woman, inherited from his mother: it determines his attitude towards
women as a whole, whether to honour, despise, or remain generally
indifferent to them.
381.
CORRECTING NATURE.--Whoever has not got a good father should procure
one.
382.
FATHERS AND SONS.--Fathers have much to do to make amends for having
sons.
383.
THE ERROR OF GENTLEWOMEN.--Gentle-women think that a thing does not
really exist when it is not possible to talk of it in society.
384.
A MALE DISEASE.--The surest remedy for the male disease of
self-contempt is to be loved by a sensible woman.
385.
A SPECIES OF JEALOUSY.--Mothers are readily jealous of the friends
of sons who are particularly successful. As a rule a mother loves
_herself_ in her son more than the son.
386.
RATIONAL IRRATIONALITY.--In the maturity of life and intelligence the
feeling comes over a man that his father did wrong in begetting him.
387.
MATERNAL EXCELLENCE.--Some mothers need happy and honoured children,
some need unhappy ones,--otherwise they cannot exhibit their maternal
excellence.
388.
DIFFERENT SIGHS.--Some husbands have sighed over the elopement of their
wives, the greater number, however, have sighed because nobody would
elope with theirs.
389.
LOVE MATCHES.--Marriages which are contracted for love (so-called
love-matches) have error for their father and need (necessity) for
their mother.
390.
WOMEN'S FRIENDSHIPS.--Women can enter into friendship with a man
perfectly well; but in order to maintain it the aid of a little
physical antipathy is perhaps required.
391.
ENNUI.--Many people, especially women, never feel ennui because they
have never learnt to work properly.
392.
AN ELEMENT OF LOVE.--In all feminine love something of maternal love
also comes to light.
393.
UNITY OF PLACE AND DRAMA.--If married couples did not live together,
happy marriages would be more frequent.
394.
THE USUAL CONSEQUENCES OF MARRIAGE.--All intercourse which does not
elevate a person, debases him, and _vice versa;_ hence men usually
sink a little when they marry, while women are somewhat elevated.
Over-intellectual men require marriage in proportion as they are
opposed to it as to a repugnant medicine.
395.
LEARNING TO COMMAND.--Children of unpretentious families must be taught
to command, just as much as other children must be taught to obey.
396.
WANTING TO BE IN LOVE.--Betrothed couples who have been matched by
convenience often exert themselves _to fall in love,_ to avoid the
reproach of cold, calculating expediency. In the same manner those who
become converts to Christianity for their advantage exert themselves to
become genuinely pious; because the religious cast of countenance then
becomes easier to them.
397.
No STANDING STILL IN LOVE.--A musician who _loves_ the slow _tempo_
will play the same pieces ever more slowly. There is thus no standing
still in any love.
398.
MODESTY.--Women's modesty usually increases with their beauty.[1]
399.
MARRIAGE ON A GOOD BASIS.--A marriage in which each wishes to realise
an individual aim by means of the other will stand well; for instance,
when the woman wishes to become famous through the man and the man
beloved through the woman.
400.
PROTEUS-NATURE.--Through love women actually become what they appear to
be in the imagination of their lovers.
401.
To LOVE AND TO POSSESS.--As a rule women love a distinguished man to
the extent that they wish to possess him exclusively. They would gladly
keep him under lock and key, if their vanity did not forbid, but vanity
demands that he should also appear distinguished before others.
402.
THE TEST OF A GOOD MARRIAGE.--The goodness of a marriage is proved by
the fact that it can stand an "exception."
403.
BRINGING ANYONE ROUND TO ANYTHING.--One may make any person so weak and
weary by disquietude, anxiety, and excess of work or thought that he
no longer resists anything that appears complicated, but gives way to
it,--diplomatists and women know this.
404.
PROPRIETY AND HONESTY.--Those girls who mean to trust exclusively to
their youthful charms for their provision in life, and whose cunning
is further prompted by worldly mothers, have just the same aims as
courtesans, only they are wiser and less honest.
405.
