THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS From the German of KARL HE1NZEN BERKEUV LIBRARY UNIVERSITY Of CALIFORNIA THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS BY KARL HEINZEN. PART I. AN ADDRESS TO AN UNKNOWN LADY READER PART II. LUISE MEYEN ON MEN AND WOMEN The Convention of German Women in Frauenstadt Concerning Womanhood and Manhood CHICAGO CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY 56 Fifth Avenue I Copyright, 1891. by Karl Rchmrmann Copyright. 1898, by Kakl Schmemann Utj $9$ PREFACE. The following treatise comes from the pen of one of the most enlightened and humanitarian spirits of our time, whose libertarian and reforma- tory labors were not limited to his German father- land and this republic, his adopted home, but extended to the entire civilized world by their unique and masterful many-sidedness. The author, who, after he had broken his fetters in despotic Europe, lived in this country during the larger and most fertile period of his life and brought to light his ripest spiritual treasures here, unfortu- nately remained unknown to the great majority of his American fellow-citizens. He counted as his friends only the most enlightened men of his time who could appreciate his quiet greatness. This remarkable fact, I believe, may be explained by the observations which the life-long friend of Karl Heinzen, Dr. Marie E. Zakrzewska of Boston, 033 IV PREFACE. embodied in her autobiography,* dedicated to the well-known American poetess, Mary L. Booth : " The German mind, so much honored in Europe for its scientific capacity, for its consistency re- garding principles, and its correct criticism, is not dead here ; but it has to struggle against diffi- culties too numerous to be detailed here ; and therefore it is that the Americans don't know of its existence, and the chief obstacle is their dif- ferent languages. A Humboldt must remain un- known here, unless he chooses to Americanize himself in every respect : and could he do this without ceasing to be Humboldt, the cosmopoli- tan genius?" Among the friends of Heinzen referred to, Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, and Charles Sumner are especially to be mentioned. At the memorial gathering held on February 22, 1 88 1 (Heinzen died November 12, 1880), Wendell Phillips said concerning him : * Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor; or, A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Edited by Caroline H. Dall, author of " Historical Pictures Retouched," etc., etc. Boston: Walker, Wise & Co. i860. A book that ought to be read by everybody who is interested in the solution of the woman's question. PREFACE. V " I never met him on the streets without a feel- ing of the highest respect, and this respect I paid the rare, almost unexampled courage of the man. Mr. Heinzen in this respect stands almost alone among the immigrants to these shores. His idea of human right had no limitation. His re- spect for the rights of a human being as such was not to be shaken. The temptation to use his talent to gain reputation, money, power, at a time when, a poor emigrant, he lacked all these and was certain of acquiring them, was great ; yet all these he laid calmly aside for trie sake of the eternal principle of right, of freedom. He es- poused the detested slave cause at a time when to do so meant poverty, desertion of fellow-coun- trymen, scorn, persecution even. Thus he acted in every cause. What seemed to him right, after the most unsparing search for truth, he upheld no matter at what cost During the war, feeling that through ignorance or timidity on the part of Lincoln's government precious lives and treas- ures were being wasted, he was foremost among a few leading men who proposed the nomination of Fremont for the presidency. We had many private meetings and much correspondence with leading men in New York. I shall never forget VI PREFACE. some of these conversations with Mr. Heinzen. He was so far-seeing and sagacious ; he was so in- genious and contriving; his judgment so penetrat- ing. " One other characteristic he had, belonging only to truly great men. There was a kind of serenity and dignity about him, as one sure of the right in the course which he took, in the principles which he stated. He was far in advance of other minds ; but he was sure in his trust in human nature that all others would come, must come to the same point with himself. He could wait. Few pos- sessing equal mental ability are able also to do this. The greatest courage is to dare to be wholly consistent. This courage Heinzen showed when a little yielding, so little as would have been readily pardoned on the ground of common-sense, would have gained him popularity, fame, money, power. He remained true to himself. " Prominent men gained much from him, but never acknowledged their obligations. He shaped many minds that led and created public opinion. His indeed was a life of trial, gladly borne with- out murmur of complaint, and his reward must be in the future. " When I think of that lofty life there come PREFACE. VI 1 always to my mind those words of Tocqueville which Sumner loved to quote: 'Remember life is neither pain nor pleasure ; it is serious busi- ness, to be entered upon with courage, with the spirit of self-sacrifice.' Surely if any life ever exemplified that ideal, it is the one we meet to remember and, as far as we can, to imitate — that of Karl Heinzen." As a German-American writer has said of him, Heinzen was what Goethe called eine Natur ; that is, a character of singularly original development, a man of one mould, who remained true to him- self- in all conditions of life, and who valued this fidelity to self higher than all external positions and all the favors of the world. He knew of no loftier ambition than obedience to his own teach- ings : "Learn to' endure everything, only not slavery; learn to dispense with everything, only not with your self-respect ; learn to lose every- thing, only not yourself. All else in life is worth- less, delusive, a»nd fickle. Man's only sure sup- port is in himself, in his individuality, resting in its own power and sovereignty." Besides he was a writer who knew how to wield his pen as almost none of his contemporaries, certainly not one of the writers of the German tongue in this coun- Vlll PREFACE. try ; who as none else knew how to express his thoughts in the most pregnant, incisive, and energetic form — a master of pure classical style. That a spirit who could proclaim such princi- ples was bound to throw his entire revolutionary energy on the side of the liberation of woman from the fetters of social and political slavery is a matter of course. The treatise here submitted, which appeared for the first time in the German language in 1852 and later in an expanded form in 1875, iS trans- lated into English by an American lady of German descent, Mrs. Emma Heller Schumm, of Boston ;* * Perhaps this is the proper place to state that, greatly as I admire and esteem the character and genius of Karl Heinzen, I cannot entirely agree with all the views laid down in the following treatise. From some of the positions taken therein I emphatically dissent. Not where he is most radical and thoroughgoing in his advocacy of liberty in the sexual relations and of the independence of woman, for I am with him there ; but where he seems to forget his radicalism, and to lose his grand confidence in the power of liberty to rejuvenate, to regu- late, and to moderate, and falls back upon the State for that readjustment and guidance of human affairs which one day will be accomplished only in liberty and by liberty, — it is there where I radically dissent; and I make this statement for the sake of setting myself right with those who happen to be ac- quainted with my views on these points. Goethe says somewhere: " Die Menschen werden durch Meinungen getrennt, durch Gesinnungen vereinigt" — Men are PREFACE. IX and it is the intention of the publisher, in case the demand for this treatise should give him any encouragement, to continue the publication in English translation of the immortal treasures of separated by their opinions, but united by the spirit that governs them. Thus, notwithstanding our disagreement as regards the manner of attaining a desirable end, I am proud to call myself a follower of Karl Heinzen as regards the spirit with which he approached all questions of human concern. This spirit, as well as the fundamental ideas underlying the following treatise, cannot, as I take it, be better epitomized than by the following quotation from the pen of one of the con- tributors to " Liberty " of Boston : " Woman's emancipation means freedom, liberty. It means liberty pure and simple; failing of which, it is, according to its degree, oppression, suppression, tyranny. It means liberty to enter any and all fields of labor,— trade, profession, science, literature, and art, — and liberty to compete for the highest positions in the land. Liberty to choose her companion, and equal liberty to change. Liberty to embrace motherhood in her own way, time, and place, and freedom from the unjustly critical verdict and action of society concerning her move- ments. She will no longer recognize society's right to con- demn in her practices condoned in man. No more a slave, she will be a true comrade; independent of man, as he is inde- pendent of her; dependent on him, as he is dependent on her. And the sex question will be settled. All this, and more, when woman shall be free, and enjoy an equality of liberty with man." And in this view my task in getting out the treatise now for the first time submitted to the English-reading public has been a source of great delight to me, and I can only join with Mr. Schmemann in the hope that women will give it the welcome it deserves, and that it may point out the way to liberty to many an oppressed sister. — Translator. X PREFACE. Heinzen's thought and thus make them accessible to the American reading public. In this treatise the cause of the emancipation of woman finds its most brilliant championship, as it has hardly ever before been discussed with less reserve and greater freedom. I cherish the hope that its circulation will largely contribute towards enlightening the public on this most im- portant question, in order thereby to hasten its speedy solution. The translator as well as the publisher would in that 'case feel themselves amply rewarded for their unselfish labor, while the lofty intentions of the author would meet with their full realization. Karl Schmemann. Detroit, June, 1891. CONTENTS. PART I. Page. An Address to an Unknown Lady Reader I Historical Review of the Legal Position of Women. . . 6 The Emancipation of Woman 30 The Passive Prostitution of Women 41 The Active Prostitution of Men 47 The Excuses of Men 55 Love and Jealousy 62 Morality 70 Marriage 80 Adultery 104 Divorce 113 Is Marriage a Contract? 121 "Hanging a Woman" 128 Religion 135 The Economic Independence of Woman 149 Liberty and the Revolution the Allies of Women 154 Conclusion 162 Postscript 167 PART II. Luise Meyen on Men and Women — The Rights and Condition of Women 181 Men 195 Women 214 The Convention of German Women in Frauenstadt. 227 Concerning Womanhood (a lecture, 1873) 346 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. AN ADDRESS TO AN UNKNOWN LADY READER. Notwithstanding all reactionary precautions, there is a spirit of liberty breathing through the world that lifts the veil from all lies and the roofs from all dungeons in order to show mankind how much truth it has failed to grasp, and how much justice it has crushed. It is a sad task to accom- pany this spirit on its flight and to note the count- less aberrations of mankind ; but it is an impera- tive duty to report what has been observed, and to participate in the reformation of this degenerate world. Not only from the dungeons of famous martyred men, also from the chambers of nameless mar- tyred women time has removed the covering roof. More than one-half of your sex consists of mar- tyrs, aye, the history of your sex is one continu- 2 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN ous story of martyrs. And while the oppressed of the stronger sex can read their sufferings in the fugitive history of states and nations, the sufferings of women find a place only in the long history of mankind. This is beginning to be recognized, and among women themselves champions have at last arisen who demand that the age of slavery and suffering shall give place to an age of liberty and rights. Especially in America, the new Amazons who seek to humanize men, as those of history sought to slay them, form a very respectable phalanx. And here, too, it is where a suitable battle-field is open to them, and where it is also possible to unite this battle-field with the arena of men. Especially in America, where so many questions are already solved which in Europe still call for the exertion of all foi«ces, it is the part of men to occupy themselves with the important question of woman's emancipation; here more than else- where men of truly democratic spirit ought to make it their task to bring the discussion on this interesting and much-derided theme to a conclu- sion. It is a glaring anomaly to rejoice over the emancipation of the slaves and to treat the eman- cipation of woman with ridicule. I venture the attempt of contributing my mite to the proposed work. In so doing I shall strive to be as clear, as radical, as brief, as just, but also as frank, as possible. In any case, dear reader, I AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 3 am convinced that I have some new points of view- to offer which deserve your attention. But whoever you may be, in giving your atten- tion to these pages may you be prevailed upon to publicly express your opinion on a common and important matter! But frankly, truthfully, and without reserve, as will be done here. False modesty is not only a weakness ; it is also a fault, because it throws a suspicion on what it attempts to conceal. So long as we still shrink from speak- ing about human matters in a human manner we have not yet developed into true men and women ; so long as we still play the hypocrite out of sheer " morality " we have not yet a conception of true morality ; so long as we still seek for culture in the perversion of human nature we have no rea- son to boast of our culture. But in regard to the question of rights now under consideration, a radical straightforward examination of the rela- tions of the two sexes to each other is an essential requisite for its solution. There are three rocks upon which the truthful- ness of the world, especially of the masculine world, is wont to come to grief and to change into the most intolerable and contemptible hypoc- risy; the Revolution, Religion, and Love. Thou- sands • want the revolution and feign legality; thousands are without religion and go to church ; thousands seek the clandestine satisfaction of their sexual desires, while outwardly they mani- 4 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN fest the most studied indifference towards the feminine sex. You will not have to accuse the author of these pages of hypocrisy. He has given complete expression to his opinions regarding the revolution ; he has done so regarding religion ; and he is now doing so regarding the two sexes. Give him your support by reciprocating his frank- ness, help him to examine the nature and the needs of both sexes, in order thereby to establish the claims which your sex has to make. You will share with me the satisfaction that he who speaks his convictions openly and completely before all the world, and in spite of all the world, not only acts more nobly, but also more successfully, than all the reserve of prudence and all the hypocrisy of cowardice are able to act. The object to be gained here is not only to purify humanity and the sense of justice from the dross of a false morality and vulgar prejudice ; nor is our task limited to the rescue of love and mar- riage, which are in danger of perishing entirely in this venal and pious world ; it is at the same time also necessary to open up to your sex a perspec- tive view of the position which the era of liberty, towards which our development is tending, will assign to it in society. It will be seen that the right, the happiness, and the lot of woman is still more dependent on the attainment of complete liberty than that of man, who at least finds a partial compensation for liberty in the struggle AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 5 for it, and that the relation of the two sexes to each other can reach its true form only at the summit of political development from which we are still far enough removed, even in North America. THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE LEGAL POSITION OF WOMEN. As a rule history considers women only in so far as they occasionally exert an apparent influ- ence upon the history of men. The feminine half of humanity is usually overlooked like a super- fluous appendage. The women are weak, they are silent, they patiently suffer, they do not rebel, and that is sufficient to expose them to disregard, to make them historically irresponsible. It would be of great interest to write a history from a radical point of view of the position which women have occupied among the different nations and in different ages in a social, political, and literary respect. I would undertake to do this work if I were sufficiently well read, and if the necessary material were not wanting to me as well as the leisure to make exhaustive use of the latter. I shall therefore content myself with giving from scant notes and recollections a brief survey, in order at least to uphold the leading idea that the position of women, dependent upon the general state of civilization and liberty of a people, can become an entirely just and honorable one only in that distant future in which the subordination of AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 7 the right of brutal strength to the right of humane thought will have become a reality. In the historical retrospect, in which we cannot always proceed chronologically, but merely ac- cording to the stages of civilization of various nations, we begin with the savage. It will be im- material for the purpose whether we take exam- ples of the Africa of to-day, or whether we trace the oldest nations of history back to their savage state. Savages are very much alike everywhere, and that all nations have at one time been in the savage state even those do not doubt who believe that man has been placed ready made into the world by a "God," the sum of all wisdom and civilization. To the savage physical strength is synonymous with right, and since the man has by nature more physical strength and aggressive passion than woman, the submission of the latter to the former is self evident. (Among animals nature seems to have equalized this relation some- what, as the females of some species are larger than the males.) The savage associates the woman with himself because his sexual needs re- quire her, and he controls her because he is the stronger. This control is carried to such an extent that the body of the woman is actually treated as a piece of furniture, and in some places is even guarded against foreign touch by some barbaric tailoring. With most savages the woman, besides being a concubine, is at the same time the 8 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN slave and beast of burden of the man. Polygamy is likewise in accordance with this state of bar- barity ; polyandry,* on the other hand, is found rarely, — rather as a consequence of the presump- tion of the stronger, adultery is almost everywhere treated as a crime only on the part of women, while masculine adultery does not exist at all. But in spite of polygamy a selection is to be observed even among savages, a distinction of and tem- porary union with a single person. Rousseau, it is true, disputes this by maintaining that among savages every woman had the same value ; it ca-n be shown, however, by facts as well as by a priori demonstration that even the rudest savage has an eye and discrimination for superiority and quali- ties suitable to him in this or that woman, and feels the need of uniting himself more closely with the one he prefers. The analogy of animals also points that way, as there is among many animals an entirely exclusive conjugal relation at least during the breeding period. Why special stress is laid on these facts will become clear in the dis- cussion of marriage. The savage state is followed by the semi-civil- ized period, in which man settles down and forms a family life, and in accordance with it the woman * It is said to have existed for a time among the ancient Medes, and at the present day is to be found only on the coast of Ma'abar and at the Himalayas, where it is kept up chiefly on account of the difficulty of supporting children. AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 9 plays the part of a member of the family, but of course without any independence whatever. On the contrary, in spite of her position in the family, she is deprived of all liberty, confined in a harem, and jealously watched. She exchanges open slavery for secret slavery ; she remains now as before the tool of the man, only according to more definite rules and laws of external etiquette. In the harem the preference of individuals, already apparent among savages, becomes more strongly marked, although here also it does not lead to a real monogamic union. This state of things is, however, specifically oriental. But the degrada- tion of women in the orient was so manifold that their social position cannot be designated by one word. With the Babylonians the marriageable maidens were taken to the market, examined by the men like any other ware, and bid for. It was also customary in the temple of Mylitta that every woman must extend her favors to strangers for money, which went into the pockets of the priests. Zoroaster abolished polygamy among the Persians after the institution of the harem had reached its highest development. It is well known that polygamy and traffic with women existed also among the Jews. The Mosaic price for a pretty woman was about five dollars. If the man wished to get rid of the woman he threw her out of the house. In the next stage we find the woman as inde- 10 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN pendent housewife, with more liberty of action, and more highly respected. The Homeric de- scriptions show this stage in its best light. The woman is no longer under surveillance, as in the harem, where the man visits her when it suits his pleasure and fancy, but she has also free access to the man. She has control of the department of the interior, is the hostess of the house, and does the honors in receiving guests. But in spite of this more favored position, the rights which are granted woman are rooted in the interests and the will of the man, not in a true ethical recognition. The dependence of women was, on the contrary, still so great in this stage that the sons had the power to remarry their mothers to whomsoever they pleased ; men could keep concu- bines as they liked, etc. A further development marks the transition of private control of woman to public or political control of her. In this respect the Spartans took the lead with a truly classical despotism. With them every regard for nature, for humanity, for morality, for liberty disappeared before the regard for that State which Lycurgus seems to have called to life in order to show that mankind could fur- nish an energetic mind with the material for the realization of every extravagance. Women served the Spartans only for the bearing of children, of young Spartans. If children could be brought into the world by a mill or some other kind of AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. II machine, the Spartans would have abolished women, and introduced in their place State child factories. According to the purely political or patriotic purpose, which called for merely warlike manhood and coarse republican insensibility, the women received a thoroughly masculine training, and in order to guard them against the danger of effeminating the men and of occupying them too much by their charms, they were trained after their marriage for the manufacture of wool, and treated like factory implements. Woman, as such, did not exist in Sparta ; her femininity was rather a fault, and this fault was corrected through barbarity. Marriage proper was unknown to the Spartans. The men could visit the women only for a few minutes ; the object was merely to beget children. Weak or old men, by virtue of their right of control over their wives, brought them good breeders, and if any one was especially pleased with a woman he would ask, not her, but her husband, for the permission to beget a " noble child " with her — all this was done for State pur- poses, which had crowded out every other consid- eration, and would not allow the question of the existence of an independent inclination on the part of woman to be raised at all. The Spartans furnish the classic example of that error which sacrifices to the enthusiasm for a political end, the end of all political endeavor, namely humanity, bec?'