PROUDHON.
The tenth and eleventh studies of the last work of M. Proudhon, "Justice
in the Revolution and in the Church," comprise the author's whole
doctrine concerning Woman, Love, and Marriage.
Before analyzing it and criticising its chief points, I must acquaint my
readers with the polemical commencement which _appears_ to have given
rise to the publication of the strange doctrines of our great critic. In
the _Revue Philosophique_ of December, 1856, the following article by me
was published under the title, _Proudhon and the Woman Question_:--
"Women have a weakness for soldiers, it is said. It is true, but they
should not be reproached for it; they love even the show of courage,
which is a glorious and holy thing. I am a woman, Proudhon is a great
soldier of thought. I cannot therefore prevent myself from regarding him
with esteem and sympathy; sentiments to which he will owe the moderation
of my attack on his opinions concerning the rôle of woman in humanity. In
his first "Memoir on Property," note on page 265, edition of 1841, we
read the following paradox in the style of the Koran:
"Between man and woman may exist love, passion, the bond of habit,
whatever you like; there is not _true society_. _Man and woman are not
companions._ The difference of sex gives rise between them to a
separation _of the same nature as that which the difference of races
places between animals_. Thus, far from applauding what is now called the
emancipation of woman, I should be much more inclined, were it necessary
to go to this extremity, _to put woman in seclusion_."
In the third "Memoir on Property," we read:
"This signifies that woman, _by nature and by destination_, is neither
_associate, nor citizen, nor public functionary_."
I open the "Creation of Order in Humanity," and read there:
"It is in treating of education that we must determine the part of woman
in society. Woman, until she becomes a wife, is _apprentice_, at most
_under-superintendent_, in the work-shop, as in the family, she _remains
a minor, and does not form a part of the commonwealth_. Woman is not, as
is commonly affirmed, _the half nor the equal of man_, but the living and
sympathetic _complement_ that is lacking to make him an individual."
In the "Economical Contradictions," we read:
"For my part, the more I reflect on the destiny of woman outside of the
family and the household, the less I can account for it: _courtesan or
housewife_, (housewife, I say, not servant,) I see no medium."
I had always laughed at these paradoxes; they had no more doctrinal value
in my eyes than the thousand other freaks so common to this celebrated
critic. A short time since, an obscure journal pretended that Proudhon,
in private conversations, had drawn up a formula of an entire system
based on masculine omnipotence, and published this system in its columns.
One of two things is certain, said I to myself; either the journalist
speaks falsely, or he tells the truth; if he speaks falsely, his evident
aim is to destroy Proudhon in the confidence of the friends of progress,
and to make him lose his lawful share of influence, in which case, he
must be warned of it; if he tells the truth, Proudhon must still be
warned of the fact, since it is impossible that, being the father of
_several daughters_, paternal feeling should not have set him on the road
to reason. At all events, I must know about it. I wrote to Proudhon, who,
the next day, returned me an answer which I transcribe _verbatim_:
"MADAM:
"I know nothing of the article published by M. Charles Robin in
the _Telegraphe_ of yesterday. In order to inform myself with
regard to this paraphrase, as you entitle the article of M.
Robin, I examined my first "Memoir on Property," page 265,
Garnier edition, (I have no other,) and found no note there. I
examined the same page in my other pamphlet, and discovered no
note anywhere. It is therefore impossible for me to reply to your
first question.
"I do not exactly know what you call _my opinions_ on woman,
marriage and the family; for I believe I have given no one a
right to speak of my opinions on these subjects, any more than on
that of property.
"I have written economical and social criticisms; in making these
criticisms (I take the word in its highest signification), I may
have indeed expressed judgments to a greater or less degree
relative, concerning a truth. I have no where that I know of,
framed a dogma, a theory, a collection of principles; in a word,
a system. All that I can tell you is, in the first place, as far
as concerns myself, that my opinions have been formed
progressively and in an unvarying direction; that, at the time at
which I write, I have not deviated from this direction; and that,
with this reserve, my existing opinions accord perfectly with
what they were seventeen years ago when I published my first
memoirs.
"In the second place, with regard to you, Madam, who, in
interrogating me do not leave me in ignorance of your sentiments,
I will tell you with all the frankness which your letter exacts,
and which you expect from a compatriot, that I do not regard the
question of marriage, of woman, and of the family in the same
light as yourself, or any of the innovating authors whose ideas
have come to my knowledge; that I do not admit, for instance,
that woman has the right at the present time to separate her
cause from that of man, and to demand for herself special
legislation, as though her chief tyrant and enemy were man; that
further, I do not admit that, whatever reparation may be due to
woman, of joint thirds with her husband (or father) and her
children, the most rigorous justice can ever make her the EQUAL
of man; that neither do I admit that this inferiority of the
female sex constitutes for it either servitude, or humiliation,
or a diminution of dignity, liberty, or happiness. I maintain
that the contrary is true.
"I consider, therefore, the sort of crusade that is being carried
on at this time by a few estimable ladies in both hemispheres in
behalf of the prerogatives of their sex, as a symptom of the
general renovation that is being wrought; but nevertheless, as
an exaggerated symptom, _an infatuation that proceeds precisely
from the infirmity of the sex and its incapacity to understand
and to govern itself_.
"I have read, Madam, a few of your articles. I find that your
wit, capacity and knowledge place you certainly above an infinity
of males who have nothing of their sex but the proletary faculty.
In this respect, were it necessary to decide on your thesis by
comparisons of this kind, you would doubtless gain the cause.
"But you have too much good sense not to comprehend that the
question here is by no means to compare individual with
individual, but the whole feminine sex in its aggregate with the
whole masculine sex, in order to know whether these two halves,
the complements of each other, are or are not equals in the human
androgynus.
"In accordance with this principle, I do not believe that your
system, which is, I think, that of equality or equivalence, can
be sustained, and I regard it as a weakness of our epoch.
"You have interrogated me, Madam, with Franche-Comtois
abruptness. I wish you to take my words in good part, and, since
I doubtless do not agree at all with you, not to see in me an
enemy of woman, a detractor of your sex, worthy of the
animadversions of maidens, wives and mothers. The rules of fair
discussion oblige you to admit at least that you may be deceived,
that I may be right, that in such case it is I who am truly the
defender and friend of woman; I ask nothing more.
"You and your companions have raised a very great question, which
I think that you have hitherto treated quite superficially. But
the indifferent manner in which this subject has been treated
should not be considered as conclusive reason for not receiving
it; on the contrary, I regard it as another reason for the
advocates of the equality of the two sexes to make greater
efforts. In this respect, Madam, I doubt not that you will
signalize yourself anew, and await with impatience the volume
that you announce, which I promise to read with all the attention
of which I am capable."
On reading this letter, I transcribed the note which M. Proudhon had not
succeeded in finding, and sent it to him, with the article of M. Charles
Robin. As he did not reply, his silence authorizes me to believe the
journalist.
Ah! you persist in maintaining that woman is inferior, minor! you believe
that women will bow devoutly before the high decree of your autocracy!