MASKS.--There are women who, wherever one examines them, have no
inside, but are mere masks. A man is to be pitied who has connection
with such almost spectre-like and necessarily unsatisfactory creatures,
but it is precisely such women who know how to excite a man's desire
most strongly; he seeks for their soul, and seeks evermore.
406.
MARRIAGE AS A LONG TALK.--In entering on a marriage one should ask
one's self the question, "Do you think you will pass your time well
with this woman till your old age?" All else in marriage is transitory;
talk, however, occupies most of the time of the association.
407.
GIRLISH DREAMS.--Inexperienced girls flatter themselves with the notion
that it is in their power to make a man happy; later on they learn that
it is equivalent to underrating a man to suppose that he needs only a
girl to make him happy. Women's vanity requires a man to be something
more than merely a happy husband.
408.
THE DYING-OUT OF FAUST AND MARGUERITE.--According to the very
intelligent remark of a scholar, the educated men of modern Germany
resemble somewhat a mixture of Mephistopheles and Wagner, but are not
at all like Faust, whom our grandfathers (in their youth at least)
felt agitating within them. To them, therefore,--to continue the
remark,--Marguerites are not suited, for two reasons. And because the
latter are no longer desired they seem to be dying out.
409.
CLASSICAL EDUCATION FOR GIRLS.--For goodness' sake let us not give our
classical education to girls! An education which, out of ingenious,
inquisitive, ardent youths, so frequently makes--copies of their
teacher!
410.
WITHOUT RIVALS.--Women readily perceive in a man whether his soul
has already been taken possession of; they wish to be loved without
rivals, and find fault with the objects of his ambition, his
political tasks, his sciences and arts, if he have a passion for such
things. Unless he be distinguished thereby,--then, in the case of a
love-relationship between them, women look at the same time for an
increase of _their own_ distinction; under such circumstances, they
favour the lover.
411.
THE FEMININE INTELLECT.--The intellect of women manifests itself as
perfect mastery, presence of mind, and utilisation of all advantages.
They transmit it as a fundamental quality to their children, and the
father adds thereto the darker background of the will. His influence
determines as it were the rhythm and harmony with which the new life
is to be performed; but its melody is derived from the mother. For
those who know how to put a thing properly: women have intelligence,
men have character and passion. This does not contradict the fact
that men actually achieve so much more with their intelligence: they
have deeper and more powerful impulses; and it is these which carry
their understanding (in itself something passive) to such an extent.
Women are often silently surprised at the great respect men pay to
their character. When, therefore, in the choice of a partner men seek
specially for a being of deep and strong character, and women for a
being of intelligence, brilliancy, and presence of mind, it is plain
that at bottom men seek for the ideal man, and women for the ideal
woman,--consequently not for the complement but for the completion of
their own excellence.
412.
HESIOD'S OPINION CONFIRMED.--It is a sign of women's wisdom that they
have almost always known how to get themselves supported, like drones
in a bee-hive. Let us just consider what this meant originally, and
why men do not depend upon women for their support. Of a truth it
is because masculine vanity and reverence are greater than feminine
wisdom; for women have known how to secure for themselves by their
subordination the greatest advantage, in fact, the upper hand. Even the
care of children may originally have been used by the wisdom of women
as an excuse for withdrawing themselves as much as possible from work.
And at present they still understand when they are really active (as
house-keepers, for instance) how to make a bewildering fuss about it,
so that the merit of their activity is usually ten times over-estimated
by men.
413.
LOVERS AS SHORT-SIGHTED PEOPLE.--A pair of powerful spectacles has
sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love; and whoever has had
sufficient imagination to represent a face or form twenty years older,
has probably gone through life not much disturbed.
414.
WOMEN IN HATRED.--In a state of hatred women are more dangerous
than men; for one thing, because they are hampered by no regard for
fairness when their hostile feelings have been aroused; but let their
hatred develop unchecked to its utmost consequences; then also,
because they are expert in finding sore spots (which every man and
every party possess), and pouncing upon them: for which purpose their
dagger-pointed intelligence is of good service (whilst men, hesitating
at the sight of wounds, are often generously and conciliatorily
inclined).
