible to a small minority only, and among these
are many who now have two or more wives,--one legitimate and several
illegitimate. These few, privileged by wealth, are not held back by
anything from doing what they please. Even in the Orient, where polygamy
exists for thousands of years by law and custom, comparatively few men
have more than one wife. People talk of the demoralizing influence of
Turkish harem life; but the fact is overlooked that this harem life is
possible only to an insignificant fraction of the men, and then only in
the ruling class, while the majority of the men live in monogamy. In the
city of Algiers, there were, at the close of the sixties, out of 18,282
marriages, not less than 17,319 with one wife only; 888 were with two;
and only 75 with more than two. Constantinople, the capital of the
Turkish Empire, would show no materially different result. Among the
country population in the Orient, the proportion is still more
pronouncedly in favor of single marriages. In the Orient, exactly as
with us, the most important factor in the calculation are the material
conditions, and these compel most men to limit themselves to but one
wife. If, on the other hand, material conditions were equally favorable
to all men, polygamy would still not be practicable,--for want of women.
_The almost equal number of the two sexes, prevalent under normal
conditions, points everywhere to monogamy._
As proof of these statements, we cite the following tables, that Buecher
published in an essay.[92]
In these tables the distinction must be kept in mind between the
enumerated and the estimated populations. In so far as the population
was enumerated, the fact is expressly stated in the summary for the
separate main divisions of the earth. The sexes divide themselves in the
population of several divisions and countries as follows:
1. EUROPE.
Females
for
Every
Census 1,000
Countries. Year. Males. Females. Population. Men.
Great Britain and
Ireland 1891 18,388,756 19,499,397 37,888,153 1,060
Denmark and Faror 1890 1,065,447 1,119,712 2,185,159 1,052
Norway 1891 951,496 1,037,501 1,988,997 1,090
Sweden 1890 2,317,105 2,467,570 4,784,675 1,065
Finland 1889 1,152,111 1,186,293 2,338,404 1,030
Russia 1886 42,499,324 42,895,885 85,395,209 1,009
Poland 1886 3,977,406 4,279,156 8,256,562 1,076
German Empire 1890 24,231,832 25,189,232 49,421,064 1,039
Austria 1880 10,819,737 11,324,507 22,144,244 1,047
Hungary 1880 7,799,276 7,939,192 15,738,468 1,019
Liechtenstein 1886 4,897 4,696 9,593 959
Luxemburg 1890 105,419 105,669 211,088 1,002
Holland 1889 2,228,487 2,282,925 4,511,415 1,024
Belgium 1890 3,062,656 3,084,385 6,147,041 1,007
Switzerland 1888 1,427,377 1,506,680 2,934,057 1,055
France 1886 18,900,312 19,030,447 37,930,759 1,007
Spain and the Canary
Islands 1887 8,608,532 8,950,776 17,559,308 1,039
Gibraltar (Civil
population) 1890 9,201 9,326 18,527 1,013
Portugal 1878 2,175,829 2,374,870 4,550,699 1,091
Italy 1881 14,265,383 14,194,245 28,459,628 995
Bosnia and
Herzegovina 1885 705,025 631,066 1,336,091 895
Servia 1890 1,110,731 1,052,028 2,162,759 947
Bulgaria 1881 1,519,953 1,462,996 2,982,949 962
Roumania 1860 2,276,558 2,148,403 4,424,961 944
Greece 1889 1,133,625 1,053,583 2,187,208 929
Malta 1890 82,086 83,576 165,662 1,018
----------- ----------- ----------- -----
Total 170,818,561 174,914,119 345,732,680 1,024
2. AMERICA.
Females
for
Every
Census 1,000
Countries. Year. Males. Females. Population. Men.
Danish Greenland 1888 4,838 5,383 10,221 1,112
British North America 1881 2,288,196 2,229,735 4,517,931 974
United States of
North America 1880 25,518,820 24,636,963 50,155,783 965
Bermuda Islands 1890 7,767 8,117 15,884 1,046
Mexico 1882 5,072,054 5,375,920 10,447,974 1,060
---------- ---------- ---------- -----
North America and
Islands 32,891,675 32,256,118 65,147,793 981
Nicaragua 1883 136,249 146,591 282,845 1,076
British Honduras 1881 14,108 13,344 27,452 946
Cuba 1877 850,520 671,164 1,521,684 789
Porto Rico 1877 369,054 362,594 731,648 983
British West Indies 1881 589,012 624,132 1,213,144 1,060
French West Indies 1885 176,364 180,266 356,630 1,022
Danish Possessions 1880 14,889 18,874 33,763 1,263
Dutch Colony Curacao 1889 20,234 25,565 45,799 1,263
----------- ---------- ---------- -----
Central America and
the West Indies 2,170,430 2,042,530 4,212,965 941
British Guiana 1891 151,759 126,569 278,328 834
French Guiana 1885 15,767 10,735 26,502 681
Dutch Guiana 1889 30,187 28,764 58,951 953
Brazil 1872 5,123,869 4,806,609 9,930,478 938
Chili 1885 1,258,616 1,268,353 2,526,969 1,008
Falkland Islands 1890 1,086 703 1,789 647
---------- ---------- ---------- -----
South America total 6,581,284 6,241,733 12,823,017 949
---------- ---------- ---------- -----
Population of America 41,643,389 40,540,386 82,183,775 973
3. ASIA.
Females
for
Every
Census 1,000
Countries. Year. Males. Females. Population. Men.