\se they neglected to take 12 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN human nature into their council. As long as the world stands women have been the victims of this error on the one side, and of Sultanic brutality on the other, and it is doubtful whether they have more reason to complain of the Sultans or of the Spartans. The treatment of women took on a milder and more humane form with the more civilized and more aesthetical Athenians. But a real appre- ciation of woman was unknown even among that people who adored the ideal of the fair sex in the goddess of love, who had the most humane con- ception of love among all the nations, whose mythology developed into the most beautiful and most attractive romances of love, and who often depicted in their poetry the feminine excellences with the clearest perception. Also among the Athenians the State was in a certain sense the despot ; the State which received especial weight by contrast with foreign foes, was the worldly deity to which everything was sacrificed except its priests, and these priests were, of course, the men, the women were the victims. . The Athenians also regarded the State as an end, not as means to an end ; they made it an object of religion rather than the mere framework of the body social. This State, this republic, was moreover continu- ally called into question, now by native, now by foreign tyrants. But who was to save the State, in whose hands was placed its safety? In the AND THE SEX (TAT. RELATIONS. I 3 hands of those whom nature had endowed with the requisite strength, the warlike passion. Who were they? The men! Consequently — women were less able, less privileged, less worthy than men. This sort of logic develops very naturally in practice, even if it is not expressly established, and the " right of the stronger " is the whole secret of it. True enough, women who distinguished them- selves by their intellect or virtue were highly respected among the Athenians, and the appre- ciation of the most excellent of men was assured them, But the Aspasias were not numerous, even in Athens, and such exceptions as social life offered did not mitigate the unfavorable posi- tion in which the law and public opinion placed woman. Already the classification which was made of them (as partly also of men) can give an idea of how dependent and devoid of rights they were. They consisted, as we know, of three classes, the slaves, the freed women (out of which class the courtesans generally were recruited), and the free born Athenian ladies. It is self-evident that the first two classes occupied a subordinate posi- tion also with regard to the last class. But with regard to the men even these free born ladies were semi-slaves. The laws of Solon furnish the best estimate of their position. They acknowledge neither any right nor any inclination on the part of the woman. Fathers, brothers, and guardians 14 '^HE RIGHTS OF WOMEN could promise their daughters, sisters, and wards to whom they pleased. The relatives of rich heiresses had a legal right to ask them in mar- riage, in order that the riches might remain in the family. If a man died childless, his nearest rela- tives were entitled to his property. Women, daughters and sisters, who were discovered in a dishonorable act, could be sold as slaves by their fathers and brothers. Irregularities on the part of men were, by the way, not considered as adultery. Solon says: " Take a single legitimate, free born daughter for your wife, in order to beget children." With this he exhausted his whfcle con- ception of marriage and conjugal morality. He might have said: "According to our laws and ideas, the begetting of legitimate children is limited to the marriage relation between the man and the free born woman ; aside from this, however, the man can keep as many concubines as he likes. But the woman would have to pay for any outside love affair with her liberty or her life." It was also customary for a time, among the Athenians, to lend their wives. Thus even Soc- rates is said to have lent his Xantippe to Alki- biades, for which, indeed, according to the reports that are current about this lady, he may not have had need of great self-denial. These, with regard to women, truly barbaric Solonic laws originated for the most part in patri- AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 1 5 archal conceptions. According to these, among other things, marriages were allowed inside the family, in case they were sanctioned or ordered by the patriarch ; and the power of the head of the family was so great that the father could decide over the life or death of his new-born children, or could deprive them completely of all family rights. It is of interest to take note here of the view the Greek writers held of women and their position, as well as of marriage. I will, therefore, inter- pose a few significant passages, not indeed from the poets, but from political and philosophical prose writers. Demosthenes says very briefly and with a true Solonic spirit: "The married woman is an instru- ment for the procreation of legitimate children and the management of the household." The cynical, statesmanlike disdain to which the great- est orator gives utterance in these words throws a very clear light on the then existing conceptions of the rights and dignity of woman. Demos- thenes stands on a level with Diogenes, who called woman a necessary evil. Thucydides is of the opinion that " those wives deserve the highest praise of whom neither good nor bad is spoken outside of the house " — a domes- tic plant, so to speak, a vegetating stay-at-home, who will serve her husband as an instrument as well as possible, but is not to concern herself about anything else. This sentiment of Thucydides has 1 6 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN often since been echoed, and those who did so have entirely overlooked that they repeated in one word a stupidity and a barbarity. Xenophon thinks rather humanely of women, but still they appear to him as beings whom men, out of regard or pity, must take into their care. He thus expressed his opinion of their inferiority in his " Symposium ": " Zeus has left the women whom he had loved behind him in the class of the mortals, but the men to whom he was devoted he exalted among the gods." Perhaps this proof admits of a refutation by the gallantry that it was no longer necessary to promote lovable women among the gods. Aristoteles has a higher opinion of woman than Xenophon. He says among other things : "The ruling intelligence is to be attributed to man as the leader. All the other virtues are common to both sexes. Woman is subordinate to man, but still free, and the right to give good counsel (!) cannot be denied her. She furnishes the material which man utilizes." 11 Woman is not at all to be regarded as a means for the furtherance of man's selfish ends." '■ Husband and wife ought to work together for their support. They go hand in hand, they both accumulate property, their union rests on com- mon benefits and pleasures." Aristoteles demands that the husband should stake his possessions and his life in the defence of AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 1 7 his wife, and should stand by her faithfully and firmly unto death. With regard to chastity he imposes the same obligation on the husband as on the wife. Most of all, Plato occupied himself with woman. He brings forth much that is contradictory and extravagant. The most important of that which comes under consideration here is condensed in the following, which occasionally gives evidence of so coarse a conception of the sexual relations that it is hard to understand how the poetical Plato could have come by it. According to him, man and woman share alike in the highest principle, reason, but the powers and capacities under the control of reason are physically as well as psychically weaker in woman, and she is therefore less able to approach perfec- tion, which is the result of the harmony of all forces. (The logic of this proof can perhaps be made plain by the following example. The hawk and the dove are both equally intelligent, but the beak and the claws of the dove are much weaker than those of the hawk. It follows that the dove is less perfect as a dove than the hawk is as a hawk.) It is clear that Plato does not apply the human or feminine standard to the qualities of woman, but the masculine, a senseless presump- tion which even to-day inspires the judgment of most men. Plato's point of view is shown even still more plainly in the fancy (in the " Phaedrus") 1 8 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN that men who have led a dissolute life are changed into women after death — a poor compliment to the sex of whom Goethe says : " The eternal womanly draws us on." In the " Republic," moreover, Plato says : " Women are physically somewhat weaker than men, but they are otherwise equally adapted to all occupations. In order that they may become able to use all their faculties they must receive the same education as boys, join in the common exer- cises, not modestly cover up their bodies, etc., etc. I demand the same end and aim for women as for men." (It remains only for Plato to declare it to be the end and aim of woman to become a man. Per- haps it is he who has brought about the mistaken view that it is the purpose of the emancipatiow of woman to deny femininity and to imitate men.) For the rest, women must be entirely common property, no woman can belong to a single indi- vidual. (Thus women are the absolute property of the men.) Moreover, no son is allowed to know a particular father. All must dine together publicly and live together. The State — and that is the non plus ultra of brutality — officially brings about the pairing of such persons as it deems the most fit for the procreation of children. When generation has taken place they separate again (a regular institution of stirpiculture). The children are reared by the State without being known by their mothers, so that these sometimes AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 1$ nurse their own, sometimes the children of others in the common nursery. In the " Republic " of Plato there is no private property and no private interest. He is the grandsire of the communists. In another place he advocates different principles. The above extracts show that even the most excellent writers of the most humane people of history have not attained to an entirely worthy conception, to an entirely free view, and to com* plete justice with regard to the nature and posi- tion of woman. Even Aristotle, who, among all, has laid down the most worthy principles, reaches, as it were, only a constitutional point of view, from which he concedes to woman an "advisory" counsel to governing man and a share in the " property," without even thinking of such a thing as an independent right for her. She is consid- ered everywhere only as the property or append- age of man, nowhere as a sovereign being. They all judge woman only from the standpoint of men, statesmen, Greeks, not as human beings. But woman is the genuine representative of the purely human which must not be modified by State relations and nationalities. When Greek liberty had vanished, the regard for women and the taste for " adoring " them in- creased. But this adoration was false, and a product of degenerate conditions. Men had no longer their former importance, consequently women came to be more equal to them ; men 20 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN were now no longer occupied as much with the State, consequently they could devote themselves more to women ; men were now deprived of their public calling, consequently they looked for com- pensation in the domestic world. Thus also as playthings of the courts and favorites of despots, women are offered rich opportunities in mon- archies to achieve a false importance through intrigues and in the relation of mistresses. Upon them falls the favor of the despot, and from them glory and favors radiate downwards. Thus the exaltation of women naturally has for its opposite pole the humiliation of men, and these, in such humiliation, as naturally transform their former contempt of women into that extravagant love- cult and senseless gallantry which spread from Alexandria over the Grecian world. From the Greeks we proceed to the Romans. These treated women in a truly Spartan manner, only with a more glaring stamp of severity and brutality, in accordance with their severe char- acter. In the most flourishing time of the Roman republic woman was little more than the slave of man.* She was completely his property ; he ac- * It was indeed customary at times that the bride had to say upon entering the house of her husband : ubi tu es cajus, ego caja sum (that is, Where you are master I am mistress); but this custom seems to have had merely the force of a gallantry. Its very existence, that is, the necessity for it, seems to indicate a presumption of the very opposite of that which these words would lead us to believe. AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 21 quired her through actual purchase or prescrip- tion. Whatever she had or earned belonged to him. He could sit in family court over her, and even punish her with death. Cato, the elder, expresses his respect for the fair sex in these words : " If every head of a family would strive to keep his wife in thorough subjection according to the example of his ances- tors, we should have less trouble publicly with the entire sex." Among the Romans the adulteress could be killed on the spot by her husband ; on the part of the man adultery was no crime. Later, how- ever, this was changed. Under Augustus the adultery of the man was punished, as well as that of the woman. It suited the empire in a certain sense to take the side of woman. It may also have been expected that severity toward the degenerate men might prove a means of check- ing the impending immorality. Upon the era of the republic followed the era of the emperors and of immorality, perhaps the greatest that ever existed. Men now sought compensation for their lost liberties and for their interrupted political life in all manner of debauch- eries, in which the emperors took the lead from sheer ennui. For debaucheries, however, women are necessary, and what is necessary is tolerated. The importance to which women attain in eras of immorality can be as little satisfaction to them as 22 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN that which they are accustomed to have as play- things of the courts. In the age of the Roman emperors, when men were enervated, the impor- tance of woman naturally had to rise. A number of excellent ladies played important roles at courts and ruled the nations through debauched despots. But this contained no indemnification for the dis- ability of the sex, and that once there has been a Julie, a Messalina, an Agrippina, a Poppaea, a Faustina, etc., can accrue as little to the satis- faction of the feminine sex as the fact that later times have produced a Catherine, a Pompadour, a DuBarry, a Lola, etc. The reaction against the extravagancies of im- morality and sensual debauchery under the Roman emperors was caused by Christianity, by the reli- gion of the man who was not begotten by any man, was born of a virgin, and is said never to have associated with any woman. A religion which referred mankind from the living world to the dead hereafter, which destroyed the value of earthly things, i.e., of reality, and caused human- ity to abandon itself to spiritualistic phantasies and reveries, had to put spirituality in place of sensuality, asceticism in place of voluptuousness, and unnatural restraint in place of dissoluteness. Opposing one extreme to another, Christianity would make nonsense into sense, and a virtue of the violation of nature. If the Romans were im- moral through intemperance, the Christians were AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 2$ immoral through abstinence. As regards women in particular, the era of hypocrisy, of the suppres- sion and false conception of their nature, was already announced in the story of the woman who bore a son without the intervention of a man, and in which the functions of the male sex are trans- ferred to doves and ghosts. Christianity, which the priests have made into a paragon of abnormity and hypocrisy, is a real war-sermon against the recognition of the feminine sex, for that which makes woman truly woman Christianity regards for the most part with disgust. Even though Christ pardoned adulteresses and Magdalens, the story of his origin, his abstinence morality, his promises of heaven, and the consequences of Mosaic barbarism which permeate Christianity (it is disgusting to treat these things at large*), have prepared a lot for woman which can only be traced to a suppression of nature, want of sense, and barbarity. These monstrous teachings, which in the first place caused men to shun woman, logically led to her persecution and maltreatment during the rise of barbarism in the Middle Ages. In the Council of Macon (in the sixth century) a long dispute * Whoever reads the Old Testament as a believing Christian, and notes how woman was created from the rib of man, will easily learn to look upon her not only as the supplement, but also as the property, of man. What man would not consider himself as having a claim upon the product of his rib? 24 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN took place (in spite of Adam's rib) whether wom- en were human beings. This may give an idea of the then prevailing Christian view and humane feeling. Although the humanity of women was thus called into doubt, it came gradually to be recognized in secret with so much zeal, that in spite of Christianity, the immorality of the tenth and eleventh centuries reached a degree far ex- ceeding that of the Roman emperors, perhaps for the very reason that it was characterized alike by the most disgusting hypocrisy and the most pious vulgarity. However eagerly they were sought for, women were, in Christian delicacy and appre- hension, invested with something unclean and un- holy ; the unfortunate ones were even deprived the pleasure of touching the altar-cloth, and it was imposed upon them as a duty to wear gloves at communion. Because they could not dispense with them, they avenged themselves for the sake of Christianity by degrading them. Husbands were permitted by law to beat their wives and even to inflict wounds on them, provided they did not disable or maim them thereby. The father could chastise his daughter even after her mar- riage. In the city of Bourbon a husband could with impunity kill his wife if he only swore that he was heartily sorry for it — all this in consequence of the humane ideas which the unnatural doctrine had caused that preached an unnatural universal love of mankind, while it made a crime of the AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 2$ natural love of the sexes. The horrors to which women were subjected in monasteries, priests' brothels, and courts of inquisition we will entirely omit.* On the other hand, we shall attach no im- portance to the fact that at certain periods of the Middle Ages single women acquired distinction as artists, authors, etc. They acquired it, so to speak, merely as a reflex of monastic life. They were regarded as nuns, not as women. After Christian contempt and abuse of women had reached the extreme, it began in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to retrace its steps to the other extreme, to glorify them and make them objects of idolatry. That brings us to the time of those noble knights who as highway robbers at one moment slew their fellow-men, and the next moment, as sighing paladins, lay on their knees before their lady-love. That these moon- calves even at a later time could be regarded as * Marriage was only a necessary evil to Christian priests, and open intercourse of the sexes a horror; thus arose celibacy, the mode of life of monks, etc. Some sought to attain to the loftiest height of the Christian spirit by actually unmanning themselves ; other priests, on the other hand, indulged their passions to such an extent that they openly claimed the jus prima nociis, and enforced it with truly Christian zeal. Mar- riages which were consecrated in this manner were thought to be especially blessed and continually hovered about by the holy ghost. After some reflection this seems obvious, and it would be indeed astonishing if the holy ghost had only once experienced an inclination to descend to a people who honored him so gratefully. 26 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN models of noble manhood by the ladies, is due to those senseless romanticists who have sought for the spirit of poesy in opposition to reason. Otherwise it would have been obvious to every child that a man made up of vulgarity from top to toe, whose only study consisted in riding and killing, was not capable of any truly noble attachment to woman, even if, through the fashionable exaggeration of a coxcombical gal- lantry, he should have reached such a stage of eccentricity as to allow himself to be despatched out of the world for the sake of his lady-love. How delicate the sentiments of these heroes were in practice is shown by the fact that when they had to absent themselves from home for the purpose of slaying, they would place a solidly wrought lock on the adored body of their " noble lady " in order to facilitate her leading a chaste life. What the knights were as lovers, the minstrels in many respects were as poets of love. The ob- ject in view rarely was to give poetic expression of real sentiments which could bear the test of reason, but as a rule only the versified exagger- ation of an artificial emotion, in order to satisfy the prevailing fashion. Thus as gallantry and killing were the stereotyped modes of amuse- ment, so the poetical praise of these arts was also treated as an entertaining handicraft. Women could not find a true recognition and appreciation AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 2J in an age when men sought their highest honor in throwing each other from the horse, or in other ways breaking each other's necks. At a later period the position of woman in France especially claims our attention. There, according to the national character, chivalry took on a more spiritual expression and a more grace- ful form, and from the chivalrous gallantry which inspired the Duke de la Rochefoucault with the verses (on Madame de Longueville): Pour marker son coeur, Pour plaire a ses beaux yeux J'ai faft la guerre aux rois, Je l'aurais faite aux dieux — love for women passed through various phases of fastidiousness and frivolity till it reached that bright relationship in which the " beautiful" and " strong " minds of the Ninons and their lovers at the time found their greatest happiness. But also this relationship, upon which the reflection of court-life so often cast its splendor, and which can furnish no standard for the average position of women, rarely was an entirely true and satis- factory one, and was moreover confined only to certain circles. Through it a sphere was opened only for social life in which women had to seek compensation for the deprivations of political life, while complete political and social liberty must form, as it were, the atmosphere in which the flower of love unfolds itself. 28 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN In the French revolution no definite position could be developed for women. They indeed played a great part in it, just as the French nation possesses the most excellent women, but even in France the theoretical and historical prep- arations, which could become the foundation for a new position of the weaker sex, were wanting ; moreover the revolutionary struggle very soon changed into the history of Napoleonic "hero- ism " in which the women of course were forced into the background before soldiers and weap- ons. The soldier has no other position for women than that of whores or daughters of the regiment. After the Napoleonic period, women as well as men, as we know, spent their days in a condition of vacillation, unconsciousness, prostitution, and philistinism. The position of women can still be designated by three words : they are tolerated, used, and protected so far and so long as men see fit, and must always remain about as far behind them in their demands and their progress as their physical strength remains behind that of the men. Although, after passing through Antiquity and the Middle Ages, time has developed more hu- mane customs and forms, women, in relation to men or in comparison with men, are still without rights in almost every respect ; and in a thousand cases where a man may and can emancipate him- self, emancipation for woman remains a crime and an impossibility. The history of women up to AND THE SEXUAL RELA TIONS. 29 this time can therefore in reality only be a history of their disqualification, and it need not astonish us that men have refrained from writing it. The greater need of freedom which women themselves are manifesting indicates a step in progress. In no age have there been so many women who have demanded the emancipation of their sex as in ours, and that is the first requisite to the attain- ment of emancipation. First of all it is necessary to make women generally conscious of the need of emancipation, and to spread clear views not only in regard to existing injustice, but also in re- gard to the justice that is to be acquired. The position of women is to-day, as always, closely connected with the entire network of the political, social, economic, and religious condi- tions. It is therefore necessary to examine the various aims and conditions of the emancipation of women, which the following treatise proposes to do by means of a brief review of prevailing opinions and circumstances. Above all things the general aim and province of the emancipation with regard to the nature and lot of woman must be considered in a few words. 30 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMAN. The emancipation of woman lias been greatly ridiculed, and partly with good reason. It is generally understood in a way that involves a misconception of woman's lot, a repudiation of the feminine nature, and an ambition to enter the province of the masculine. And this conception (we have found it as early as Plato, as shown in the foregoing chapter) has frequently been pro- voked or encouraged by women themselves, inas- much as they sought to manifest their emancipa- tion in the imitation of masculine externalities and in unfeminine display. But the emancipation that is to be considered here has nothing to do with female smokers and with sportswomen, nor with huntresses and amazons, nor with female scholars and bluestockings, nor with female diplo- matists and queens. I think it is no offence to women if we consider them as in their proper place only in the manifestations of pure humanity, true culture, and reason. We might otherwise easily come to consider masculine women as the ideal. But there is nothing more repulsive in this world than a masculine woman, even if she should glorify her masculinity with the splendor of a crown. The celebrated Elizabeth of England was AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 3 1 a real monster of a woman, and it is astonishing that this "virgin" hypocrite found even a single lover. In a'word, the chief error in the direction of the emancipation of woman has hitherto con- sisted in the attempt to educate woman into a man, and even into a man of the present state of development, that is, on occasion even into a sol- dier, instead of vindicating her humanity and her right to citizenship in accordance with her nature as against man, and allowing her nature free scope of development and of activity. Because hitherto man alone could assert himself, the belief has arisen that the self assertion of woman must begin on masculine domain. But with this sort of emancipation the feminine sex is benefited least of all. Let us but imagine the opposite case, namely, that the oppressed man is to be emancipated by a feminine education and by being assigned a feminine sphere of action. Without a true conception of and strict adherence to the feminine nature, every attempt at emancipation must necessarily lead to error and absurdity. We hear many a woman express the wish that she were a man. Not one of them would ever strike upon such unnatural wishes of despair, if she had the opportunity and liberty of being entirely a woman. If the woman oversteps the limits of her nature and destiny, she does not find an elevated stand- 32 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN* point in her thought upon which she could place herself. A man, if he attempts to soar beyond his sphere, at least finds in his imagination the aggrandizement and glorification which endow him with a superhuman character : he is called a "giant," a " demon," a " god." But the woman, if she breaks through her circle, does not find a higher stage than that which the aspiring man has left behind, and she never attains to anything more than being the imitator of — man. The man, if he overleaps, loses at most his name, the woman also her sex. The woman can become a " god " or " goddess " only when she aspires to be only a woman. Growth by means of masculine qualities makes a monster of woman. We men have nothing to surrender to you women by which you could improve, beautify, and ennoble yourselves ; everything good, beautiful, and noble you possess in your truly humane hearts, your fine feeling, and your susceptible minds. Inter- change our qualities we can and must, ^change them, never ! When we speak of the emancipation of woman, the point cannot therefore be to obscure the sex- ual limits. These limits should and must, rather, be strictly retained, but defined in such a manner that the man cannot infringe on the domain of woman arbitrarily. The woman is not to be his prisoner, his slave, and his tool, and he not her guardian, her master, and her exploiter. AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 33 Kitl.erto woman has only been looked upon as a j-applement and appendage to man. The human heing per se, the independent personality, the sover- eign individual has never been recognized in woman. It seems that the Bushmen on the Cape of Good Hope are the only ones who have considered woman equal to man, for they have only one ex- pression for both. The woman is to belong to the man ; the question, why is not the man like- wise to belong to the woman, occurs to no one. She is brought up for the man, and must live for f.he man ; she receives her name from the man ; ?he is " taken" by the man, supported by the man, put under obligation to the man, made the ward of the man, punished by the man, used by the man, and forsaken by the man. The man is considered as a human being, the woman as only the appendix to this human being ; but the woman is more a human being than the present man, and human rights know no sex. As a certain French orator said that law is an atheist, it can be said of right that it is a neuter. But hitherto right has always been of the male sex. Men have made the rights, men have made the morals, men have