415.
LOVE.--The love idolatry which women practise is fundamentally and
originally an intelligent device, inasmuch as they increase their
power by all the idealisings of love and exhibit themselves as so much
the more desirable in the eyes of men. But by being accustomed for
centuries to this exaggerated appreciation of love, it has come to pass
that they have been caught in their own net and have forgotten the
origin of the device. They themselves are now still more deceived than
the men, and on that account also suffer more from the disillusionment
which, almost necessarily, enters into the life of every woman--so far,
at any rate, as she has sufficient imagination and intelligence to be
able to be deceived and undeceived.
416.
THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN.--Can women be at all just, when they are
so accustomed to love and to be immediately biased for or against?
For that reason they are also less interested in things and more in
individuals: but when they are interested in things they immediately
become their partisans, and thereby spoil their pure, innocent effect.
Thus there arises a danger, by no means small, in entrusting politics
and certain portions of science to them (history, for instance). For
what is rarer than a woman who really knows what science is? Indeed the
best of them cherish in their breasts a secret scorn for science, as if
they were somehow superior to it. Perhaps all this can be changed in
time; but meanwhile it is so.
417.
THE INSPIRATION IN WOMEN'S JUDGMENTS.--The sudden decisions, for
or against, which women are in the habit of making, the flashing
illumination of personal relations caused by their spasmodic
inclinations and aversions,--in short, the proofs of feminine injustice
have been invested with a lustre by men who are in love, as if all
women had inspirations of wisdom, even without the Delphic cauldron and
the laurel wreaths; and their utterances are interpreted and duly set
forth as Sibylline oracles for long afterwards. When one considers,
however, that for every person and for every cause something can be
said in favour of it but equally also something against it, that
things are not only two-sided, but also three and four-sided, it is
almost difficult to be entirely at fault in such sudden decisions;
indeed, it might be said that the nature of things has been so arranged
that women should always carry their point.[2]
418.
BEING LOVED.--As one of every two persons in love is usually the one
who loves, the other the one who is loved, the belief has arisen that
in every love-affair there is a constant amount of love; and that
the more of it the one person monopolises the less is left for the
other. Exceptionally it happens that the vanity of each of the parties
persuades him or her that it is _he_ or _she_ who must be loved; so
that both of them wish to be loved: from which cause many half funny,
half absurd scenes take place, especially in married life.
419.
CONTRADICTIONS IN FEMININE MINDS.--Owing to the fact that women are
so much more personal than objective, there are tendencies included
in the range of their ideas which are logically in contradiction to
one another; they are accustomed in turn to become enthusiastically
fond just of the representatives of these tendencies and accept their
systems in the lump; but in such wise that a dead place originates
wherever a new personality afterwards gets the ascendancy. It may
happen that the whole philosophy in the mind of an old lady consists of
nothing but such dead places.
420.
WHO SUFFERS THE MORE?--After a personal dissension and quarrel between
a woman and a man the latter party suffers chiefly from the idea of
having wounded the other, whilst the former suffers chiefly from the
idea of not having wounded the other sufficiently; so she subsequently
endeavours by tears, sobs, and discomposed mien, to make his heart
heavier.
421.
AN OPPORTUNITY FOR FEMININE MAGNANIMITY.--If we could disregard the
claims of custom in our thinking we might consider whether nature and
reason do not suggest several marriages for men, one after another:
perhaps that, at the age of twenty-two, he should first marry an
older girl who is mentally and morally his superior, and can be his
leader through all the dangers of the twenties (ambition, hatred,
self-contempt, and passions of all kinds). This woman's affection
would subsequently change entirely into maternal love, and she would
not only submit to it but would encourage the man in the most salutary
manner, if in his thirties he contracted an alliance with quite a young
girl whose education he himself should take in hand. Marriage is a
necessary institution for the twenties; a useful, but not necessary,
institution for the thirties; for later life it is often harmful, and
promotes the mental deterioration of the man.
422.