No, no; it will not, it cannot be so. To battle, M. Proudhon! But let us
first dispose of the question of my personality.
You consider me as an exception, by telling me that, if it were necessary
to decide on my thesis by comparison between a host of men and myself,
the decision would be, doubtless, in favor of my opinions. Mark my reply:
"_Every true law is absolute._ The ignorance or folly of grammarians,
moralists, jurisconsults, and other philosophers, alone invented the
proverb: There is no rule without an exception. _The mania of imposing
laws on Nature, instead of studying Nature's own laws, afterwards
confirmed this aphorism of ignorance._" Who said this? You, in the
"Creation of Order in Humanity." Why is your letter in contradiction with
this doctrine?
Have you changed your opinion? Then I entreat you to tell me whether men
of worth are not quite as exceptional in their sex, as women of merit in
theirs. You have said: "Whatever may be the differences existing between
men, they are equal, because they are human beings." Under penalty of
inconsistency, you must add: Whatever may be the differences existing
between the sexes, they are equal, because they form a part of the human
species--unless you prove that women are not a part of humanity.
Individual worth, not being the basis of right between men, cannot become
so between the sexes. Your compliment is, therefore, a contradiction.
I add, lastly, that I feel myself linked with my sex by too close a
solidarity ever to be content to see myself abstracted from it by an
illogical process. I am a woman--I glory in it; I rejoice if any value is
set upon me, not for myself, indeed, but because this contributes to
modify the opinion of men with respect to my sex. A woman who is happy in
hearing it said: "_You are a man_," is, in my eyes, a simpleton, an
unworthy creature, avowing the superiority of the masculine sex; and the
men who think that they compliment her in this manner, are vainglorious
and impertinent boasters. If I acquire any desert, I thus pay honor to
women, I reveal their aptitudes, I do not pass into the other sex any
more than Proudhon abandons his own, because he is elevated by his
intellect above the level of foolish and ignorant men; and if the
ignorance of the mass of men prejudges nothing against their right, no
more does the ignorance of the mass of women prejudge anything against
theirs.
You affirm that man and woman do not form _true society_.
Tell us, then, what is marriage, what is society.
You affirm that the difference of sex places between man and woman a
separation of the same nature _as that which the difference of races
places between animals_. Then prove:
That the race is not essentially formed of two sexes;
That man and woman can be reproduced separately;
That their common product is a mixed breed, or a mule;
That their characteristics are dissimilar, apart from sexuality.
And if you come off with honor from this great feat of strength, you will
still have to prove:
That to difference of race corresponds difference _of right_;
That the black, the yellow, the copper-colored persons belonging to races
inferior to the Caucasian cannot truly associate with the latter; that
they are minors.
Come, sir, study anthropology, physiology, and phrenology, and employ
your serial dialectics to prove all this to us.
You are inclined to seclude woman, instead of emancipating her?
Prove to men that they have the right to do so; to women, that it is
their duty to suffer themselves to be placed under lock and key. I
declare, for my part, that I would not submit to it. Does Proudhon
remember how he threatens the priest who shall lay his hand on his
children? Well, the majority of women would not confine themselves to
threats against those who might have the Mussulmanic inclination of
Proudhon.
You affirm that by _nature_, and by _destination_, woman is neither
_associate_, nor _citizen_, nor _functionary_. Tell us, in the first
place, _what nature_ it is necessary to have to be all these.
Reveal to us the _nature_ of woman, since you claim to know it better
than she does herself.
Reveal to us her _destination_, which apparently is not that which we
see, nor which she believes to be such.
You affirm that woman, until her marriage, is nothing more than
_apprentice_, at most, under-superintendent in the social workshop; that
she is _minor_ in the family, and _does not form a part of the
commonwealth_.
Prove, then, that she does not execute in the social workshop and in the
family works _equivalent_, or equal, to those of man.
Prove that she is less useful than man.
Prove that the qualities that give to man the right of citizenship, do
not exist in woman.
I shall be severe with you on this head. To subordinate woman in a social
order in which she must _work in order to live_ is to _desire
prostitution_; for disdain of the producer extends to the value of the
product; and when such a doctrine is contrary to science, good sense, and
progress, to sustain it is _cruelty_, is _moral monstrosity_. The woman
who cannot live by working, can only do so by prostituting herself; the
equal of man or a courtesan, such is the alternative. He is blind who
does not see it.
You see no other fate for woman than to be courtesan or housewife. Open
your eyes wider, and dream less, and tell me whether all those useful and
courageous women are only housewives or courtesans, who support
themselves honorably by arts, literature, instruction;
Who found numerous and prosperous manufactures;
Who superintend commercial establishments;
Who are such good managers, that many among them conceal or repair the
faults resulting from the carelessness or dissipation of their husbands.
Prove to us, therefore, that all this is wrong;
Prove to us that it is not the result of human progress;
Prove to us that labor, the stamp of the human species--that labor, which
you consider as the great emancipator--that labor, which makes men equal
and free, has not virtue to make women equal and free. If you prove this
to us, we shall have to register one contradiction more.
You do not admit that woman should have the right of claiming for herself
special legislation, as though man were her chief enemy and tyrant.
You, sir, are the one that legislates specially for woman; she herself
desires nothing but the common law.
Yes; until now, man, in subordinating woman, has been her tyrant and
enemy. I am of your opinion when, in your first "Memoir on Property," you
say that, so long as the strong and the weak are not _equals_, they are
_strangers_, they cannot form an alliance, _they are enemies_. Yes,
thrice yes, so long as man and woman are not equals, woman is in the
right in considering man as her _tyrant_ and _enemy_.
"The most rigorous justice cannot make woman the EQUAL of man." And it is
to a woman whom you set in your opinion above a host of men, that you
affirm such a thing! What a contradiction!
"It is _an infatuation_ for women to demand their right!" _An
infatuation_ like that of slaves, pretending that they were created
freemen; of the citizens of '89, proving that men are equal before the
law. Do you know who were, who are the infatuated? The masters, the
nobles, the whites, the men who have denied, who do deny, and who will
deny, that slaves, citizens, blacks, and women, are born for liberty and
equality.
"The sex to which I belong is incapable of understanding and governing
itself," say you!
Prove that it is destitute of intellect;
Prove that great empresses and great queens have not governed as well as
great emperors and great kings;
Prove against all the facts patent that women are not in general good
observers and good managers;
Then prove that all men understand themselves perfectly and govern
themselves admirably, and that progress moves as if on wheels.
"Woman is neither the _half_ nor the _equal_ of man; she is _the
complement that finally makes him an individual_; the two sexes form _the
human androgynus_." Come; seriously, what means this jingle of empty
words? They are metaphors, unworthy to figure in scientific language,
when our own and the other higher zoölogical species are in question. The
lioness, the she-wolf and the tigress are no more the halves or the
complement of their species than woman is the complement of man. Or
Nature has established two _exteriorities_, two wills, she affirms two
unities, two entireties not one, or _two halves_; the arithmetic of
Nature cannot be destroyed by the freaks of the imagination.
