WOMAN'S CIVIC AND POLITICAL STATUS.
The social dependence of a rank or a class ever finds its expression in
the laws and political institutions of a country. Laws are the mirror in
which is reflected a country's social condition, to the extent that the
same has been brought within definite rules. _Woman, as a subject and
oppressed sex, constitutes no exception to the principle._ Laws are
negative or positive. Negative in so far as they ignore the oppressed in
the distribution of privileges and rights, as though he did not exist;
positive, in so far as they expressly assign his dependent position to
the oppressed, and specify possible exceptions in his favor.
Our common law rests upon the Roman law, which, recognized persons only
as property-holding beings. The old German law, which treated woman more
worthily, has preserved its force only partially. In the French
language, the human being and the man are designated by the same word,
"_l'homme_"; likewise in the English language,--"_man_." French law
knows the human being only as _man_; and so was it also until recently
in England, where woman found herself in slavish dependence upon man. It
was similarly in Rome. There were Roman citizens, and wives of Roman
citizens, but no female citizens.
Impossible were it to enumerate the numberless laws found on the motley
map of German common rights. Let a few instances suffice.
According to the common law of Germany, the wife is a minor towards her
husband; the husband is her master, to whom she owes obedience. If the
woman is "disobedient," then, according to the law of Prussia, the
husband of "low" estate has the right of "moderate castigation." Men of
"high" estate also there are said to be who arrogate such a right to
themselves. Seeing that nowhere is the force or number of the blows
prescribed, the husband is the sovereign judge. The old city law of
Hamburg declares: "For the rest, the right of _moderate castigation of
the wife by her husband_, of children by their parents, of pupils by
their teachers, or servants by their masters and mistresses, is hereby
adjudged just and permissible."
Similar provisions are numerous in Germany. According to the law of
Prussia, the husband may prescribe to the wife _how long she shall
suckle her child_. In cases of disposing of the children, the father
alone decides. If he dies, the wife is in most German States compelled
to accept a guardian for her children: she herself is considered a
minor, and is held unfit to attend to their education herself, even when
she supports her children by her property or labor. As a rule, her
husband administers her property, and, in cases of bankruptcy, the same
is considered and disposed of as his own, unless a pre-marital contract
secures the property to her. Wherever the right of primogeniture
attaches to landed property, a woman, even if she be the first born, can
not enter into possession if there be younger brothers. She can step in
only when she has no brothers. In most German States, a married woman
can contract only with the consent of her husband, unless she owns a
business in her own name, such as, according to more recent law, she is
allowed to start. She is shut off from all public function. The Prussian
law on associations forbids pupils and apprentices under 18 years of age
and women to join political organizations. Until a few decades ago, the
attendance of women among the public at open trials was forbidden by
several German codes of criminal procedure. If a woman gives birth to an
illegitimate child, it has no claim to support from its father if its
mother accepted any presents from him during her pregnancy. If a woman
is divorced from her husband, she continues to carry his name as a
lasting memento, unless she marry again.
In Germany, hundreds of frequently contradictory laws are met with.
According to the bill for the new civil laws of Germany, the
administration of the wife's property falls to the husband, unless the
wife has secured her property to herself by special contract. This is a
reactionary attitude, long since discarded by many other countries. On
the other hand, the wife is allowed to retain what she has earned by her
own personal labor, and without assistance of her husband, or by the
independent conduct of a business enterprise.
In England, and down to 1870, the common law of the land gave to the
husband all the personal property of the wife. Only with regard to real
estate were her proprietary rights safeguarded; the husband,
nevertheless, had the right of administration and of use. At the bar of
law, the English woman was a zero: she could perform no legal act, not
even execute a valid testament; she was a veritable serf of her husband.
A crime committed by her in his presence, he was answerable for: she was
at all points a minor. If she injured any one, damage was assessed as if
done by a domestic animal: the husband was held. According to an address
delivered in 1888 by Bishop J. N. Wood in the chapel of Westminster, as
recently as a hundred years ago the wife was not allowed to eat at table
or to speak before she was spoken to: above the bed hung a stout whip,
that the husband was free to use when the wife displayed ill temper:
only her daughters were subject to her orders: her sons saw in her
merely a female servant. Since 1870 and 1882, the wife is not merely
secured in the sole possession of the property that she brings with her,
she is also the proprietor of all she earns, or receives by inheritance
or gift. These rights can be altered only by special contract between
the husband and wife. English legislation followed the example of the
United States.
Particularly backward is the civil law of France, of most of the Swiss
cantons, of Belgium, etc., in the matter of woman's civic rights.
According to the _Code Civil_, the husband could sue for divorce upon
the adultery of the wife; she, however, could institute such an action
only if the husband kept his concubine at his own home (Article 230).
This provision has been repealed by the divorce law of July 27, 1884,
but the difference continues in force in the French criminal code,--a
characteristic manoeuvre on the part of the French legislator. If the
wife is convicted of adultery, _she is punished with imprisonment for
not less than two months nor more than three years. The husband is
punished only when, according to the spirit of the former Article 230 of
the Code Civil, he keeps a concubine under the domestic roof against the
wish of his wife. If found guilty, he is merely fined not less than 100
and not more than 1,000 francs._ (Arts. 337 and 339 _Code Penal_.) Such
inequality before the law were impossible if but one woman sat in the
French Parliament. A similar law exists in Belgium. The punishment for
adultery by the wife is the same as in France; the husband is liable
only if the act of adultery is committed at the home of the married
couple: he may then suffer imprisonment for not less than one month, or
more than one year. Slightly juster is, accordingly, the law in Belgium
than in France; nevertheless, in the one place as in the other, there
are two different standards of right, one for the husband, another for
the wife. Similar provisions exist, under the influence of French law,
in Spain and Portugal. The civil law of Italy of 1865 enables the wife
to obtain a divorce from her husband only if the husband keeps his
concubine at his own home, or at such other place where the concubine's
presence must be considered in the light of a grave insult to the wife.