Russian Caucasia 1885 3,876,868 3,407,699 7,284,567 879
Siberia, minus Amur
and Sachalin 1885 2,146,411 2,002,879 4,149,290 933
Province Uralsk 1885 263,915 263,686 527,601 999
General Province of
the Prairies 1885 926,246 781,626 1,707,872 844
Province Fergana 1885 365,461 350,672 716,133 959
Province Samarkand 1885 335,530 305,616 641,146 911
---------- ---------- ---------- -----
Russian Possessions,
total 7,914,431 7,112,178 15,026,609 899
British India
(immediate
possessions) 1891 112,150,120 108,313,980 220,464,100 966
Tributary States (so
far known) 1891 31,725,910 29,675,150 61,401,060 935
Hong Kong 1889 138,033 56,449 194,482 409
Ceylon 1881 1,473,515 1,290,469 2,763,984 876
Of the French
Possessions:
Cambodscha ? 392,383 422,371 814,754 1,076
Cochinchina 1889 944,146 932,543 1,876,689 988
Philippines (partly) 1877 2,796,174 2,762,846 5,559,020 988
Japan 1888 20,008,445 19,598,789 39,607,234 979
Cyprus 1891 104,887 104,404 209,291 995
---------- ---------- ---------- -----
Total population in
Asia 177,648,044 170,269,179 347,917,223 958
4. AUSTRALIA AND POLYNESIA.
Females
for
Every
Census 1,000
Countries. Year. Males. Females. Population. Men.
Australia, New Zealand
(1890) and Tasmania 1891 2,059,594 1,772,472 3,832,066 861
Fiji Islands 1890 67,902 57,780 125,682 851
French Possessions
(Tahiti, Marquesas,
etc.) 1889 11,589 10,293 21,882 888
Hawaii 1890 58,714 31,276 89,990 533
---------- ---------- ---------- -----
Total 2,197,799 1,871,821 4,069,620 852
5. AFRICA.
Females
for
Every
Census 1,000
Countries. Year. Males. Females. Population. Men.
Egypt 1882 3,401,498 3,415,767 6,817,265 1,004
Algeria (minus Sahara) 1886 2,014,013 1,791,671 3,805,684 889
Senegal 1889 70,504 76,014 146,518 1,078
Gambia 1881 7,215 6,935 14,150 961
Sierra Leone 1881 31,201 29,345 60,546 940
Lagos 1881 37,665 39,605 75,270 998
St. Helena 1890 2,020 2,202 4,222 1,090
Capeland 1890 766,598 759,141 1,525,739 990
Natal 1890 268,062 275,851 543,913 1,029
Orange Free State:
White 1890 40,571 37,145 77,716 915
Black 1890 67,791 61,996 129,787 914
Republic:
White 1890 66,498 52,630 119,128 791
Black 1890 115,589 144,045 259,634 1,246
Reunion 1889 94,430 71,485 165,915 757
Mayotte 1889 6,761 5,509 12,270 815
St. Marie de
Madagascar 1888 3,648 4,019 7,667 1,102
---------- ---------- ---------- -----
Total 6,994,064 6,771,360 13,765,424[93]968
Probably the result of this presentation will be astonishing to many.
With the exception of Europe, where, on an average, there are 1,024
women to every 1,000 men, the reverse is the case everywhere else. If it
is further considered that in the foreign divisions of the earth, and
even there where actual enumeration was had, information upon the female
sex is particularly defective--a fact that must be presumed with regard
to all the countries of Mohammedan population, where the figures for the
female population are probably below the reality--it stands pat that,
apart from a few European nations, the female sex nowhere tangibly
exceeds the male. It is otherwise in Europe, the country that interests
us most. Here, with the exception of Italy and the southeast territories
of Bosnia, Herzegovina, Servia, Bulgaria, Roumania and Greece, the
female population is everywhere more strongly represented than the male.
Of the large European countries, the disproportion is slightest in
France--1,002 females to every 1,000 males; next in order is Russia,
with 1,009 females to every 1,000 males. On the other hand, Portugal,
Norway and Poland, with 1,076 females to every 1,000 males, present the
strongest disproportion. Next to these stands Great Britain,--1,060
females to every 1,000 males. Germany and Austria lie in the middle:
they have, respectively, 1,039 and 1,047 females to every 1,000 males.
In the German Empire, the excess of the female over the male population,
according to the census of December 1, 1890, was 957,400, against
988,376, according to the census of December 1, 1885. A principal cause
of this disproportion is emigration, inasmuch as by far more men
emigrate than women. This is clearly brought out by the opposite pole of
Germany, the North American Union, which has about as large a deficit in
women as Germany has a surplus. The United States is the principal
country for European emigration, and this is mainly made up of males. A
second cause is the larger number of accidents to men than to women in
agriculture, the trades, the industries and transportation. Furthermore,
there are more males than females temporarily abroad,--merchants,
seamen, marines, etc. All this transpires clearly from the figures on
the conjugal status. In 1890 there were 8,372,486 married men to
8,398,607 married women in Germany, i. e., 26,121 more of the latter.