made the duties, men have made the laws, and they have taken good care that woman should be excluded as much as possi- ble from everything. But, it will be said, you have declared that the limits of womanhood must be adhered to, and yet 34 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN you wish from the start to introduce woman into the sphere of men ? This is only apparently done. Woman is to participate in public and political life only as far as is consistent with her nature ; but if public and political life has hitherto been so coarse and violent that only masculine nature and strength could perform the chief work in it, it neither follows for the past that the 'smaller part the more delicate nature of woman could necessa- rily have played in public life ought to have fur- nished a standard for her human rights, nor does it follow for the future that the work of public and political life will always remain so coarse and violent as it has been until now, and that therefore the participation of woman in the same must al- ways meet with the same difficulties. The chief work of history, that coarse prelim- inary work which has so far called for the great- est strength, and the purely male qualities, but which at the same time, to the disgrace of reason be it said, gave these qualities their most glorious significance, has hitherto been wholesale murder, war. This work could of course not be performed by the women ; but neither could the successes, the fame, and the merit of it fall to their lot. The men carried on this murderous profession alone, had to carry it on alone according to their nature, and whatever the women did in the mean- time, according to their nature, was not credited to them as worthy of the same distinction as mur- AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 35 der was to the men. The women were therefore neglected and disqualified because they did not — murder. Let us imagine history without war, or the weaker sex capable of engaging in war, and the entire position of woman is changed in an in- stant. Among warlike nations the woman was least valued, and the abolition of war is the liber- ation of woman. At bottom it is therefore chiefly the preponder- ance of physical strength and of the warlike pas- sion which gives man the right to lay exclusive claim to public and political life. Not alone in war, but also in other branches of public and political toork these same qualities are more or less required, so that whithersoever we look, physical strength and the warlike passion, which is wanting in woman, play an important part. But is there here any equitable warrant for considering women less qualified as human beings and as citizens? Does right depend on the size of the gall-blad- der, on the strength of the limbs, on the thickness of the bones, on the hardness of the muscles, or the coarseness of the fists ? And could not the woman be granted the right to "counsel" even where she was incapable of " acting " ? Was it there- fore necessary to deprive her of all rights where she was immediately concerned and entirely com- petent? Because the woman cannot lead an army in the field, may she therefore not have any voice in her own affairs ? Because a woman can- 36 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN not be a policeman, shall therefore a husband be allowed to have her brought back into his house by policemen when she has escaped from him, he having become unbearable ? Because a woman cannot become a sheriff, may a sheriff therefore tear away from her the children whom she has borne, and return them to the hated father who will maltreat them ? Because a woman perhaps cannot be a minister of finance, must the man therefore be her financial guardian ? Because a woman is less fitted for a scholar and philosopher, shall education therefore be forbidden ground to her? Because a woman, in a word, cannot be a man y must she therefore be less a human being and a citizen than man? I admit that besides the physical strength and the warlike passion there are still other qualities of mind and character which in a hundred situations capacitate the man for the work of history where the woman is un- able to act. But this can affect the rights of woman all the less since her sphere, in a purely human respect, is infinitely richer in service to society than that of the men. At all events, they must have the same right to develop and to exer- cise their faculties in every direction, according to their own desires. Democrats maintain that the dignity and the right of man consist in his self-determination, and that he is to obey only those laws in the making of which he himself has participated. But AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. tf do the laws of the State only concern men ? Why should the women obey laws which were made without their aid ? Are there " human dignity" and " self-determination " for men and not for women ? Millions of women suffer under the oppression of shameful marriage laws, and women are to be ex- cluded from the deliberation of such laws? Is a law which men dictate to women less an act of violence than the law a despot dictates to men? Whether the men deprive the woman of her rights in a democratic assembly, or whether a despot does the same to the man in his cabinet, amounts to one and the same thing from the standpoint of right ; and when a so-called government, having, through all possible means, kept the people in a state of ignorance, declares them to be not ripe for liberty, this declaration is just as justifiable as when the men keep the women in a state of help- lessness and on that account judge them incapable of participation in political life. So long, there- fore, as the women have not equal political and civil rights with the men, in order to assert them- selves so far as their ability and their interest prompt them, there is still a great deal wanting in the logic of democrats. The opinions of a man about women can quite properly be considered as the measure of his qualification for liberty and hu- manity. Whoever is not just towards women preaches vulgarity and adopts despotism. Daily experience also teaches that those most distin* 38 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN guish themselves by intellectual and moral vulgar- ity who treat the emancipation of women with scorn or condemnation. First, therefore, comes the political emancipa- tion of woman, i.e., her installation into her poli- tical rights, so that she may have the liberty and the opportunity to guard her own interests in the State without the tutelage of the men. Besides this emancipation, however, there is still the conventional, the moral, the economic, the re- ligious, etc., to be aspired to, the object of which must always be only to establish the liberty and the right of women within the limits prescribed by the feminine nature, and to protect them against the invasions and the commands of men, or to abol- ish woman's dependence on the will of the men, and finally also to place woman in a position to freely act out her true nature by means of every aid. These different points will be discussed in detail in the following pages. It is to be observed that political emancipation is the chief point at issue as against men, even in the freest, while, for instance, religious emancipation, economic emancipation, are questions which remain to be solved even for the majority of the male sex, almost everywhere, and are therefore more of a common concern. In re- spect to women, however, every single question- takes on a special shape, wherefore it may be worth while to consider each one singly. AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 39 It has been intimated before that the liberty and influence of women must grow in the same degree in which the brutal strength of men declines in value. The nearer, therefore, the time approaches wihen decisions through force are replaced by de- cisions based on right, when wars are abolished as barbarities, when the strength of the hands is di- rected only against nature, and even in that strug- gle has in a great measure become superfluous through the skill of machinery, etc., the more will the man approach the humane plane upon which the woman, so to speak, stands waiting until the savage has become appeased, and has developed the capacity of acknowledging a being as free and endowed with rights, who is wanting the strength to enforce its liberty and its rights. Woman rep- resents, as it were, from the start the humane principle, and man in a certain sense becomes a human being only in so far as he approaches woman. A great part of that which hitherto has passed as " manly " is nothing more than barba- rity. Brutal strength, which has been a mere means in the pioneer work of history, has come to be considered as a pnnciple and as a permanent object. Thus what has been looked upon as the highest will hereafter be declared to be the low- est, and women w'll have to learn that many a " hero ' whom they have adored as the ideal of manliness, at a later time will appear as a murderer or a rowdy. 40 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN From these suggestions, concerning the natural way in which even history in part leads woman on towards emancipation, it does, however, by no means follow that woman is to look towards the future in a mere attitude of expectancy. It is, on the contrary, necessary to strive in all directions that women, through participation in the struggles of the times, should come to the aid of emanci- pating history, and it is moreover essential to stir up their sense of justice and their moral sense by contactwith even the most disgusting phases of life. They will thus acquire a complete survey of their position and their claims. From this point of view the following chapters are especially to be judged. and the sexual relations. 41 THE PASSIVE PROSTITUTION OF WOMEN. Woman has, in advance of man, the bitter sat^ isfaction that there is a far greater chasm between the different positions which she occupies in po- etry and in life than between all the positions which can be imagined for a male being. Worshipped as an ideal in poetry, degraded below the animal in life, woman may contemplate how much resti- tution must be made to her in order to fill out the chasm between her degradation and her apotheosis. Indeed, between the most exalted man of history or the drama, and the lowest slave of the bagnio or the plantation, there is not so great a contrast by far as between a Laura or Heloise and a prostitute of the street or the brothel. Woman has a double task of liberation. First she bears with man the common yoke of the pre- vailing oppression ; but if this yoke is cast off, there still remains for her the special yoke which the male sex has placed on her neck. In the man the human being alone can be oppressed or liber- ated, in the woman the sex as well. The despot makes a slave of the man by op- pression, but even this slave makes a sub-slave of the woman by purchase. Even for the slave the 42 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN possibility of saving the better self is still con- ceivable. But a woman in a state of prostitution is both a slave and a human monstrosity at the same time. The woman is born for love, and drowns her heart in a bog of vice; the woman is born for motherhood, and to be a mother becomes a horror to her ; the woman is born to be a wife, and of the happiness of a wife she has never any conception. Thus is the woman in a state of prostitution. Surely, to sell one's "love " without choice and without love is the lowest stage of human abjectness. If all women could feel the degradation which is the lot of millions of their sex in the state of prostitution, the whole sex would rise in rebellion and begin a sex war, as there have hitherto been national and religious wars. The way in which woman has reached this degradation also indicates the way to free herself from it. First came force, which compelled the woman to give herself even to the man she most despised. As a slave, and as an ornament to the harem, she was in the beginning mere booty. The preponderance of physical strength, force, was the immediate cause that made woman a tool, a thing without rights. This force was con- verted, also with respect to the men, into political power, the power of princes, and as such became at the same time an object of veneration. The men honored it as subjects, the women as tools of AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 43 lust. The honor which a woman supposes to be done her when a despot chooses her for his mis- tress is nothing more than a continuation of the subserviency with which formerly the slave would surrender herself to the murderer. First made dependent on man through force, the woman fell into twofold dependence as grow- ing civilization made the maintenance of existence more difficult. Woman existed not only for the man, but also tJirongh man, who by virtue of his physical strength and his energetic mind found the way to procure the means of existence and of luxury. And when civilization reached a height where the inequality in the economic conditions was so far developed that even a great part of the men could procure none or insufficient means of existence and of luxury, that part of the feminine sex which was dependent on them became com- pletely helpless, completely dependent. The help- less woman, thrown upon herself by the helpless man, but through education and circumstances alike incapacitated to help herself, gave up the only thing she possessed : she sold her body. She sold it first from hunger, then to get means for luxury and amusement. And this lot, originally prepared by force and then decided upon by necessity, has now become an actual profession for millions. Prostitution has become a true branch of industry, which has its employers and contractors, as well as **s science and its articles 44 THE RIGHTS OF W 'OMEN of trade. It is at the same time a hereditary cor* ruption which is transmitted from the mother to the children, and pursues entire classes from one generation to the other, inasmuch as the want of means for existence goes hand in hand with the want of means for education. Out of regard for the weaker nerves of women (since women have weaker nerves than men), I shall refrain from picturing in detail the fate to which so many thousands, especially in great cities, among them a great part in the most tender age of virginity, are consigned. Whatever the imagination can conceive as low and disgusting, that is suffered, is cultivated by a great part of the feminine sex from necessity, and for money. Every hesitation which the feelings or the sensual impressions might oppose in a single case is Overcome by necessity and by money; and we may not be far from the truth in imagining the most beautiful and lovable girl in the world transferred to the chambers of a brothel, where she trem- blingly begins the practice of her profession in the arms of a decrepit old man, whose aspect causes all the five senses at once to revolt, but whom money enables to stimulate his deadened vitality by means of a youthful beauty for — a double premium. But now, you women who shudder at the read- ing of such things, do you believe that prostitu- tion is to be found only in those haunt? \yh$re a AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 45 tax is levied on every act of lust ? Look about you in your social ranks and you will find that the circle of prostitution encloses thousands of fami- lies who make the sign of the cross at the mention of the word brothel. When a girl marries from necessity, or is made to marry from speculation, is not that as much prostitution as when she sells herself from necessity or is sold from speculation ? To be sure, by marriage she sells herself only to a single person, but that does not change the im- morality of her relationship. Those women who can still say a year after their marriage that their husbands are really the men of their hearts are indeed rare, at least among certain classes ; and this confession is nothing more than a confession of prostitution. Most marriages are the product of money or class considerations, or exigencies to avoid in the eleventh hour the entire failure of the sexual design. But where marriage as a rule is a mere charitable institution, it at once be- comes by law also an institution of compulsion, which perpetuates prostitution and makes regret useless. No further exposition is necessary to show that the sources of prostitution, into which the greater part of the feminine sex has fallen, are political disqualification and economic dependence, i.e., the twin tyranny which throws the greatest part of humanity under the feet of the ruling, revelling minority. The abolition of prostitution is pos- 46 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN , sible, therefore, only after the attainment of com- plete liberty and after the just regulation of the social conditions, of which we shall speak farther on. But pious vulgarity and the moral police are of a different opinion. They think that they stifle prostitution at its source if they drive the unhappy inmates of houses of ill-fame out of town with police force or throw them into prison. It is dreadful that history necessitates more victims of ignorance than enlightenment, when at last attained, is able to make happy beings. How many millions will have perished in misery and degradation before the knowledge has at last been reached that neither the police nor church dis- cipline are able to banish an evil which is the necessary result of legal and economic conditions! And what is easier than this knowledge if we are willing to abandon the obstinacy of our egotism with the slothfulness of our thinking? AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. A7 THE ACTIVE PROSTITUTION OF MEN. LET us begin with the education of men. By education I do not here mean mere domestic and school education, but also the sum of all other influences of life which determine the intellectual and moral development of man to the time of complete independence. Generally even in the beginning of the period when sexual uneasiness begins to show itself in the boy, he is exposed in schools, institutes, and elsewhere to the temptations of secret vice, which is transmitted from youth to youth like a con- tagious corruption, and which in thousands de- stroys the first germs of virility. A countless number of boys is addicted to these vices for years. That they do not in the beginning of nascent puberty proceed to sexual intercourse with women, which would, by the way, be in every respect less injurious, is generally due to youthful timidity, which dares not reveal its desire, or from want of experience for finding opportunities. Only too often this timidity and this want are overcome by chance or by seduction, which is rarely lacking in great cities where pros- titution is flourishing, and thus numbers of boys immediately after the transition period of youth, 48 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN in accordance with the previous secret practice, accustom themselves to the association with pros- titute women. At the age when European youths are put into the soldier's uniform or are wont to enter the university, this association frequently becomes an object of boasting, and to calm the sexual desires in a pool of filth and, in connection with it, to undermine health by intemperance or disgusting diseases, is generally developed into a fine art in soldier and student life. Thus prepared, the young man approaches the time when he can seriously think of making the acquaintance of a girl who as his wife is to satisfy his heart and his sexual needs, Most men of the educated classes enter the marriage-bed with the consciousness of leaving 'behind them a whole army of prostitutes or seduced women in whose arms they cooled their passions and spent the vigor of their youth. But with this past the mar- ried man does not at the same time leave behind him its influence on his inclinations. The habit of having a feminine being at his disposal for every rising appetite, and the desire for change inordinately indulged for years, generally make themselves felt again as soon as the honeymoon is over. The satisfaction which an uncorrupted man could find in the arms of his wife for many years is shortened all the more for the man of the common sort, the more he has learned to look upon woman as a mere instrument for the satis- AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 49 faction of his changeable sexual appetite. For the simple reason, moreover, that women are to be had for the asking, most men do not know how to appreciate them. Thousands of men have before marriage lost the capacity of entering into a sincere or moral relation, and give their wives nothing but their name. A new epoch now begins for the married man, the epoch of conjugal deception. What he had formerly done almost publicly he now does secretly, and often at an incredible expense of hy- pocrisy and cunning. Very few women in the least suspect the dissipations of their husbands, and I know not whether it is for their good that they suspect nothing. In Paris, to be sure, women generally know how they stand with their husbands, and they know also how to provide against being pitied. If all men were to write Rousseauian Confes- sions concerning their secret sexual doings, the greater part of the educated women would be driven to despair or turn away from the male sex in disgust. Not a few of those married men who formerly associated with courtesans because they had no wives now address themselves to their wives only when they have no courtesans. Now, although most men are in a certain sense " not worthy to unloose the latchet of the shoes " of the commonest woman, much less to " unfasten her girdle," yet they make the most extravagant 50 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN demands on the feminine sex. Even the greatest debauchee, who has spent his vigor in the arms of a hundred courtesans, will cry out fraud and treachery if he does not receive his newly married bride as an untouched virgin. Even the most dissolute husband will look on his wife as de- serving of death if his daily infidelity is only once reciprocated. And while he demands that his wife should remain faithful because her nature requires it, he will nevertheless involve himself in the contradiction of always suspecting this nature of a tendency to unfaithfulness because he trans- fers his own experiences and weaknesses to the woman. Thus he not only deceives his wife, he also even punishes her for deceiving her. But, himself always jealous without cause, he will be indignant at the most justifiable jealousy on the part of his wife. A husband who is annoyed by the jealousy of his wife deserves it — and what husband is not annoyed by it ? No husband can bring his concessions into any proportion with his demands, and nowhere does this show itself more plainly than in jealousy. While he asks of his wife to take precautions against even the appear- ance of misdemeanors of which she has never thought, he on his part claims freedom from re- proach for all offences of the past and the future. We are frequently severe towards others only because we have not yet had an opportunity to commit their offences. We are wont to become AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 5 1 all the more magnanimous the more cause we have to depend on the magnanimity of others. Of this truth not an iota is corroborated where the views of men with respect to women are con- cerned. The greater the injustice a husband does to his wife, the less is lie willing to submit to from her; the oftener he becomes unfaithful to her, the stricter he is in demanding faithfulness from her. We see that despotism nowhere denies its own nature : the more a despot deceives and abuses his people, the more submissiveness and faithful- ness he demands of them. Who can be astonished at the many unhappy marriages, if he knows how unworthy most men are of their wives ! Their virtues they rarely can appreciate, and their vices they generally call out by their own. Thousands of women suffer from the results of a mode of life of which they, having remained pure in their thought, have no concep- tion whatever ; and many an unsuspecting wife nurses her husband with tenderest care in sick- nesses which are nothing more than the conse- quences of his amours with other women. And when at last, after long years of delusion and en- durance, the scales drop from the eyes of the wife, and revenge or despair drives her into a hostile position towards her lord and master, she is an inhuman criminal, and the hue and cry against the fickleness of women and the falsity of their nature is endless. 52 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN On an average, men, married as well as unmar- ried, are so constituted that they will not easily let slip an opportunity of secretly entering into sexual relations with any woman who can excite their senses. And it generally requires very little to excite their senses. Those that are insatiable are in certain respects as easily to be satisfied as they are insatiable. This sexual inclination of men, be it in consequence of their education or by nature, is so constant and general that most of them view every woman they meet only with the reflection whether she would be likely to enter into relations with them or not. While the sight of a man inspires them with questions after his business, his views, his intellect, etc., that of a woman causes them only, or directly, to speculate on her sexual willingness. There you see a states- man, a clergyman, or an official — all people who in the presence of others distinguish themselves by a serious and severe demeanor which would lead us to suspect almost anything else than an illicit sentiment towards women ; personages who inspire respect, living laws, embodied sermons, walking documents. The serious statesman, or clergyman, or official meets a pretty lady or a pretty servant-girl on a promenade where the eyes of the world or of his acquaintances are not upon him. In passing he will look intently and lustfully into her eyes, and if she only half recip- rocates his look, or only answers with a humane AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. &J smile, an object on the way, or a bird in the trees, or the beauty of the surroundings, in short any- thing, will suddenly attract his attention and give him in the eyes of a casual passer-by an excuse for looking round after her. And if she looks round also, he will have forgotten his handker- chief or something else which will necessitate his following her in order to convince himself that he may, in a tcte-a-tete, exchange the serious states- man, clergyman, or official for an unmasked mem- ber of the male sex. Every look of a woman, caused perhaps only by curiosity or thoughtless- ness or good-nature, exposes her at once with common men to the danger of an appearance of common coquetry, or the suspicion of sensual desire. Every pretty or even agreeable-looking woman who travels alone, or crosses the street alone in the evening, will find occasion to ward off importunities. The reputation of many a woman is endangered merely by the fact that she does not regulate her behavior in accordance with an entirely low conception of men, that she does not think she is throwing herself away by being natu- ral, that she has not accustomed herself to see a crime in candor. Thus are most men restlessly pursued by the instinct and fancies of sensuality ! Any man will, under safe conditions, put himself at the disposal of any pretty woman, if she desires nothing more than sensual pleasure. There are be few physically healthy men who can give the lie to this sentence. 