In France, Belgium and Switzerland, woman falls, as in Germany, under
the guardianship of her husband, the moment she marries. According to
section 215 of the _Code Civil_, she is not allowed to appear in Court
without the consent of her husband and of two of her nearest male
relations, not even if she conducts a public business. According to
section 213 the husband must protect the wife, and she must yield
obedience to him. There is a saying of Napoleon I. that typifies his
idea concerning the status of woman: "One thing is utterly un-French--a
woman that can do what she pleases."[151] In these countries,
furthermore, woman may not appear as a witness in the execution of
contracts, testaments or any notarial act. On the other hand--odd
contradiction--she is allowed to act as a witness in all criminal
trials, where her testimony may lead to the execution of a person.
_Within the purview of the criminal code, she is on all hands considered
of equal value, and she is measured for every crime or offense with the
same yard-stick as man._ The contradiction, however, does not penetrate
the wool of our legislators. As a widow, she may dispose of her
property by testament; as witness to a testament, however, she is not
admissible in a number of countries; all the same, according to Art.
1029 of the _Code Civil_, she may be appointed the executor of a will.
In Italy, since 1877, woman is qualified to appear as a witness in civil
actions also.
According to the law of the canton of Zurich, the husband is the
guardian of his wife; he administers her property; and he represents her
before third parties. According to the _Code Civil_, the husband
administers the property that the wife brings with her, he can sell her
property, alienate it, load it with mortgages without requiring her
consent, or signature. Similar provisions exist in several other cantons
of Switzerland besides Zurich, in France, Belgium, Luxemburg, the
Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark and also in a large part
of Germany. Countries in which community of property may be excluded in
marriage are, besides parts of Germany, and a large part of Switzerland,
Austria, Poland and the Baltic provinces. Countries in which the
absolute independence of married women exist with respect to their
property are: Italy, Russia, Great Britain and Ireland. In Norway, a law
of the year 1888, on the administration of the property of married
persons, provides that a married woman has the same power to dispose of
her property as unmarried women, only the law specifies a few
exceptions. In this law the expression is used that _woman becomes
un-free in marriage_. Who could blame her if, there also, as happens
frequently in France, women are seen to waive formal matrimonial
contracts?
According to the law of Berne, what the married woman earns belongs to
her husband. Similarly with most cantons of Switzerland, also in France
and Belgium. The consequence is that the wife often finds herself in a
state of virtual slavery: the husband squanders with lewd women or in
the grog-shop what his wife makes: he incurs debts: gambles away his
wife's earnings: leaves her and her children in want. He even has the
right to demand from her employer the wages due her.
By the law of December 11, 1874, Sweden secures to the married woman the
right to dispose freely of that which she earns by her personal effort.
Denmark has raised the same principle to the force of a law; nor can,
according to Danish law, the property of the wife be seized to cover the
debts of the husband. Similarly runs the law of Norway of 1888.[152] The
right of educating the children and of deciding thereupon is, according
to the legislation of most countries, the attribute of the father: here
and there a subordinate co-operation is granted the mother. The old
Roman maxim, that stood in sharp contradiction to the principles
prevalent during the mother-right, and that clothed the father alone
with rights and powers over the child, is to this day the key-note of
legislation on the subject.
Among the continental countries, woman holds the freest position in
Russia,--due to the communistic institutions there still in existence,
or to reminiscences of the same. In Russia, woman is the administrator
of her property: she enjoys equal rights in the administration of the
community. Communism is the most favorable social condition to woman.
The fact transpired from the sketch of the age of the mother-right,
given on previous pages.[153] In the United States women have conquered
full civil equality; they have also prevented the introduction of the
English and similar laws regulating prostitution.
The civic inequality of woman has provoked among the more advanced
members of the female sex demand for political rights, to the end of
wielding the power of legislation in behalf of their civic equality. It
is the identical thought that moved the working class everywhere to
direct their agitation towards the conquest of the political powers.
What is right for the working class can not be wrong for woman.
Oppressed, disfranchised, relegated everywhere to the rear, woman has
not the right only, she has the duty to defend herself, and to seize
every means she may deem fit to conquer a more independent position for
herself. Against these efforts also the reactionary mob, of course,
bristles up. Let us see how.
The great French Revolution, that, as is well known, started in 1789 and
threw all old institutions out of joint, conjured up a freedom of
spirits such as the world had never seen before. Woman also stepped upon
the stage. During the previous decades immediately preceding the
outbreak of the Revolution, many of them had taken part in the great
intellectual struggle that then raged throughout French society. They
flocked in swarms to the great scientific discussions, attended
political and scientific meetings, and did their share in preparing the
Revolution, where theory was to crystalize into fact. Most historians
have noted only the excesses of the Revolution,--and as always happens
when the object is to cast stones at the people and arouse horror
against them--have enormously exaggerated these to the end of all the
more readily extenuating the shameful transgressions of the ruling
class. As a rule, these historians have belittled the heroism and
greatness of soul, displayed also by many women in both camps. So long
as the vanquishers remain the historians of the vanquished, it will ever
be thus.
