MODERN COMMUNISTS.
The Communists hold as the principle of social organization, not _the
agrarian law_, as has been charged on them through ignorance or bad
faith, but the enjoyment _in common_ of the soil, of implements of labor,
and of products. _From each one according to his strength, to each one
according to his needs_, is the formula of most among them.
It is not our business to examine the social value of this doctrine, but
only to show what Communism thinks of woman and her rights.
The modern communists may be divided into two classes: the religious and
the political.
Among the first are the Saint Simonians, the Fusionists and the
Philadelphians.
Among the second, are the Equalitarians, the Unitarians, the Icarians,
etc.
The first consider woman as the equal of man. To the others, she is free;
among some, with a shade of subordination.
The Unitarians, who have drawn largely from Fourier, proclaim woman free,
and equal with man.
We shall speak here of only a few of the communistic sects, reserving
for separate articles what relates to the Saint Simonians and the
Fusionists.
The Philadelphians, admitting God and the immortality of the soul, lay
down these two principles: God is the chief of the social order;
Fraternity is the law that governs human relations.
Religion, to the Philadelphians, is the practice of Fraternity; Progress
is a dogma, Community is the law of the individual before God and
conscience.
Touching the relations of the sexes and the rights of woman, M. Pecqueur
thus expresses himself in his work _La République de Dieu_, pp. 194, 195:
"Complete equality of the man and the woman."
The Monogamic marriage, intentionally indissoluble as a normal condition;
such is the second practical consequence of the dogma of religious
fraternity.
1. EQUALITY.
"We bring no proofs in evidence of this; _his reason is blotted out by
prejudice and his heart chilled by egotism_, who is not impressed at once
with the truth of equality.
"In the state of society created by the religion of fraternity and
equality, women will find, from their earliest years, _the same means and
the same conditions of development of function and of remuneration_, in
short, THE SAME RIGHTS, the same social aim to pursue as men; and in
proportion as custom shall correspond with the religious and moral ends
of the union, will the living law deduce the practical consequences of
all order, contained in the germ in the dogma of the complete equality of
the sexes.
"4. MONOGAMY AND INDISSOLUBILITY.
"To comprehend the lawfulness of the unlimited or indefinite monogamic
marriage, it suffices to consider: 1st. the exigencies of our inmost
nature, that is, the characteristics of love; its instinctive aspiration
to the union and the fusion of two beings, to duration and to perpetuity;
the necessity of possessing each other reciprocally and of having faith
in this possession _in order to love each other_; in short, instinct,
desire; the irresistible and universal affections, and the joys of
paternity and of the family; 2d. the physiological conditions of
generation, which exact monogamy in order to assure the reproduction and
the good and progressive conservation of the species; 3d. social and
religious exigencies, which require relations of all kinds to be
predetermined and regulated, that each one may be secure in his
expectation and his possession, and that there may be a possibility of
satisfying the fundamental propensities of our natures.... To claim to
introduce polygamy, promiscuousness, or union for a term of years into
such surroundings, (the Philadelphian society,) is evidently to decree
selfishness and mere carnal pleasure, while proclaiming duty and dignity.
It is inconceivable that two moral beings, once united by pure love,
should ever cease to love each other, to delight in each other, or at
least to endure each other, when they are presumed already to be devoted
and sacrificing without distinction in their love to their brothers and
sisters.
"Still less is it conceivable that their brothers and sisters would dream
of diverting this reciprocal love of two members of the family to their
personal advantage; _for this would be infamy_."
M. Pecqueur admits, notwithstanding, that in very rare cases, divorce may
be granted on account of incompatibility of temper. In such case the
offending party would be excluded from the republic, and the other would
be at liberty to remarry.
According to M. Pecqueur, indissolubility of marriage does not relate to
the present antagonistic state of society, as he says:
"Divorce is a great misfortune, not only to the parties concerned, but to
religion; notwithstanding, in the kingdom of Cæsar in which pure justice
is the question, it is the lesser evil, when the individuals are
determined on a separation in fact, and are lusting after other ties.
They do evil clandestinely; they are the cause or the occasion of the
temptation or the fall of others. Do what they will, the scandal is
known; so that neither society, nor the spouses, nor the children, nor
morality derive benefit from the consecration of absolute perpetuity.
"It is not charitable, it is _impious_ to force two beings to remain
together, one of which, to say the least, maltreats, detests, takes
advantage of, or domineers over the other. It is equally wrong to grant
them a separation from bed and board without at the same time permitting
them to yield to chaste affections when they acknowledge these in purity
and liberty."
So then, to the Philadelphians, expounded by M. Pecqueur, marriage is
monogamous, indissoluble by intention; divorce is a sad necessity of the
existing state of society, whilst separation is immorality. In short,
woman is _free and the equal of man_.
Another communist sect, that of the Icarians, takes no notice either of
the nature or the rights of women. Its chief, M. Cabet, an
ex-attorney-general, was too fully imbued with the doctrines of the Civil
Code, that inelegant paraphrase of the Apostle Paul, not to be persuaded
that woman ought to remain outside the pale of political right, and that
she ought to be subordinate to man in general, and to her husband, good
or bad, in particular.
Let us do justice however to M. Cabet's disciples; I have never found a
single one of them of his opinion on this great question.