54 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN The habit of regarding the end and aim of woman only from the most vulgar side — not to re- spect in her the noble human being, but to see in her only the instrument of sensual desire — is car- ried so far among men that they will allow it to force into the background considerations among themselves which they otherwise pretend to rank very high ; for instance the considerations of friendship. There are few men who are so faith- ful in their friendship that they would scruple to put the fidelity of the pretty wife of their friend to the test. Adultery through so-called friends of the family is the most common of all. Love and horse-trading are two articles in which, among a great many men, deceit appears to be legitimate and seems to be taken into the bargain in " friend- ship." From all these hidden parts of our social re- lations the paint must be washed off. Women must become indignant ; and if I had not sufficient confidence in them to think the above will suffice, I could sketch a far more glaring picture, without laying myself open to the charge of exaggeration. But when the feeling of women has once been driven to indignation with respect to the position which they occupy, it is to be hoped that they will only the more urgently look for a way to at- tain a worthier position, and to follow that way, when it is found, with persistence. AN.O THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. >5 THE EXCUSES OF MEN. In the previous chapter I have dwelt on the sins against women which our sex commits through prostitution. In order to be just towards both sides I shall also point out the circumstances which for the present may still serve to excuse men, although not to justify them. The sexual instinct is as natural and as legiti- mate as the instinct for eating and drinking. Whatever nature demands cannot and should not be denied her ; it is only necessary to find the ethi- cal rules which will secure the satisfaction of the natural needs without involving degeneration. Whatever is unnatural is also immoral. But it is unnatural, consequently immoral, that circum- stances will not allow a man after having reached puberty to follow his natural instincts and to as- sociate himself with a woman. If it were possible to the youth to marry young, he would, at the hand of his beloved, pass by all the moral cess- pools through which the unmarried are driven by the passion of their sexual instinct. He would not have to go through those schools of corrup- tion in which he learns to fit himself for every- thing which later makes him unfit for any true conjugal relation. In the arms of his beloved he $6 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN would preserve the health which he poisons in the arms of the harlot. He would respect women, because he would not have had the opportunity of making their acquaintance in the most con- temptible of all states, and his untainted mind would not change into that unscrupulousness which, as Jean Paul says, does not hesitate to pluck to pieces the noblest woman like a bee, only for the sake of getting hold of the honey- sack. With all our civilization we are put to shame even by the savages. The savages know of no fastidiousness of the sexual instinct and of no brothels, because their nature need do no vio- lence to itself and can satisfy its needs in a natu- ral manner. They show us at the same time that health, as well as morals, is less endangered when nature is allowed free play than when it is driven into by-ways through obstacles. We are, indeed, likewise savages, but in quite a different sense. Proof of this is especially fur- nished by our youth. But that our students, and young men in general, usually pass through the school of corruption and drag the filth of the road which they have traversed before marriage along with them throughout life, is not their fault, so much as the fault of prejudices and of our political and social conditions. Nature demands, as has been said, the satisfaction of the sexual in- stinct when the age of puberty has been reached. AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. $7 Our priests, moral teachers, and schoolmasters, great and small, maintain, however, that nature is a vicious, disqualified person whose demands must be rejected until they, the priests, etc., shall grant her a hearing, and mark her with the stamp of official approbation. That through this rejec- tion ten times the evil is brought about which these wise gentlemen pretend to avoid, they them- selves know very well ; but if there is no more censorship the censors will lose their bread and butter. Our political and social conditions conform to the prejudices sustained by our religious and moral falsifiers. Partly through police limita- tions, partly through the degeneration of our economic conditions, most men are prevented from marrying until the uneasiest period of their sexual life is passed. Yes, thousands, especially among our idling military, are not able to sup- port a wife until they are almost old men, and after they have for half a lifetime been masters in the school of debauchery and seduction ; and as concerns the thousands of priests whom celibacy compels to revenge oppressed nature with hy- pocrisy and all manner of secret means, I do not know whether the disgust at their loathsome lives or pity for their inhuman lot should furnish the standard by which we shauld judge them. Attention must be repeatedly called to the fact that, besides celibacy, student and military life 58 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN in Europe are the high-schools of prostitution. After the young man for ten years has stood under the lash of pedantic and servile school- masters, he feels himself free for the first time at the university. But it is not the freedom which permits him to develop his mental powers in all directions and to accustom himself to participate in public life ; no, he has only the freedom to spend the money of his parents without being watched, and to find in inns and brothels an out- let for his longing to exercise his rising powers. The systematic favoring of these doings seems even to be a part of the plan of the governmental system of instruction, and the wish of high states- manship is fulfilled if the young man leaves the university enervated and dulled ; he requires nothing more than ability to pass his exami- nations and to execute the commands of the powers that be. That the powers that be do not consider whether the youth who is used to de- bauchery is still capable of making a wife happy need not astonish the female sex as long as they cannot comprehend the connection between their interests and political development. The women moreover will admit that the stand- ing armies will not be abolished out of gallantry. For do not the standing armies furnish the chief representatives of gallantry ? The powers that be are liberal enough to allow the maltreated soldier and the bored officer to seek compensation for the AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS, 59 hardships of their profession among the degraded feminine sex, and the degraded feminine sex is sufficiently grateful to recognize the blessing of having fops instead of men, dancing partners in- stead of friends, whore-hunters instead of hus- bands, educated for them by raving about the resplendent soldiery. In Switzerland and North America women must be very unhappy, because men must dispense with the chief school of train- ing for married life, namely, the standing armies ! But they are compensated here by the moneyed men, who can buy everything, and by the friends of the slave-holders, who see to it that the doctrine of the despoliation of the weak does not suffer. But marriage also, as it now exists, is a school for the dissemination of conjugal infelicity for men no less than for women. More of this later. It appears on all sides that most men also are the victims of existing conditions, that is, of the pres- ent want of freedom and of economic injustice, whereupon the women become the victims of the victims. A special point which comparatively admits of an excuse for men in the discussion of sexual rights and duties is, finally, "adultery." The condition for equal claims is equal needs. Now if it can be shown that the woman has the same sexual needs as the man, then adultery on her part is of no greater significance than on the part of man. But whether we find the reason for it in 60 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN the difference of education or in the difference of nature, it can be considered an established fact that the man is much more liable to sexual temp- tations than the woman ; or that the mere sensual need is much less in woman than in the man. A further difference follows from the present conju- gal conditions. The man must as a rule take upon himself the care of the family, and the members of the family, the children, depend on the head of the family for the means of existence. By " adul- tery," therefore, the wife runs the risk not only of unjustly increasing the cares of her husband, but also of lessening the rights of his children,— consid- erations which the man generally need not over- come in " adultery." Moreover, an extraordinary digression on the part of the man, according to the prevailing and in part justifiable opinions, does not, when it becomes publicly known, reflect any disgrace upon the wife — she is rather sympa- thized with as the suffering, the injured party ; but a digressing wife exposes her husband to scorn and contempt. All these differences and excuses, however, ac- cording to which the husband sins less and the wife more by " adultery," are to be considered as admissible only from the standpoint of our pres- ent conditions. It will later appear that from a correct point of view both sexes must be meas- ured by the same standard of right. Least of all do I by excusing men intend to accuse women. AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 6 1 I recognize as much the blamelessness of most women who take a false step as the hypocrisy of most men who try to enlarge upon the misde- meanors of women. I even ask the men who would secure the inviolability of female fidelity by referring their wives to the consequences for the family, whether they would grant them the same liberty which they claim for themselves if they knew them to be sterile? The negative an- swer must here again disclose that Jesuitical ego- tism which, by using " the right of the stronger," tries to fetter the weaker with forced considera- tions, in order to secure greater scope for itself, and which tries to magnify the faults of others in order to lessen its own. Should it nevertheless appear desirous to punish the infidelity of women, I would propose capital punishment on condition that the infidelity of the men be punished by Ab6- lardization. 62 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN LOVE AND JEALOUSY. A LADY-FRIEND has requested of me an answer to the following questions : 1. " Is jealousy an inborn or an inbred passion ?" 2. "Can a human being love several persons at once, and if he believes himself able to do this, can this capacity be called love ? " Logic demands that I answer the second ques- tion first, for jealousy must be looked at as a concomitant of love, not love as a concomitant of jealousy. What is love ? In simple words : a passionate attachment to a person of the other sex, in whom a man (or woman) delights in the highest degree, and for whom he feels the highest degree of ap- preciation, confidence, and good-will. Through the highest degree of Appreciation, etc., we place the person on an ideal standpoint. The concep- tion of the ideal, however, excludes every second ideal. By the side of an ideal we can as little have another ideal of the same kind as the be- liever can have another God besides the well- known Universal One. If we conceive of love as a passionate enthusi- asm and devotion to a thereby idealized person, it is self-evident that its object can never be more AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 63 than one single individual at the same time. " Thou entirely fillest my soul,"* sings the poet, and a full soul has as little room for other contents as a full bottle of champagne. But now it happens very frequently in this queer world which denies to most people the Op- portunity of entering into suitable relations, or the liberty of dissolving unsuitable connections, that an object of love which " fills the soul en- tirely" cannot be found. In such a case one person can of course be able to embrace several objects of attachment at once, not only with the arms, but also with the soul, and it may be possi- ble that a man, if he has a very large soul, must have recourse to a dozen or more women in order to fill it ; yes, he may even feel sincere good-will to- wards each one of them, and may value each one especially for her individual qualities, just as we value the qualities of various flowers. But this can as little be an entirely satisfactory relation for each one of the twelve loved ones as for the man himself, if he is capable of a real, passionate, i.e., a true, love, which cannot be otherwise than exclu- sive. He will, should he even have the choice among a thousand women, still feel a void, and gladly exchange the thousand for a single one whom he can love as his ideal with complete de- votion. *" Du fullest meine Seele ganz." 6^ THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN Foi ,</inmon men, or men corrupted by our present education, it is a mere pretext for their inclinations towards the harem if they put up a doctrine of the " plurality of love ;" uncorrupted men can at most look upon the doctrine as a make-shift for the misfortune of not having an op- portunity in this perverse world for a free choice according to natural affinity. In a world as it ought to be the exclusiveness of love will be all the more a law because no free woman will want to share a beloved man with another, and vice versa. Thus we have reached the subject of jealousy. I would not designate jealousy either as an " in- born " nor as an "inbred" passion. It is an accidental passion, for which the faculty indeed is inborn. In its nobler form and in its nobler motives it arises from love and can, according to circumstances and the character of the person from whom it emanates, differ in its nature and in its mode of expression. The noblest jealousy is a sort of ambition or pride of the loving person who feels it as an insult that another one should assume it as possible to supplant his love, or it is the highest degree of devotion which sees a desecration of its object in the foreign inva- sion, as it were, of his own altar. A jealousy of this sort, which would fain keep away everything unworthy from the beloved person, is far superior to that lower grade which arises from the anxiety of losing the beloved object through the approach AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 65 d( another, perhaps worthier, person. This sort of jealousy arises either from weakness, which from a sense of its own want of lovable qualities is not convinced of being sure of its cause, or from dis- trust, which perhaps, by applying its own standard inversely, thinks the beloved person capable of in- fidelity. Sometimes all these motives may act to- gether. The lowest species of jealousy is a sort of ava- rice or envy which, without being capable of love, at least wishes to possess the object of its jeal- ousy alone by the one party assuming a sort of property right over the other. This jealousy, which might be called the Sultanic, is generally to be found with old withered " husbands " whom the devil has prompted to marry young women and who forthwith dream night and day of cuck- old's horns. These Argus-eyed keepers are no longer capable of any feeling that could be called love, t'hey are rather as a rule heartless house- tyrants ; at the same time they cannot, therefore, make their wife happy. But they grudge her every happy relationship, because their egotism will not allow them to admit their own incapacity by granting her a compensation, or because they wish to possess alone the very thing they do not deserve, in order to abuse it. They revenge their own want of amiability by deposing from office, so to speak, the (real or supposed) amiability of their wife. I have known a man who, loathed by 66 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN his wife like carrion, paid no other attention to her than to watch her with restless anxiety and to pursue her with querulous jealousy. She died suddenly by an accident. Did the husband fall into despair on account of her loss? God forbid ! The weight of a mountain was taken from him, and he called out, relieved : "Now she cannot at least belong to any one else ! " So he himself did not lose anything in her ; still he could not bear the thought that she should be possessed by an- other. That proves that jealousy does not come from love alone. The general conclusion will be that jealousy is more the result of wrong conditions which cause uncongenial unions and which through moral cor- ruption artificially create distrust, than a necessary accompaniment of love. Let us imagine a com- munity consisting of ten, a hundred, a thousand couples, all of them united by true love. Is jeal- ousy possible among these two thousand lovers ? I do not think so, because every single individual is sure of his or her beloved object through recipro- cated love. Now let us imagine this community expanded into an entire nation, educated according to reason, in which both sexes have every possible opportunity for making acquaintances and enter- ing into suitable unions : jealousy will be banished by the simple assurance of love. The lady who asked the questions traced jeal- ousy to self-esteem. At the same time she calls AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 6? attention to the fact that even animals are jeal- ous. Do the animals then possess self-esteem? If I understood the questioner rightly, she meant to say that whoever esteemed himself could not bear to be neglected by the beloved person in fa- vor of a third. But it seems to me that in such a case self-esteem would not dictate jealousy, but rather withdrawal from a relation in which the in- terest taken in a third person plainly shows us that we are no longer wanted. Another lady-friend writes me that jealousy al- ways made her indignant ; either two persons were guaranteed to each other by love, and then there was no need of watching each other with Argus- eyes, or love did not exist, and then there ought to be a separation ; should her husband torment her with jealousy, she would look at it as a want of confidence, as an insult, as a disparagement of her- self. I for my part can understand jealousy, but not, as it were, expound it. It is a passion with which precisely those are most afflicted who are the least worthy of love. An innocent maiden who enters marriage will not dream of getting jealous ; but all her innocence cannot secure her against the jealousy of her husband if he has been a libertine. Those are wont to be the most jealous who have the consciousness that they themselves are most de- serving of jealousy. Most men in consequence of their present education and corruption have so 6S THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN poor an opinion not only of the male but even of the female sex that they believe every woman at every moment capable of what they themselves have looked for among all and have found among the most unfortunate, the prostitutes. When jealousy is justifiable, it generally is so among women. A woman whose early confidence has been shaken by special signs, and who is now tormented by constant anxiety, without attaining to any certainty about the infidelity of the man she loves, is in a position deserving deepest sympathy and no reproach. But she also is suffering from the perversity of conditions which make hypo- crites of her husband and his accomplices. The most objectionable thing about jealousy is that it attempts to fetter the person against whom it is directed, that it would deprive him of freedom of action, of the right of free control over himself. This despotism of jealousy is connected with marriage, as it has been hitherto, and with the legal inequality of the sexes. If the sexual union of two sovereign individuals is actually made into a relation of serfdom, it is but natural that especially the stronger party will presume to punish the emancipation of the other as a crime. Hence the brutality of vulgar husbands, who, after having in every possible and intolerable manner forfeited their wife's love, believe themselves jus- tified in killing her when her precious lord has become revolting to her and another one pleases AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 69 her better. Such cases are especially adapted to enlighten us as to the nature and the consequences of common jealousy. But whoever has reached those lofty heights of liberty and humanity where he will grant every individual the right of sover- eignty over himself cannot wish to forcibly hold any one in a relation that does not conform to his wishes ; and even if it should come hard to him to see a beloved person, or one become in- dispensable by habit, make use of her right of sovereignty in favor of a third person, he would still silence his jealousy in consequence of his ap- preciation of the rights of others. It can moreover be considered as having the force of a mathemat- ical certainty that the party who voluntarily turns away from the other is so little suited to the other that the latter can anywhere find a substitute. yo THE S KIGHTS OF WOMEN MORALITY. PlETY has nothing else to oppose to immo- rality as it has been sketched in the preceding chapter than unnatural restraints and hypocrisy. Reason has no part in this senseless undertaking ; she recognizes the claims of nature and its needs openly and frankly, but tries to regulate its mani- festations by reasonable and truly moral condi- tions. It is the task of mankind to follow nature under the guidance of reason. To depart from nature and to return to nature along the path or in the form of civilization is the evolutionary process of humanity and the humane spirit. Mere nature is coarseness or dependence ; to reproduce, as it were, nature through reason, with consciousness — that is civilization and liberty. Let us begin with liberty itself. The savage is free : but his natural freedom is subjugated in or- der to return at a later period as cultivated liberty come to consciousness of itself. Just so with morals. The natural relation of the sexes is lost in immorality and hypocrisy, in order to return as free love in moral consciousness and form. Nat- ural liberty in the process of civilization passes through the school of slavery to true freedom, AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 7 1 and natural morality through the school of im- morality to true morality. Civilization and liberty make man a moral be- ing. To recognize the nitural laws by means of reason, and to execute them freely for the pur- pose of, or within the limits of, civilization — that is moral destiny, moral endeavor, moral life. Man is by means of reason lord of his nature, not for the sake of suppressing it, but that he may, as it were, renew it as his handiwork in ennobled form. Let us apply these principles of liberty and mo- rality to natural needs. The animal is by nature limited in its desires; instinct directs it and binds it within definite tracks of needs, to step out of which it has neither the power nor the temptation. It does not eat in order to eat, or to enjoy itself by eating, but only to appease its hunger, and when it has eaten its fill it is also satisfied ; it mates from a physical need in a definite measure and at definite times, and outside of these times the sexual instinct is of itself quiescent. Neither in appeasing its hunger nor in satisfying its sex- ual instinct can it impel itself beyond the measure fixed by nature, or, as it were, compose variations to the theme of nature. In a word, it is not free, but merely a slave of nature. Man, however, is free. To him no need is merely physically pre- scribed or measured out ; he has rather the liberty than the instinct to overstep his mere need, to make the indulgence of it an "enjoyment" and 7 2 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN to overdo the " enjoyment." Did he not have the liberty and the capacity to overstep the ne- cessity of nature, neither would he have the lib- erty and the capacity to refrain from transgress- ing. That he refrains from reasonable motives, that he regulates his impulse in accordance with reasonable aims, that he through his reason shows his liberty the measure of its use, that he con- sciously and voluntarily fulfils the aim of nature as the animal does unconsciously and involunta- rily — that is his pride, that is morality. To deny nature or to thwart the aims of na- ture, which in a manner furnish reason with the material for morality, can never be moral ; it is rather just as immoral as on the other side a transgression of the natural limits and objects. An old maid (who purposely renounces her sexual nature) is therefore just as immoral as a courte- san, and a celibate just as immoral as a libertine. The false ideas of morality with respect to sex- ual affairs show themselves in what we Commonly call the sense of shame. What is the sense of shame? Generally speak- ing, it is the diffidence about exposing something,or the pain at having exposed something which may meet with the disapproval of others. Without this respect for others there would be no sense of shame. Theexistence or the degree of shame, therefore, directly depends on the conception of the one feeling ashamed, and this conception de- AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. ?3 pends on the real or supposed opinion of others towards whom this sense of shame shows itself. But the correctness or falseness of this opinion determines whether there is any occasion for shame or not. If we think of mankind in a state of nature, we can hardly suppose that such a thing as sexual shame existed between man and woman. But if we follow up the progress of development the growth of shame can easily be explained from ex- ternals. The periodic indisposition of woma. gradually began to impress the man disagreeably, the woman concealed it — she was ashamed. Preg- nancy with its consequences disfigured feminine beauty: the woman draped herself — she was ashamed. In the course of propagation deform- ities and cripples arose: the deformed woman improved her shape with artificial means — she was ashamed. Children born outside of marriage, who were not supported by any pater familias, and whom the mother could not support, became the burden of others ; pregnancy outside of mar- riage was therefore condemned : the woman made a secret of it — she was ashamed. The excesses of certain shameless periods brought about reactions which, with the immoderate practice, likewise con- demned the moderate practice ; therefore all sex- ual manifestations had to be avoided : people were ashamed. And since religion has even pressed the stamp of holiness on every suppression of nature. 74 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN intimidated nature has become entirely shame- faced, and all the world is ashamed. But with regard to the very things on account of which it ought to be most ashamed it has become totally shameless. There is therefore no absolute sense of shame, and the present sense of shame in sexual matters is not a spontaneous emotion rooted in nature and continuous with it, but, as above stated, depend- ent on the judgment of others and a product of circumstances.