In October, 1789, a number of women petitioned the National Assembly
"that equality be restored between man and woman, work and occupation be
given them free, places be left for them that their faculties were fit
for."
When in 1793 the Convention proclaimed "_le droit de l'homme_" (the
Rights of Man), the more far-seeing women perceived that these were only
the rights of males. Olympe de Gouges, Louise Lecombe and others
paralleled these "Rights of Man" with 17 articles on the "Rights of
Woman," which, on the 28th Brumaire (November 20, 1793) they defended
before the Commune of Paris upon the principle: "If woman has the right
to mount the scaffold, she must also have the right to mount the
tribune." Their demands remained unheeded. When, subsequently, upon the
march of monarchic Europe against the Republic, the Convention declared
the "Fatherland in danger," and called upon all men, able to carry arms,
to defend the Fatherland and the Republic, inspired Parisian women
offered to do what twenty years later inspired Prussian women likewise
did against the domination of Napoleon,--defend the Fatherland, arms in
hand. The radical Chaumette rose against those Parisian women and
addressed them, asking: "Since when is it allowed to women to renounce
their sex and become men? Since when is it usage for them to abandon the
sacred cares of their households, the cradles of their children, and to
appear at public places, to speak from the tribunes, to step in the
files of the troops,--in short, to fill duties that Nature has devolved
upon man alone? Nature said to man: 'Be thou _man_! Racing, the chase,
the cultivation of the fields, politics and violent labors of all sorts
are thy _privilege_!' It said to woman: 'Be thou _woman_! The care of
thy children, the details of thy household, the sweet inquietudes of
motherhood,--that is thy _work_!' Unwise women, why wish you to become
men? Is not mankind properly divided? What more can you want? In the
name of Nature, remain what you are; and, far from envying us the perils
of so stormy a life, rest satisfied to make us forget them in the lap of
our families, by allowing our eyes to rest upon the fascinating
spectacle of our children, made happy by your tender care."
The women allowed themselves to be silenced, and went away. There can be
no doubt that the radical Chaumette voiced the innermost sentiments of
most of our men, who otherwise abhor him. We also hold that it is a
proper division of work to leave to men the defense of the country, and
to women the care of the home and the hearth. In Russia, late in the
fall of the year and after they have tended the fields, the men of whole
village districts move to distant factories, and leave to the women the
administration of the commune and the house. For the rest, the
oratorical gush of Chaumette is mere phrases. What he says concerning
the labors of the men in the fields is not even correct: since time
immemorial down to to-day, woman's was not the easy part in agriculture.
The alleged labors of the chase and the race course are no "labors" at
all: they are amusements of men; and, as to politics, it has perils for
him only who swims _against_ the stream, otherwise it offers the men at
least as much amusement as labor. It is the egoism of man that speaks in
that speech.
At about the same time when the French Revolution was under way, and
engaged the attention of all Europe, a woman rose on the other side of
the Channel also, in England, to labor publicly in behalf of equal
rights for her sex. She was Mary Wollstoncraft, born in 1759, and who,
in 1790, published a book against Edmund Burke, the most violent enemy
of the French Revolution. She later, 1792, wrote a second book--"A
Vindication of the Rights of Woman"--in which she took the stand for
absolute equality of rights for her sex. In this book she demands the
suffrage for women in the elections for the Lower House. But she met in
England with even less response than did her sisters in France.
Ridiculed and insulted by her contemporaries, she went under after
trying ordeals. Before the Revolution it was the encyclopedist Condorcet
who principally took the field for the equal rights of both sexes.
To-day, matters lie somewhat differently. Since then, conditions have
changed mightily,--the position of woman along with them. Whether
married or unmarried, more than ever before woman now has a deep
interest in social and political conditions. It can not be a matter of
indifference to her whether the Government chains every year to the army
hundreds of thousands of vigorous, healthy men; whether a policy is in
force that favors wars, or does not; whether the necessaries of life are
made dearer by taxes, that promote, besides, the adulteration of food,
and are all the harder upon a family in the measure of its size, at a
time, at that, in which the means of life are most stingily measured for
the large majority. Moreover, woman pays direct and indirect taxes out
of her support and her income. Again, the system of education is of
highest interest to her: it goes far towards determining the position of
her sex: as a mother, she has a double interest therein.
Furthermore, as has been shown, there are to-day millions of women, in
hundreds of pursuits, all of them with a lively personal interest in the
manner that our laws are shaped. Questions concerning the hours of work;
night, Sunday and child-labor; payment of wages and notice of discharge;
safety appliances in factory and shop; etc.--all are political questions
that concern them as well as the men. Workingmen know little or nothing
about conditions in many branches of industry, where women are mainly,
or exclusively, engaged. Employers have all the interest in the world to
hush up evils that they are responsible for. Factory inspection
frequently does not extend to branches of industry in which women are
exclusively employed: such as it is, it is utterly inadequate: and yet
these are the very branches in which protective measures frequently are
most needed. It suffices to mention the workshops in which seamstresses,
dressmakers, milliners, etc., are crowded together in our larger cities.
From thence, hardly a complaint issues; thither no investigation has as
yet penetrated. Finally, as a trader, woman is also interested in laws
on commerce and tariffs. There can, accordingly, be no doubt that woman
has an interest and a right to demand a hand in the shaping of things by
legislation, as well as man. Her participation in public life would
impart a strong stimulus thereto, and open manifold new vistas.