Is equality before the law based upon _individual_ qualities? Proudhon
replies in the "Creation of Order in Humanity":
"Neither birth, nor figure, _nor faculties_, nor fortune, nor rank, nor
profession, nor talent, nor anything that distinguishes individuals
establishes between them a difference of species; all being men, and _the
law regulating only human relations, it is the same for all_; so that to
establish exceptions, it would be necessary to prove that the individuals
excepted are _above_ or _beneath_ the human species."
Prove to us that women are _above_ or _beneath_ the human species, that
they do not form a part of it, or, _under penalty of contradiction_,
submit to the consequences of your doctrine.
You say in the "Social Revolution;"
"Neither conscience, nor reason, nor liberty, nor labor, pure forces,
_primary and creative faculties_, can be made mechanical without being
destroyed. Their reason of existence is in themselves; in their works
they should find their reason of action. In this consists the human
person, a sacred person, etc."
Prove that women have neither conscience, nor reason, nor moral liberty,
and that they do not labor. If it is demonstrated that they possess the
_primary and creative faculties_, respect their human person, for it is
sacred.
In the "Creation of Order in Humanity," you say:
"Specifically, labor satisfies the desire of our personality, which tends
invincibly to make a difference between itself and others, _to render
itself independent_, _to conquer its liberty_ and its character."
Prove then that women have no special work, and, if facts contradict you,
acknowledge that, it inevitably tends to _independence_, to _liberty_.
Do you deny that they are your equals because they are less intelligent
as a whole than men? In the first place, I contest it; but I need not do
so, you yourself resolve this difficulty in the "Creation of Order in
Humanity:"
"The inequality of capacities, when not caused by constitutional vices,
mutilation or want, results from general ignorance, insufficient method,
lack or falsity of education, and divergence of intuition through lack of
sequence, whence arises dispersion and confusion of ideas. Now, all these
facts productive of inequality are essentially abnormal, therefore the
inequality of capacities is abnormal."
Unless you prove that women are mutilated by Nature, I do not exactly see
how you can escape the consequences of your syllogism: not only has
feminine inferiority the same sources as masculine ignorance, but public
education is refused to women, the great professional schools are closed
to them, those who through their intellect equal the most intelligent
among you have had twenty times as many difficulties and prejudices to
overcome.
You wish to subordinate women because in general they have less muscular
force than you; but at this rate the weak men ought not to be the equals
of the strong, and you combat this consequence yourself in your first
"Memoir on Property," where you say:
"Social equilibrium is the equalization of the strong and the weak."
If I have treated you with consideration, it is because you are an
intelligent and progressive man, and because it is impossible that you
should remain under the influence of the doctors of the Middle Age on one
question, while you are in advance of the majority of your cotemporaries
on so many others. You will cease to sustain an illogical series that is
without foundation, remembering, as you have said so well in the
"Creation of Order in Humanity:"
"That the greater part of philosophical aberrations and chimeras have
arisen from attributing to logical series a reality that they do not
possess, and endeavoring to explain the nature of man by abstractions."
You will acknowledge that all the higher animal species are composed of
two sexes;
That in none is the female the inferior of the male, except sometimes
through force, which cannot be the basis of human right;
You will renounce the androgynus, which is only a dream.
Woman, a distinct individual, endowed with consciousness, intellect, will
and activity like man, will be no longer separated from him before the
laws.
You will say of all, both men and women, as in your first "Memoir on
Property:"
"Liberty is an absolute right, because it is to man what impenetrability
is to matter, a condition _sine qua non_ of existence. Equality is an
_absolute right_, because without equality, there is no society."
And you will thus show the second degree of sociability, which you
yourself define, "the recognition in another of a personality _equal_ to
our own."
I appeal therefore from Proudhon drunk with theology to Proudhon sobered
by facts and science, moved by the sorrows and disorders resulting from
his own systems.
I hope I shall not encounter his Herculean club raised against the holy
banner of truth and right; against woman,--that being physically so weak,
morally so strong, who, bleeding, and steeped in gall beneath her crown
of roses, is just on the point of reaching the top of the rough mountain
where progress will shortly give her her lawful place by the side of man.
But if my hopes are deceitful, mark me well, M. Proudhon, you will find
me standing firmly in the breach, and, whatever may be your strength, I
vow that you shall not overthrow me. I will courageously defend the right
and dignity of your daughters against the despotism and logical error of
their father, and the victory will remain mine, for, definitively, it
always belongs to truth."
Proudhon replied by the following letter in the _Revue Philosophique_:
"TO MADAME d'HÉRICOURT.
"Well, Madam, what did I tell you in my last letter?
"I consider the sort of crusade that is being carried on at this
time by some estimable ladies in both hemispheres in behalf of
their sex, as a symptom of the general revolution that is being
wrought; but nevertheless as an exaggerated symptom, an
infatuation that proceeds precisely from the inferiority of the
sex and its incapacity to understand and to govern itself.
"I begin by withdrawing the word _infatuation_, which may have
wounded you, but which was not, as you know, intended for
publicity.
"This point adjusted, I will tell you, Madam, with all the
respect that I owe you as a woman, that I did not expect to see
you confirm my judgment so speedily by your petulant appeal.
"I was at first at a loss to know whence came the discontent that
impelled the bravest, the most distinguished among you, to an
assault on paternal and marital supremacy. I said to myself, not
without disquietude, What is the matter? What is it that troubles
them? With what do they reproach us? To which of our faculties,
our virtues, our prerogatives; or else of our failings, our
perfidies, our calamities, do they aspire? Is this the cry of
their outraged nature, or an aberration of their understanding?
"Your attack, joined to the studies which I immediately commenced
on the subject, came at last to solve the question.
"No, Madam, you know nothing of your sex; you do not know the
first word of the question that you and your honorable
confederates are agitating with so much noise and so little
success. And, if you do not comprehend this question; if, in your
eight pages of reply to my letter, there are forty paralogisms,
it results precisely, as I have told you, from your _sexual
infirmity_. I mean by this word, the exactness of which is not,
perhaps, irreproachable, the quality of your understanding, which
permits you to seize the relation of things only as far as we,
men, place your finger upon them. You have in the brain, as in
the body, a certain organ incapable by itself of overcoming its
native inertia, and which the masculine spirit alone is capable
of setting in motion; and even this does not always succeed.
Such, Madam, is the result of my direct and positive
observations; I make them over to your obstetrical sagacity, and
leave you to calculate therefrom the incalculable consequences to
your thesis.
"I will willingly enter into an elaborate discussion with you,
Madam, on this obscure subject, in the _Revue Philosophique_.
But--as you will comprehend as well as I--the broader the
question, the more it affects our most sacred, social, and
domestic interests, the more important is it that we should
approach it with seriousness and prudence.
"The following course, therefore, appears to me indispensable:
In the first place, you have promised us a book, and I await it.