* If we measure the sense of shame by the stand- ard of reason, it is justifiable only when it con- forms to true morality, and is therefore the ex- pression of the moral consciousjtess, and in this way we come to understand that the preachers of shame are sometimes the true preachers of im- morality, of that immorality which would further morality by the suppression of nature and truth. It is surely not at all necessary to go about naked in order to show that one is free from false shame, nor is it necessary to love each other on the pub- lic thoroughfare in order to prove that one recog- nizes the claims of nature ; but only a fool or a hypocrite will want to sacrifice the inner law to external considerations, and incorruptible nature to ridiculous prejudices. * Compare the festival of Priapus with Christian hypocrisy, *nd then ask wherein the essence of shame consists. AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 7$ Let us meet the hypocrites with straightforward language. Is it immoral that the breast of the youth and the maiden is filled with the longing of love? No! Why then do you, priests, demand that they should be ashamed of it, when they have not asked your permission? You are the immoral ones. Is it immoral that a woman should bear a child to her beloved ? No ! Why do you cast her out, then ? You are the immoral ones, the barbarians. You will demand that the trees shall be ashamed to blossom and to bear fruit. The human being who is ashamed of his nature is not worthy to be a human being. What reasonable ground can you preachers of morality find for shame which you, under the conditions which you have decreed, connect with sexual love and the act which causes the existence of man ? You might with the same right subject eating and drinking to your conditions and expose them to condemnation. If you are ashamed of the sen- timent and the act which caused your existence, you ought also to be ashamed of your existence itself, for which you sometimes have sufficient reason. There is no greater and more senseless bar- barity than that " moral " passion for condemning which makes the pregnancy of woman a disgrace if nature has not been granted permission by ?6 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN priest or justice of the peace to increase the race. The pregnant woman should under all conditions be " sacred," should stand under the protection and receive the sympathy of the entire com- munity which she is about to increase with an at all events innocent member. Instead of that, it is made out a crime that she has found opportunity, without the aid of the justice of the peace or the priest, to present the community with a new member, and the hatred and persecution of igno- rance is incited against the unfortunate one, as if the intention actually were to make a suicide or an infanticide of her. Recently a poor woman hanged herself in Switzerland because she believed her- self pregnant and her neighbors shared this be- lief and made her the target of their respectable vituperations and "moral" persecutions. When the suicide was examined, her pregnancy proved to have been only imagined ! She died as a vic- tim of nature-disdaining vulgarity, and her mur- derers were the pious, moralizing clergy. The corpses of unfortunate women which you take from the water, the remains of murdered chil- dren which you find in sewers, the bodies of despairing mothers whom you drag to the gallows — these are the witnesses of your pious humanity that builds prisons instead of lying-in hospitals, and that would have hell make foundling-houses superfluous. In Paris foundlings are taken care of as " enfant $ de la patrie /" in New York, for AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. TJ instance, the " enfant s de la patrie" are deposited in the gutters of the street. The rich seduce the girls, the priests curse the seduced girls, and the seduced girls murder the sharers of their poverty and the proofs of their imaginary shame. This is in three words the morality of our present hypo- critical society in these matters. When you have wedded your daughters to rich roue's, you welcome their children with joy ; if your family is increased by a poor lover, who is not able to "marry," then you heap reproaches on the mother. The reason for the disgrace which you create does not lie therefore in the act to which you try to attach it, but in the single miser- able circumstance that you must support the children of your daughters. But if this is the reason of your anger, then why not have the courage to call it by its right name, and do not com- mit the hypocrisy of expressing a pecuniary con- sideration in the form of a condemnation of human nature in its most beautiful impulse. You will then reach the conclusion that it is not love that is to blame, but the unnatural conditions which hinder thousands, yes, millions, from living out their natural instincts in a moral relation. How must a H£loi'se,who, although surrounded by the piety of the Middle Ages, would rather be the lover than the legal wife of Abelard — how must she appear to you, coarse fellows, who judge love only from the standpoint of priests, and mother 78 THE RIGHTS OE WOMEN hood from that of the shopkeeper ! She was a great woman, one of the greatest women of his- tory ; and you, according to your ideas, you must classify her with the " immoral," because you are not human beings, but priests. If you want to cultivate shame, then base it upon the strictest ideas of true morality ; but do not look for this morality in the domain of your conventional stupidity, your inhuman unnatural- ness, and your shameful hypocrisy. It is not immoral if a man and a woman, even "unmarried" give themselves up to true love ; but it is immoral if an old roue" marries a young girl whom he knowingly cannot make happy, merely for her physical charms. It is not immoral if a man and a woman, even " unmarried," give themselves up to true love ; but it is immoral if the man merely uses the woman for the satisfaction of his lust, without giving dignity to the relation by real affection or taking his share of the responsibility in the fate of the loving one. It is not immoral if a woman unites herself with the man whom she loves against the wish of an other ; but it is immoral if she becomes the wife o a man whom she does not love, because anothei wishes it.* * How far "morality" can go astray in such cases where personal liberty and free inclination submit to a "higher will * is shown among other things in the " New Helolse " by Rou.- AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 79 It is not immoral to get tired of a legal husband upon closer acquaintance and to conceive a new love for another man ; but it is immoral to con- tinue, or to be obliged to continue, the old rela- tion notwithstanding this new love. It is not immoral to consider "chastity" in itself just as much of a stupidity as starvation in itself ; but it is immoral to carry " unchastity " to the point of excess. It is not immoral to persuade a woman to yield herself, but it is immoral to offer her nothing as the prize of her devotion but a feigned love. In short, it is immoral to disregard the equal rights of the other sex ; to abuse it for selfish ends ; to falsify or to confuse the ends of nature ; to degrade the sexual relation simply to a means- for frivolously satisfying the senses or for low speculations ; to disfigure the beauty of sexual love by priestly nonsense; to pollute true sentiment by coarse hypocrisy. Be ashamed of these immorali- ties and you will no longer need atiy other shame ! There is, indeed, another kind of shame, which ought, however, not to bear this name, since no moral flavor attaches to it. It is that delicate shy- ness which the virgin feels when she is to step be- seau. Her chief virtue consisted in the disgusting and unpoetic immorality of marrying a man entirely indifferent to her from filial " duty," and of generating children with him under the very eyes of her lover, whom she sacrifices to " duty." Shame on this " moral " prostitution! ^ „ 80 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN yond the boundary of virginity, as well as that feminine reserve which strives to hide or to guard her charms. This " shame " is either a natural con- sequence of an emotional affection upon entering a new life, or it is the expression of an unconscious policy in love that is chary with its charms in order not to depreciate or to profane them. Or it may also be the unconscious expression of a feel- ing which tells a woman that nature has not given her the initiative of love. Finally, it may be the expression of modesty which fears that she can- not come up to the high expectations which the enthusiastic man has of the charms of his beloved. This u shame," which has nothing to do with the consciousness or the fear of seeing something im- proper disclosed, is an ornament to every woman, and its absence is a proof of dulness and coarse- ness. AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS, 8 1 MARRIAGE. Is rnarriage a relation which is or can be im- posed by the State, by religion, by the police, by the clergy, by relatives, or by any other power ? Everybody will answer : It is the union of a man and a woman resulting from spontaneous af- fection. Therefore only each particular couple that enters into such a union carries the motive and the aim of the union within itself, and no power in the world has the right to control this motive or to stipulate what the aim shall be. Only liberty in entering into and liberty in dis- solving marriage can secure its character, deter- mine its moral nature, and guarantee the attain- ment of its end. The chief end of marriage can be expressed in three words : Propagation, Love, Friendship. We have seen in the chapter on Morality in what respect man differs from the animal in the gratification of his natural needs. This difference refers not only to the gratification of the sexual need, but also to its consequences : propagation. The animal propagates unconsciously, and sepa- rates itself from its young just as unconsciously as soon as they are able to provide their own 82 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN food. And even this unconscious care emanates chiefly only from the mother, while the male generally concerns himself neither for the mother nor the young after copulation. The well-known passionate love of animals for their young is at an end from the time when the latter no longer need aid, and old and young no longer know each other. The egotism and coarse conception of men would fain have transferred this mode of propa- gation also to the human race. That would mean in other words: we want to be animals in this respect, not human beings. While the ani- mal sees in the female only an instrument for procreation, the woman is to the man only the complement of his being, his second ego, in and with whom he begins to live his complete life ; while in the animal a merely temporary affection secures the indispensable aid for the rearing of the young, children are to men a desirable continua- tion of their own personality through whom they establish their continuity beyond death with the infinite stream of humanity. And through this ethical continuity and the ethical consequences of sexual intermingling there arises between man and woman, between father and mother, between parents and children, that relation which we desig- nate by the word family. Thu? with regard to propagation, family life at once makes an essential distinction between man AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 83 ctud the animal. To want to destroy the family is either a great error or a great vulgarity. It is founded in nature, and when viewed in the light of its ethical import it lays the foundation of the most beautiful, the truest, and the surest human happiness. The animal has no family because it has no reason ; reason cannot desire to destroy the family, because it would thereby only re-estab- lish crude nature, that is, destroy morality and, with morality, itself. But the more the importance of the family is appreciated by society and by the individual, the higher and nobler the conception of it is, the more must its fundamental condition be recog- nized as that liberty which alone admits of com- plete harmony, of true attachment, of sincere union between man and woman. Nothing must be allowed to influence the choice except spon- taneous affection ; nothing must stand in the way of a separation where this affection, and with it the desire of a union, is wanting. The family is inconceivable without real marriage, marriage is inconceivable without love, and love can no longer be distinguished from prostitution when the free bond of the union is vitiated by compul- sion. If propagation, to return to this point, is to have an ethical significance and ethical conse- quences, it must not proceed on the plane of bestial association, but just as little in false or forced relationships Every child that springs 84 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN from a union which would have ceased had not external considerations or binding fetters held it together, transmits the curse of the misfortune and of the immorality to the next generation. As a second end of marriage, which we must at the same time call its origin, I designate love. I shall spare myself the trouble of combating those philosophers who would deny the existence of love. At the same time I do not content my- self with conceiving of love only in its romantic form, and I do not care to construct a corner- stone of the moral order of things from an intox- ication of the senses or of the imagination. I shall let the happiness which accompanies this in- toxication stand in all its beauty wherever it is present ; but we must place its substance on a basis of reason, and make a consciousness of the intox- ication. This is accomplished by tracing love to man's perfect consciousness of his sovereignty in the world, of his worth and his liberty, and then, moreover, to the true recognition of the advan- tages of external and internal beauty which satisfy not only a sensual but, at the same time, an ethical and aesthetical need in the lovers. Lovers must come to be to each other that Avhich men have hitherto placed above the clouds by the words "god" and "goddess;" yes, they must become even more to each other, namely, the realized ideal of their moral conceptions and of their sense of beauty. If they learn to seek and to appreciate AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 85 each other in this sense, love will become a last- ing enthusiasm, and the words of Schiller, which unfortunately apply to most of our present rela- tionships, will have become untrue : With that sweetest holiday Must the May of life depart ; With the cestus loosed — away Flies illusion from the heart.* On the contrary, the illusion will become a beau- tiful truth. Every real love of noble, intelligent people will only be confirmed by sexual union. The so-called '• nuptial bed " is the grave of false, but the ark of covenant of true, love. The want of love always consists either in moral degeneration or in a wrong choice. Let men be educated for love, and leave to them the liberty to annul a wrong choice by separation, and true marriage will crowd out a thousand relationships which now are nothing but institutions for the perpetuation of misery and prostitution. Love is called "blind." To what purpose? Supposing it could be demonstrated that the pas- sionate attachment of two people was an illusion which augmented and beautified their respective qualities, the happiness which they would mutu- ally prepare for each other would not therefore * Ach ! des Lebens schonste Feier Endigt auch den Lebensmai ; Mit dem Gurtel, mit dem Schleier Reisst der schone Wahn entzwei. 86 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN be destroyed. But by their conception of each other they at all events show their ability to form a certain ideal ; and if in the course of their acquaintance it becomes apparent that they have not reached this ideal, their experience may serve as a guide which will enable them to find it all the surer in another relationship. As for the rest, many an argument might be brought forward against the blindness of love. I should be much inclined to credit it with clear- sightedness. The loving interest sharpens the vision for the detection and appreciation of quali- ties which the indifferent person would overlook or fail to appreciate. Thus above all those are blind who charge love with blindness, and it is only necessary to view men from the standpoint of love in order to secure to them the recognition and appreciation of their qualities. But the question will be raised : Will love, after all these concessions are made to it, be sufficient to fill out an entire life ? Can it, even if it out- lasts the honeymoon and the time which might suffice to test the possibility of an illusion, — can it satisfy the heart so long that its value will not be lost in the need for change which would finally lead to an anarchy of the affections? This question brings us to the third word with which I designated the end and substance of mar- riage — to friendship. Of course I hold that love in marriage changes AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. $7 from a state of passionate attachment into a con- dition of quiet friendship ; but at the same time, I maintain that true friendship exists only in mar- riage. The question whether between persons of the same sex real friendship is possible has never, so far as I know, been met with a doubt. And yet I am very much inclined to answer it with a down- right no. All sympathies and antipathies of men are founded in egoism in the good sense. Self-inter- est is the natural guide in all steps, and there is no danger in acknowledging this when a correct, general principle is added to this guide as its test, that is, when the pursuit of self-interest is placed under moral control. The duration and value of a union between two people depends entirely on whether these persons are fitted to conform to their respective egoisms, that is, to mutually satisfy their needs, be these needs intellectual, emotional, or physical. But now it is clear, and experience confirms it every day, that two persons of the same sex, even if in individual qualities they attract or agree with each other, can yet never in the long-run have in all things the same interests, but will sooner or later in some case or other show themselves as compet- itors. Individual examples to the contrary occur only where exaggeration and exaltation sacrifice the personal interests of the different persons to 88 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN an abstraction of friendship, or where circum- stances keep both persons at a certain distance from each other, so that the competition of the respective interests finds no point of conflict. If a conflict and an estrangement are to be avoided in a constant living together, one person must so far give up his independence that the preponderance of the other changes into domineering guidance. But if this is the case, the true conception of the friendship which is to exist between persons of the same sex is lost. Among men it is now ambition, now partisan- ship, now the friction q( character, now a differ- ence in principles, etc.; among women it is gener- ally competition in love, jealousy, vanity, etc., which causes'the rupture of friendships. (Exam- ples of friendship among women are hardly ever to be found except with old maids who have re- signed all human impulses, especially sexual com- petition.) But these points of collision disappear entirely by the side of the all-conclusive fact that persons of the same sex do not at all possess, and cannot possess, the qualities which enable them to satisfy each other entirely, to complement each other entirely, and, I might say, to let the cogs of their egoism work exactly into each other. The man can never fill the place of a woman to the man, the woman can never fill that of a man to the woman, but the man can fill the place of a woman to the woman, and the woman the place of a man to the AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 8$ man. The inadequacy of friendship among per- sons of the same sex the Greeks have shown most strikingly in their attempt to complete, as it were, the friendships into which the abnormal taste of the times had led the men by the unnatural intro- duction of the feminine element of "love." Ac- customed to look upon women as inferior beings, but not able to withdraw themselves entirely from the acknowledgment of the feminine element, they transferred it, as it seems, partly to youths in or- der to sanction its acknowledgment through the male sex. And while thereby unconsciously de- grading woman, they avenged her at the same time in themselves, by their endeavor to complete, to idealize themselves by the feminine element. The two sexes are designed to complement each other, to perfect the human being in each. This completion is the bond of true friendship ; and if, on the one hand, the writer is not entirely wrong who says, " One man and one woman are togeth- er equal to two angels, two women are together equal to two devils ; " Rousseau, on the other hand, hits the truth exactly when he says, " A man's best friend is his wife." I admit that the psychological interest and common ideal aims can bring about a relationship between men which deserves the name of friendship ; but, according to our views, perfect friendship demands complete devotion, complete confidence, and mutual indispensable- ness, which exists as little among men as among 90 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN women, and is only conditioned by a difference of sex. Also with regard to the external development of character the difference of the two sexes is very well adapted to establish a relation of friendship. While the man as the representative of strength impresses the woman, the' clinging nature of woman seems made for the purpose of subordi- nating herself to the male predominance without losing her personality or lapsing into servile depen- dence. On the other hand, man will make conces- sions to the weak woman which he would never make to a rival in strength. Only man and woman can unite a proper subordination with a just coor- dination in a natural way. But woman is not only clinging, she is also faith- ful, sincere, and sacrificing. The woman grows into the relation with her friend with her whole soul ; and where the uncouth egoism or the polem- ical nature of the man would allow a break to ap- pear, the love of the woman knows at once how to mend it. The woman is the uniting element in the formation, and the conciliatory element in the preservation, of the relationship. The woman is not only a perfect friend, she even does not cease to be one unless the man makes the friendship altogether impossible. If I must bethink myself whether I have ever had perfect friends among men, I am on the other hand quite certain that I have found perfect friends among women. AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 9 1 Since we are here speaking of marriage, it is self-evident that friendship can be understood only as one of the forms or modifications of love. It is love without the passion of love ; it is love without sensuality ; it is benevolence, confidence, and attachment ushered in and confirmed by sex- ual devotion and union. It combines, therefore, I might say, at the same time the greatest absence of egoism with the satisfaction of egoism, and is thus perfectly adapted to establish a relationship for the whole life. It is not to be inferred from this, however, that a true marriage necessarily can only exist in a union for life. Having established the three chief aims and re- quirements of marriage, we have still to refute one point that refers to a peculiar right which men claim to possess over women — a right which, if it did exist, would make every marriage impos- sible. I mean the pretended right of sensual ex- travagance. We have seen the degeneracy of the male sex with regard to love. Woman has remained the vestal who has preserved the fire of love in its purity, while man has smothered it in the smoke of sensual passion. While man in general is always sensually disposed, even without feeling the least higher interest for the woman who serves him, the passion of woman is generally awakened only by love ; and giving herself up without at- tachment is entirely foreign to the true and noble 92 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN woman. With her, the passion does not attach merely to the sex as with man, but at the same time to the person. Excellent women have with- out reserve told me their thoughts on this point. They admit the possibility that in an unguarded moment even a stranger, by an impressive beauty and manliness, could place the woman in a state of sensual excitement, but that she would still be far from yielding to this excitement even in such a case, and that in any case the relation could not be at an end for the woman and her wish fulfilled by mere physical yielding. This was not a mere matter of education, but had its foundation in the nature of woman. Woman is sensual when she loves, while man, as a rule, loves only when he is sensual. The question now is simply this : Is there an essential difference of nature or not? Is there a peculiar need for sensuality in man aside from love, and, therefore, a peculiar right for him, or not ? Or can it be demanded of him that he should, like woman, restrain his sensuality within the limits of love f There are points to be considered here upon which a great deal depends, but on which no settled views seem as yet to have been developed, mainly for the reason that either hypocrisy or egotism would not lay them open for. discussion. I, how- ever, have made up my mind to discuss all human Questions in a human manner. Only vulgarity AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 93 and a bad conscience can fear being led too far in such a discussion. The general opinion amounts to this, that the man has greater sensual needs, especially a greater need for change, therefore also a greater right to satisfy it than the woman. I have even heard intellectual men who were not by education es- pecially disposed towards sensuality, and who in every way distinguished themselves by moral aspirations, express themselves to the effect that in the society of the future man could not be re- stricted to a single woman, but would have to be granted the liberty of living with a certain num- ber of women — who, however, need not live to- gether — in a simultaneous marriage relation. So the man is to be a sort of human rooster, as it were, who keeps a court of human hens. If women were hens, it is not at all to be doubt- ed that the roosters would assemble in sufficient numbers about them. But the first difficulty with which we meet here is the opposition of the zvomen. If we inquire among all women, not a single one will be found who would be willing to share a be- loved man with another woman, except she had been deprived of her reason by a silly fanaticism, as is the case with the Mormons. The Count of Gleichen would in our time have to narrow down his broad nuptial couch to one half its dimensions. Only very superior and imposing manly personali- ties, as for instance Goethe, have succeeded in 94 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN making several women at the same time partially happy, or in silencing in them the opposition of rivalry, which by no means is equivalent to assent. Woman is guided by the proper feeling that a real marriage relation can exist only between two per- sons. And if the woman, in accordance with this feeling, resents the proposal to share her lover with other women, she only makes use of her right ; and in formulating this right she will ask men this question : Which one of you would be willing to be required to share his beloved with other men ? Whatever a man or a woman possesses of love, confidence, and devotion can be entirely bestowed upon one person. It is impossible to simultane- ously love two men or two women truly. A man can have twenty mistresses at the same time, but not two wives. But woman has a right to be a wife, she has a right to demand that everything should be given her which she herself offers, and it is to misunderstand her right, no less than the na- ture of marriage, when one expects a woman to be content to lie in wait, as it were, with her love, till her lover has made the round among colleagues, and her turn for a visit has come. Woman does not ask for several men, but one she wishes to possess wholly. Only degenerate women, inured to immorality by education and surroundings, or prompted by an abnormal physi- cal constitution, can entertain relations with sev- eral men at the same time, or even follow the foot- AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 95 steps of a Messalina, of whom Juvenal says that she was wont to return home from the haunts of lust "worn out but not satisfied." If, on the ground of their sensual capacity, men would estab- lish a right to have "conjugal relations" with sev- eral women at the same time, they have an oppor- tunity to become convinced by Parisian Messalinas that women could insist on the right to have fifty husbands, where a man would ask but for five wives. But, on the other hand, they could be convinced by the example of noble women who have given themselves up to love in full freedom without re- gard for the judgment of the world, that it is not a need of the feminine sex to have several men at their disposal at the same time. Ninon, George Sand, and others have not been content with one love relation, but they have never loved two men at the same time ; *.