Another phenomenon, that statistics establish and that weigh heavily in
the scales, is that, on an average, women reach a higher age than men:
at the more advanced ages there are more women than men. According to
the census of 1890 the relation of ages among the two sexes were these:
Excess Excess of
Males. Females. of Males. Females.
Below ten years 5,993,681 5,966,226 27,455 ...
10 to 20 years 5,104,751 5,110,093 ... 5,342
20 to 30 years 3,947,324 4,055,321 ... 107,997
30 to 40 years 3,090,174 3,216,704 ... 126,530
40 to 50 years 2,471,617 2,659,609 ... 187,992
50 to 60 years 1,826,951 2,041,377 ... 214,426
60 to 70 years 1,177,142 1,391,227 ... 214,085
70 and up 619,192 757,081 ... 137,889
--------- --------- ------ -------
24,230,832 25,197,638 27,455 994,261
This table shows that, up to the tenth year, the number of boys exceeds
that of girls, due merely to the disproportion in births. Everywhere,
there are more boys born than girls. In the German Empire, for
instance,[94] there were born:--
In the year 1872 to 100 girls 106.2 boys
In the year 1878 to 100 girls 105.9 boys
In the year 1884 to 100 girls 106.2 boys
In the year 1888 to 100 girls 106.0 boys
In the year 1891 to 100 girls 106.2 boys
But the male sex dies earlier than the female, and from early childhood
more boys die than girls. Accordingly, the table shows that, between the
ages of 10 to 20 the female sex exceeds the male.
To each 100 females, there died, males:--[95]
In 1872 107.0 In 1884 109.2
In 1878 110.5 In 1888 107.9
In 1891 107.5
The table shows, furthermore, that at the matrimonial age, proper,
between the ages of 20 and 50, the female sex exceeds the male by
422,519, and that at the age from 50 to 70 and above, it exceeds the
male by 566,400. A very strong disproportion between the sexes appears,
furthermore, among the widowed.
According to the census of 1890, there were:--
Widowers 774,967
Widows 2,154,870
---------
Excess of widows over widowers 1,382,903
Of these widowed people, according to age, there were:--
Age. Males. Females.
40-60 222,286 842,920
60 and over 506,319 1,158,712
The number of divorced persons was, in 1890: Males, 25,271; females,
49,601. According to age, they were distributed:--
Age. Males. Females.
40-60 13,825 24,842
60 and over 4,917 7,244
These figures tell us that _widows and divorced women are excluded from
remarriage_, and at the fittest age for matrimony, at that; there being
of the age of 15-40, 46,362 widowers and 156,235 widows, 6,519 divorced
men and 17,515 divorced women. These figures furnish further proof of
the injury that divorce entails to married women.
In 1890, there were unmarried:--[96]
Age. Males. Females.
15-40 5,845,933 5,191,453
40-60 375,881 503,406
60 and over 130,154 230,966
Accordingly, among the unmarried population between the ages of 15 and
40, the male sex is stronger by 654,480 than the female. This
circumstance would seem to be favorable for the latter. But males
between the ages of 15 and 21 are, with few exceptions, not in condition
to marry. Of that age there were 3,590,622 males to 3,774,025 females.
Likewise with the males of the age of 21-25, a large number are not in a
position to start a family: we have but to keep in mind the males in the
army, students, etc. On the other side, all women of this age period are
marriageable. Taking further into consideration that for a great variety
of reasons, many men do not marry at all--the number of unmarried males
of 40 years of age and over alone amounted to 506,035, to which must be
added also the widowed and divorced males, more than two million
strong--it follows that the situation of the female sex with regard to
marriage is decidedly unfavorable. Accordingly, a large number of women
are, under present circumstances, forced to renounce the legitimate
gratification of their sexual instincts, while the males seek and find
solace in prostitution. The situation would instantaneously change for
women with the removal of the obstacles that keep to-day many hundreds
of thousands of men from setting up a married home, and from doing
justice to their natural instincts in a legitimate manner. For that the
existing social system must be upturned.
As already observed, emigration across the seas is, in great part,
responsible for the disproportion in the number of the sexes. In the
years 1872-1886, on an average, more than 10,000 males left the country
in excess of females. For a period of fifteen years, that runs up to
150,000 males, most of them in the very vigor of life. Military duties
also drive abroad many young men, and the most vigorous, at that. In
1893, according to the report officially submitted to the Reichstag on
the subject of substitutes in the army, 25,851 men were sentenced for
emigrating without leave, and 14,522 more cases were under investigation
on the same charge. Similar figures recur from year to year. The loss in
men that Germany sustains from this unlawful emigration is considerable
in the course of a century. Especially strong is emigration during the
years that follow upon great wars. That appears from the figures after
1866 and between 1871 and 1874. We sustain, moreover, severe losses in
male life from accidents. In the course of the years 1887 to 1892, the
number of persons killed in the trades, agriculture, State and municipal
undertakings, ran up to 30,568,[97] of whom only a small fraction were
women. Furthermore, another and considerable number of persons engaged
in these occupations are crippled for life by accidents, and are
disabled from starting a family; others die early and leave their
families behind in want and misery. Great loss in male life is also
connected with navigation. In the period between 1882-1891, 1,485 ships
were lost on the high seas, whereby 2,436 members of crews--with few
exceptions males--and 747 passengers perished.