One evening in 1848, as M. Cabet was presiding over a well attended club,
he was requested by a woman to put the question: _Is woman the equal of
man before social and political rights?_ Almost every hand was raised in
the affirmative; in the negative, not a hand was raised, not a man
protested against the affirmation. A round of applause followed from the
galleries filled with women; and M. Cabet was somewhat disconcerted by
the result. He seemed to be ignorant that the people, always eminently
logical, are never guilty of quibbling to elude or to limit the
principles that they have adopted.
This vote of the Cabet club was repeated in three others, in my presence.
The men in paletots laughed at the demands of brave Jeanne Deroin; the
men in blouses did not even smile at them.
M. Dezamy representing another shade of communism, thus expresses himself
in the code of the Community; "Away with marital dominion! Freedom of
alliance! _perfect equality of both sexes!_ Freedom of divorce!"
He adds, under the heading; Laws for the union of the sexes, designed to
prevent all discord and debauchery, page 266:
"Art. I. Mutual love, inmost sympathy, purity of heart between two
beings, form and legalize their union.
"Art. II. _There should be perfect equality between the two sexes._
"Art. III. No bond except that of mutual love can link the man and the
woman together.
"Art. IV. Nothing shall prevent lovers who have separated from forming
new ties as often as they shall be attracted to another person."
The ethics of M. Dezamy are not to our taste; we prefer those of the
Communist, Pecqueur; but we are glad to prove that modern communism,
divided on the questions of marriage, the family, and morals in relations
of the sexes, is unanimous with respect to the liberty of woman and the
equality of the sexes before the law and society.
In this, modern communism is greatly superior to that of the ancient
school, practised among several nations, and taught by Plato, Morelly,
etc. We recognize a sign of the times in this juster appreciation of
woman, with the introduction of the principle of her rights into
doctrines which formerly never took them into account.
The greater part of the Communists belong to the working class; which
proves that the people most of all feel the great truth, _that the
liberty of woman is identical with that of the masses_; and it will take
more than MM. Proudhon, Comte, Michelet and their adepts, to throw cold
water on their feelings and to make them retrace their steps.
SAINT SIMONIANS.
My mother, a zealous Protestant and very austere in morals, disapproved
of St. Simonianism, and never permitted any one to speak of it in my
presence except to condemn it; she took great care that not a line of the
new doctrine should fall under my eyes.
Whether from a natural spirit of opposition or from instinctive justice,
I know not, but I by no means shared in the censure that I heard
expressed about me; one thing alone resulted from it--curiosity to become
acquainted with what were called immoral dogmas.
I was in this frame of mind when one day while with my mother in the
neighborhood of the _Palais du Justice_, I saw a company of men
advancing, clad in a graceful costume; they were the Saint Simonians
going in a body to defend their infant church against prosecution at the
bar. I was greatly moved by the sight; I felt in communion with these
youth who were about to bear testimony to their faith; they did not seem
like strangers, but as struggling for my own cause or for one that
deserved my sympathy, and tears sprang to my eyes. I could have heartily
embraced those whom I heard defending them, and as heartily have assailed
those who claimed that it would be just to condemn them. My mother being
too generous to join with the latter, we departed in silence. I knew,
without having any knowledge of the details, that the church of St. Simon
had been dispersed.
It was not until some years after that, having made the acquaintance of a
St. Simonian lady, I was enabled to read the doctrinal writings and to
form an idea of the aspirations and the dogmas of the school of St.
Simon. If the nature of this work forbids me their analysis, it cannot
reproach me for expressing my sympathies for those who have had great and
generous aspirations; for those who, in a critical point of view, have
rendered real services to the cause of Progress; for those who have
brought to light the solution of the two capital problems of our epoch;
_the emancipation of woman and of the workman_. The St. Simonians have
been enough assailed, enough calumniated to justify a woman who is not a
St. Simonian in considering it a duty to render them justice, by
acknowledging the good which they have done.
Yes, you have a right to be proud of your name of St. Simonians, you who
have proclaimed the obligation of laboring without respite for the
physical, moral and intellectual amelioration of the most numerous and
the poorest class;
You who have proclaimed the _sanctity_ of science, art, manufactures, and
labor in every form;
You who have proclaimed the equality of the sexes in the family, the
church, and the state;
You who have preached of peace and fraternity to a world given over to
wars of cannon and competition.
You who have criticised the ancient dogma, and all the evil institutions
that have thence arisen;
Yes, I repeat, you have deserved well of Progress, you have deserved well
of Humanity; and you have a right to bear with pride your great
scholastic name; for it was noble to desire the emancipation of woman, of
labor, and of the laborer; it was generous to consecrate youth and
fortune to it, as so many among you have done.
Through your aspirations, you have been the continuers of '89, since you
dreamed of realizing what was contained in the germ in the Declaration of
Rights: these are your titles of greatness; this is why your name will
not perish. But if, through your sentiments, you belonged to the great
era of '89, the social form in which you claimed to incarnate your
principles, belonged to the Middle Ages; the age therefore has done right
to leave you behind. Seduced by trinitarian mysticism, deluded by an
erroneous historical point of view, you claimed to resuscitate hierarchy
and theocracy in a system of humanity fashioned in conformity with the
opposing principle; the triumph of individual liberty in social equality.
This is the reason that the age could not follow you. No more could women
follow you, for they felt that they could only be affranchised through
labor and through purity of morals; by ruling over, not imitating
masculine passions. They felt that their power of moralization was due as
much to their chastity as to their intellect; they knew that those who
make use of the most liberty in love, neither love nor esteem the other
sex; that, in general, they employ their ascendancy over it to pervert it
to ruin and afflict their companions, and to dissolve the family and
civilization; that, in consequence, they are the most dangerous enemies
of the emancipation of their sex; for man, sobered of his passion, can
never desire to emancipate those by whom he has been deceived, ruined and
demoralized.