*., they have never stood in conjugal relations with two men at once. They kept every relationship pure until it had outlived itself, and then entered into a new one, i.e., into a new marriage. And they would surely have confined themselves to a single man, -had they found one who had possessed the qualities that could have interested such extraordinary women and made them happy for life. We can, therefore, consider it as an established fact that the woman, just as she does not crave several husbands at the same time, will also not g6 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN tolerate a rival in the marriage relation. Could it, therefore, be doubtful whether a man must re- strict himself to one wife at a time, woman would be the one to decide. It would be contrary to reason to assume that the nature of man required several women at the same time, while it was the nature of woman, on the other hand, to treat the removal of this need as a vital question. Where there have been or still are nations among whom the husband, beside his legal wife, kept concubines (for instance among savages, the ancients, and Mussulmen), there we find this abuse founded upon the disqualification and degradation of woman, who will submit to it only so long as she has not attained to a consciousness of herself. Such a degradation has the same origin as that of the women of India, who are obliged to throw themselves into the flames in honor of their dead husbands. I come to the conclusion, therefore, that the claims of men to variety are founded en- tirely upon past conditions and past education, and that woman will have to recall them within the proper limits. The man who, on the plane of our civilization, desires several wives at the same time comes, therefore, i) into opposition with the will of each one of them, and can attain his end only through deceit and concealment ; 2) he violates justice ; 3) he offends the dignity of woman ; and, AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 97 4) he destroys marriage, and with it the moral element in the relation of the sexes. How, then, secure marriage and morality? How remove the objection of male desire, which under present conditions is always striving to overstep the boundaries of morality? The attainment of this end cannot be hoped for, after all that has hitherto been considered, with- out fulfilling the following requirements: 1) Guarding youth from secret vices by careful education, adequate occupation, and close atten- tion, so that the lustful instinct may not be cul- tivated abnormally early, and undermine the ca- pacity for sexual love. 2) Early marriage of youths and maidens, in order that the want of opportunity to satisfy the awakened sexual needs may not drive them into wrong ways. It is here to be observed that the premature development of sexual desire is nothing but the consequence of our bad education hith- ertOj and that the young man has no sexual needs to satisfy previous to his marriage. Thus he is, on entering marriage, not yet addicted to licen- tiousness, his first sexual gratification coincides with his first love, and thus he is led back to the plane of morality on which that portion of the feminine sex which has not fallen a prey to pros- titution has remained. The gratification of the sexual instinct is thus wholly placed within the 98 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN marrtagt relation. But in order that it become possible to uphold this moral barrier, we must 3) not restrict the liberty of marriage by tedious formalities and impeding conditions. The agree- ment of the lovers and a notice concerning their union must suffice for the forming of marriage. The priest does not make marriage, the law does not make marriage, the parents do not make marriage, the magistrate does not make marriage, but love and the agreement of the lovers make it. Let marriage, therefore, be made dependent on nothing save the conditions for its existence. 4) The liberty which prevails in the contracting of marriage must also prevail in the dissolution of marriage. Whether the object of marriage has been attained can only be decided by the judg- ment of those who have contracted it. If they do not feel satisfied, to attempt to preserve it by force means to destroy it by force. By this force the very thing would again be introduced which is chiefly to be prevented, namely, dissipation outside of marriage. The married do not exist for the sake of marriage, but marriage exists for the sake of the married. The bond must, therefore, be severed when it has become a fetter. What is the object of marriage ? As we have seen : pro- pagation, love, friendship. And to this you want to force us by making separation more difficult ? Strange lunacy ! 5) State education of the children. When pa- AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 99 rents are fettered to the marriage relation longer than perhaps during the first years, by the care for the support and education of the children, there arises, especially in disordered economic conditions, either the danger that they will fulfil their paternal duties at the price of marriage by remaining together contrary to their inclinations, or that, in case of a separation, the burden of sup- porting the children will fall on one party only, or, finally, that this support will turn out to the disadvantage of the children. If the parents have sufficient means to dispense with the assistance of the State, they will of course, even without it, be secured against the danger of sacrificing their love or their liberty to their cares ; but most of them are without means, and the State certainly loses nothing if by bearing the cost of education it buys of them the opportunity to rear moral and happy citizens instead of immoral and unhappy ones. So long, however, as the State has not reached the point where, as a last resort, it secures an educa- tion to all children, it is self-evident that with the liberty to dissolve marriage ad libitum must re- main the common obligation of the parents to take upon themselves the education and support of their children. The objections and doubts which will be raised against these requirements are easily to be fore- seen, especially since, in judging of the prerequi- sites of a future development of social condi IOO THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN tions, the opponent is but too ready to take exist- ing conditions as a foundation for his supposi- tions. In the first place, a " moral " solicitude will be -expressed that the liberty of forming or dissolving a marriage relation at pleasure will in- volve people in the danger of using marriage merely as a means for variety in the satisfaction of their desires. Unions will be made to-day and unmade to-morrow, etc. Granted that such a supposition could come true, we need only ask ourselves the question whether the moral condi- tion of society could thus become worse than it now is. As if the present society could run any sort of risk thereby ! Could men be brought to a higher and more disgusting degree of moral cor- ruption than the present secret prostitution has reached, even if freedom of lust should be public- ly proclaimed? Certainly not But let us take another point of view Let us picture to ourselves a society consisting throughout of cultured, nor- mally constituted people who have been educated for liberty, and who feel themselves secure in their chief interests, and let us ask ourselves whether in such a society a man would value less the joys of a sincere relation with a beloved woman, and the happiness of seeing the continuance of his exist- ence secured, as it were, in his children, than the Turkish satisfaction of sleeping with a different concubine every night. And let us, moreover, keep in mind that the women of the future are not AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. IOI the women of the present, and let us ask ourselves whether they, when they have become economic- ally independent of men, will still consent to, and find their happiness in, being merely the changing concubines of modern Turks. Those married peo- ple who are entirely suited to each other and are happy together will certainly not separate for the mere reason that they have full liberty to do so, and those who are not happy together can by an unrestricted change certainly not harm society as much as they now do. Let us even consider the possibility that a man might unite himself with a different woman every year, and consider whether it would be more immoral for him to have had a dozen wives or several hundred mistresses during his lifetime. A further question by the doubters, who draw their conclusion only from present conditions, will be whether the liberty of changing the mar- riage relation, and the support of the children by the State, would not have to result in the de- struction of the family. The family is formed by the mutual attachment of the married couple, and by their love for their children. This attachment and this love are a natural need, and satisfy an interest than which there is none higher and greater. It is, therefore, an entirely false supposition that parents who really love each other could find it to their inter- 102. THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN est to dissolve the family ; but for those who do not love each other the family has lost all value and all moral import. It is, therefore, a service to moral society to make dissolution possible to such families. Moreover, the need of parents to have their children constantly about them generally exists only during the early years of the latter. Finally, the admission of the children into public institutions does not at all imply their separation from the parents ; the intercourse between them must rather always be left free to as large an ex- tent as the purpose of the institution will permit. It is self-evident that there ought not to exist any compulsion for the parents to give their chil- dren over to public institutions at a certain age; the State is only to offer the possibility and tr e op- portunity for it. But if that is done in the right manner, it will appear that no compulsion is nec- essary. No reasonable person will imagine that he can reach his ideal, whatever it may be. In all efforts at reform, the correct principle must be discov- ered and established as an ideal aim. The near- est possible approach is then a matter of circum- stances and of practical possibilities. It is not to be expected, therefore, that the realization of the above requirements will eliminate all immoral elements from society. Neither can there be the least idea of creating a new state of things in a AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. IO$ day, or of suddenly destroying the after-effects of former conditions. It is sufficient if the estab- lished principles are recognized as correct, gain adherents, and, as far as it is possible, serve the enlightened minds of both sexes even now as a guide for their actions. 104 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN ADULTERY. Adherents of the official and theological mo- rality will feel in duty bound to grow indignant over the claim that in reality there is no such thing as adultery. They will believe that the moral world, whose chief aim hitherto seems to have been to create as many crimes as possible, in order to be able to condemn as much as possible, must go to ruin if it is deprived of one of its most piquant Crimes. And nevertheless the world will finally have to submit to this loss, and even come to realize that in principle a more severe moral conception is required for the destruction of a piquant crime than for the retention of the same. If there is to be a breach of marriage, the breach must necessarily extend through that which constitutes marriage, which is its essence, its con- dition, its sum and substance. Marriage is not a business contract, it is a union of hearts: and love is the condition of this union. A breach of mar- riage must, therefore, be a breach of love ; but love does not break itself ; its breaking is, therefore, equivalent to a want of love ; and since marriage without love is no longer marriage, so-called adul- tery can be nothing more than an actual proof that marriage no longer exists. AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 105 There can no more be a breach of marriage by adultery than there can be a breach of night, a breach of day, etc. When day dawns it is no longer night ; and when night comes it is no longer day. If one of the parties feels an inclination to commit what is called adultery, then the marriage is already broken, even without the completed act. At that very moment marriage ceases to exist, because love has ceased to exist ; because the love that is required for marriage either never existed or has been replaced by another. Pious moralists will say that this is equivalent to giving free rein to adultery under the pretext of the dying out of the old and the awakening of a new love. But then these pious people do not know what love is. Love is no arbitrary thing. He who loves will and can as little aban- don his love for any purpose as he who does not love can enforce a love for any purpose. This is the very " moral " perversion of our moral ideas that has until now made it possible to bring in vogue and to maintain a style of marriage without the one requisite of marriage, love. True morality demands that a marriage which has ceased to be a marriage intrinsically, and which is, there- fore, nothing more than a relation of compulsion, hypocrisy, and prostitution, should also cease to be one extrinsically. The hypocrisy of the pious moralists, however, still clings with all its might to the external relation, even after the purpose, 106 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN the essence, and the contents have been lost and the inner bond has been rent in twain, and if one party withdraws from this compulsion in order to avenge outraged liberty outside of marriage, and to bring. to light the fruits of enforced hypocrisy, this proof of a no longer existing marriage is called adultery. Adultery is said to be a breach of faith. But what is faith ? It is nothing more than active love. But if love is to be active, it must above all things exist. So long as I love I cannot become " un- faithful ;" and as soon as I become unfaithful I no longer love. To assume fidelity as distinct from love is indeed a contradiction in the premises. Fidelity is love persisting in action and through action. It is, therefore, at bottom not at all a duty, but a frame of mind, or the necessary out come of this frame of mind. Fidelity without this frame of mind, i.e., merely physical or me- chanical abstinence, cannot have the least moral value with regard to the essence and aim of mar- riage. But it is again the men and the pious people who have made the discovery that there is also fidelity without love, without faithful sentiments, i.e., self- denial which, for the sake of a foreign imaginary aim, must sacrifice its feelings to a false relation- ship. As we have seen above, man as the stronger had accustomed him self to use and abuse, by wil- ful change and in every manner, the degraded AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 107 weaker sex, in whom his coarse heart could not yet find a lasting charm. Still his feeling must grad- ually have brought him to reflect whether woman had not really a right, and all the more a right, to follow his example the oftener he set her that ex- ample. Woman, however, made no use of this right, because she continued ever to love him in spite of his arbitrariness, and this undeserved fidel- ity appeared to him so astonishing and difficult that he saw in it an exceptional virtue. And since he was an egotist and a despot, he came to claim this fidelity which in the beginning had excited his astonishment ; he came to demand fidelity of the woman even whe 1 she no longer loved him, and made a crime of unfaithfulness. We have also seen that among all savage peoples there is such a thing as adultery on the part of woman, but not on the part of man. And even among civilized nations the law makes an essential distinction. Thus adultery on the part of woman is universally a ground for divorce, but adultery on the part of man generally only in such cases where the hus- band has kept a eoncubine in the common dwell- ing. When a woman becomes unfaithful her love has also ceased. No man will contest that. His own love, however, he wishes to be considered as inde- pendent of his fidelity, for he is as much a sophist as a despot. Goethe CNQaforts one of his beloved with the words : 108 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN Heart-felt love (!) unites us forever, and faithful (!)yearnings; But desire (!) still craves the pleasures of change. (!)* Indeed, " faithful love " by the side of " chang- ing desires "! Interesting phenomenon ! In other words that would be : The respectability of our existing relationship, and some of your amiable qualities, move me from time to time to come back to you from my excursions into other fields; if I again tire of you I renew my excursions, i,e. y I take for myself full liberty to junket about wherever I can find anything. You can be assured, my dearest, that upon my excursions I never talk the least about " love " to any other woman ; no, indeed not. I speak to her only of "desire." You will be convinced, my child, that my junketing can be charged only to " desire," which you must by no means ever mistake for "love." My " love " belongs to you alone, my " desire " also to others, which others are satisfied with the mere "desire" without "love," which you of course will not be able to understand, but which is nevertheless a lie. You can see from this, my child, how beautifully we men can reconcile " fidel- ity " with " change " by separating love from fidel- ity, and either make the beloved one believe that her competitors are mere mistresses or convince her that she herself is one likewise ! We, however, * Herzliche Liebe verbindet uns stets und treues Verlangen, Nur den Wechsel behielt still die Begierde sich vor. AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. IO9 protest against the same liberty and science on your part in the name of all the principles of morality ! Goethe, to be sure, did not express this last sen- tence in words; but neither this liberal friend of women nor any other one would have declared himself contented if his beloved had surprised him with the news : Heart-felt love unites us forever and faithful yearnings; But desire still craves the pleasures of change. Let us meet in advance an objection which will be raised against the theory of adultery as here set forth. On the basis of the old conceptions it will be said that this theory would logically protect and argue away every violation of duty. But the very end to be sought is the release of the essence and conditions of marriage from the bonds of duty in which it has been chained, and to place it unfettered upon the ground upon which it thrives — upon the ground of spontaneous attach- ment. The present moralists acknowledge mar- riages in which the sense of duty takes the place of attachment or makes it unnecessary ; a sense of duty, namely, which is stimulated or dictated by external considerations. But true liberty and morality cannot acknowledge such marriages, for they are thoroughly immoral. A duty can never exist at the expense of ethical conceptions HO THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN and ethical aims. But what is the aim of mar- riage ? As we have seen : propagation, love, friendship. And who will and can impose that as a duty if our own free inclination does not prompt us to it ? There are, indeed, duties in marriage, but they do not belong here, because in a true mar- riage they are recognized and practised spontane- ously. With regard to adultery, they could at most consist in the avoidance of a possible danger into which at last every relationship may drift. To rashly expose the affections to every danger, or to wilfully put them to the test, would be to degrade them beforehand. Who would throw the crystal upon the pavement simply to see whether it would break ? If marriage is released from its present bonds and humanity redeemed from the vice of hypo- crisy, then will adultery gradually be lost sight of, both as a conception and as a deed. Whoever is ca- pable of or feels the desire to commit adultery will simply dissolve the marriage ; whoever has occa- sion to commit adultery has simply found another person with whom he enters into a new marriage. Thus adultery will become a change of marriage, especially when the possibility of finding a person who will serve as a mere tool for an adulterous act can no longer be assumed after women have become independent of men and no longer know what it is to give themselves up to prostitu- tion. For in order to assume the present condi- AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. Ill tion of adultery we must presuppose the present condition of prostitution. I can foresee that husbands will be frightened at this theory. But I will give them a word of advice. If you wish to keep your wives from adultery, see to it that they can love you ; do not charge it to them as a crime if they love you no longer, and do not force them into hypocrisy if they love some one else. Try to bind them only in so far that they are to tell you openly when another has gained their heart, and then part from them in friendship as is becoming to humane men, in order to let them enter, unhin- dered, a new relationship which promises them greater happiness. If they can be sure of this hu- mane treatment and this liberty, then you can also generally be sure that they will not deceive you. But the man who wishes to hold the woman- in the bonds of marriage, although she no longer loves him, is both a fool and a barbarian, and deserves that badge with which women are wont to distinguish tyrannical husbands. How much has adultery already been moralized over by priests and disputed over by jurists ! And what barbarities has it not called forth ! Among almost all savages man has the right to kill the adulterous woman without further preliminaries. Among the ancient Egyptians the woman's nose was cut off, because a woman " who incited to forbidden joys had to be deprived of the most 112 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN beautiful ornament of a beautiful face." Her seducer was punished with lashes, yet she was the " charmer." Among the Hindoos the woman was publicly torn to pieces by dogs, and the seducer was fastened upon a red-hot iron bed- stead and roasted alive. Among the Jews the adulteress was stoned, but the adulterer was pun- ished only when he had committed the act with a married woman and had thus (by a violation of " property") offended another man. According to the laws of Solon, the Athenian could sell the adulterous woman as a slave. The Romans per- mitted the husband to kill both the wife surprised in the act of adultery and, with her, the adulterer. Mohammed granted the husband the right to in- carcerate the sinful woman in an especial apart- ment of his house " until either death released her or God gave her a means of escape." Among the old Teutons the woman, with hair cut off, and dis- robed, was cast out of the house by her husband and whipped through the town. What a list of brutalities and barbarities ! And what for ? For an imaginary crime against imag- inary masters who called themselves husbands and were nothing but despots and barbarians. AND J HE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 113 DIVORCE. The laws of a people on divorce are a sure measure of the reasonableness and humanity of its conceptions of marriage. No nation known to me has reasonable divorce laws. Through the French revolution reason pre- vailed on this point for a time, in that it made divorce depend on the will of the married couple ; but it soon again succumbed to the old prejudices and narrow-mindedness. The free, common-sense conception of marriage, and with it also of divorce, is everywhere still sup- pressed by the theological conception of the rela- tionship between man and woman. So-called re- ligion and the ghostly " God " are the first enemies of marital happiness. According to the theolog- ical conception, taking its departure from super- human consecration and superhuman will, marriage is in itself a hallowed relationship, and this abstract relation in itself, not the real happiness and inter- est of those who constitute it, is the chief object. Marriage, the formal relationship with the ''divine" stamp, is to be upheld even if the married persons perish in it ; marriage is to continue for life, even after all the requirements which constitute its es- sence have long ago disappeared. Marriage is to 114 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN make the married persons, not the married per- sons marriage. Married people exist for the sake of marriage, not marriage for the sake of mar- ried people. Though, after becoming acquainted and familiar with each other to a degree not per- missible or possible before marriage, they should tire of each other ; though they should hate and loathe each other; though they should become as disgusting to each other as horrible pictures — they have once been married, they are called husband and wife, they have become a com- mon social firm, they have a " claim " upon each other, they have once for all become I and you, and must never again become I and I. To be sure, nobody, not even the most bigoted theologian, says that marriage is destined to be an institution of unhappiness, and the marital chamber a chamber of torture ; but if it has come to be so, it must re- main so, because otherwise — marriage might be- come what it ought to be, namely, a relationship based on spontaneous affection, which is formed without help, and, even without force, is not dis- solved, just because it finds in this affection, in the satisfaction of the mutual heart interests, the only true, the only legitimate, and the only lasting bond of union. It is due to the theological, inhuman, misan- thropical, barbaric conception of marriage that the laws inflict punishment upon those married persons who no longer respect a relationship AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 1 1 5 that has become impossible. The " punishment " visited upon the married couple in their inability to longer love each other is not sufficient ; for this very punishment they must be punished. They have entered into a relationship " for life," it is said. They may have done so, but they did it only in the belief that they would be happy with each other as long as possible, perhaps until death ; but after they have come to recognize that they were mistaken ; when, under circum- stances which could not have been estimated or controlled before, they have come to know each other from a new point of view, which excludes all happiness and, therefore, the entire object of marriage, they must, even when they separate peacefully and with mutual understanding in order to seek for happiness elsewhere, be seized by a theological marriage-police and be chastised for sinning against the holy marriage relation. This is the logic of the theological conception. The duration " for life " is the consequence of a real marriage, a happy choice ; but