Once the right appreciation of life is had, society will prevent the
large majority of accidents, particularly in navigation; and such
appreciation will touch its highest point under Socialist order. In
numberless instances human life, or the safety of limb, is sacrificed to
misplaced economy on the part of employers, who recoil before any outlay
for protection; in many others the tired condition of the workman, or
the hurry he must work in, is the cause. Human life is cheap; if one
workingman goes to pieces, three others are at hand to take his place.
On the domain of navigation especially, and aided by the difficulty of
control, many unpardonable wrongs are committed. Through the revelations
made during the seventies by Plimsoll in the British Parliament, the
fact has become notorious that many shipowners, yielding to criminal
greed, take out high insurances for vessels that are not seaworthy, and
unconscionably expose them, together with their crews, to the slightest
weather at sea,--all for the sake of the high insurance. These are the
so-called "coffin-ships," not unknown in Germany, either. The steamer
"Braunschweig," for instance, that sank in 1881 near Helgoland, and
belonged to the firm Rocholl & Co., of Bremen, proved to have been put
to sea in a wholly unseaworthy condition. The same fate befell, in 1889,
the steamer "Leda" of the same firm; hardly out at sea, she went to the
bottom. The boat was insured with the Russian Lloyd for 55,000 rubles;
the prospect of 8,500 rubles were held out to the captain, if he took
her safe to Odessa; and the captain, in turn, paid the pilot the
comparatively high wage of 180 rubles a month. The verdict of the Court
of Admiralty was that _the accident was due to the fact that the "Leda"
was unseaworthy and unfit to be taken to Odessa_. The license was
withdrawn from the captain. According to existing laws, the real guilty
parties could not be reached. No year goes by without our Court of
Admiralty having to pass upon a larger number of accidents at sea, to
the effect that the accident was due to vessels being too old, or too
heavily loaded, or in defective condition, or insufficiently equipped;
sometimes to several of these causes combined. With a good many of the
lost ships, the cause of accident can not be established: they have gone
down in midocean, and no survivor remains to tell the tale. Likewise are
the coast provisions for the saving of shipwrecked lives both defective
and insufficient; they are dependent mainly upon private charity. The
case is even more disconsolate along distant and foreign coasts. A
commonwealth that makes the promotion of the well-being of all its
highest mission will not fail to so improve navigation, and provide it
with protective measures that these accidents would be of rare
occurrence. But the modern economic system of rapine, that weighs men as
it weighs figures, to the end of whacking out the largest possible
amount of profit, not infrequently destroys a human life if thereby
there be in it but the profit of a dollar. With the change of society in
the Socialist sense, immigration, in its present shape, also would drop;
the flight from military service would cease; suicide in the Army would
be no more.
The picture drawn from our political and economic life shows that woman
also is deeply interested therein. Whether the period of military
service be shortened or not; whether the Army be increased or not;
whether the country pursues a policy of peace or one of war; whether the
treatment allotted to the soldier be worthy or unworthy of human beings;
and whether as a result thereof the number of suicides and desertions
rise or drop;--_all of these are questions that concern woman as much as
man_. Likewise with the economic and industrial conditions and in
transportation, in all of which branches the female sex, furthermore,
steps from year to year more numerously as working-women. Bad
conditions, and unfavorable circumstances injure woman as a social and
as a sexual being; favorable conditions and satisfactory circumstances
benefit her.
But there are still other momenta that go to make marriage difficult or
impossible. A considerable number of men are kept from marriage by the
State itself. People pucker up their brows at the celibacy imposed upon
Roman Catholic clergymen; but these same people have not a word of
condemnation for the much larger number of soldiers who also are
condemned thereto. The officers not only require the consent of their
superiors, they are also limited in the choice of a wife: the regulation
prescribes that she shall have property to a certain, and not
insignificant, amount. In this way the Austrian corps of officers, for
instance, obtained a social "improvement" at the cost of the female sex.
Captains rose by fully 8,000 guilders, if above thirty years of age,
while the captains under thirty years of age were thenceforth hard to be
had, in no case for a smaller dower than 30,000. "Now a 'Mrs. Captain,'"
it was thus reported in the "Koelnische Zeitung" from Vienna, "who until
now was often a subject of pity for her female colleagues in the
administrative departments, can hold her head higher by a good deal;
everybody now knows that she has wherewith to live. Despite the greatly
increased requirements of personal excellence, culture and rank, the
social status of the Austrian officer was until then rather indefinite,
partly because very prominent gentlemen stuck fast to the Emperor's coat
pocket; partly because many poor officers could not make a shift to live
without humiliation, and many families of poor officers often played a
pitiful _role_. Until then, the officer who wished to marry had, if the
thirty-year line was crossed, to qualify in joint property to the amount
of 12,000 guilders, or in a 600-guilder side income, and even at this
insignificant income, hardly enough for decency, the magistrates often
shut their eyes, and granted relief. The new marriage regulations are
savagely severe, though the heart break. The captain under thirty must
forthwith deposit 30,000 guilders; over thirty years of age, 20,000
guilders; from staff officers up to colonels, 16,000 guilders. Over and
above this, only one-fourth of the officers may marry without special
grace, while a spotless record and corresponding rank is demanded of the
bride. This all holds good for officers of the line and army surgeons.