I need this work to complete my documents and to finish my
demonstration. Since I had the honor of receiving and replying to
your letter, I have made earnest and interesting studies on
woman, which I ask only to rectify if they are erroneous; as I
also desire to set a seal on them if, as I have every reason to
presume, your publication brings me but one confirmation more.
"I have verified by facts and documents the truth of all the
assertions which you call on me to retract, namely:
"That the difference of sex raises up between man and woman a
separation ANALOGOUS--I did not say equal--to that which the
difference of races and species establishes between animals;
"That by reason of this separation or difference, man and woman
are not _associates_; I did not say that they could not be
anything else;
"That, consequently, woman can only be a _citizen_ in so far as
she is the wife of a citizen; as we say _Madame la Presidente_ to
the wife of a President: which does not imply that no other rôle
exists for her.
"In two words, I am in a position to establish, by observation
and reasoning, the facts, that woman, being weaker than man with
respect to _muscular force_, as you yourself acknowledge, is not
less inferior to him with respect to INDUSTRIAL, ARTISTIC,
PHILOSOPHICAL and MORAL POWER; so that if the condition of woman
in society be regulated, as you demand for her, by the same
justice as the condition of man, it is all over with her, she is
a slave.
"To which I add, immediately, that this system is precisely what
I reject: the principle of pure, rigorous right, of that terrible
right which the Roman compared to an unsheathed sword, _jus
strictum_, and which rules individuals of the same sex among
themselves, being different from that which governs the relations
between individuals of different sexes.
"What is this principle, differing from justice, and which,
notwithstanding, would not exist without justice; which all men
feel in the depth of their souls, and of which you women alone
have no idea? Is it love? nothing more? I leave it to you to
divine. And if your penetration succeeds in clearing up this
mystery, I consent, Madam, to sign you a certificate of genius;
_Et eris mihi magnus Apollo_. But then you will have given me the
cause.
"Such, Madam, in a few words, are the conclusions to which I have
arrived, and which the reading of your book surely will not
modify. Notwithstanding, as it is absolutely possible that your
personal observations may have led you to diametrically opposite
results, good faith in the discussion and respect for our readers
and ourselves exact that, before entering upon the controversy, a
reciprocal interchange of all the documents that we have
collected should be made between us. You may take cognizance of
mine.
"One other condition, which I entreat you, Madam, to take in good
part, and from which I shall not depart under any pretext, is
that you shall choose yourself a male sponsor.
"You, who have declared yourself so energetically on this point,
would not wish your adversary to make the least sacrifice to
gallantry in so serious a discussion; and you are right. But I,
Madam, who am so far from admitting your pretensions, cannot
thus release myself from the obligations which manly and
honorable civility prescribes towards ladies; and as I propose,
besides, to make you serve as a subject of experiment; as, after
having made the autopsy of five or six women of the greatest
merit for the instruction of my readers, I count also on making
yours, you will conceive that it is quite impossible for me to
argue from you, of you, and with you, without exposing myself at
every word to a violation of all the rules of conventionality.
"I know, Madam, that such a condition will annoy you; it is one
of the disadvantages of your position to which you must submit
courageously. You are a plaintiff, and, as a woman, you affirm
that you are oppressed. Appear, then, before the judgment seat of
incorruptible public opinion with this tyrannous chain which
rouses your ire, and which, according to me, exists only in your
disordered imagination. You will be but the more interesting for
it. Besides, you would deride me if, while sustaining the
superiority of man, I should begin by according to you the
equality of woman by disputing with you on an equal footing of
companionship. You have not counted, I imagine, upon my falling
into this inconsistency.
"You will not lack for champions, besides. I expect of your
courtesy, Madam, that he whom you shall select as my antagonist,
who will sign and affirm all your articles, and assume the
responsibility of your affirmations and replies, shall be worthy
of both you and me; so that, in fine, I shall not have a right to
complain that you have pitted me against a man of straw.
"What has most surprised me, since this hypothesis of the
equality of the sexes, renewed by the Greeks as well as by many
others, has become known among us, has been to see that it
numbered among its partisans almost as many men as women. I
sought a long time for the reason of this strange fact, which I
at first attributed to chivalric zeal; I think now that I have
found it. It is not to the advantage of the knights. I shall be
glad, Madam, for their sake and yours, if this serious
examination should prove that the new emancipators of woman are
the most lofty, the broadest, and the most progressive, if not
the most masculine minds of the age.
"You say, Madam, that women have a weakness for soldiers. It is
doubtless on this account that you have lashed me soundly. _He
who loveth, chasteneth._ When I was three years and a half old,
my mother, to get rid of me, sent me to a school-mistress of the
neighborhood, an excellent woman, called Madelon. One day she
threatened to whip me for some piece of mischief. It made me
furious. I snatched her switch from her hand, and flung it in her
face. I was always a disobedient subject. I shall be glad,
therefore, to find that you do not assume towards me castigating
airs, which it does not belong to a man to return; but I leave
this to your discretion. Strike, redouble the blows, do not spare
me; and if I should chance to grow restive under the rod, believe
me none the less, Madam, your affectionate servant and
compatriot,
"PROUDHON."
Taking up the discussion in turn, I replied as follows, in the ensuing
February number:--
I am forbidden, sir, to answer your letter in the indecorous
style which you have deemed proper to assume towards me:
By respect for the gravity of my subject;
By respect for our readers;
By respect for myself.
You find yourself ill at ease in the Popilian circle that has
been traced around you by the hand of a woman; all understand
this, I among the rest. Ill-armed for defence, worse armed,
perhaps, for attack, you would like to escape; but your skill as
a tactician will avail you nothing; you shall not quit the fatal
circle till vanquished, either by me, or by yourself, if you
confess your weakness on the point in litigation, by continuing
to refuse a discussion under flimsy pretexts, or, lastly, by
public opinion, which will award to you the quality of
inconsistency, the least desirable of all to a dialectician.
This being understood, I must tell you that, personally, I am
satisfied that you should attack, in _the rights of woman_, the
cause of justice and progress. It is an augury of success to this
cause; you have always been fatal to all that you have sought to
sustain.
It is true that your attitude in this question makes you _the
ally of the dogmatism of the Middle Age_; it is true that the
_official representatives_ of this dogmatism avail themselves, at
the present time, of your arguments and your name to maintain
their influence over women, and through them over men and
children; and this in order to revive the past, to stifle the
future. Is this your intention? I do not believe it. You are, in
my eyes, a subverter, a destroyer, in whom instinct sometimes
gets the better of intellect, and from whom it shuts out a clear
view of the consequences of his writings. Formed for strife, you
must have adversaries; and, in default of enemies, you cruelly
fall on those who are fighting in the same ranks with yourself.
In all your writings, one feels that the second part of
education--that which inspires respect and love of woman--is
completely wanting in you.
Let us come to your letter.
You reproach me with having made _forty paralogisms_; it was your
duty at least to have cited one of these. However, let us see.
You say: between man and woman there is a separation of _the same
nature as that which the difference of race establishes between
animals_.
Woman, by nature and destination, is _neither associate, nor
citizen, nor functionary_.