THE TRAGEDY OF CHILDHOOD.--Perhaps it not infrequently happens
that noble men with lofty aims have to fight their hardest battle
in childhood; by having perchance to carry out their principles in
opposition to a base-minded father addicted to feigning and falsehood,
or living, like Lord Byron, in constant warfare with a childish and
passionate mother. He who has had such an experience will never be able
to forget all his life who has been his greatest and most dangerous
enemy.
423.
PARENTAL FOLLY.--The grossest mistakes in judging a man are made by
his parents,--this is a fact, but how is it to be explained? Have
the parents too much experience of the child and cannot any longer
arrange this experience into a unity? It has been noticed that it
is only in the earlier period of their sojourn in foreign countries
that travellers rightly grasp the general distinguishing features of
a people; the better they come to know it, they are the less able to
see what is typical and distinguishing in a people. As soon as they
grow short-sighted their eyes cease to be long-sighted. Do parents,
therefore, judge their children falsely because they have never stood
far enough away from them? The following is quite another explanation:
people are no longer accustomed to reflect on what is close at hand and
surrounds them, but just accept it. Perhaps the usual thoughtlessness
of parents is the reason why they judge so wrongly when once they are
compelled to judge their children.
424.
THE FUTURE OF MARRIAGE.--The noble and liberal-minded women who take as
their mission the education and elevation of the female sex, should not
overlook one point of view: Marriage regarded in its highest aspect,
as, the spiritual friendship of two persons of opposite sexes, and
accordingly such as is hoped for in future, contracted for the purpose
of producing and educating a new generation,--such marriage, which
only makes use of the sensual, so to speak, as a rare and occasional
means to a higher purpose, will, it is to be feared, probably need a
natural auxiliary, namely, _concubinage._ For if, on the grounds of
his health, the wife is also to serve for the sole satisfaction of the
man's sexual needs, a wrong perspective, opposed to the aims indicated,
will have most influence in the choice of a wife. The aims referred to:
the production of descendants, will be accidental, and their successful
education highly improbable. A good wife, who has to be friend, helper,
child-bearer, mother, family-head and manager, and has even perhaps
to conduct her own business and affairs separately from those of the
husband, cannot at the same time be a concubine; it would, in general,
be asking too much of her. In the future, therefore, a state of things
might take place the opposite of what existed at Athens in the time
of Pericles; the men, whose wives were then little more to them than
concubines, turned besides to the Aspasias, because they longed for the
charms of a companionship gratifying both to head and heart, such as
the grace and intellectual suppleness of women could alone provide. All
human institutions, just like marriage, allow only a moderate amount of
practical idealising, failing which coarse remedies immediately become
necessary.
425.
THE "STORM AND STRESS" PERIOD of WOMEN.--In the three or four civilised
countries of Europe, it is possible, by several centuries of education,
to make out of women anything we like,--even men, not in a sexual
sense, of course, but in every other. Under such influences they will
acquire all the masculine virtues and forces, at the same time, of
course, they must also have taken all the masculine weaknesses and
vices into the bargain: so much, as has been said, we can I command.
But how shall we endure the intermediate state thereby induced, which
may even last two or three centuries, during which feminine follies
and injustices, woman's original birthday endowment, will still
maintain the ascendancy over all that has been otherwise gained and
acquired? This will be the time when indignation will be the peculiar
masculine passion; indignation, because all arts and sciences have been
overflowed and choked by an unprecedented dilettanteism, philosophy
talked to death by brain-bewildering chatter, politics more fantastic
and partisan than ever, and society in complete disorganisation,
because the conservatrices of ancient customs have become ridiculous
to themselves, and have endeavoured in every way to place themselves
outside the pale of custom. If indeed women had their greatest power in
custom, where will they have to look in order to reacquire a similar
plenitude of power after having renounced custom?
426.
FREE-SPIRIT AND MARRIAGE.--Will free-thinkers live with women? In
general, I think that, like the prophesying birds of old, like the
truth-thinkers and truth-speakers of the present, they must prefer _to
fly alone._
427.