For other military officials with the rank of officer, the new marriage
regulations are milder; but for officers of the general staff still
severer. The officer who is detailed to the captain of the general staff
may not thereafter marry; the actual captain of the staff, if below
thirty, is required to give security in 36,000 guilders, and later
24,000 more." In Germany and elsewhere, there are similar regulations.
Also the corps of under-officers is subject to hampering regulations
with regard to marriage, and require besides the consent of their
superior officers. These are very drastic proofs of the _purely
materialistic conception_ that the State has of marriage.
In general, public opinion is agreed that marriage is not advisable for
men under twenty-four or twenty-five years of age. Twenty-five is the
marriageable age for men fixed by the civil code, with an eye to the
civic independence that, as a rule, is not gained before that age. Only
with persons who are in the agreeable position of not having to first
conquer independence--with people of princely rank--does public opinion
consider it proper when occasionally the men marry at the age of
eighteen or nineteen, the girls at that of fifteen or sixteen. The
Prince is declared of age with his eighteenth year, and considered
capable to govern a vast empire and numerous people. Common mortals
acquire the right to govern their possible property only at the age of
twenty-one.
The difference of opinion as to the age when marriage is desirable shows
that public opinion judges by the social standing of the bride and
bridegroom. Its reasons have nothing to do with the human being as a
natural entity, or with its natural instincts. It happens, however, that
Nature's impulses do not yoke themselves to social conditions, nor to
the views and prejudices that spring from them. So soon as man has
reached maturity, the sexual instincts assert themselves with force;
indeed, they are the incarnation of the human being, and they demand
satisfaction from the mature being, at the peril of severe physical and
mental suffering.
The age of sexual ripeness differs according to individuals, climate and
habits of life. In the warm zone it sets in with the female sex, as a
rule, at the age of eleven to twelve years, and not infrequently are
women met with there, who, already at that age, carry offspring on their
arms; but at their twenty-fifth or thirtieth year, these have lost their
bloom. In the temperate zone, the rule with the female sex is from the
fourteenth to the sixteenth year, in some cases later. Likewise is the
age of puberty different between country and city women. With healthy,
robust country girls, who move much in the open air and work vigorously,
menstruation sets in later, on the average, than with our badly
nourished, weak, hypernervous, ethereal city young ladies. Yonder,
sexual maturity develops normally, with rare disturbances; here a normal
development is the exception: all manner of illnesses set in, often
driving the physician to desperation. How often are not physicians
compelled to declare that, along with a change of life, the most radical
cure is marriage. But how apply such a cure? Insuperable obstacles rise
against the proposition.
All this goes to show where the change must be looked for. In the first
place, the point is to make possible a totally different education, one
that takes into consideration the physical as well as the mental being;
in the second place, to establish a wholly different system of life and
of work. But both of these are, without exception, possible for all only
under _wholly different social conditions_.
Our social conditions have raised a violent contradiction between man,
as a natural and sexual being, on the one hand, and man as a social
being on the other. The contradiction has made itself felt at no period
as strongly as at this; and it produces a number of diseases into whose
nature we will go no further, but that affect mainly the female sex: in
the first place, her organism depends, in much higher degree than that
of man, upon her sexual mission, and is influenced thereby, as shown by
the regular recurrence of her periods; in the second place, most of the
obstacles to marriage lie in the way of women, preventing her from
satisfying her strongest natural impulse in a natural manner. The
contradiction between natural want and social compulsion goes against
the grain of Nature; it leads to secret vices and excesses that
undermine every organism but the strongest.
Unnatural gratification, especially with the female sex, is often most
shamelessly promoted. More or less underhandedly, certain preparations
are praised, and they are recommended especially in the advertisements
of most of the papers that penetrate into the family circle as
especially devoted to its entertainment. These puffs are addressed
mainly to the better situated portion of society, seeing the prices of
the preparations are so high that a family of small means can hardly
come by them. Side by side with these shameless advertisements are found
the puffs--meant for the eyes of both sexes--of obscene pictures,
especially of whole series of photographs, of poems and prose works of
similar stripe, aimed at sexual incitation, and that call for the action
of police and District Attorneys. But these gentlemen are too busy with
the "civilization, marriage and family-destroying" Socialist movement to
be able to devote full attention to such machinations. A part of our
works of fiction labors in the same direction. The wonder would be if
sexual excesses, artificially incited, besides, failed to manifest
themselves in unhealthy and harmful ways, and to assume the proportions
of a social disease.