She is, until marriage, only _apprentice_, at most,
_under-superintendent_ in the social workshop; she is a _minor_
in the family, and _does not form a part of the commonwealth_.
You conceive of no destiny for her outside of the household: she
can be only _housewife_ or _courtesan_.
She is incapable _of understanding and of governing herself_.
To make a paralogism is to draw a conclusion from false premises;
now did I conclude from such in saying:
In order that all these paradoxes may become truths, you have to
prove:
That man and woman are not of the same race;
That they can be reproduced separately;
That their common product is a mixed breed or a mule;
That difference of races corresponds to difference of rights.
You have to define for us an association, and also the nature of
a citizen or a functionary.
You have to prove that woman is less useful than man in society;
That, at the present time, she is necessarily a housewife, when
she is not a courtesan;
That she is destitute of intellect, that she knows nothing of
government.
You pretend that woman has not a right _to demand for herself
special legislation_.
Was I guilty of a paralogism in pointing out to you that it is
not she, _but you_, who demand this, since you lay down as a
principle the inequality of the sexes before human law?
All that you say relatively to the _pretended_ inferiority of
woman and the conclusions which you draw from it applying to
human races inferior to our own, it would be easy for me to
demonstrate that the consequence of your principles is the
_re-establishment of slavery_. The nearest perfect has the right
to take advantage of the weakest, instead of becoming his
educator. An admirable doctrine, full of the spirit of progress,
full of generosity! I compliment you most sincerely on it.
You say that labor specialized is the great emancipator of man;
that labor, conscience, liberty, and reason, find only in
themselves their right to exist and to act; that these pure
forces constitute the human person, _which is sacred_.
You lay down the principle that the law is the same for all; so
that, to establish exceptions, it would be necessary to prove
that the individuals excepted are _above_ or _beneath_ the human
species.
You say that social equilibrium is the equalization of the strong
and the weak; that all have the same rights, not through that
which distinguishes them from each other, but through _that
which is common to them_,--_the quality of human beings_.
Was I guilty of paralogisms in saying to you:
Then you cannot, by reason of her weakness or even of a supposed
inferiority, exclude woman from equality of right: your
principles interdict it, unless you prove:
_That she is superior or inferior to the human species, and that
she does not form a part of it;_
_That she is destitute of conscience, of justice, and of reason;
that she does not labor, that she does not execute specialties of
labor._
It is evident, that your doctrine concerning general right is in
contradiction to your doctrine concerning the right of women; it
is evident that you are very inconsequent, and that, however
skillful you may be, you cannot extricate yourself from this
embarrassment.
In what you call an answer, there are a few passages that are
worth the trouble of pausing to consider.
You ask _what impels the bravest, the most distinguished among us
to an assault on paternal and marital supremacy_.
You do not comprehend the movement, or you would have said
_masculine supremacy_.
In my turn, I ask you:
What would have impelled Proudhon, a Roman slave, to play the
part of Spartacus?
What would have impelled Proudhon, a feudal serf, to organize a
Jacquerie?
What would have impelled Proudhon, a black slave, to become a
Toussaint L'Ouverture?
What would have impelled Proudhon, a Russian serf, to take the
character of Poutgachef?
What would have impelled Proudhon, a citizen of '89, to
overthrow the privileges of the nobility and the clergy?
What would impel Proudhon ... but I will not touch on reality.
What would Proudhon have replied to all the holders of
_prerogatives_ and _supremacy_, who would not have failed on
their part to have put to him the naïve question: "Ah! what does
this vile slave, this unworthy serf, this audacious and stupid
citizen want of us, then? _To which of our faculties, our
virtues, our prerogatives does he aspire? Is this the cry of his
outraged nature, or an aberration of his understanding?_"
The answer that Proudhon would make, is that which will be made
to him by all women who have attained majority.
There is in the brain of woman, say you, an organ which the
masculine mind alone is capable of setting in motion. Render the
service then to science of pointing it out and demonstrating its
manner of working. As to the other organ of which you speak, it
is its inertia, doubtless, that has caused it to be defined by
some, _parvum animal furibondum, octo ligamentis alligatum_.
Before choosing anatomical and physiological facts as proofs of
your assertions, consult some learned physician; such is the
counsel given you, not only by my _obstetrical, but also by my
medical sagacity_.
You offer to acquaint me with your _direct_ and _positive_
observations. What, Sir! has it been possible for you in a few
weeks to delve into the depths of the healthy and the diseased
organization! to go through the whole labyrinth of functions
implicated in the questions. It is more than miraculous; despite
my good will, I cannot believe it, unless you prove that you are
a _prophet_ in communication with some deity. Shall I tell you
what I really think? It is that you have studied these matters
neither _directly_ nor _indirectly_, and that it belongs to me to
tell you _that you do not understand woman; that you do not know
the first word of the question_. Your five or six _purely_ moral
and intellectual autopsies prove only one thing; namely, your
inexperience in physiology. You have naïvely mistaken the scalpel
of your imagination for that of science.
With regard to autopsies, you tell me that you are awaiting my
promised work, in order to make mine. It would be doubtless a
great honor to be stretched on your dissecting table in such good
company as you promise me, but the instruction of my future
readers does not permit me to enjoy this satisfaction. I shall
not send my book to press until your own shall have appeared, for
I, too, intend to make your autopsy; dissect me therefore now; I
promise you on my side that I will perform my duty
conscientiously, properly and delicately.
"Woman," you say, "being weaker than man with respect to
_muscular force_, is not less inferior to him with respect to
INDUSTRIAL, ARTISTIC, PHILOSOPHICAL AND MORAL POWER; so that if
the condition of woman in society be regulated, as you demand for
her, _by the same justice as the condition of man_, it is all
over with her; she is a slave."
Terrible man, you will be then always inconsistent, you will
always contradict yourself and facts!
What do you hold as the basis of right? _The simple quality of
being human_; everything that distinguishes individuals
disappears before right. Well! even though it were true that
women were inferior to men, would it follow that their rights
were not the same? According to you, by no means, if they form a
part of the human species. There are not two kinds of justice,
there is but one; there are not two kinds of right, there is but
one in the absolute sense. The recognition and respect of
individual autonomy in the lowest of human beings as well as in
the man and woman of genius is the law which should preside over
social relations; must a woman tell you this!
Let us now examine the value of your series of _man and woman_.
With respect to the reproduction of the species, they form a
series; this is beyond dispute.
As to the rest, do they form a series? No.
_If it were a law_ that woman is _muscularly_ weaker than man,
the strongest woman would be weaker than the weakest man; facts
demonstrate the contrary daily.
_If it were a law_ that women are inferior to men in _industrial
power_, the most skillful woman would be inferior in industrial
pursuits to the least skillful man; now facts demonstrate daily
that there are women who are excellent manufacturers and
excellent managers; men who are unskilled in and unsuited to this
kind of pursuits.