The St. Simonian orthodoxy is therefore, in my opinion, greatly mistaken
with respect to the ways and means of realization. Shall we impute this
to it as a crime? No, indeed! social problems are not mathematical
problems; there is merit in propounding them; courage and devotion in
pursuing their solution, even when we fail completely to attain it.
We all know the spirit of the St. Simonians who first brought before the
public mind of the age the question of female emancipation; it would be
ungrateful in the women who demand liberty and equality not to recognize
the debt of gratitude which they have contracted toward them. It is their
duty to say to their companions: the seal of St. Simonianism is the
safeguard of the liberty of woman; wherever therefore you meet a St.
Simonian, you may press his hand fraternally; you have in him a defender
of your right.
Let us sketch the general outline of the St. Simonian doctrine, touching
woman and her rights.
All of the St. Simonians admit that the sexes are equal;
That the couple forms the social individual;
That marriage is the sacred bond of generations; the association of a man
and a woman for the accomplishment of a sacerdotal, scientific, artistic,
or industrial work;
All admit divorce, and transition to another union; but some are more
severe than others with respect to the conditions of divorce.
There is a division among them on the question of morals. Olinde
Rodrigues and Bazard do not admit any _liaison_ of love outside of
marriage. M. Enfantine, on the contrary, claims the greatest liberty in
love.
We should add that he gives to this opinion a fixed and provisional value
only, since he says that the law of the relations of sexes can only be
established in a sure and definitive manner by the concurrence of the
woman; and since, on the other hand, he prescribes continence to his
closest followers, until the coming of the Woman, of which he regards
himself the precursor.
In addition, to give our readers a more precise idea of the sentiments of
the St. Simonians concerning woman, we will cite some passages of their
writings.
"The use of woman by man still exists," says M. Enfantin; "_this it is
that constitutes the necessity of our apostleship_. This use, this
subalternation _contrary to nature_, with respect to the future, results
on the one hand, in falsehood and fraud; on the other, in violence and
animal passions; it is necessary to put an end to these
vices."--(_Religion St. Simonienne_, 1832, p. 5.)
"Woman, as we have said, _is the equal of man_; She is now a slave; it
belongs to her master to affranchise her." (_Id._ p. 12.)
"There will be no definitive law and morality until woman shall have
spoken." (_Id._ p. 18.)
"In the name of God," exclaims M. Enfantin in his _Appel à la Femme_, "in
the name of God and of all the sufferings which Humanity, his loved
child, endures to-day in her flesh; in the name of the poorest and most
numerous class whose daughters are sold to Indolence and whose sons are
given up to War; in the name of all those men and of all those women, who
cast the glittering veil of falsehood or the filthy rays of debauchery
over their secret or public prostitution; in the name of St. Simon who
came to announce to man and woman _their moral, social and religious
equality_, I conjure woman to answer me!" (_Entretien du 7 Décembre_,
1831.)
On his side, Bazard concludes a pamphlet, published in January, 1832,
with these words:
"And we too have hastened the coming of woman; we too summon her with all
our might; but it is in the name of the pure love with which she has
imbued the heart of man, and which man is now ready to give her in
return; it is in the name of the dignity which is promised her in
marriage; it is lastly and above all, in the name of the most numerous
and poorest class, _whose servitudes and humiliations she has hitherto
shared_, and whom her enchanting voice can alone to-day have power
finally to release from the harsh imposition with which it is still
weighed down by the wrecks of the past."
Ah! you are to a great extent right, Enfantin and Bazard! So long as
woman is not free and the equal of man; so long as she is not everywhere
at his side, sorrows, disorders, war, the exploitation of the weak, will
be the sad lot of humanity.
Pierre Leroux, the gentlest, best and most simple man that I know, writes
in turn in the fourth volume of his _Encyclopédie Nouvelle_, article
_Egalité_, the following remarkable paragraphs:
"There are not two different beings, man and woman, there is but a single
human being with two phases, which correspond and are united by love.
"Man and woman exist to form the couple; they are the two parts of it.
_Outside of the couple, outside of love and marriage, there is no longer
any sex_; there are human beings of a common origin and of like
faculties. Man at every moment of his life is sensation, sentiment,
knowledge; so is woman. The definition is therefore the same."
After having proved, according to his idea, that the type of woman
differs from that of man, he continues:
"But this type does not separate them from the rest of humanity, and does
not make of them a separate race which must be distinguished
philosophically from man.... Love being absent, they manifest themselves
to man as human beings, and are ranked, like man, under the various
categories of civil society."
After having observed that, however different men may be, they are
therefore none the less equal, since they all are sensation, sentiment
and knowledge, Pierre Leroux, applying this principle to the question of
the right of woman, adds:
"From whatever side we look at this question, we are led to proclaim the
equality of man and woman. For, if we consider woman in the couple, woman
is the equal of man, since the couple itself is founded on equality,
since love is equality in itself, and since where justice, that is,
equality, does not reign, there love cannot reign, but the contrary of
love.
"And if we consider woman outside of the couple, she is a being like unto
man, endowed with the same faculties in various degrees; one of those
varieties in unity which constitute the world and human society."