to make it into an obligatory requirement even for an unfor- tunate choice is to condemn two people to life- long misery for a momentary weakness, or an inno- cent chance, or a one-sided guilt, by means of the most senseless tyranny, simply in order to have them retain the name of a married couple. Sex- ual contact or a priestly " blessing " is to deprive two people completely of their liberty, is to make Il6 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN of them a mutual galley to which the one has chained the other as his slave, is to be considered as an act zvhich can never be corrected. This is certainly logical ; for the infallible stupidity of the- ology surely cannot be corrected. Just as it is a truth which must never be lost sight of that progress of society in one direction can never be thought of by itself alone, so it is also impossible to bring about a true married and family life without a general revolution of social ideas and conditions. This does not, however, preclude those, who can in themselves make up for or do without this general revolution from demanding freedom from legal bonds, or from anticipating it ; nor does it preclude the law from even now being shaped with a view to the antici- pated conditions of the future. I believe that even on the basis of our present conditions no danger would accrue to society if the law should decree the following : i) A marriage shall be dissolved when both par- ties demand a dissolution, and a) declare that their economical relations are completely settled, which declaration shall absolve them from all future obligations ; b) documentarily testify that they have agreed about the support and education of their children, which agreement shall be mutually maintained with legal assistance. Legal assistance shall be rendered gratis. AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 117 2) A marriage shall be dissolved when one party against the will of the other, has three times, at intervals of one month, demanded a dissolution. In such cases the economical affairs shall be set- tled legally, if it cannot be done by voluntary agreement. The children shall be awarded to the parents according to their sex, if not otherwise voluntarily agreed. The obligation for the support of the children shall, as a general thing, be placed upon both parties in proportion to the property, if the matter cannot be settled by a free under- standing. By such regulations the character of a compul- sory institution might be taken from marriage, and yet every consideration which would have to be taken of present social conditions be allowed for. And the levity which would be inclined to make of marriage a relation of unscrupulous frivolity would be met more effectively by the prospect of the obligations agreed upon than by present laws. More senseless divorce laws than those of North America cannot easily be found, — doubly sense- less for the reason that the forming of marriage is made so easy as to depend on a mere word. A mere promise of marriage, given perhaps in a mo- ment of rashness, of intoxication, etc., can compel marriage ; but the dissolution of the marriage is generally possible only when, after long, expensive, and scandalous lawsuits, the one party has sue- Il8 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN ceeded in proving against the other the charge of — adultery. The hope for divorce, therefore, de- pends solely on scandal. A New York court, in a suit of this kind, has just given a decision by which a marriage was dissolved on account of the proven adultery of the (seventeen-year-old) wife. The husband was left free to marry again, " just as if the divorced wife were dead ;" but the wife was debarred from a new marriage " until the divorced man had really died." A more senseless, more immoral, more unnatu- ral, and more unjust decision I have never heard of ; but it is only an application of existing laws. I will not stop to speak of the indirect induce- ment that such a decision could become to the condemned party to remove the arbitrary hin- drance to marriage by criminal means. Neither will I dwell on the fact that the di- vorced woman has been condemned by the court either to an unnatural and not-to-be-expected re- nunciation, or to permanent prostitution and shame. Nor will I discuss the question whether a court can deny one who has not been found guilty of a criminal offence his or her natural or civil rights. I will not even stop to consider the logic which by the divorce destroys every bond, every connec- tion between the divorced parties, and yet restores this connection by making the woman through AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. II9 ner condemnation permanently dependent on the man. Neither will I investigate how a court comes to treat a suit for divorce like a suit for punishment. Likewise I will refrain from inquiring whether the young seventeen-year-old wife was in every way responsible in regard to morality — whether she was not through education or circumstances or the fault of another led to take a wrong step. Nor will I ask whether, before the passing of a sentence which grants a life-long oppressive satis- faction to the offended husband, it ought not to have been investigated and considered in how far he had through hasty action on his part brought about a union which very soon proved unsuitable for both parties. All these points I shall dispose of by merely in- timating them in order to come to the chief point, which is contained in the question : What sort of a conception did the judges, or rather the law- givers, have of marriage when they combined an additional punishment with the dissolution of a relationship that has been disastrous to both par- ties? The " marriage " in question was an evil, a torture, a misfortune to both parties, no matter through whose fault. The thing to be done was, therefore, to put an end to this unhappiness, to dissolve a relationship which had already ceased to be a marriage. To punish one party because the marriage to him was no longer a marriage, is 120 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN to decree marital felicity and to make marital in- felicity a transgression of this decree. It is plain that the judges and law-givers proceeded only from the theological and priestly conception de- scribed above, which makes a spook of marriage, and as such sanctifies it without regard to the peo- ple for whom the relationship exists. Though the marriage bond may have united two beings who are to each other as water to fire, they must get along with each other — thus the priest and the law-giver decree ; and when the consequences of the im- possibility to agree come to light, when the water hisses over the edge and the fire sends its sparks beyond the limits, then the judge rushes in be- tween them with his club and punishes the water for being with the fire, and the fire for being with the water. The punishment, which consists in the disappointment of the married couple, in their grief, their discord, their unhappiness, and their material disadvantages, does not seem to the priest a sufficient revenge for an unfortunate choice ; no, he must create still another punish- ment, and see to it that the misfortune is pro- longed as much as possible and is not forgotten for a lifetime. AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 121 IS MARRIAGE A CONTRACT? Even among those who hold most liberal views with regard to divorce, but few can free themselves from the old conception that marriage is a con- tract. A liberal American paper expresses this idea in the following words : " Marriage is a civil contract. It is not indisso- luble, for the law has provided for divorce. They decide only in extreme cases, which as a rule de- cide themselves. The marriage contract, like all other contracts, ought to be dissoluble with the consent of the contracting parties. We go even farther : it ought to be dissoluble on the mere ap- plication of one of the two parties, for as soon as it becomes oppressive for one it becomes ruinous to both, and ought to cease at once." If marriage were, as this paper says, a relation of contract, that which constitutes the essence of marriage would have to be created with it by the contract, which nobody would maintain ; but if it is only a. personal relationship, it requires, like other personal relationships, for instance friend- ship, neither an " application " for a divorce, nor any other formal separation, not even an agree- ment between the married parties, but both par- ties are actually free at any moment to discon- tinue the relationship. 122 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN This last is, indeed, the only correct principle as far as the two married persons are concerned. For marriage is nothing more nor less than a free union of two persons who love each other and who, just because they love each other, find in this union the satisfaction of their emotional and sexual needs. Without love, without harmony, without mutual indispensability, no marriage is possible ; with these, it needs not the protection of the law, which is an offence, a humiliation to it. A contract binds the contracting parties to mutual obligations which conform to its aim and are within the reach of possibility ; but no person can put himself under an obligation to love, for that is a matter of taste, the gratification of which does not depend on the will of the person who has thus bound himself. A man whom a woman loves passionately to-day can have become an ob- ject of disgust to her a year hence. Shall she continue to love him acccording to contract, or shall she sacrifice herself to the contract ? The conception of a contract in marriage presupposes the possibility of forcing a person to fulfil the condition on which the life of marriage depends, which is love. For no marriage is made by a merely forced living together, by forced economic communism without love ; otherwise the mere im- prisonment together of two persons of different sex would be a marriage. Married people who no longer love each other, no AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 1 23 longer have anything personally to do with each other, any more than other people who have no personal relation to each other. It is as though they had never known each other ; yes, as though they had always hated each other. What reason- able ground, therefore, can there still be to keep them together, and what reasonable object can there be in such bondage ? To sanctify marriage, or to attempt to fetter it by means of a contract, is to thoroughly miscon- ceive its nature, and to attempt in a roundabout way to force the very opposite of its aim. If marriage were a contract, the marriage relation, as already observed, would have to be the result of the contract ; but the exact opposite is the case : the marriage relation already exists through love, before that which is called the contract is created by the marriage ceremony, etc. If married persons wish to enter a contract, with regard to their economic relations for in- stance, let them do so as persons ; as a married couple they cannot do it. Two lovers, for in- stance, who wish to live together, that is, to be married, bind themselves by contract to divide equally their common property in case of an eventual separation. Such a contract has nothing in the least to do with the real marriage; on the contrary, it appertains to a time when the mar- riage has ceased, and regulates in that case the external affairs of the once-married couple. But 124 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN as long as the marriage continues, it has as little efficacy as there is need for it ; for marriage is love in action, and that presupposes complete harmony in all dispositions, and complete community of all interests. That marriage has hitherto been considered as a relation of contract indicates nothing but a want of confidence in marriage, The conscious- ness that under present perverse conditions true marriages are a rarity dictated the equally per- verse precautionary measure of putting marriage into a strait-jacket, so that where love is want, ing, its apparent result, the union, can at least be insisted upon. To form a marriage by contract appears to me about as if two people bound themselves before a notary and witnesses to be happy or to try to be. We marry out of interest, out of inner need, as one feels an interest or a necessity to eat, drink, walk, or read books, etc.; and now comes this topsy-turvy world and expects us to bind our- selves by contract to eat when we are hungry, to drink when we are thirsty, to take down our Goethe when we want to read something beauti- ful, to kiss when we feel an amorous inclination, etc. Recently an intellectual woman wrote to me : " Of all incomprehensible things, I know none more incomprehensible than marrying." But this woman is " eccentric," and has as little re- spect for the statute-book as for the Bible. She AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 1 25 will not go to heaven for this reason, and she has not yet found heaven on earth either — on ac- count of this marrying. But now we come to another point. It lies in the simple question : Would the idea of " marry- ing," and of " marriage contract," ever have come up if women could look out for their own sub- sistence, if they were economically independent of men? Would the idea of "marrying" and of "marriage contract" ever have come up if no children resulted from marriage, or if the children reared and educated themselves ? I believe that after some reflection those ques- tions will be universally answered in the negative. It is the necessity incumbent on us in present con- ditions to save women and children from helpless- ness, from ruin, and not the nature of marriage, that brought society, which did not wish to be burdened with the care of women and children, to change marriage into an obligatory relationship controlled by law. And it is also this economic consideration on the part of society which in- vented the illegitimate procreation of children, and has made the birth of a human being whose germ has not been blessed by a priest or an offi- cial a disgrace. Because a Heloise may chance to be poor and her child may possibly need the support of society, this society stamps the mother a harlot, and clothes its niggardliness in the hypo- critical robe of moral indignation at so much de- 126 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN pravity. If Heloise wishes to escape her fate, she must change her love for Abelard into an article of contract, and get the attestation of a priest that she is no vagabond. Abelard, forthwith under* police control, is now forced to care for " wife and' child," and alarmed society can once more sleep* quietly beside its strong-box. This legal interference with the natural, purely personal relationship of marriage is a very simple consequence of the pernicious state of society, which suppresses its women and casts out their children, instead of making the former independ- ent and educating the latter at the general ex- pense. I can very easily conceive of a state of society — indeed, I cannot conceive of a better future without a state of society in which the increase of humanity through the birth of a healthy child, sprung from free marriage, is considered not only as no misfortune and no disgrace, but as a piece of good fortune and an honor ; in which a free sexual union controlled by no law and no police will have crowded out all hypocrisy and all pros- titution ; in which conduct is regulated by a sense of beauty cultivated from childhood and by the bond of true love, but not by an unnatural moral- ity and forced relations ; in which the institutions of the State are in duty bound to receive every mother with her child if she stands alone or if she, in union with a man, has not sufficient means for AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 127 support and education ; in which the State insti- tutions, in the well-apprehended interest of society itself, as model institutions of education and cul- ture, are accessible to all alike, free of charge, etc. Only in such a state of society true marriages, which now are accidental exceptions, will be the rule, and " divorce," which now causes so much trouble in the world, will be an unknown thing. In the absence of the hitherto prevailing consider- ations of the "consequences," especially of the economic embarrassments, complete liberty to look for and find the true object of their affections will make women incapable of still allowing themselves to be dehumanized as prostitutes, either in rela- tions of " contract " or in maisons de joie, and men, in the companionship of free women, will look back with disgust to the times when, by the aid of money or force, they trod the dignity of half the human race under their feet in order to un- feelingly satisfy mere sensual lust in the arms of an unfeeling being. 128 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN " HANGING A WOMAN." (From " Der Pionier," July 29, 1855.) In Troy, N. Y., a Mrs. Robinson, who has poisoned her husband, has been sentenced to be hanged on the third of August. Now the gov- ernor is besieged from all sides with petitions for pardon, because the feelings revolt at the thought of having a woman hanged. What delicacy of feeling in a country where hanging partly takes the place of national holidays ! Would not the hanging and dangling of a female prisoner, es- pecially if she were pretty, afford a most piquant excitement for the savage taste of the criminal mob? What real motive dictates this petition to the governor? Is it American gallantry? Hardly, for this is usually practised where something is to be gained thereby, were it only the approval of fashion. Is it the disgrace for the feminine sex which is to witness one of its highly honored members ending on the gallows? Possibly; although at other times we are not so zealous in warding off disgrace from the sex. But the chief motive is presumably a natural aversion towards hanging, which has come into consciousness and reached such a degree of intensity that it at last AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 1 29 had to vent itself in petitions for pardon when the spectacle of a feminine delinquent presented itself. And since at the same time the conscious- ness arose that this aversion had not made itself felt on occasions of the hanging of men, its mani- festation is now brought forward under the pre- text that it is inhuman or unmanly to hang a woman. If a woman had not sufficed to disgust our republican gentlemen with hanging, a beauti- ful maiden, or perhaps a child, would have been required to at last universally awaken the con- sciousness that capital punishment, especially hanging, is a barbarity, nay, even a bestiality. That this .recognition could be held in abeyance until a woman became the means of bringing it to light ; that the gallows adorned with a male corpse could hitherto be considered as a show, or at least as an interesting spectacle, and was advanced to the dignity of a tragedy only at the thought of a hanged female, proves only how vulgar and un- republican our popular consciousness still is ; for capital punishment, especially hanging, is as great an anomaly in a republic as, for instance, torture for the M religion of love." Perhaps Mrs. Robin- son will have the honor of involuntarily having given the impulse towards the abolition of capital punishment in the chief State of the Union. To be sure, it is no flattering testimony for our worthy law-givers that it required the instruction of a poison-mixer to teach them to become humane ! I30 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN But apart from this point, and assuming that capital punishment were generally justifiable and ought to be upheld, there is still another ground for protest against the hanging of Mrs. Robinson. This ground lies in the criminal irresponsibility of women as against men. I do not want to make the statement that everything is permissible for a woman to do against a man, but I do want to maintain what holds true for women as well as for slaves, that the criminal can be held responsi- ble only to such a degree as he is free. Therefore, whoever wants bondage must be contented to take crime into the bargain ; whoever wants the right to punish crime must first concede liberty. Strictly considered, no member of a political community is responsible before the criminal court, for the moral standard of every individual is only a product of the general standard, so that the responsibility really always falls back upon the community. This reason alone already suffices to stamp everything that we call punishment and the right to punish as nonsense and barbarity. But if this doubt is thrown in general upon the responsibility of the individual, how much more must this be the case where the ruling portion takes away the responsibility from a class or a sex by disenfranchisement, by limitation, or by neglect ! Whoever rules is responsible, for who- ever rules is free. But women are ruled, and who- ever is ruled is not only not free, but is always AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 13I the suffering party, and is therefore always thrown back upon the revolution. Woman and the revo- lution are the most natural confederates. Prob- ably that is the reason why the revolution is always represented as a woman. But ruling man would make woman as well as the slave respon- sible, although he will not grant them the condi- tions which make responsibility possible, and thus he punishes in them really himself, i.e., his own wrongdoing. In how far the actions of the suffer- ing party are a necessary reaction against oppres- sion, justifiable acts of defence against inflicted injustice, natural attempts at compensation for rights withheld, a forcibly sought outlet for a nature perverted by force, unavoidable outbreaks of inclinations falsely directed by binding circum- stances, — all this our present courts of justice shrink from investigating, because such an investi- gation would overthrow our entire barbaric justice, together with its barbaric foundation. But what the administration of justice neglects to do, the critic, the publicist must at least strive to make good. Unbiassed justice must always be predisposed to take the side of the weaker party, because in a conflict of rights the presumption must generally be that the weaker party has suffered a wrong or has been incited to do a wrong. Women are al- most always in that case. For all the wrong that is done by women the men as a rule ought to bear 132 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN the blame, be it directly on account of their treat- ment or indirectly through their education of, and the position they impose upon, women. I am not acquainted with Mrs. Robinson's history, and do not remember the proceedings concerning the cir- cumstances and motive of her deed. But so much I do know, that a woman is not by nature designed for a criminal, and that her heart must be wounded or hardened by very peculiar induce- ments or influences if she can resolve to com- mit a murder. When Mrs. Baker in St. Louis shot the libertine Hoffmann, all the world was indignant at this deed, and the murderess was looked upon as a monster. I at once declared the condemnation of the murderess by public opinion as premature, because only very excep- tional (then still unknown) grievances could bring a woman to do such a deed. Later it was brought out that this Hoffmann, who had stood in intimate relations with her, had not only exposed her on this account to others, but had also abused her confidence by transmitting to her a loathsome dis- ease When the men have become so depraved that they must stop to think to which species of beast they belong, it is always the woman who still represents the human species and who still up- holds human feelings. When the father has be- come a beast, the mother saves him again by the birth of a human being. AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS, 1 33 I do not want to use the moral expression that the woman is " better " than the man, but she certainly is more humanely organized, and in the retirement to which she is condemned she is less exposed to the hardening and demoralizing influ- ences of the vulgar atmosphere in which the male sex at present still disports itself. A crime com- mitted by a woman will, therefore, generally have more cogent and deeper motives than the same crime committed by a man. How often we hear in this country of men who have murdered their wives ; and how rare is the opposite case ! But who is there to maintain that men have to suffer more at the hands of the women than the women at the hands of the men ? This juxtaposition alone proves the weaker disposition of the fem- inine nature towards criminal deeds ; consequently the necessity of applying a different standard in the judging or condemning of a Mrs. Robinson than of a Mr. Whiskeyson or of any wife-murderer by whatsoever name he may be called. A husband may perhaps slay his wife for some pat rejoinder ; the wife poisons her husband only after her feel- ings, her love, her pride, tortured perhaps through all grades of despair, has killed all womanliness within her, and has left nothing of it except the feeling of revenge. If I had to present a petition to Governor Clark, I should above all things, as my motive for so doing, accompany it by an elucidation of the na- 134 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN ture and social position of woman. But I should then also not fail to discuss the relation that obtains between present marriage laws and the crimes of married people. I am convinced that the marriage laws commit more crimes than pas- sion. That a dependent woman, in the power of a hated man, should sacrifice her life with all its desires, hopes, and needs to a senseless law is a requirement which must indeed be called an in- direct incitement to murder. If Mrs. Robinson should be hanged, it is probably for the law-givers and the priests that she would die. AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 135 RELIGION. What has been said above of marriage and divorce will be a plain hint to thinking women as to the importance of liberation from the bonds of religious belief. But this point is too impor- tant, and the questions attaching to it are too interesting, for me not to devote a separate chapter to it. It is undeniable that woman is inferior to man ih the vigor and logic of her thought as well as of her will. It is, therefore, quite apart from the greater lack of opportunity for intellectual devel- opment, generally much harder for her than for man to form for herself an intelligent view of a liberal philosophy which has done away with the teachings of religious belief. On the other hand, woman is emotionally receptive and has an active imagination, and is, therefore, more accessible to the seductive or imposing words of the pious than man. Moreover, her position and her sufferings supply ample need for comfort, which, as is well known, only faith, " the church," is able to give. Thus it can be explained that it must be more difficult to cure women than men from the relig- ious malady. Weak woman is still everywhere the prey of the priests where men have already 136 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN shaken off the yoke, and assuredly those black- coated gentlemen would entirely emigrate from many a country if suddenly there were no more women. But the more difficult it may be for woman to withdraw herself from the influence of the priests and from those teachings which afford the priests their bread and butter, the more necessary this emancipation has become for her. It would lead me too far in this place if I should attempt to revolutionize the religious world of the women by purely rational conceptions of the supernatural and superhuman things by which, in the name of religion, their mind is biassed and intimidated. This has been done on another occasion. (See " Six Letters to a Pious Man.") It must and will become clear to the women that they above all are interested in the recognition of pure human- ity, of which they par excellence