The idle, voluptuous life of many women in the property classes; their
refined measures of nervous stimulants; their overfeeding with a certain
kind of artificial sensation, cultivated in certain lines on the
hothouse plan, and often considered the principal topic of conversation
and sign of culture by that portion of the female sex that suffers of
hypersensitiveness and nervous excitement;--all this incites still more
the sexual senses, and naturally leads to excesses.
Among the poor, it is certain exhausting occupations, especially of a
sedentary nature, that promotes congestion of blood in the abdominal
organs, and promotes sexual excitation. One of the most dangerous
occupations in this direction is connected with the, at present, widely
spread sewing machine. This occupation works such havoc that, with ten
or twelve hours' daily work, the strongest organism is ruined within a
few years. Excessive sexual excitement is also promoted by long hours of
work in a steady high temperature, for instance, sugar refineries,
bleacheries, cloth-pressing establishments, night work by gaslight in
overcrowded rooms, especially when both sexes work together.
A succession of further phenomena has been here unfolded, sharply
illustrative of the irrationableness and unhealthiness of modern
conditions. These are evils deeply rooted in our social state of things,
and removable neither by the moral sermonizings nor the palliatives that
religious quacks of the male and female sexes have so readily at hand.
The axe must be laid to the root of the evil. The question is to bring
about a natural system of education, together with healthy conditions of
life and work, and to do this in amplest manner, to the end that the
normal gratification of natural and healthy instincts be made possible
for all.
As to the male sex, a number of considerations are absent that are
present with the female sex. Due to his position as master, and in so
far as social barriers do not hinder him, there is on the side of man
the free choice of love. On the other hand, the character of marriage as
an institution for support, the excess of women, custom;--all these
circumstances conspire to prevent woman from manifesting her will; they
force her to wait till she is wanted. As a rule, she seizes gladly the
opportunity, soon as offered, to reach the hand to the man who redeems
her from the social ostracism and neglect, that is the lot of that poor
waif, the "old maid." Often she looks down with contempt upon those of
her sisters who have yet preserved their self-respect, and have not sold
themselves into mental prostitution to the first comer, preferring to
tread single the thorny path of life.
On the other hand, social considerations tie down the man, who desires
to reach by marriage the gratification of his life's requirements. He
must put himself the question: Can you support a wife, and the children
that may come, so that pressing cares, the destroyers of your happiness,
may be kept away? The better his marital intentions are, the more
ideally he conceives them, the more he is resolved to wed only out of
love, all the more earnestly must he put the question to himself. To
many, the affirmative answer is, under the present economic conditions,
a matter of impossibility: they prefer to remain single. With other and
less conscientious men, another set of considerations crowd upon the
mind. Thousands of men reach an independent position, one in accord with
their wants, only comparatively late. But they can keep a wife in a
style suitable to their station only if she has large wealth. True
enough, many young men have exaggerated notions on the requirements of a
so-called life "suitable to one's station." Nevertheless, they can not
be blamed--as a result of the false education above described, and of
the social habits of a large number of women,--for not guarding against
demands from that quarter that are far beyond their powers. Good women,
modest in their demands, these men often never come to know. These
women are retiring; they are not to be found there where such men have
acquired the habit of looking for a wife; while those whom they meet are
not infrequently such as seek to win a husband by means of their looks,
and are intent, by external means, by show, to deceive him regarding
their personal qualities and material conditions. The means of seduction
of all sorts are plied all the more diligently in the measure that these
ladies come on in years, when marriage becomes a matter of hot haste.
Does any of these succeed in conquering a husband, she has become so
habituated to show, jewelry, finery and expensive pleasures, that she is
not inclined to forego them in marriage. The superficial nature of her
being crops up in all directions, and therein an abyss is opened for the
husband. Hence many prefer to leave alone the flower that blooms on the
edge of the precipice, and that can be plucked only at the risk of
breaking their necks. They go their ways alone, and seek company and
pleasure under the protection of their freedom. Deception and swindle
are practices everywhere in full swing in the business life of
capitalist society: no wonder they are applied also in contracting
marriage, and that, when they succeed, both parties are drawn into
common sorrows.
According to E. Ansell, the age of marriage among the cultured and
independent males of England was, between 1840-1871, on an average 29.25
years. Since then the average has risen for many classes, by at least
one year. For the different occupations, the average age of marriage,
between 1880-1885, was as follows:--
Occupations. Age.
Miners 23.56
Textile workers 23.88
Shoemakers and tailors 24.42
Skilled laborers 24.85
Day laborers 25.06
Clerks 25.75
Retailers 26.17
Farmers and their sons 28.73
Men of culture and men of independent means 30.72
These figures give striking proof of how social conditions and standing
affect marriage.