The author says that woman should lay claim to equality only as a spouse
and a human being; that to acknowledge her as free because she has sex,
is to declare her at liberty not only to use but also to abuse love; and
that the abuse of love must not be the appanage and sign of liberty.
He says that woman has sex only for him whom she loves and by whom she is
loved; that to all others she can be merely a human being.
"From this point of view," continues he, "we must say to women: you have
a right to equality by two distinct titles; as human beings and as wives.
As wives, you are our equals, for love in itself is equality. As human
beings, your cause is that of all, _it is the same as that of the people;
it is allied to the great revolutionary cause_; that is, to the general
progress of the human kind. _You are our equals, not because you are
women but because there are no longer either slaves or serfs._
"This is the truth that must be spoken to men and women; but it would be
to pervert this truth and to transform it into error to say to women: You
are a sex apart, a sex in the possession of love. Emancipate yourselves;
that is, use and abuse love. Woman thus transformed into an unchaste
Venus, loses at once her dignity as a human being and as a woman; that
is, as a being capable of forming a human couple under the sacred law of
love."
The excellent Leroux asks who does not feel, who does not admit at the
present day the equality of the sexes?
Who would dare maintain that woman is an inferior being, of whom man is
the guide and beacon light?
That woman is elevated by man, who is elevated only by himself and by
God?
Who would dare maintain such absurdities to-day, brave and upright
Leroux? P. J. Proudhon, the man who called you _Theopompe_ and
_Pâlissier_--M. Michelet, who claims that woman was created to be the
most tiresome doll of her loving husband.
But to return to yourself.
You affirm that God is androgynous; that in him coexist the male and
female principles on the footing of equality: that consequently, man and
woman are equal in God. I assent to this willingly, although I know
absolutely nothing about it. But when you add that woman is deserving of
quite as much as man, because she has shared in all the agonizing crises
of the progressive education of the human race;
That love, which cannot exist without the woman, has led us from the law
of slavery to that of equality;
That consequently woman represents half in the work of the ages;
In this there is no mystery; I join you therefore with all my heart in
repeating to men the invitations and the lessons which you give to these
ungrateful and stubborn males:
"If we are free, it is in part by woman; let her then be made free by us.
"But is she so? Is she treated by us as an equal?
"A wife--does she find equality in love and marriage?
"A human being, does she find equality in the State?
"This is the question.
"On the subject of woman, our civil law is a model of absurd
contradictions. According to the Roman law, woman lived perpetually under
tutelage; in this system of legislation, everything was at least in
perfect harmony; woman was always a minor. We, on our part, declare her
in a multitude of cases to be free as man. She is no longer under general
or fictitious tutelage; her age of majority is fixed; she is competent to
inherit in her own right; she inherits in equal proportion; she controls
and disposes of her property; more than this, in the system of communion
of goods between husband and wife, we admit the separation of property.
But let the marriage bond itself be in question, in which wealth is no
longer at stake, but ourselves and our mothers, ourselves and our
sisters, ourselves and our daughters; then we are found intractable in
our laws; we no longer admit equality; we require woman to declare
herself our inferior and servant, and to swear obedience to us.
"Truly we cling more to money than to love; we have more consideration
for money-bags than for human dignity; for we emancipate women as soon as
they become freeholders; but as soon as they become wives the law
declares them our inferiors. Here notwithstanding, that bond is in
question in which the equality of man and woman is most evident; that
bond in which this equality breaks forth, as it were; that bond in which
it is so necessary to proclaim that without equality, the bond itself
exists no longer. Yet, by an absurd contradiction, our civil law chooses
this moment to proclaim the inferiority of woman; it condemns her to
obedience, makes her take a false oath, and takes advantage of love to
make it outrage itself.
"I have no doubt that, to future ages, the characteristic symbol of our
moral condition will be that article of our laws which sanctions in set
terms inequality in love. It will be said of us: they had so little
comprehension of justice, that they did not comprehend love which is
justice in even its holiest type; they had so little comprehension of
love, that they did not even admit justice in it; and that in their
written law, their Code, the form of marriage, the only sacrament of
which they yet had any idea, instead of sanctioning equality, sanctions
inequality; instead of union, disunion; instead of the love that
equalizes and identifies its objects, some contradictory and monstrous
relation, founded at the same time upon identity, and upon inferiority
and slavery. Yes, like those forms of the law of the Twelve Tables, that
we quote now to prove the barbarity of the ancient Romans and their
ignorance of justice, this article of our Code will be some day cited to
characterize our grossness and ignorance, for the absence of an elevated
notion of justice is as marked in it as is the absence of an elevated
notion of love.
"Thence follows everything relative to the condition of woman; or rather,
everything is connected with this point; for will we respect the
equality of woman as a human being when we are senseless enough to deny
her this quality as a wife? Is woman to-day, in so far as a human being,
really treated as the equal of man? I will not enter upon this broad
subject. I confine myself to a single question; what education do women
receive? You treat them as you treat the people. To these too you leave
the old religion that fits us no longer. They are children kept as long
as possible in swaddling clothes, as though this were not the true way to
deform them, to destroy at once the rectitude of their mind and the
candor of their soul. Besides, what does Society do for them? To what new
careers does she give them access? Yet, notwithstanding, it is evident to
every thinking mind that our arts, our sciences, our manufactures will
make as much new progress when women are called to take a part in them,
as they did a few years ago, when they were opened to the serfs. You
complain of the want and wretchedness that weighs down your systems of
society; _abolish the castes that are still subsisting; abolish the caste
in which you hold immured the half of the human race_."