Such demands, however, are met with the curt rebuff: "Women know nothing
of politics, and most of them don't want to, either; neither do they
know how to use the ballot." True, and not true. True enough, until now,
very few women, in Germany at least, have ventured to demand political
equality also. The first woman, who, as a writer, came out in its favor
in Germany was, as far as we know, Frau Hedwig Dohm. More recently, it
is mainly the Socialist working-women, who are vigorously agitating for
the idea; and their number is ever larger.
Nothing is proved with the argument that women have, until now, shown
little interest in the political movement. The fact that, hitherto,
women have troubled themselves little about politics, is no proof that
they should continue in the same path. The same reasons, advanced to-day
against female suffrage, were advanced during the first half of the
sixties in Germany against manhood suffrage. Even as late as 1863, the
author of this book himself was of those who opposed manhood suffrage;
four years later he owed to it his election to the Reichstag. Thousands
of others went through the same mill: from Sauls they became Pauls. Many
are the men, who either do not care or do not know how to use their
important political rights. And yet that fact was no reason to withhold
the suffrage from them, and can be none to now deprive them of it. At
the Reichstag elections in Germany, 25 to 30 per cent. of the qualified
voters do not vote at all. These non-voters are recruited from _all_
classes: among them are scientists and laborers. Moreover, of the 70 to
75 per cent. of those who participate in the election, the majority,
according to our judgment, vote in a way that they would not, if they
realized their true interests. That as yet they have not realized them
comes from defective political training, a training, however, that these
70 to 75 per cent. possess in a higher degree than the 25 to 30 per
cent., who stay away altogether. Among the latter, those must be
excepted who remain away from the hustings because they cannot, without
danger, vote according to their convictions.
Political education is not gained by keeping the masses from public
affairs; it is gained by admitting them to the exercise of political
rights. Practice makes perfect. The ruling classes have hitherto found
their account in keeping the large majority of the people in political
childhood. Hence it has ever been the task of a class-conscious minority
to battle with energy and enthusiasm for the collective interest of
society, and to shake up and drag the large inert mass after them. Thus
has it been in all great Movements: it is neither astonishing nor
discouraging that the experience made with the Movement of the working
class is repeated in the Movement for the emancipation of woman.
Previous successes prove that pains, labor and sacrifices are rewarded;
the future brings triumph.
The moment woman acquires equal rights with man, the sense of her duties
will be quickened. Called upon to cast her ballot, she will ask, What
for? Whom for? Immediately, emulation in many directions will set in
between man and woman that, so far from injuring, will materially
improve their mutual relations. The less posted woman will naturally
turn to the better posted man. Interchange of ideas and mutual
instruction follows,--a condition of things until now found most rarely
between husband and wife: it will impart a fresh charm to life. The
unhappy differences in education and view-points between the two
sexes,--differences, that so frequently lead to dissensions between
husband and wife, that place the husband at variance with his many-sided
duties, and that injure the well-being of all, will be wiped out.
Instead of a clog, the husband will gain a supporter in a compatible
wife; whenever prevented by other duties from personal participation,
she will spur her husband to fulfil his own. She will find it legitimate
that a fraction of his earnings be spent in a newspaper, for agitational
purposes, because the paper serves to educate and entertain her also,
and because she realizes the necessity of the sacrifice, a sacrifice
that helps to conquer that which she, her husband and her children
lack,--an existence worthy of human beings.
Thus, the joining of hands by husband and wife for the common weal, so
closely connected with the weal of the individual, will exert a most
ennobling influence. The very reverse is called into life of that which
is claimed by near-sighted people, or by the foes of a commonwealth
based upon the equality of all. Nor would it end there. The relation
between the two sexes would be beautiful in the measure that the social
institutions will liberate husband and wife from material cares and from
excessive work. Practice and education will, here as in all other cases,
give further aid. If I go not in the water, I shall never learn to swim;
if I study no foreign language and do not practice it, I shall never
learn to speak it. Everyone finds that natural; and yet many fail to
realize that the same holds good in the affairs of government and
society. Are our women unfitter than the far lower negroes, to whom full
political equality was conceded in North America? And shall a highly
intellectual woman be vested with lesser rights than the rudest, least
cultured man,--an ignorant day-laborer of the backwoods of Pomerania, or
an ultramontane canalman, for instance, and all because accident let
these come into the world as men? The son has greater rights than his
mother, from whom, perchance, he derives his best qualities, the very
qualities that alone make him what he is. Truly wonderful!
Moreover, we in Germany would no longer be running the risk of being the
first to take the leap in the dark and the unknown. The United States,
England and other countries have opened the way. In the State of Wyoming
in the United States, woman suffrage has been tested since 1869. On
November 12, 1872, writing from Laramie City, Wyo., on the subject,
Judge Kingman says in the Chicago "Women's Journal":
"Three years ago to-day women obtained the right of electing and of
being elected to office in our Territory, in the same manner as the
other electors. During this period they have voted and have been voted
for; they have exercised the functions of jurors and arbiters; they have
taken part in large numbers at our elections, and although I believe
that some among us oppose the admission of women from motives of
principle, no one, I think, can refuse to recognize that their influence
on the elections has been an elevating one. It caused them to be
conducted in a more peaceable and orderly manner, and at the same time
enabled our courts of justice to discover and punish various kinds of
crime that had until then remained unpunished.
"For instance, when the Territory was first organized, there was
scarcely a man who did not carry a revolver and make use of it in the
slightest dispute. I cannot remember a single case in which a jury
composed of men brought in a verdict of guilty against one of those who
had shot with a revolver, but when two or three women were among them,
they have invariably attended to the instructions of the Court."