The number of men who, for several reasons, are kept from marrying is
ever on the increase. It is especially in the so-called upper ranks and
occupations that the men often do not marry, partly because the demands
upon them are too great, partly because it is just the men of these
social strata who seek and find pleasure and company elsewhere. On the
other hand, conditions are particularly unfavorable to women in places
where many pensionaries and their families, but few young men, have
their homes. In such places, the number of women who cannot marry rises
to 20 or 30 out of every 100. The deficit of candidates for marriage
affects strongest those female strata that, through education and social
position, make greater pretensions, and yet, outside of their persons,
have nothing to offer the man who is looking for wealth. This concerns
especially the female members of those numerous families that live upon
fixed salaries, are considered socially "respectable," but are without
means. The life of the female being in this stratum of society is,
comparatively speaking, the saddest of all those of her
fellow-sufferers. It is out of these strata that is mainly recruited the
most dangerous competition for the working-women in the embroidering,
seamstress, flower-making, millinery, glove and straw hat sewing; in
short, all the branches of industry that the employer prefers to have
carried on at the homes of the working-women. These ladies work for the
lowest wages, seeing that, in many cases, the question with them is not
to earn a full livelihood, but only something over and above that, or to
earn the outlay for a better wardrobe and for luxury. Employers have a
predilection for the competition of these ladies, so as to lower the
earnings of the poor working-woman and squeeze the last drop of blood
from her veins: it drives her to exert herself to the point of
exhaustion. Also not a few wives of government employes, whose husbands
are badly paid, and can not afford them a "life suitable to their rank,"
utilize their leisure moments in this vile competition that presses so
heavily upon wide strata of the female working class.
The activity on the part of the bourgeois associations of women for the
abolition of female labor and for the admission of women to the higher
professions, at present mainly, if not exclusively, appropriated by men,
aims principally at procuring a position in life for women from the
social circles just sketched. In order to secure for their efforts
greater prospects of success, these associations have loved to place
themselves under the protectorate of higher and leading ladies. The
bourgeois females imitate herein the example of the bourgeois males, who
likewise love such protectorates, and exert themselves in directions
that can bring only _small_, never _large results_. A Sisyphus work is
thus done with as much noise as possible, to the end of deceiving
oneself and others on the score of the necessity for a radical change.
The necessity is also felt to do all that is possible in order to
suppress all doubts regarding the wisdom of the foundations of our
social and political organization, and to prescribe them as treasonable.
The conservative nature of these endeavors prevents bourgeois
associations of women from being seized with so-called destructive
tendencies. When, accordingly, at the Women's Convention of Berlin, in
1894, the opinion was expressed by a minority that the bourgeois women
should go hand and hand with the working-women, i. e., with their
Socialist citizens, a storm of indignation went up from the majority.
But the bourgeois women will not succeed in pulling themselves out of
the quagmire by their own topknots.
How large the number is of women who, by reason of the causes herein
cited, must renounce married life, is not accurately ascertainable. In
Scotland, the number of unmarried women of the age of twenty years and
over was, towards the close of the sixties, 43 per cent. of the female
population, and there were 110 women to every 100 men. In England,
outside of Wales, there lived at that time 1,407,228 more women than men
of the age of 20 to 40, and 359,966 single women of over forty years of
age. Of each 100 women 42 were unmarried.
The surplus of women that Germany owns is very unevenly distributed in
point of territories and age. According to the census of 1890, it
stood:--[98]
To Every 1,000 Males, Females of
the Age of
Divisions. Under 15. 15-40. 40-60. Over 60.
Berlin 1,014 1,056 1,108 1,666
Kingdom of Saxony 1,020 1,032 1,112 1,326
Kingdom of Bavaria, on
the right of the Rhine 1,022 1,040 1,081 1,155
On the left of the Rhine 986 1,024 1,065 1,175
Wurtemberg 1,021 1,076 1,135 1,158
Baden 1,006 1,027 1,099 1,175
Hamburg 1,003 967 1,042 1,522
Province of Brandenburg 986 981 1,085 1,261
Province of Pommern 984 1,053 1,126 1,191
Province of Rhineland 984 990 1,010 1,087
----- ----- ----- -----
German Empire 995 1,027 1,094 1,196
Accordingly, of marriageable age proper, 15-40, the surplus of women in
the German Empire amounts to 27 women to every 1,000 men. Seeing that,
within these age periods, there are 9,429,720 male to 9,682,454 female
inhabitants, there is a total female surplus of 252,734. In the same
four age periods, the proportion of the sexes in other countries of
Europe and outside of Europe stood as follows:--[99]
To Every 1,000 Males, Females of
the Age of
60 and
Countries. Under 15. 15-40. 40-60. Over.
Belgium (1890) 992 984 1,018 1,117
Bulgaria (1888) 950 1,068 837 947
Denmark (1890) 978 1,080 1,073 1,179
France (1886) 989 1,003 1,006 1,063
England and Wales (1891) 1,006 1,075 1,096 1,227
Scotland (1891) 973 1,073 1,165 1,389
Ireland (1891) 966 1,036 1,109 1,068
Italy (1881) 963 1,021 1,005 980
Luxemburg (1891) 996 997 1,004 1,042
Holland (1889) 990 1,022 1,035 1,154
Austria (1890) 1,005 1,046 1,079 1,130
Hungary (1890) 1,001 1,040 996 1,000
Sweden (1890) 975 1,062 1,140 1,242
Switzerland (1888) 999 1,059 1,103 1,148
Japan (1891) 978 962 951 1,146
Cape of Good Hope (1891) 989 1,008 939 1,019
It is seen that all countries of the same or similar economic structure
reveal the identical conditions with regard to the distribution of the
sexes according to ages. According thereto, and apart from all other
causes already mentioned, a considerable number of women have in such
countries no prospect of entering wedded life. The number of unmarried
women is even still larger, because a large number of men prefer, for
all sorts of reasons, to remain single. What say hereto those
superficial folks, who oppose the endeavor of women after a more
independent, equal-righted position in life, and who refer them to
marriage and domestic life? The blame does not lie with the women that
so many of them do not marry; and how matters stand with "conjugal
happiness" has been sufficiently depicted.