These few pages, my readers, give you the compass of the sentiments of
the St. Simonians, both orthodox and dissenters, and justify the sympathy
entertained by women who have attained _majority_ for those who have so
ardently pleaded their cause.
FUSIONISTS.
Louis de Tourreil, the revealer of Fusionism, is a man whom it is
impossible to behold without sympathy or to hear without pleasure; he is
kindly, he speaks well, and his ideas are most logically deduced; his
principles once admitted, one is constrained to follow him to the end.
Tourreil expresses himself in the _Revue Philosophique_ of May, 1856, on
the subject of woman and her rights, as follows:
"Nature is reduced to three great co-eternal principles or productive
agents of all things. These principles are:
"The female or passive principle,
"The male or active principle,
"And the mixed or unificative principle, participating in both, which is
called Love.
"God is therefore Female, Male and Androgynous, in his trinary unity.
"He is simultaneously from all eternity Mother, Father and Love, instead
of being, as the theologians say, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; three
agents of like sex, incapable of producing anything.
"You will easily conceive, my dear brother, that if the masculine and the
feminine sex hold the same rank in the Divine Trinity, they will be also
found in the same rank in humanity. The part which the divine woman plays
in Heaven, the human woman will play on Earth....
"Were he (_God_) only of the masculine sex, men would say that the
masculine sex alone is noble, and that woman is created merely for the
service of man, as man is created for that of God. They would even
question whether she had a soul, and would think that they were doing her
a favor in admitting her as something in life."
After quoting the teachings of the apostle Paul with respect to woman and
marriage, the author continues:
"Behold, my dear brother, the part which Christianity assigns to woman.
If this doctrine therefore were followed in every point, and if it ought
to be replaced by no higher one, woman would find herself condemned in
perpetuity to a subalternization humiliating to her nature.
"But Fusionism, which is the doctrine of Salvation for all, does not
permit any one to be sacrificed; for this reason, woman is the equal of
man and man the equal of woman, as in God, the eternal Mother is the
equal of the eternal Father, and the eternal Father is the equal of the
eternal Mother."
De Tourreil believes that the Mother gives form and the Father life, two
things equally necessary to constitute the being.
"Since woman is the equal of man in absolute principle," continues he,
"and since she is co-eternal with him, there is injustice in
subordinating her to man in the relative; and the book of _Genesis_
commits a gross error in making her proceed from man:
"If either of the two could be before the other, it would be the woman,
for strictly speaking, we could conceive of the being without the life,
but it would be quite impossible to conceive of the life without the
being: The being without the life would be a dead being, but what would
the life be without the being? It would be a life without existence,
negation, the absence of life, nothingness. Therefore, in logical order,
woman is first....
"Not only ought woman to be the equal of man, as we have seen, but in
enunciation and classification, she should be named and classed first.
"Woman is the mould by which the species is perfected or depraved,
according as the mould is good or bad. The fate of humanity depends
therefore on woman, since she has all powerful influence on the fruit
that she bears in her bosom.
"Pure, good, intelligent, she will produce healthy, intelligent and good
beings.
"Impure, narrow, and wicked, she will produce unhealthy, unintelligent
and wicked beings.
"In a word, the child will be what its mother is, for nothing can give
what it has not.
"It is important therefore that woman should be developed like man, that
her education should be comprehensive, that her person should be honored,
respected, and tenderly cared for, in order that nothing in the social
surroundings may shape it to evil.
"Destined by the Supreme Being to form the human being from her flesh,
her blood and her soul, destined to nourish it with her milk and to give
it its earliest education, the two acts which have the greatest influence
over the individual life, woman should be considered as the chief agent
of perfection. This _rôle_ classes her naturally in a very elevated rank
in society, and exacts of her superior perfections.
"Thus in the future she will be the image of Divine Wisdom on earth, as
man will represent Divine Power.
"To man more especially will belong action; to woman, counsel.
"Man will take the initiative in difficult enterprises; woman will
moderate or excite ardor therein.
"Man will rule the planet; woman will embellish it.
"Man will symbolize science and manufactures; woman will symbolize poetry
and art.
"The one will always have need of the other; they will walk together
side by side, and will find completeness reciprocally in each other.
"Such, my dear friend, after a brief fashion, is the idea which should be
formed of woman. Man and woman are not two beings radically separated;
both together make but a single being. To subordinate woman to man or man
to woman is therefore to mutilate the human being, or to fail to
comprehend its interests. That humanity may be happy, neither of its
halves must suffer. And how can it help suffering if it is reduced to
servitude and oppressed by the other?
"Our destiny on earth is to constitute the collective being in his own
consciousness. For this, it is necessary to realize the humanitary
androgynus. Now the humanitary androgynus necessitates first the
individual androgynus which can only be constituted by harmonious
marriage.
"Marriage is therefore the great formative or deformative law of the
collective being, according as it is expressed by the legislator in a
manner conformably or contrary to human destiny.
"It is in marriage that the sources of good and evil are found; would you
know why?
"Because in the act that joins the man to the woman, and by which the
couple are made to form but one body, the two souls are fused by means of
a reciprocal donation, which unites the souls of the two for eternity.
"So that, after the conjunction, the soul of the woman adheres to the
soul of the man and accompanies it everywhere, while the soul of the man
adheres to the woman and never more quits it.