In what esteem woman suffrage was held in Wyoming twenty-five years
after its introduction, may be gathered from the address issued on
November 12, 1894, to the Parliaments of the world by the Legislature of
that State. It says:
"The possession and exercise of suffrage by the women in Wyoming for the
past quarter of a century has wrought no harm and has done great good in
many ways; it has largely aided in banishing crime, pauperism, and vice
from this State, and that without any violent or oppressive legislation;
it has secured peaceful and orderly elections, good government, and a
remarkable degree of civilization and public order; and we point with
pride to the facts that after nearly twenty-five years of Woman Suffrage
not one county in Wyoming has a poorhouse, that our jails are almost
empty, and crime, except that committed by strangers in the State,
almost unknown; and as the result of experience we urge every civilized
community on earth to enfranchise its women without delay."[154]
While giving fullest credit to the political activity of the women of
Wyoming, we cannot go to the extreme, reached by the enthusiastic
defenders of woman suffrage in the Legislature of that State, of
ascribing exclusively to the ballot in woman's hands the enviable
conditions, which, according to the account of the address, Wyoming
rejoices in. A number of social causes of other nature contribute
thereto. Nevertheless, the fact is unquestionable that female suffrage
has been accompanied by the most beneficent results for that State, and
without one disadvantage. That is the most brilliant justification of
its introduction.
The example of Wyoming found followers. To-day there are a number of
countries in which woman enjoys political rights to greater or less
extent. In the United States, women obtained several years ago the
ballot in Colorado, and in 1894 they elected a number of
representatives; likewise in Arizona, and still more recently in
Minnesota. In New Zealand, they took a lively part in the parliamentary
elections of 1893, livelier, in fact, than the men, although they were
only qualified to elect: only men were qualified to be elected. In
March, 1894, the Prime Minister declared to a deputation of women that
he would advocate their qualification to be elected. In 1893, there were
twenty-two States in the North American Union where women were qualified
both to elect and be elected for the School Boards. In Kansas, Nebraska,
Colorado, Oregon, Arizona, Dakota, Idaho, Minnesota and Montana they are
fully qualified electors for municipal officers, provided they are
resident citizens. In Argonia, Kans., the wife of a physician was
elected Mayor;[155] the same thing happened in Onehunga, New Zealand.
Since more than ten years ago, women in Sweden have the suffrage for
departmental and municipal elections, under the same restrictions as
men.
In England, the struggle, for woman's political rights has a regular
history behind it. According to the old custom of the Middle Ages,
women, seized of landed property, were also vested with the suffrage,
and, as such also filled judicial functions. In the course of time they
lost these rights. In the bill for Parliamentary Reform in 1832, the
word "person" was used, a term that, according to English conceptions,
includes the members of both sexes, men and women. This notwithstanding,
the law was interpreted adversely to women and they were turned back
wherever they made the effort to vote. In the electoral reform Act of
1867, the word "man" was substituted for the word "person." John Stuart
Mill moved the re-insertion of "person" in place of "man," with the
express purpose that women shall be vested with the suffrage under the
same conditions as men. The motion was defeated by 196 votes against 83.
Sixteen years later, 1883, the attempt was again made in the Lower House
to grant women the suffrage. A motion to that effect was defeated by a
majority of 16. A further attempt in 1884 was defeated in a fuller House
by more than 136 votes. But the minority did not evacuate the field. In
1886 it succeeded in carrying to a second reading a motion to grant
women the suffrage; but the dissolution of Parliament prevented a final
vote being taken. Again, on April 27, 1892, the Lower House defeated
with 175 votes against 152, the second reading of a motion on the
subject presented by Sir A. Rollit, and which provided as follows:
"Every woman who in Great Britain is registered or entitled to be
registered as an elector for a Town Council or County Council or who in
Ireland is a rate payer entitled to vote in the election of Guardians of
the Poor, shall be entitled to be registered as a Parliamentary elector,
and when registered, to vote at any Parliamentary election for the
county, borough, or division wherein the qualifying property is
situate."
On November 29, 1888, Lord Salisbury held a speech in Edinburgh, in the
course of which he said: "I earnestly hope that the day is not far
distant when women also will bear their share in voting for members in
the political world and in the determining the policy of the country."
And Alfred Russell Wallace, celebrated as a naturalist and follower of
Darwin, expressed himself upon the same question this wise: "When men
and women shall have freedom to follow their best impulses, when both
shall receive the best possible education, when no false restraints
shall be imposed upon any human being by the reason of the accident of
sex, and when public opinion shall be regulated by the wisest and best
and shall be systematically impressed upon youth, then shall we find
that a system of human selection will arise that is bound to have a
reformed humanity for its result. So long as woman is compelled to
regard marriage as a means by which to escape poverty and avoid neglect,
she is and remains at a disadvantage with man. Hence, the first step in
the emancipation of woman is the removal of all restraints that prevent
her from competing with man on all the fields of industry and in all
pursuits. But we must go further, and allow woman the exercise of her
_political rights_. Many of the restraints, under which woman has
suffered until now, would have been spared to her, had she had direct
representation in Parliament."
In most sections of England, married women have the same political
rights as men in the elections for the School Boards and Guardians of
the Poor, and in many places are themselves qualified for election. At
the county elections, _unmarried_ women have the right to vote under the
same restrictions as men, but are not themselves qualified for election.