What becomes of the victims of our social conditions? The resentment of
insulted and injured Nature expresses itself in the peculiar facial
lines and characteristics whereby so-called old maids, the same as old
ascetic bachelors, stamp themselves different from other human beings in
all countries and all climates; and it gives testimony of the mighty and
harmful effect of suppressed natural love. Nymphomania with women, and
numerous kinds of hysteria, have their origin in that source; and also
discontent in married life produces attacks of hysteria, and is
responsible for barrenness.
Such, in main outlines, is our modern married life and its effects. The
conclusion is: _Modern marriage is an institution that is closely
connected with the existing social condition, and stands or falls with
it. But this marriage is in the course of dissolution and decay, exactly
as capitalist society itself_,--because, as demonstrated under the
several heads on the subject of marriage:
1. Relatively, the number of births declines, although population
increases on the whole,--showing that the condition of the family
deteriorates.
2. Actions for divorce increase in numbers, considerably more than does
population, and, in the majority of cases, the plaintiffs are women,
although, both economically and socially, they are the greatest
sufferers thereunder,--showing that the unfavorable factors, that
operate upon marriage, are on the increase, and marriage, accordingly,
is dissolving and falling to pieces.
3. Relatively, the number of marriages is on the decline, although
population increases,--showing again that marriage, in the eyes of many,
no longer answers its social and moral purposes, and is considered
worthless, or dangerous.
4. In almost all the countries of civilization there is a disproportion
between the number of the sexes, and to the disadvantage of the female
sex, and the disproportion is not caused by births--there are, on the
average, more boys born than girls,--but is due to unfavorable social
and political causes, that lie in the political and economic conditions.
_Seeing that all these unnatural conditions, harmful to woman in
particular, are grounded in the nature of capitalist society, and grow
worse as this social system continues, the same proves itself unable to
end the evil and emancipate woman. Another social order is, accordingly,
requisite thereto._
FOOTNOTES:
[86] Plato requires in his "Republic" that "the women be educated like
the men," and he demands careful selection in breeding. He, accordingly,
was thoroughly familiar with the effect of a careful selection on the
development of man. Aristotle lays it down as a maxim of education that
"First the body, then the mind must be built up," Aristotle's
"Politics." With us, when thought is at all bestowed upon the matter,
the body, the scaffolding for the intellect, is considered last.
[87] "Die Mission unseres Jahrhunderts. Eine Studie zur Frauenfrage,"
Irma v. Troll-Borostyani; Pressburg and Leipsic.
[88] In "Les Femmes Qui Tuent et les Femmes Qui Votent," Alexander
Dumas, son, narrates: "A Catholic clergyman of high standing stated in
the course of a conversation that, out of a hundred of his former female
pupils, who married, after a month at least eighty came to him and said
they were disillusioned and regretted having married." This sounds very
probable. The Voltarian French bourgeoisie reconcile it with their
conscience to allow their daughters to be educated in the cloisters.
They proceed from the premises that an ignorant woman is more easy to
lead than one who is posted. Conflicts and disappointment are
inevitable. Laboulaye gives the flat-footed advice to keep woman in
moderate ignorance, because "notre empire est detruit, si l'homme est
reconnu" (our empire is over if man is found out).
[89] According to observations made in the psychiatric clinic at Vienna,
paralysis (softening of the brain) is making by far greater progress
among women than among men. To 100 patients taken in, there were in the
years:
1873-77: 15.7 male and 4.4 female paralytics.
1888-92: 19.7 male and 10.0 female paralytics.
During the sixties there was, on the average, 1 female paralytic to 8
males; now there is 1 female paralytic to 3.49 males in Denmark, to 3.22
in middle and upper Italy, 2.89 in England, 2.77 in Belgium, and 2.40 in
France.--"Wiener Arbeiter Zeitung," January 31, 1895.
[90] Dr. F. B. Simon: "Die Gesundheitspflege des Weibes," Stuttgart,
1893, F. J. Dietz.
[91] Dr. F. B. Simon. Simon devotes extensive consideration to this
theme, together with that akin thereto,--why so many married women take
sick shortly after marriage without knowing why; and he holds up the
mirror to the men.
[92] Karl Buecher: "Ueber die Vertheilung der beiden Geschlechter auf
der Erde," "Allgemeines Statistisches Archiv," Tuebingen, 1892.
[93] Besides 550,430 children without specification of sex.
[94] "Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer das Deutsche Reich." Jahrgang 1893.
[95] Ibidem.
[96] "Statistik des Deutschen Reiches," 1890.
[97] "Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer das Deutsche Reich," 1889-1894.
[98] "Statistik des Deutschen Reiches."
[99] "Statistik des Deutschen Reiches."