THE HAPPINESS OF MARRIAGE.--Everything to which we are accustomed draws
an ever-tightening cobweb-net around us; and presently We notice that
the threads have become cords, and that we ourselves sit in the middle
like a spider that has here got itself caught and must feed on its own
blood. Hence the free spirit hates all rules and customs, all that is
permanent and definitive, hence he painfully tears asunder again and
again the net around him, though in consequence thereof he will suffer
from numerous wounds, slight and severe; for he must break off every
thread _from himself,_ from his body and soul. He must learn to love
where he has hitherto hated, and _vice versa._ Indeed, it must not be
a thing impossible for him to sow dragon's teeth in the same field in
which he formerly scattered the abundance of his bounty. From this it
can be inferred whether he is suited for the happiness of marriage.
428.
TOO INTIMATE.--When we live on too intimate terms with a person it
is as if we were again and again handling a good engraving with our
fingers; the time comes when we have soiled and damaged paper in our
hands, and nothing more. A man's soul also gets worn out by constant
handling; at least, it eventually _appears_ so to us--never again do we
see its original design and beauty. We always lose through too familiar
association with women and friends; and sometimes we lose the pearl of
our life thereby.
429.
THE GOLDEN CRADLE.--The free spirit will always feel relieved when he
has finally resolved to shake off the motherly care and guardianship
with which women surround him. What harm will a rough wind, from which
he has been so anxiously protected, do him? Of what consequence is a
genuine disadvantage, loss, misfortune, sickness, illness, fault, or
folly more or less in his life, compared with the bondage of the golden
cradle, the peacock's-feather fan, and the oppressive feeling that he
must, in addition, be grateful because he is waited on and spoiled like
a baby? Hence it is that the milk which is offered him by the motherly
disposition of the women about him can so readily turn into gall.
430.
A VOLUNTARY VICTIM.--There is nothing by, which able women can
so alleviate the lives of their husbands, should these be great
and famous, as by becoming, so to speak, the receptacle for the
general disfavour and occasional ill-humour of the rest of mankind.
Contemporaries are usually accustomed to overlook many mistakes,
follies, and even flagrant injustices in their great men if only they
can find some one to maltreat and kill, as a proper victim for the
relief of their feelings. A wife not infrequently has the ambition to
present herself for this sacrifice, and then the husband may indeed
feel satisfied,--he being enough of an egoist to have such a voluntary
storm, rain, and lightning-conductor beside him.
431.
AGREEABLE ADVERSARIES.--The natural inclination, of women towards
quiet, regular, happily tuned existences and intercourse, the oil-like
and calming effect of their influence upon the sea of life, operates
unconsciously against the heroic inner impulse of the free spirit.
Without knowing it, women act as if they were taking away the stones
from the path of the wandering mineralogist in order that he might not
strike his foot against them--when he has gone out for the very purpose
of striking against them.
432.
THE DISCORD OF TWO CONCORDS.--Woman wants to serve, and finds her
happiness therein; the free spirit does not want to be served, and
therein finds his happiness.
433.
XANTIPPE.--Socrates found a wife such as he required,--but he
would not have sought her had he known her sufficiently well; even
the heroism of his free spirit would not have gone so far. As a
matter of fact, Xantippe forced him more and more into his peculiar
profession, inasmuch as she made house and home doleful and dismal
to him; she taught him to live in the streets and wherever gossiping
and idling went on, and thereby made him the greatest Athenian
street-dialectician, who had, at last, to compare himself to a gad-fly
which a god had set on the neck of the beautiful horse Athens to
prevent it from resting.
434.
BLIND TO THE FUTURE.--Just as mothers have senses and eye only for
those pains of their children that are evident to the senses and eye,
so the wives of men of high aspirations cannot accustom themselves to
see their husbands suffering, starving, or slighted,--although all this
is, perhaps, not only the proof that they have rightly chosen their
attitude in life, but even the guarantee that their great aims _must_
be achieved some time. Women always intrigue privately against the
higher souls of their husbands; they want to cheat them out of their
future for the sake of a painless and comfortable present.
435.