Likewise did all independent tax-paying women obtain the right to vote
by the Reform Act of 1869, but are not qualified for election. _Married
women_ are in virtue of a court decision, rendered in 1872, excluded
from the suffrage, because _in English law woman loses her independence
by marriage_--a decided encouragement for women to keep away from the
legal formality of legitimate marriage. Seeing that also in other
respects unmarried or divorced women in England and Scotland are clothed
with rights denied to married women, the temptation is not slight for
women to renounce legitimate unions. It is not exactly the part of
wisdom for the male representatives of bourgeois society to degrade
bourgeois marriage into a sort of slave status for woman.[156]
In Austria, women who are landed proprietors, or conduct a business, to
which the suffrage is attached, have the right to exercise the privilege
_by attorney_. This holds both for local and Reichstag elections. If the
woman is proprietor of a mercantile or industrial establishment, which
gives the right to vote for the Chamber of Commerce, her franchise must
be exercised by a business manager. In France, on the contrary, a woman
who conducts a business, has a right to vote at the election of members
for the tribunals of commerce, but she cannot herself be elected.
According to the law of 1891 of the old Prussian provinces, women have
the suffrage, if the landed property that belongs to them conveys the
right to vote, nevertheless they must exercise the privilege through a
male representative, neither are they eligible themselves. Likewise
according to the laws of Hanover, Brunswick, Schleswig-Holstein,
Sachsen-Weimar, Hamburg and Luebeck. In Saxony, the law allows women the
suffrage if they are landed proprietors and are _unmarried_. If married,
the woman's vote goes to her husband. In all these cases, accordingly,
the right of suffrage does not attach to persons but to property--quite
a light upon existing political and legal morality: Man, thou art zero
if moneyless or propertyless; knowledge, intellect are secondary
matters. Property decides.
We see that the principle of denying woman the suffrage on the theory of
her not being "of age" is broken through in fact; and yet objection is
raised to granting her the right in full. It is said that to grant woman
the suffrage is dangerous because she yields easily to religious
prejudices, and is conservative. She is both only because she is
ignorant. Let her be educated and taught where her interests lie. For
the rest, the influence of religion on elections is exaggerated.
Ultramontane agitation has hitherto been so successful in Germany only
because it knew how to join _social with religious interests_. The
ultramontane chaplains long vied with the Socialists in uncovering the
social foulness. Hence their influence with the masses. With the close
of the Kulturkampf, the influence of the Catholic clergymen upon the
masses waned. The clergy is forced to discontinue its opposition to the
Government; simultaneously therewith, the rising class struggle compels
it to consider the Catholic capitalist class and Catholic nobility; it
will, accordingly, be compelled to observe greater caution on the social
field. Thus the clergy will forfeit its influence with the workingmen,
especially at such critical junctures when considerations for the
Government and the ruling classes drive it to approve of, or tolerate
actions and laws directed against the interests of the working class.
The same causes will, in the end, have their influence upon woman. When
at public meetings, through newspapers and from personal observation she
will have learned where her own interest lies, woman will emancipate
herself from the clergy, the same as man has done. The fiercest opponent
of female suffrage is the clergy, and it knows the reason why. Its rule
and its domains are endangered.
That the movement for the political rights of woman has not been
promptly crowned with greater success is no reason to withhold the
ballot from her. What would the workingmen say if the Liberals proposed
abolishing manhood suffrage--and the same is very inconvenient to
them--on the ground that it benefits the Socialists in particular? A
good law does not become bad by reason of him who wields it not yet
having learned its right use.
Naturally, the right to be elected should go together with the right to
elect. "A woman in the tribune of the Reichstag, that would be a
spectacle!" we hear people exclaim. Our generation has grown accustomed
to the sight of women in the speaker's tribune at their conventions and
meetings; in the United States, also in the pulpit and the jury box--why
not, then, also in the tribune of the Reichstag? The first woman elected
to the Reichstag, would surely know how to impose respect. When the
first workingmen entered the Reichstag it was also believed they could
be laughed down, and it was claimed that the working class would soon
realize the foolishness it had committed in electing such people. Its
representatives, however, knew how to make themselves quickly respected;
the fear to-day is lest there be too many of them. Frivolous witlings
put in: "Just imagine a pregnant woman in the tribune of the Reichstag;
how utterly unesthetic!" The identical gentlemen find it, however, quite
in order that pregnant women work at the most unesthetic trades, at
trades in which female dignity, health and decency are undermined. In
the eyes of a Socialist, that man is a wretch who can crack jokes over a
woman with child. The mere thought that his own mother once looked like
that before she brought him into the world, should cause his cheeks to
burn with shame; the thought that he, rude jester, expects from a
similar condition on the part of his wife the fulfillment of his dearest
wishes should cause him, furthermore, to hold his tongue in shame.
_A woman who gives birth to children renders, at least, the same service
to the commonwealth as the man who defends his country and his hearth
with his life against a foe in search of conquests._ Moreover, the life
of a woman trembles in the scales at child-birth. All our mothers have
looked death in the face at our births, and many succumbed. _The number
of women who die as a result of child-birth, or who as a consequence
pine away in sickness, is greater than that of the men who fall on the
field of battle, or are wounded._ In Prussia, between 1816-1876, not
less than 321,791 women fell a prey to child-birth fever--a yearly
average of 5,363. This is by far a larger figure than that of the
Prussians, who, during the same period, were killed in war or died of
their wounds. Nor must, at the contemplation of this enormous number of
women who died of child-birth fever, the still larger number of those be
lost sight of, who, as a consequence of child-birth, are permanently
crippled in health, and die prematurely.[157] These are additional
reasons for woman's equal rights with man--reasons to be held up
especially to those, who play man's duty to defend the Fatherland as a
decisive circumstance, entitling them to superior consideration to
women. For the rest, in virtue of our military institutions, most men do
not even fill this duty: to the majority of them it exists upon paper
only.