"Whence it follows that if the soul of the man be depraved, it depraves
the woman to whom it is united, by exercising over her a continued
action, even at a distance. So also does the depravity of the woman
united to the man deprave him without his knowing it by an occult and
permanent action.
"The souls of two depraved beings may be therefore inseparably conjoined,
without thus constituting the individual androgynus, which is the divine
end of marriage or the union of the sexes.
"The individual androgynus is only possible to the condition of unity.
But unity cannot be constituted by evil.
"The good, the true and the perfect alone can combine the conditions of
unity. The evil, the false and the imperfect are essentially inharmonious
in their nature.
"Two wicked, insincere and vicious beings will only produce by their
conjunction a still greater difference. They will be united, but only
reciprocally to torment each other. Unity will never be constituted by
them; and without the constitution of unity or the individual androgynus,
it will be impossible to realize the human destiny.
"In order that the individual androgynus may exist in the couple, there
must be perfect spiritual communion between them; that is, communion of
thought, of feeling, and of will. But how can two individuals who,
instead of being ruled by truth, are ruled only by their misdirected
passions,--how can these two make but one? It is impossible.
"You will comprehend, my dear brother, from these few words, how sacred
is marriage, and how important it is to contract none but harmonious
unions, for the unhappiness of a lifetime often depends on an
inconsiderate conjunction."
Having had several opportunities of meeting M. de Tourreil, I asked him
for some exact details in respect to the liberty of woman and marriage.
The following is an abstract of those that he has kindly given me;
Education should be the same for both sexes;
Woman should be at liberty to follow the vocation which comes to her from
God; and of which she alone is judge;
"In all grades and employments in the republic of God, woman should be at
the side of man;
After the age of fifty, all individuals of both sexes should be rulers
and priests;
The reproduction of the species being the work of the love of persons
healthy in mind and in body, before marriage, the bride should be
required to make confession to a priestess and the bridegroom to a
priest, in order to be enlightened with respect to the opportuneness or
unsuitableness of the union.
Dissolution of marriage should take place but in a single case,--when the
husband and wife have attained to complete fusion; that is, to feeling
and knowing reciprocally that they have no longer anything to exchange.
It then becomes necessary to form new ties, and, each one to labor to
fuse with a new consort. In the existing condition of humanity, this
fusion cannot take place; but in the future, when we shall be nearer
perfection, it will become possible several times in life.
Fusionism is, as is evident, mystical socialism.
Its votaries are gentle and good, and very tolerant towards those who do
not think like them.
PHALANSTERIANS.
The motto of the Fourieristic, Societary or Phalansterian school is
_respect for individual liberty_, based on the following notions:
All nature is good; it becomes perverted only when performing its
functions in evil surroundings.
No person exactly resembling the rest, each one should be the sole judge
of his capacities, and should receive laws only from himself.
Attractions are proportional to destinies.
If the disciples of my compatriot, Charles Fourier, do not express
themselves exactly in this wise, all that have written bears the imprint
of these thoughts.
Are Fourier and his disciples right in believing that the law of
passional attraction _alone_ is required to organize the industrial,
moral and social world?
That the primordial element of a system of society should be the
Societary or Phalansterian association?
That the most opposite, the most diverse passions are the conditions
_sine quâ non_ of harmony?
That the compensation of labor and of competition should be regulated
according to Labor, Capital and Talent?
We are not called on to examine this here.
The only thing that need occupy us in this rapid review of
contemporaneous opinions is the investigation of the sentiments and ideas
of Fourier and his school in that which concerns the principal object of
this book. A few pages from the chief of the order, and a summary
analysis will suffice for this.
In the _Théorie des quatre Mouvements_, M. Fourier writes;
"That the ancient philosophers of Greece and Rome should have disdained
the interests of women is by no means surprising, since these
rhetoricians were all ultra partisans of the pederasty which they had
brought in high honor in _la belle antiquité_. They cast ridicule upon
the associating with women; this passion was considered dishonorable....
These manners obtained the unanimous suffrage of the philosophers who,
from the virtuous Socrates to the delicate Anacreon, affected Sodomitish
love alone and contempt for women, who were banished to the upper
apartments, immured as in a seraglio, and exiled from the society of men.
"These fantastic tastes not having found favor among the moderns, there
is reason for surprise that our philosophers should have inherited the
hatred that the ancient scholars bore to women, and that they should
continue to disparage the sex on account of a few wiles to which woman is
forced by the oppression which weighs upon her; for every word or thought
in conformity with the voice of nature is made in her a crime.
"What can be more inconsistent than the opinion of Diderot, who pretends
that, to write to woman, one has only to dip his pen in the rainbow, and
sprinkle the writing with dust from butterflies' wings? Women might reply
to the philosopher: Your civilization persecutes us as soon as we obey
nature; we are obliged to assume a fictitious character and to listen to
impulses contrary to our desires. To give us a relish for this doctrine,
you are forced to bring in play deceitful illusions and language, as you
do with respect to the soldier whom you cradle in laurels and immortality
to divert his thoughts from his wretched condition. If he were truly
happy, he would welcome the plain and truthful language which you take
care not to address to him. It is the same with women; if they were free
and happy, they would be less eager for illusions and cajoleries, and it
would no longer be necessary in writing to them to place rainbows and
butterflies' wings under contribution.
"When it (Philosophy) rails at the vices of women, it criticises itself;
this it is that produces these vices by a social system which, repressing
their faculties from their infancy and through the whole course of their
life, forces them to have recourse to fraud in order to yield to nature.