_If it were a law_ that women are inferior to men in _artistic
power_, the best female artist would be inferior to the most
indifferent male artist; now facts daily demonstrate the
contrary; there are more great female than male tragedians; many
men are mediocre in music and painting, and many women, on the
other hand, remarkable in both respects, etc., etc.
What follows from all this? That your series is false, since
facts destroy it. How did you form it? The process is a curious
study. You chose a few remarkable men, in whom, by a convenient
process of abstraction, you beheld _all_ men, even to cretins;
you here took a few women, without taking into account in the
slightest degree any differences of culture, instruction, and
surroundings, and compared them with these eminent men, taking
care to forget those that might have embarrassed you; then,
deducing generals from particulars, creating two entities, you
drew your conclusions. A strange manner of reasoning, truly! You
have fallen into the mania of _imposing rules on Nature, instead
of studying Nature's rules_, and deserve that I should apply your
own words to you: "The greatest part of the philosophical
aberrations and chimeras have arisen from attributing to logical
series _a reality that they do not possess, and endeavoring to
explain the nature of man by abstractions_."
Still, if this were to strengthen your doctrines concerning the
_basis_ of right, it might be comprehended; but it is to
overthrow them!
You transform yourself into a Sphinx, to propose to me a riddle.
"What is that right," you say, "_which is not justice, and which,
notwithstanding, would not exist without it_, which presides over
the relations of both sexes, the _jus strictum_ governing only
individuals of the same sex. If you divine it, you will have
given me the cause."
It is not necessary to be _the great Apollo_, to divine that it
is the _right of grace, of mercy_, towards an inferior that is
not armed with strict right.
If I have divined rightly, you have simply begged the question by
supposing _that resolved which I dispute_. I maintain that there
is only one _right_, that _one single_ _right presides over the
rights of individuals and of sexes_, and that the right of mercy
belongs to the domain of sentiment.
You wish it proved that the new emancipators of woman are the
most elevated, the broadest, and the most progressive minds of
the age. Rejoice, your wish is accomplished: a simple comparison
between them and their adversaries will prove it to you.
The emancipators, taking woman in the cradle of humanity, see her
marching slowly towards civil emancipation. The intelligent
disciples of progress, they wish, by extending a fraternal hand
to her, to aid her in fulfilling her destiny.
The non-emancipators, denying the historical law, regardless of
the progressive and parallel movement of the populace, woman, and
the industrial arts towards affranchisement, wish to thrust her
back far beyond the Middle Age, to the days of Romulus and the
Hebrew patriarchs.
The emancipators, believing in individual autonomy, respecting
it, and recognizing it in woman, wish to aid her to conquer it.
Judging of the need that a free being has of liberty by the need
that they have of it themselves, they are consistent.
The non-emancipators, blinded by pride, perverted by a love of
dominion as unbridled as unintelligent, desire liberty only _for
themselves_. These egotists, so suspicious of those that menace
their own freedom, wish half the human species to be in their
chains.
The emancipators have enough heart and ideality to desire a
companion with whom they can exchange sentiment and thought, and
who can improve them in some respects and be improved by them in
others; they love and respect woman.
The non-emancipators, without ideality, without love, chained to
their senses and their pride, despise woman; and wish to have in
her only a _female, a servant, a machine to produce young ones_.
They are _males, they are not yet men_.
The emancipators desire perfection of the species, in a
three-fold point of view: physical, moral, and intellectual. They
know that races cannot be improved without selecting and
perfecting the mothers.
The non-emancipators are bent upon something quite different from
the improvement of the species: let their children be lacking in
intelligence, malicious, ugly, or deformed; they think much less
of this than of being _masters_. Do they know enough of
physiology to have reflected that the faculties _depend on
organization_, that organization is capable of modification, that
modifications are transmitted, that woman has a great share in
this transmission, a greater share, perhaps, than that of man? It
is therefore _essential_ to place her in a condition to perform
this great function in the manner most useful to humanity.
The emancipators desire humanity to go forward, to vibrate no
longer between the past and the future; they know the influence
that women possess, first over children, then over men; they know
that woman cannot serve progress _unless she finds it to her
interest to do so_; that she will find it so only through
liberty; that she will love it only if her intellect is elevated
by study, and her heart purified from the petty selfishness of
home by the predominating love of the great human family. As they
desire the end sincerely, they sincerely desire the means; so
long as half the human race shall labor as it is doing to destroy
the edifice constructed by _a few_ _members_ of the other half;
so long as half the human race, _the one that secretly governs
the other_, shall have its face turned towards the past, the
landmarks that point to the future will be threatened with being
torn up. Do you consider it a crime in the emancipators to
comprehend this, to seek to conjure down the peril; and do you
consider a virtue in the non-emancipators the foolish pride that
places a cataract over their eyes?
A few words more, and I shall have done. You would rather, you
say, that I should not assume castigating airs with you. But have
you really the right to complain of it, you who have constituted
yourself the chief whipper-in of the economists and the
socialists? I shall never go so far towards you as you have gone
towards them. You must resign yourself to my abrupt, sometimes
harsh style. I am implacable towards whatever appears to me false
and unjust; and were you my brother, I should not war against you
less sharply; before all ties of affection and family, should
come the love of justice and humanity.
I owe now to my readers and to you, sir, the exposition of the
thesis that I undertake to sustain; for the phrase, _the
emancipation of women_ has been, and is, quite variously
interpreted.
With respect to _right_, man and woman are equal, whether the
equality of faculties be admitted or rejected.
But for a truth to be useful, it must be adapted to the
surroundings into which we seek to introduce it.
Absolute right being recognized, the practice of it remains. In
practice, I see two kinds of rights: woman is ripe for the
exercise of one of them; but I acknowledge that the practice of
the second would be at present dangerous, by reason of the
education that the majority of them have received. You
comprehend me, without making it necessary for me to explain
myself more clearly in a Review in which social and political
subjects are interdicted.
The directors of the _Revue_ having informed me that my adversary
refused to continue the discussion, I made the following
recapitulation of his creed, concerning the rights and nature of
woman.
To the editors of the _Revue Philosophique et Religieuse_:
You inform me that M. Proudhon will not reply to the questions
that I have put to him; I have neither the means nor the wish to
constrain him to do so. I shall not inquire into the motives of
his determination; my business now is only to make an exposition
of his creed, which may be summed up in this wise:
"I believe that between man and woman, there is a separation of
the same nature as that which the difference of race places
between animals;
"I believe that, by nature and by destination, woman is neither
associate, nor functionary, nor citizen;
"I believe that, in the social workshop, she is, until her
marriage, only apprentice, at most under-superintendent;
"I believe that she is a minor in the family, art, science,
manufactures, and philosophy, and that she is _nothing_ in the
commonwealth;
"I believe that she can only be housewife or courtesan;
"I believe that she is incapable of understanding and of
governing herself;
"I believe firmly that the basis of the equality of rights is in
the simple quality of being human; now, woman being unable to
have rights equal to those of man, I affirm that she does not
belong to the human species."