All these superficial objections to the public activity of woman would
be unimaginable were the relations of the two sexes a natural one, and
were there not an antagonism, artificially raised side by side with the
relation of master and servant between the two. From early youth the two
are separated in social intercourse and education. Above all, it is the
antagonism, for which Christianity is responsible, that keeps the sexes
steadily apart and the one in ignorance about the other, and that
hinders free social intercourse, mutual confidence, a mutual
supplementing of traits of character.
One of the first and most important tasks of a rationally organized
society must be to end this unhallowed split, and to reinstate Nature in
its rights. The violence done to Nature starts at school: First, the
separation of the sexes; next, mistaken, or no instruction whatever, in
matters that concern the human being as a sexual entity. True enough,
natural history is taught in every tolerably good school. The child
learns that birds lay eggs and hatch them out: he also learns when the
mating season begins: that males and females are needed: that both
jointly assume the building of the nests, the hatching and the care of
the young. He also learns that mammals bring forth live young: he learns
about the rutting season and about the fights of the males for the
females during the same: he learns the usual number of young, perhaps
also the period of pregnancy. But on the subject of the origin and
development of his own stock he remains in the dark; that is veiled in
mystery. When, thereupon, the child seeks to satisfy his natural
curiosity with questions addressed to his parents, to his mother in
particular--he seldom ventures with them to his teacher--he is saddled
with the silliest stories that cannot satisfy him, and that are all the
more injurious when he some day does ascertain the truth. There are
probably few children who have not made the discovery by the twelfth
year of their age. In all small towns, in the country especially,
children observe from earliest years the mating of birds, the copulation
of domestic animals; they see this in closest proximity, in the yard, on
the street, and when the cattle are turned loose. They see that the
conditions under which the heat of the cattle is gratified, as well as
the act of birth of the several domestic animals are made the subject of
serious, thorough and undisguised discussion on the part of their
parents, elder brothers and servants. All that awakens doubts in the
child's mind on the accounts given him of his own entry into life.
Finally the day of knowledge does come; but it comes in a way other than
it would have come under a natural and rational education. The secret
that the child discovers leads to estrangement between child and
parents, particularly between child and mother. The reverse is obtained
of that which was aimed at in folly and shortsightedness. He who
recalls his own youth and that of his young companions knows what the
results frequently are.
An American woman says, among other things in a work written by her,
that wishing to answer the repeated questions of her eight-year-old son
on his origin, and unwilling to saddle him with nursery tales, she
disclosed the truth to him. The child listened to her with great
attention, and, from the day that he learned what cares and pains he had
caused his mother, he clung to her with a tenderness and reverence not
noticed in him before, and showed the same reverence toward other women
also.[158] The authoress proceeds from the correct premises that only by
means of a natural education can any real improvement--more respect and
self-control on the part of the male toward the female sex--be expected.
He who reasons free from prejudice will arrive at no other conclusion.
Whatever be the point of departure in the _critique_ of our social
conditions, the conclusion is ever the same--their _radical
transformation_; thereby a radical transformation in the position of the
sexes is inevitable. Woman, in order to arrive all the quicker at the
goal, must look for allies whom, in the very nature of things, the
movement of the working class steers in her direction. Since long has
the class-conscious proletariat begun the storming of the fortress, the
Class-State, which also upholds the present domination of one sex by the
other. That fortress must be surrounded on all sides with trenches, and
assailed to the point of surrender with artillery of all calibre. The
besieging army finds its officers and munitions on all sides. Social and
natural science, jointly with historical research, pedagogy, hygiene and
statistics are advancing from all directions, and furnish ammunition and
weapons to the movement. Nor does philosophy lag behind. In
Mainlaender's "The Philosophy of Redemption,"[159] it announces the
near-at-hand realization of the "Ideal State."
The ultimate conquest of the Class-State and its transformation is
rendered all the easier to us through the divisions in the ranks of its
defenders, who, despite the oneness of their interests against the
common enemy, are perpetually at war with one another in the strife for
plunder. Further aid comes to us from the daily-growing mutiny in the
ranks of the enemies, whose forces to a great extent are bone of our
bone, and flesh of our flesh--elements that, out of misunderstanding and
misled, have hitherto fought against us and thus against themselves, but
are gradually becoming clearsighted, and pass over to us. Finally we are
aided by the desertion of the honorable elements from the ranks of the
hitherto hostile men of thought, who have perceived the truth, and whose
higher knowledge spurs them to leap their low class interests, and,
following their ideal aspirations after justice, join the masses that
are thirsting for freedom.
Many do not yet realize the stage of dissolution that State and Society
are in. Hence, and although the dark blotches have been frequently
pointed out in the preceding chapters, a separate treatment of the
subject is requisite.
FOOTNOTES:
[151] Louis Bridel, "La Puissance Maritale," Lausanne, 1879.
[152] In the presentation of these civil rights we have merely followed
Louis Bridel's work: "Le Droit des Femmes et le Marriage," Paris, 1893.