"To attempt to judge of women by the vicious character which they display
in civilization is like attempting to judge of human nature by the
character of the Russian peasant, who is destitute of all ideas of honor
and liberty; or like judging the beaver by the stupidity which they show
when domesticated, whilst in a condition of liberty combined with labor,
they become the most intelligent of all quadrupeds. The same contrast
will reign between the women who are slaves of civilization and those who
are free in the combined order; they will surpass men in industrial
devotion, in loyalty, in nobleness; but outside of the free and combined
state, woman, like the domesticated beaver or the Russian peasant,
becomes a being so inferior to her destiny and talents that we are
inclined to despise her when judging her superficially according to
appearances.
"It is a surprising thing that women should have always shown themselves
superior to men when they have had it in their power to display on the
throne their natural talents, of which the diadem assured them a free
use. Is it not certain that of eight queens, independent and unmarried,
seven will be found to have reigned with glory, while of eight kings, we
count habitually seven feeble sovereigns.
... The Elizabeths and Catherines did not make war in person, but they
knew how to choose their generals; and it is enough that these are good.
In every other branch of administration, has not woman given lessons to
man? What prince has surpassed in firmness Maria Theresa who, in a
disastrous moment, when the fidelity of her subjects was tottering and
her ministers were struck with terror, undertook herself alone to inspire
all with new courage? She intimidated by her presence, the disaffected
Diet of Hungary; she harangued the Magnates in the Latin tongue, and
brought her very enemies to swear on their sabres to die for her. This is
an indication of the prodigies that would be wrought by feminine
emulation in a social order which would permit free scope to her
faculties.
"And you, the oppressing sex,--would you not go beyond the faults imputed
to women if you, like them, had been moulded by a servile education to
believe yourselves automatons created to obey prejudices and to cringe
before the master whom chance had given you? Have we not seen your
pretensions to superiority confounded by Catharine, who trampled under
foot the masculine sex? In creating titled favorites, she trailed man in
the dust, and proved that it is possible for him in full liberty to abase
himself beneath woman, whose degradation is forced, and consequently,
excusable. It would be necessary, to confound the tyranny of man that,
for the space of a century, a third sex should exist, which should be
both male and female, and stronger than man. This new sex would prove by
dint of blows that men as well as women were made for its pleasures; then
we should hear men protest against the tyranny of the hermaphrodite sex,
and confess that force ought not to be the sole law of right. Now why
are these privileges, this independence, which they would reclaim from
this third sex, refused by them to women.
"In singling out those women who have had power to soar, from the virago,
like Maria Theresia, to those of a gentler type, like the Ninons and the
Sévignés, I am authorized in saying that woman, in a state of liberty,
will surpass man in all functions of the mind and body which are not the
attributes of physical strength.
"Man seems already to foresee this; he becomes indignant and alarmed when
women give the lie to the prejudice that accuses them of inferiority.
_Masculine jealousy has especially broken out against women authors;
philosophy has kept them out of academic honors, and has sent them back
ignominiously to the household._"... (p. 148.)
"What is their existence to-day (that of women)? They exist in privations
alone, even in the trades, in which man has encroached on everything,
_even to the minutest occupations of the needle and the pen, while women
are seen employed in the toilsome labors of the field. Is it not
scandalous to see athletes thirty years old squatted before a desk, or
carrying a cup of coffee with muscular arms_, as if there were not women
and children enough to attend to the minor details of the counting-room
and the household.
"What then are the means of subsistence for women destitute of fortune?
The distaff, or else their charms if they have any. _Yes, prostitution
more or less glossed over is their only resource_, which philosophy again
contests to them; this is the abject fate to which they are reduced by
this civilization, this conjugal slavery which they have not even thought
of attacking." (p. 150.)
Fourier bitterly reproaches women authors for having neglected to seek
the means whereby to put an end to such a state of affairs, and adds with
great reason:
"Their indolence in this respect is one of the causes that have accrued
from the contempt of man. _The slave is never more contemptible than by a
blind submission which persuades the oppressor that his victim was born
for slavery._, (p. 150)."
Fourier is right, but ... to elevate others is to risk being lost one's
self in the crowd; and every one is not capable of this degree of
abnegation.
To combat for the right of the weak when men have admitted you to their
ranks, is to prepare for yourself a rough way and a heavy cross.
In the first place, you are exposed to the hatred and raillery of men,
then half-cultured women corroded by jealousy, invent a thousand
calumnies for your destruction; they feign to be scandalized that a woman
dare protest against the inferiority and use of her sex; they enter into
league with the masters, clamor louder than they and satirize you without
mercy.
Now all women are not made to shrug their shoulders in the face of this
cohort of morbid minds ... they love peace too well, they lack courage,
and _they do not care enough for justice_; is it not so, ladies?
Let us return to Fourier. It is known that he admits several social
periods. According to him, the pivot of each of them hinges on love and
the degree of liberty of woman.
"As a general rule," he says, "_social progress and changes of the period
will be wrought in proportion to the progress of women towards liberty,
and the decay of the social order will be wrought in proportion to the
decline of the liberty of women_."
In another place, he adds in speaking of philosophers:
"If they treat of morals, they forget to recognize and to claim the
rights of the weaker sex, _the oppression of which destroys the basis of
justice_."