Is Proudhon conscious how far his creed is in opposition to science, to
facts, to the law of progress, to the tendencies of our own age, and does
he dare to attempt to justify it by proofs?
Does he feel that this creed classes him among the abettors of the
dogmatism of the Middle Age, and does he recoil before such a
responsibility?
If this were the case, I should praise him for his prudent silence, and
it would be my warmest desire that he should keep it forever on the
question that divides us. To treat a subject, it is necessary to love and
understand it; I dare not say that Proudhon does not love woman, but I do
affirm that he does not understand her; he sees in her nothing more than
the female of man; his peculiar organization seems to render him unfit
for the investigation of such a subject. He promises, in the work that he
is preparing, to treat of the sphere and the rights of women; if his
doctrine has for its basis the paradoxical affirmations of his creed, I
hope that he will this time take pains to rest them at least upon the
semblances of proofs, which I shall examine with all the attention of
which I am capable.
By shrinking from discussion, he cannot escape my criticism.
The two studies of Proudhon are simply the development of this creed.
I promised to dissect the author; therefore, I shall do so.
Let me not be reproached with being pitiless; Proudhon has deserved it.
Let me not be reproached with being a reasoning machine; with such an
adversary, one should be nothing else.
Let me not be reproached with being harsh; Proudhon has shown a harshness
and injustice with respect to women, even the most illustrious, that
exceed all bounds. If I am harsh, I will endeavor on my part not to be
unjust.
I.
Well, M. Proudhon, you have sought war with women! War you shall have.
You have said, not without reason, that the Comtois are an obstinate
race; now, I am your countrywoman; and as woman generally carries virtues
and failings farther than man, I intend to outdo you in obstinacy.
I have raised the banner under which your daughters will one day take
shelter if they are worthy of the name they bear; I will hold it with a
firm hand and will never suffer it to be struck down; against such as
you, I have the heart and claws of a lioness.
You begin by saying that you by no means desired to treat of the
inequality of the sexes, but that half a dozen insurgent women with
ink-stained fingers having defied you to discuss the question, you will
establish by facts and documents the _physical, intellectual and moral
inferiority of woman_; that you will prove that her emancipation is the
same thing as her prostitution, and will take her defence in hand against
the rambling talk of a few impure women whom sin has rendered
mad.--(_Vol._ III., p. 337.)
I alone, by shutting you up in a circle of contradictions, have dared
defy you to discuss the question; I sum up, therefore, in my own person,
the few impure women whom sin has rendered mad.
Insults of this sort cannot touch me; the esteem, the regard, the
precious friendship of eminently respectable men and women suffice to
reduce unworthy insinuations to naught. I should not notice them, with
such contempt do they inspire me, were it not necessary to tell you that
the time has gone by when one might hope to stifle the voice of a woman
by attacking her purity.
If you do not ask the man who demands his rights and seeks to prove their
legitimacy, whether he is upright, chaste, etc., no more have you the
right to ask the question of the woman who makes the same claim.
Were I therefore so unfortunate as to be the vilest of mortals as regards
chastity, this would not at all lessen the value of my claim.
I greatly dislike any justification, but I owe it to the sacred cause
that I defend, I owe it to my friends, to tell you that the moral
education which my sainted, lamented mother gave me, together with
scientific studies, serious philosophy, and continual occupation, have
kept me in what is commonly called the right path, and have strengthened
the horror that I feel for all tyranny, whether it be styled man or
temperament.
You accuse your biographer of having committed an indignity in directing
an accusation against a woman, because this woman was your wife; do you
not commit an indignity yourself in insulting many others?
And if you blame those who calumniate the morals of Proudhon because he
is not of their opinion, in what light do you think that men will regard
your calumnious insinuations against women, because they do not think
like you?
You claim that we have no morality, because we lack respect towards the
dignity of others; who has set us this detestable example more than you?
You, who style yourself the champion of the principles of '89--who are
the men and women whom you attack?
They who are in different degrees, and from different stand points, in
favor of these principles.
Your anger has no bounds against George Sand, our great prose writer, the
author of the bulletins of the republic of '48. You depreciate Madame de
Stäel, whom you have not read, and who was in advance of most of the
masculine writers of her epoch.
Two scaffolds are erected, two women mount thereon: Madame Roland and
Marie Antoinette. I, a woman, will not cast insult on the decapitated
queen, dying with dignity and courage; no, I bow before the block,
whatever head may lay on it, and wipe away my tears. But, Marie
Antoinette died the victim of the faults that her princely education had
caused her to commit against the modern principles; while Madame Roland,
the chaste and noble wife, died for the revolution, and died blessing it.
Whence comes it that you greet the queen with your sympathies, while you
have nought but words of blame and contempt for the revolutionist? And
the men that belong to the great party of the future, how do you style
them?
The Girondins, _effeminate_;
Robespierre and his adherents, _eunuchs_;
The gentle Bernardin de St. Pierre, _effeminate_;
M. Legouvé and those who think like him concerning the emancipation of
women, _effeminate_;
M. de Girardin, _absurd_;
_Béranger, a pitiable author, and effeminate_; Jean Jacques, not only the
prince of _effeminates_, but _the greatest enemy of the people and the
revolution_--he who was evidently the chief author of our "French
Revolution."
Are we not justified in asking you, whether you are for or against the
Revolution?
M. Proudhon, you have forfeited your right to all consideration, since
you have none for those who have neither offended you or offered you
provocation, those who have never pretended to reduce you to servitude;
men have lacked courage; they ought to have stopped you when you began to
descend to insulting personalities; what they have not done, I, a woman,
will do, fearing nothing, or no one, except my own conscience.
Proudhon, the greatest enemy of the people, is the writer who, treading
under foot reason and conscience, science and facts, calls to his aid all
the ignorance, all the despotism of the past, to mislead the spirit of
the people with respect to the rights of half the human species.
Proudhon, the greatest enemy of the revolution, is he who shows it to
women as a toy; who detaches them from its holy cause by confounding it
with the negation of their rights; who attacks and vilifies the advocates
of progress; who dares, in fine, in the name of the principles of general
emancipation, to proclaim the social annihilation and the conjugal
servitude of one entire half of humanity.
Behold the enemy of the people and of the revolution!
II.
I had proceeded thus far in my reply when, pausing to take breath and to
reflect, I grew calm.
What! said I to myself, have I then no more sense than to take in earnest
that shapeless thing honored by the name of theory by the good people who
are so bewildered by the noise of Proudhon's drum and tam-tam that they
see stars at noon-day and the sun at midnight? Let me be calm, let me not
give to the affair more importance than it possesses; and since I must
set forth this thing to my readers, let me do it in a fitting tone. We
will leave Proudhon to explain himself in his own words.
No sooner had I taken this good resolution, than I evoked M. Proudhon,
and said to him in all humility: Master, I come to you that you may
define for me the nature of woman, and also something of the nature of
man.
PROUDHON. You do well, for I alone am capable of instructing you; listen
then to me.