[153] How correct this view is transpires also from the comedy of
Aristophanes: "The Popular Assembly of Women." In that comedy,
Aristophanes depicts how the Athenian government had reached the point
when everything was going at sixes and sevens. The Prytaneum put the
question to the popular assembly of the Athenian citizens: "How is the
State to be saved?" Thereupon a woman, disguised as a man, made the
proposition to entrust the helm of State to the women, and the
proposition was accepted without opposition "because it was the only
thing that had never before happened in Athens." The women seized the
helm, and forthwith instituted _communism_. Of course, Aristophanes
turns this condition into ridicule, but the significant point in the
play is that, the moment the women had a decisive word in public
affairs, they instituted communism as the only rational political and
social condition from the standpoint of their own sex. Aristophanes
little dreamed how he hit the truth while meaning to joke.
[154] The above two paragraphs are left as they appear in the text,
although they seem to be subject to corrections.
A diligent search in the libraries of this city for the original of the
above "Address to the Parliaments of the World," stated to have been
issued by the Legislature of Wyoming in 1894, having proved vain, the
Secretary of the State of Wyoming was written to. His answer was:
The State of Wyoming,
Office of the Secretary of State.
Cheyenne, June 5, 1903.
Mr. Daniel DeLeon, New York City:
Dear Sir--Replying to your letter of June 1st, would say that the
Legislature of Wyoming was not in session in 1894, and did not pass any
resolutions on Woman Suffrage in 1893 or 1895.
I enclose herewith the resolutions adopted by the Legislature of 1901,
and also Senate and House resolutions adopted in 1903 on the subject of
Woman Suffrage. Yours truly,
F. Chatterton,
Secretary of State.
The resolutions enclosed in the above letter were these:
[House Joint Resolution No. 8, adopted February, 1901.]
Whereas, Wyoming was the first state to adopt equal suffrage and equal
suffrage has been in operation since 1869; was adopted in the
constitution of the State of Wyoming in 1890, during which time women
have exercised the privilege as generally as men, with the result that
better candidates have been selected for office, methods of election
have been purified, the character of legislation improved, civic
intelligence increased and womanhood developed to greater usefulness by
political responsibility;
Therefore, Resolved, by the House of Representatives, the Senate
concurring, That, in view of these results, the enfranchisement of women
in every state and territory of the American Union is hereby recommended
as a measure tending to the advancement of a higher and better social
order.
That an authenticated copy of these resolutions be forwarded by the
Governor of the state to the legislature of every state and territory,
and that the press be requested to call public attention to these
resolutions.
Edward W. Stone,
President of Senate.
J. S. Atherly,
Speaker of House.
Approved February 13th, 1901.
DeF. Richards,
Governor.
[Senate and House Resolution, Seventh Legislature, 1903.]
Whereas, The question of equal suffrage is being seriously considered in
many States of the Union; and,
Whereas, Equal suffrage has been in operation in Wyoming ever since
Territorial days in 1869, during which time women have exercised the
privilege of voting generally and intelligently, with the result that a
higher standard of candidates have usually been selected for office;
elections have been made peaceful, orderly and dignified; the general
character of legislation improved; intelligence in political, civic and
social matters greatly increased; and,
Whereas, Under the responsibilities incident to suffrage the women of
Wyoming have not in any sense been deprived of any of their womanly
qualities, but on the contrary the womanhood of Wyoming has developed to
a broader usefulness; therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate of the Wyoming Legislature, That in view of the
beneficence and practical results of equal suffrage for men and women in
Wyoming, the enfranchisement of women is hereby endorsed as a great
national reform and a measure that will improve and advance the
political and social conditions of the country at large.
Resolved, That copies of this resolution be transmitted to Mrs. Carrie
Chapman Catt, President National Women Suffrage Association, 2008
American Tract Society Building, New York, and to Mrs. Harriet Taylor
Upton, National Treasurer, Warren, Ohio.
G. A. Guernsey,
Approved February 19th, 1903. President of the Senate.
DeF. Richards,
Governor.
J. S. Atherly,
Speaker of the House.
Agitational literature on woman suffrage, furnished by the Boston,
Mass., "Woman's Journal," after the above note was in print, gives the
address cited in the text, but not as issued by the Legislature of
Wyoming, nor in 1894. The address was adopted in March, 1893, by the
House of Representatives of the Wyoming Legislature, just before the
final adjournment of the body, and was not acted upon by the
Senate.--THE TRANSLATOR.
[155] In Colorado, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming women have full suffrage, and
vote for all officers, including Presidential electors. In Utah and
Wyoming woman suffrage is a constitutional provision.
In Indiana women may hold any office under the school laws, but can not
vote for any such office.
In Kansas women exercise the suffrage largely in municipal elections.
In some form, mainly as to taxation or the selection of school officers,
woman suffrage exists in a limited way in Arizona, Connecticut,
Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota,
Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota,
Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Washington and
Wisconsin.--THE TRANSLATOR.
[156] On September 5, 1902, the Trades Union Congress of England--made
up, of course, of the British style of Trades Unionism, known in America
as "Pure and Simple" Trades Unionism--rejected a resolution introduced
for the purpose of giving the franchise to women on the same terms as
men.--THE TRANSLATOR.
[157] "To every woman who to-day dies in child-bed, from 15 to 20 must
be added who remain more or less seriously injured, and subject to womb
troubles and general ill health, often for life."--Dr. H. B. Adams.
[158] Isabella Beecher-Hooker, "Womanhood, Its Sanctities and
Fidelities."
[159] "Philosophie der Erloesung."