He says again, elsewhere:
"Now, God recognizes as liberty only that which is extended to both
sexes, and not to one alone; so he has prescribed that all the germs of
social evils, as the savage state, barbarism, civilization, should have
no other pivot than the enthrallment of women; and that all the germs of
social good, as the sixth, seventh and eighth period, should have no
other pivot, no other compass, than the progressive affranchisement of
the weaker sex."
Fourier is reproached with having desired the emancipation of woman in
love; nothing is more true. But to impute this to him as immorality, men
must censure their own morals. Now, these gentlemen considering
themselves as wholly _pure_, though themselves representing the
_butterfly_ in love, infidelity and the simultaneous possession of
several women being only a pastime to them, I do not really see what they
can blame in Fourier.
Either what they do is right, and therefore cannot be wrong in woman;
Or what they do is wrong; then why do they do it?
Fourier believed in the unity of the moral law and in the equality of the
sexes; he believed in the lawfulness of the morals of these gentlemen,
_minus perfidy and hypocrisy_; this is the reason that he claims
emancipation in love for woman: he is logical.
Besides, he repeats continually that the ethics that he depicts would
cause disorder in the civilized period; and that they can only be
established progressively in subsequent periods. Many among the
Phalansterians reject Fourier's ethics with respect to love as well as
his Theodicy, and I myself have heard several discourses in which the
orator condemned, not only falsity in conjugal relations, but also
looseness of morals.
Fourier and the Saint Simonian orthodoxy have both been guilty of the
same error with regard to the emancipation of woman; but, men, I repeat,
must be very audacious to impute it to them as a crime, since they
indulge themselves in worse; as to women, sustained and loved by these
reformers, let them imitate the pious conduct of Shem and Japhet; one
owes respect to his father, whatever may be the idea or the wine with
which he is drunken.
Now that we have cited the master, let us enumerate the principal points
of the Fourierist doctrine, touching the liberty of woman and the
equality of the sexes:
1. Man and woman are composed of the same physical, moral and
intellectual elements; there is, therefore, between the sexes, identity
of nature.
2. The proportion of these elements differs in the two sexes, and
constitutes the difference that exists between them.
3. This difference is so equalized that the value shall be equal. Where
man is the stronger, he takes precedence of woman; where woman is
stronger, she takes precedence of man.
4. Man belongs to the _major mode_: he has the ascendency over woman in
intellect, in logic, in the larger manufactures, in friendship; it
belongs to him therefore to create positive science, to connect facts, to
regulate commercial relations, to bind together interests, and to
organize groups and series. To all these things, woman brings her
indispensable aid, but by reason of her aptitudes, her services are only
secondary therein.
5. Woman belongs to the _minor mode_; she has the ascendency over man in
the kind of intellect that applies and adapts, in the intuition that puts
man on the track of the good to which masculine logic should attain; in
the sphere of maternity in which she presides over education, for she
comprehends the means to be employed to ameliorate the species in every
respect better than man; in the sphere of love in which she has the right
and the power to civilize and refine the relations of the sexes; and to
stimulate man to conquest of the intellect, to the amelioration of the
physical conditions of the globe, of industry, of art, of social
relations, etc.
Woman intervenes to a certain point in the major mode, so does man enter
into the minor mode, in which his coöperation is indispensable.
Thus, in general, in man the head predominates, in woman, the heart; but
as both have a heart and a head, man, through his heart, becomes an aid
in the minor mode, and woman, through her head, becomes an aid in the
major mode.
6. There are men who are women both in head and in heart; women who are
men both in heart and in head; in humanity they form the eighth of an
exception. Full liberty and right are granted to them.
7. Each member of the Phalanstery follows his vocation, obeys his
attractions, _for attractions are proportional to destinies_. Therefore
the eighth of an exception in both sexes, having an attraction towards
labors that belong more especially to the other sex, is at liberty to
yield to them.
8. All major men and women have an equal vote.
9. All matters are regulated by chiefs _of both sexes_, chosen by the
free vote of both sexes.
10. All offices, from the presidency of the group to that of the globe,
are filled jointly by men and women, who divide between them the details
of this common function.
11. The mother is the instructress of her children; they belong to her
alone; the father has no rights over them unless the mother chooses to
confer these on him.
Such is the summary of the Fourierist doctrine on the subject of which we
treat.
If the Societary School has not reached perfect truth, it must be at
least acknowledged that it has taken the right way to attain it. Whether
its theory of the classification and the predominance of faculties in
conformity with the sexes be exact or not, the error will not be
productive of mischievous results in practice. Woman being free to follow
her aptitudes, being half in rights and functions, could always place
herself in the exceptional eighth, without fear of encountering jealous
individuals, better fitted than herself to warble in the minor key, who
would send her back to the duties of the household.
I remember, in this connection, a certain advocate, by no means
_feminine_, professing a superb disdain of the sex to which his mother
belonged, worthy in a word, to be the disciple of P. J. Proudhon; would
you know what this man had retained of all his lessons in law? The art of
sweeping a room properly, of polishing furniture, of hemming napkins and
pocket handkerchiefs neatly, and of compounding sauces. Do you not think,
illustrious Proudhon, that he might have been advised with more justice
to _go and iron his collars_, than certain women who write good articles
on Philosophy.
But let us return to Fourier.
Among the Socialist Schools, that of Fourier occupies a distinguished
place; it is the one most deserving of the gratitude of women through the
principles that it has laid down. Be it understood, we separate in this
connection the principles of Liberty and Equality from all that relates
to the question of ethics, which we cannot resolve in the same manner as
Fourier, _any more for woman than man_.