"The complete human being, _adequate to his destiny_, I speak of the
physical, is the male, who, through his virility, attains the highest
degree of muscular and nervous tension comporting with his nature and
end, and thence, the maximum of action in labor and in battle.
"Woman is a DIMINUTIVE of man, lacking one organ to become a pubescent
youth.
"She is a _receptacle for the germs that man alone produces_, a place of
_incubation_, like the earth for the seed of the wheat; an _organ inert_
in itself, and purposeless with respect to the woman. Such an
organization--_presupposes the subordination of the subject_.
"In herself, I speak still of the physical, woman has no reason to exist;
_she is an instrument of reproduction_ which it has pleased nature to
choose in preference to any other.
"Woman, in this first count, is inferior to man: _a sort of mean term
between him and the rest of the animal kingdom_."--_Justice_, Vol. III.,
etc.
And remark that I am not alone in my opinion:
"Woman is not only different from man," says Paracelsus, "she is
different because she is lesser, because her sex constitutes for her one
faculty less. Wherever virility is wanting, the subject is imperfect;
wherever it is taken away, the subject deteriorates. Woman lacks nothing
in the physical point of view except _to produce germs_.
"Likewise, in the intellectual point of view, woman possesses
perceptions, memory and imagination, she is capable of attention,
reflection, and judgment; what does she lack?
"The power of producing germs, that is, ideas.--_Id._
Now, follow my reasoning closely: It being admitted that _strength has
some weight in the establishment of right_; it being admitted, on the
other hand, that woman is one third weaker than man, she will then be to
man, in physical respects, as two is to three. Consequently, in the
social workshop, the value of the products of woman will be one third
less than that of the products of man; therefore, in the division of
social advantages, the proportion will be the same: _thus says justice_.
"Man will always be stronger and will always produce more," _which
signifies that man will be the master, and that woman will obey, dura
lex, sed lex_."--_Id._
Besides, reflect that woman falls to the charge of man during gestation;
her physical weakness, her infirmities, her maternity, exclude her
_inevitably_ and _judicially_ from all political, doctrinal and
industrial direction.--_Id._
We will now proceed to the second point. But first, mark well that woman,
like all else, is autonomic; woman, considered apart from the influence
of man, is the thesis; woman, considered under the influence of man, is
the antithesis; it is the thesis that we are now examining. Let us
therefore approach the _thetic_ woman in the intellectual relation.
We will first admit the principle that _thought is proportional to
force_; whence we have a right to conclude that man possesses a stronger
intellect than woman. Thus we see man alone possessing genius. As to
woman, she is nothing in science; we owe to her no invention, _not even
her distaff and spindle_. She never _generalizes_, never _synthetizes_;
her mind is anti-metaphysical; _she cannot produce any regular work, not
even a romance_; _she composes nothing but medleys, monsters_; "she makes
epigrams, satire; does not know how to express a judgment in set terms,
nor assign its causes; it was not she who created abstract words, such as
cause, time, space, quantity, relation. _Woman is a true table rapping
medium._"--_Id._
I have already told you that woman does not produce intellectual germs
any more than physical germs; her intellectual inferiority tells upon the
quality of the product as much as upon the intensity and duration of the
action and, as in this feeble nature, the defect of the idea results from
the lack of energy of the thought, it may be truly said that woman
possesses a mind _essentially_ false, of irremediable _falsity_.
"Disconnected ideas, contradictory reasonings, chimeras taken for
realities, unreal analogies erected into principles, a tendency of mind
inclining inevitably towards annihilation: such is the intellect of
woman."
Yes, woman "_is a passive, enervating being, whose conversation exhausts
like her embraces. He who wishes to preserve entire the strength of his
mind and body will flee her._"--_Id._
"_Without man, who is to her prophet and word, she would not emerge from
the bestial condition._"
AUTHOR. Calm yourself, Master, and tell me whether it is true that you
have dealt harshly with literary women.
PROUDHON. Literary women! As if there were any! "The woman author does
not exist; she is a contradiction. The part of woman in literature is the
same as in manufactures; she is useful where genius is no longer of
service, like a needle or a bobbin.
"By cutting out of a woman's book all that is borrowed, imitated,
gleaned, and common-place, we reduce it to a few pretty sayings;
philosophy on nothing. To the community of ideas, woman brings nothing of
her own, any more than to generation."
AUTHOR. Ah! I understand: you mean that, in the character of author, the
woman of genius does not exist. But in this respect, among the number of
men that write how many are there who have genius, and who never borrow
from any one?
PROUDHON. I grant that there are many effeminate men; which does not
alter the fact that woman would do better _to go and iron her collars_
than to meddle with writing; for, "it may be affirmed without fear of
calumny, that the woman who dabbles with philosophy and writing destroys
her progeny by the labor of her brain and her kisses which savor of man;
the safest and most honorable way for her is to renounce home life and
maternity; destiny has branded her on the forehead; made only for love,
the title of concubine if not of courtesan suffices her."--_Id._
Let us now consider the _thetic_ woman in the moral point of view. We
will admit in the first place the principle _that virtue exists in the
ratio of strength and intellect_, whence we have a right to conclude that
man is more virtuous than woman. Do not laugh; it disturbs my ideas. I go
further; man alone is virtuous; man alone has the sense of justice; man
alone has the comprehension of right. Tell me, I pray you, "what produces
in man this energy of will, this confidence in himself, this frankness,
this daring, all these powerful qualities that we have agreed to
designate by the single word, morality. What inspires him with the
sentiment of his dignity, the scorn of falsehood, the hatred of
injustice, the abhorence of all tyranny? Nothing else than the
consciousness of his strength and reason."
AUTHOR. But then, Master, if man is all this, why do you reproach the men
of our times with lack of courage, of dignity, of justice, of reason, of
good faith? When I take up in minute detail the terrible charges which
you have fulminated against the masculine race, I can make nothing of the
meaning of the tirade you have just uttered.
PROUDHON. Consider what you irreverently name a tirade, as the necessary
check to feminine immorality.
It is only to set forth the truth that of all the differences that
separate her mind from ours, the conscience of woman is the most
trifling, her morality is of a different nature; what she regards as
right and wrong is not identically the same as what man himself regards
as right and wrong, so that, relatively to us, _woman may be styled an
immoral being_.
"_By her nature she is in a state of constant demoralization_, always on
this side or that of justice.... Justice is insupportable to her.... Her
conscience is anti-judicial."
She is aristocratic, loves privileges and distinctions; "in all
revolutions that have liberty and equality for their object, women make
the most resistance. They did more harm in the revolution of February
than all the powers of the masculine reaction combined.
"Women have so little judicial sense that the legislator who fixed the
age of moral responsibility at sixteen for both sexes, might have delayed
it till forty-five, for women. Woman's conscience is _decidedly of no
value till this age_."
In herself, woman is _immodest_.
It is from man therefore that she receives modesty, "which is the product
of manly dignity, the corollary of justice.
"Woman has no other inclination, no other aptitude than love.
"In affairs of love, the initiative belongs truly to woman."--_Justice_,
_Vol._ III., pp. 364, 366.