are the most beautiful representatives, but that there can be no thought of this recognition as long as the human being and its happiness is sacrificed to the fictitious objects of a nebulous religious world and despotic authorities. Moreover, the religions, made by men, are all designed to relegate woman to a subordinate position, who, in order to find her lot endurable, must attribute it to a "God." This " God " is nothing more than an invisible overseer of women for the benefit of the men, who hold them as slaves. For a joke, the women - AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 1 37 ought to give him the companionship of a god- dess, whose duty it should be to control him. She might be called Mrs. God. Let no woman fear to lose her " moral hold " after throwing off the bondage of religion. I have known women who have freed themselves from everything that is known as belief through their own reason, and again others who have been brought up without anything of what is generally called religion. They are more moral, more humane, more wholesome, fresher, and more lov- able than all those who have allowed their souls to be adulterated by the morbid views of a re- ligious teaching which is inimical to nature. In the woman the true and the right is already pres- ent, crystallized as it were ; she only needs to pro- tect herself from harmful influences, she needs only the courage to follow her natural inclinations, and she can be sure that she will not miss her destination and will not go astray on the road of her purely human mission. What often becomes clear to the man only after long reflection, some- times flashes up in the woman at once. The vigor and logic of thought are in her replaced by more direct and more correct operations of the feelings and a sort of mental sight. But where a female nature has once attained the strength to translate the language of the feelings into the language of thought, she is capable of surprising the most daring philosopher. I call attention to George 13$ THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN Sand, whose ideas on the emancipation of woman and whose psychological expositions of the most beautiful sides of ennobled humanity shame and astonish us men. There is nothing more pitiable than the fact that the greater part of the sex that preeminently represents beauty and joy pines away in the bond- age of disagreeable and joyless powers. As spring beside winter, so does this dark, odious, dehuman- ized priesthood stand beside the joyous, poetic, humane Grecian world, whose goddess was beauty and whose religion was joy. A second Greece will one day arise, an ennobled Greece, which will expiate the sins of the old by a complete recogni- tion of the feminine sex. A second, revised edition of Greece designates the stage towards the attain- ment of which the entire aspirations of our present development must be directed. It requires a great deal to take from man in general the religious need (I am not at all speak- ing of the aesthetic need) to embody his thoughts, desires, hopes, and ideals in pictures, or to wor- ship them in symbols. It is, therefore, possible that the age of complete mental liberty will be bridged over by a period of philosophic-artistic romanticism ; by a sort of new mythology which will represent the results of our historical develop- ment and of the moral ideals in works of art, and make them the objects of a new cult. If the ob- jects of this cult only are the right ones, then it AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 1 39 will beautify life without impeding development. It will especially afford opportunities to draw art into the foreground and lead it towards its des- tination, which is: the enriching, beautifying, and ennobling of public life. Architecture as well as sculpture, painting as well as music, eloquence as well as poetry, will in the future actually be placed, and that, forsooth, in the sense of the high- est end of art, in the service of the collectivity, the State, the people ; the craving of men for ele- vation above the every-day affairs of life will be satisfied through art, and the churches will be changed into temples of art or into theatres. Is it not wonderful that our church-goers, where the want of reason and humanity does not stagger them, are not repulsed at least by the want of poetry and taste? In the simple garden of the Tuileries at Paris, with its statues and promenades, more religion is to be found than in Notre Dame and all the other churches of the metropolis. But what is the garden of the Tuileries in com- parison to public resorts which have been pur- posely created from the desire and the idea to satisfy the ennobled sense of the people for the forms of beauty and the embodiment of thought? An entirely new world is here opened up to man, and to the statesman who has an eye for more than the things of mere vulgar use. On the other hand, he will be filled with anger and dis- gust if he must daily be a witness of the way in 140 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN which the rich means of society are squandered on nonsensical, absurd, and vulgar institutions, while they could so easily be employed for cre- ations which even by their mere external form would elevate the sense of the people, would ennoble its taste, and give its ideas ethical tone. The mere visit to a beautifully located, tastefully arranged promenade has a more ennobling in- fluence upon the coarsest of men than a visit to the most beautiful church; lingering in a beautifully equipped temple of art does more for the moral nature than all temples of "God;" the construc- tion of a single Greek theatre would be more im- portant for civilization than a thousand institutions of " edification." Space does not permit me to develop my ideas on this rich theme more minutely. I will only call attention to the fact that the state of civiliza- tion, or the capacity for civilization, of a people or a single individual can surely be estimated best according to the degree of their susceptibility to the ideas of the democratic world of bemity, an ex- pression by which I mean to comprise everything pertaining to this subject. France, Italy, and Germany are foremost in this respect. In pro- portion to its means, England is the most back- ward ; and if London did not at least have its Westminster Abbey and its excellent parks, ex- cellent, to be sure, more on account of their size than their arrangement, it would be completely AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. I4 1 submerged in shopocracy and priest rule. As far as America is concerned, we cannot make any demands without considering the newness of the life here; but even in spite of this consideration, one can easily feel discouraged and repelled by the preponderance of the spirit of ignorance and materialism throughout public life. And yet American development is perhaps not too far removed from the need of the noble man. The influx of European intellect and the headlong speed of the materialistic scramble will perhaps soon create an opposite tendency which will thrive all the better the fewer the impediments the State institutions will put in its way. Let us, therefore, also hope for a Greek future in America. But as regards the women now, let them, in view of the coming beautiful age of an ennobled Greece, manifest their taste meanwhile in a passive way by learning to do without the confessional and prayers, without nunneries and calvaries. At the same time, let them improve whatever other opportunities present themselves daily, to the end of removing the priesthood and excluding its influence. I will mention only one thing. The Catholic " Church " regards only those marriages as valid that have received her " blessing ;" she does not recognize divorce, and does not permit the remarriage of divorced per- sons. It is reasonable that a power bent at all hazards on subjugating the spirit should attempt 142 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN to make the satisfaction of human needs depend- ent on its permission or conditions, in order to become in this way the mistress of the entire man, and to remind him every moment of his depend- ence. The Catholic " Church " has, therefore, also introduced a great number of fast-days, etc., in order to rule over man even in the matter of eat- ing and drinking. And how should she have for- gotten to rule over him in the matter of sexual love ! But she exercises the most exquisite cruelty of authority by the prohibition which makes it impossible for divorced people to marry again. This prohibition means in other words : " The more unhappy people feel, the more they need our consolation ; the more unhappy mar- riages are, the more occasion have we to intrude into family life, and especially to take advantage of the helpless women. We are the physicians who make the cure of diseases a crime in order to secure the longest possible control of the patients. We must, therefore, seek to prevent the dissolu. tion of marriages ; to that end we refuse to recog. nize divorce ; and in order to erect another barrier against the temptation to secure one nevertheless against our will in a merely legal way, we make it an impossibility or a crime to marry again for those who are narrow enough to regard no mar- riage as valid without the blessing of the priest." It is in the power of women wherever civil mar- riage obtains to upset the humane calculation of AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 143 the priests. Let them content themselves with civil marriage, and after a possible divorce — do the same thing. No sensible woman ought any- longer to consent to the self-degradation of permit- ting the desecrating hand of a priest to " bless " her love. Shame ! These pestilent propagators of ignorance and disgust ! Every bride must cast a doubt on her taste and her loveliness, if she can consent to let a priest bless, i.e., desecrate, her af- fection. I call the attention of women to still another point. I maintain that piety, faith, in brief the occupation with the other world, that is, with a world and with beings that have no existence, is just as pernicious to men's love towards women as the veneration of a ruler makes impossible all true relations among citizens. Whatever a man sends out to an imaginary being beyond the clouds in the shape of feeling, fancy, enthusi- asm, " love," he withdraws from the real beings here who exist before his eyes, who associate with him, and to whom he ought to give his whole heart and mind. But if man will take what he has hitherto wasted on the skies back to the earth, into life, into mankind, then first he will become man in reality and learn to make of his fellow-men what they can and ought to be. Woman becomes his " God," and love his " heaven," and mankind his u immortality." Do not smile, ladies, but regard it as in sober earnest when I say to you : only 144 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN the unbeliever is capable cf truly loving a woman, and piety exists forever only at the expense of true humanity. But to return to our Greek ideal. Ancient Greek life was simple, natural ; the Greek life of the future, as the outgrowth of the entire preced- ing history, will for this reason also prove infi- nitely more varied, more conscious, and nobler. Womankind also must, therefore, be thought of quite differently from what we see in the figures of Greek women, which are indeed noble and classi- cally simple, but for this very reason also some- what monotonous and inflexible. Hitherto we have sought for ideals, in the representations of the plastic arts, especially among the ancient Greeks. I am of the opinion that this has been unjust towards a later development, and has too much disregarded the laws of this development. Who doubts that historical life is progressive in- stead of retrogressive in all directions ? And why, even if classic Greece in its specific combi- nation could not repeat itself as a whole, should not individual elements be found in the entire rich field of history which, if a later age should again construct of them a whole, must produce a richer and nobler life than that of the Greeks has been ? (We do not even mention here the polit- ical anomalies and inhumanities of the Greeks.) It can hardly be contested that we are more ad- vanced than the Greeks, not only in the sciences, AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 1 45 but also in art. But we are not only in advance of them in the wealth of our world of conceptions, of knowledge, of. ideas, of means, but also in more beautiful human ideals. It is that which is gen- erally overlooked in adhering to our stereotyped school education and imitation. Not only in intellectual and spiritual but also in a physical respect our age can show more beautiful human beings than the Greek. The intermingling of the nations, from which the Greeks were still very much excluded, and which, besides, could only take place very gradually, is a means for the per- fection not only of the intellectual but also of the physical man. I have had opportunity to make manifold ob- servations among both sexes of the most diverse nations. The most beautiful women — in order to speak of these — I have found in America and England, at least in so far as concerns color and contour of face. Rut what is generally wanting to those finely cast although sometimes somewhat stereotyped features is the soul. They are, in spite of their purity, too sharp, without softness, intellectual penetration, plasticity, and poetry. They look at us, as it were, like cold crystallizations of beauty, in which there is no ac- tive ferment of passion, or of feeling, or of imag- ination ; in short, no deep soul-life. This beautiful dough of human development is generally desti- tute of the real yeast of feeling and soul. That 146 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN is not only due to the state of culture but, at the same time, to the national mixture. As far as form is concerned, the English women, even when a small French foot might entitle one to the best conclusions, are frequently deformed by a most conspicuous breadth of waist. The mix- ture in America, however much it still betrays the English type, has already produced much more perfect forms than in England. The Eng- lish length of limb, which is so apparent in both men and women, also has already partly been lost. In London a lady told me : " The Englishwomen must be admired, on the balcony, the French on the street." She was not enough of a physiolo- gist to make clear the truth of her assertion by describing the forms. The American women seem to have acquired some French attributes ; perhaps they are only wanting some German ones in order to complete the transition of the femi- nine world into a new Greek era. Ideals of beauty cannot very well be native to those nations which bear too much of a national stamp in their external appearance. The ideal body as well as the ideal mind must be cosmopol- itan, and they are to be found in Germany and France. I believe that according to character as well as physique the French and the Germans, i.e., French men and German women, or German men and French women, are above all destined to estab- AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. \tf lish by intermingling the new generation of a nobler race on European soil. French spirit and German character, German intellect and French vivacity ; French fire and German strength, Ger- man feeling and French grace ; French sense and German sentiment, German thoughts and French impulses ; — those are the elements whose union would necessarily constitute the ideal of true hu- manity, and would correspond with each other as the blue-eyed and the brown-eyed races corre- spond physically. The intermingling of the nations is so important a condition of development that without it we may expect actual stagnation. In those peoples which are most completely shut off from the in- tercourse of the nations civilization is stagnant like a swamp, and only the lower spheres of de- velopment are active. One need only call to mind China, Spain, partly also insular England, especially Ireland. Italy as well as Greece for a long time seemed to be doomed to a similar fate. Perhaps the Austrian admixture was destined to revivify the noble Italian blood to such an ex- tent that it was able to pour itself in new fer- mentation into the stream of human development, and thus subjugation had also in this respect to become a means of progress. It seems, more- over, that the mixture-ferments, which start the development of a people, as for instance in Italy and Greece, outlive themselves after a certain time, I48 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN or lose their vital force, and that then a resus- citation must first take place before develop- ment can thrive anew. I shall not enlarge upon these suggestions. They lead to one of the most interesting speculations concerning the develop- ment of many-sided humanity. I recommend it in passing to the earnest con- sideration of our artists who cannot yet break loose from the old-fogyism of the schools, which leads them again and again to make their studies, instead of among living men, only among dead statues, — instead of in the moving present, only in immobile antiquity. Two thousand years after Christ they will find quite different human ideals than two hundred years before the crucifixion. But the women, I hope, will not resent it if I also direct their attention to the meeting and in- termingling of the nations, which is the quietly effective means for the universal ennobling of hu- manity, but which can take place only in a con- dition of complete liberty where every obstacle of mutual prejudice, mutual embarrassment, and mutual egotism will be torn down. The graces of the arts and the genii of humanity can only take up their abode where a free spirit in free intercourse has domesticated the best and the most beautiful which human development has produced in the course of the centuries. But the philistines will ask why this chapter bears the heading " Religion." AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. I49 THE ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE OF WOMAN. If we are to speak of freedom, and especially of free marriage, we must above all things establish the independence of the individual, and especially the mutual independence of husband and wife. The great question of the times, to secure an existence to every one and thus to protect him, on the one side, from material want and, on the other side, to liberate him from conditions in which material dependence makes him a mere tool of others — this great question concerns no one more closely than the women. Let it but be borne in mind what has been said above of prostitution. Perhaps seven-eighths of the feminine sex are de- pendent, or degraded, or enslaved, or prostituted because — they cannot emancipate themselves eco- nomically from the men. If the solution of the problem of existence, so far as it concerns the male sex, is already difficult enough, in the interests of the women it is still more difficult to solve. The practical course of events brings it about that the men, since they are the makers of history, want their turn to come first and make it come first ; moreover, the men ISO THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN are equipped for the work of life, while the women have hitherto had to attach their existence chiefly to that of the men, and are in general not brought up in a way to be able at once to stand on their own feet. Most women, therefore, are stih in want of one more requisite than the men, namely, the education for work. But let us make it clear to ourselves that one step in progress always presupposes another. If we, therefore, have to recognize the inability of most women under the present circumstances to gain for themselves an independent existence, it does not follow from this that the same conditions will hold for the future. Let us make this clear by laying down several points. i) The State of the future secures to women as well as to men, free of charge, an all-sided oppor- tunity for the development of their native abilities. 2) Education in the future will be considerably facilitated and more equalized between the two sexes, since the sciences become ever more simpli- fied, popularized, and their results made more ac- cessible to every one, while at present their secrets are still hidden behind the learned barricades of the scholars' caste. In the future many a lay per- son will know more than many a professor knows now, for the chaff of unnecessary knowledge will be winnowed away, and true knowledge will reduce everything to the pure kernel. If we consider hereby that women have the same or greater abil- AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 151 ity than men for the learning and executing of a thousand things, but have hitherto only been kept from them by education, we must imagine their circle of activity in the future to be much greater than it has so far been. 3) In a more humane development of the State ever more positions will be opened up in which only the woman will find a place, while in the present state of public affairs men are employed almost exclusively. Let us only think of the future schools of all sorts, the institutions of art, of amusement, the workhouses, hospitals, the institu- tions for the reception of the " enfants de la patrie " (as they very beautifully call the found- lings in Paris), the institutions for the reformation of prostitutes, etc., and we shall find a thousand opportunities not only for the maintenance but for the noble occupation of women of which no one has so far thought. 4) The State will continually gain more means to secure beforehand the satisfaction of the prin- cipal needs of its citizens through public institu- tions, and thus to facilitate or to simplify the individual's care for his existence, and therefore will be able to furnish not only the entire public education free of cost, but also the public amuse- ments and perhaps even the dwellings (at least for those without means). State help will be extend- ed all the more to women, especially the more the principle comes to be recognized that the disabled 152 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN must be maintained by the collectivity, and that those without work must be furnished with ade- quate occupation by the State. These are some of the suppositions from which we must reason in order to judge the future eco- nomic position of women ; and if one considers that the woman requires much less for her maintenance than the man, a great part of the difficulty of self- support will be equalized by her fewer wants. But let this difficulty, to enable the woman to establish an independent existence, be ever so great, it suffices that, as a human being and as a member of the body social, she has the same right to such an existence as the man. The ways and means to solve this problem o*f existence the State of the future will no doubt find when it has created those liberties and those truly democratic institu- tions which permit all legitimate interests to assert themselves, and allow of the unhindered disposition of public means. But when that problem is once solved, woman will gain quite a different esteem and position. She will no longer be forced to sell her body as a tool for lust ; she will no longer be under the necessity of accepting the next best op- portunity to get married, but will be able to make her choice according to her true inclination ; there will be greater opportunity for this than hitherto, for now the impossibility to maintain a family excludes many a man from marriage who could otherwise make a woman happy (the standing AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS, I $3 armies alone, which are to be abolished in the future, condemn thousands to a single life and to prostitution who would in a rational State become useful members of society and good husbands); she will be able to maintain her independence in marriage, and will not submit to unworthy treat- ment from fear of being without the means of sub- sistence after a dissolution of the relationship; she will, in one word, be able as a human being to secure her liberty, as a citizen her right, as a wife her dignity, and as a woman her happiness. But the economic independence of woman, as well as her ethical appreciation, can only be at- tained after the bad conditions of the present are completely changed, and the edifice of the true state has been erected on the ruins of these bad conditions. Therefore the women must join the great public conspiracy, which, where reform is sufficient, will strive to better the condition of humanity by reform and, where revolution is necessary, by revolution. And since a just regula- tion of the economic conditions is thinkable only through a true democracy in which the majority of the suffering can take their interests into their own hands, woman's interests from the start assign her a place in the truly democratic party ; and since the true democracy will hardly be estab- lished anywhere without revolutionary attacks on power and money, woman is from the start as- signed to the revolutionary party. 154 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN LIBERTY AND THE REVOLUTION THE ALLIES OF WOMEN. In the same degree that the true liberty of men is great and well developed the position of women naturally becomes freer and more favorable. Now even if her legal position is as yet nowhere equal to that of the male sex, because complete liberty has as yet nowhere become a reality, it still is important to recognize by illustrations the differences in the shaping of the destinies of women as the results of the greater or lesser liberties of a people. Let us for this purpose contrast North Ameri- ca with monarchical countries. In the greater part of Europe the legal enactments which deter- mine the legal position of women are sometimes the outcome of manifest barbarity. The Code Napoleon, for instance, surrenders women entirely to the lusts of men by prohibiting the establish- ment of the paternity of an illegitimate child.* But the man has full power over the woman, as he can compel her with the help of the police to remain in his house, while the opposite is not the case. * Code Napoleon, art. 340: La recherche de la paternite est interdite. — Translator. AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 155 The man is the master and guardian over the wife and her children. The Prussian government, forced by the fruits of its military system, stands by illegimate children in so far as to permit suits for alimony, etc.; but to make up for this it grants the husband the right by means of " mild chas- tisement " to remind his wife of the fact that she is at bottom nothing but his slave. In North America we have at least overcome such ideas of right ; and even if the rights of woman are neither completely recognized nor guarded here, the consciousness of the wrong that is being done them, and the endeavor to do them justice, find expression in social life as well as in law. The attention which the Americans show to the women in social intercourse is known the world over. But far be it from me to take it for any- thing else than a sort of conventional sin-offering for rights withheld. It is for the most part mere gal- lantry. But there are no more dangerous "virtues " than piety and gallantry. Behind the first, ras- cality is wont to hide itself ; behind the latter, coarseness. Gallantry is nothing more than a cheap substitute for true appreciation, the justice of which is felt more than admitted ; it is a decep- tive humility with which one deceives himself and others concerning the arrogance that is hidden behind it. But since it springs just as much from a vague perception as from conscious arrogance, it /56 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN is at once a proof of the necessity or the inclina- tion to grant to women what belongs to them. The consciousness of the wrong due towards women is moreover expressed in American legisla- tion. It is indeed much that the men have con- ceded to women the right to put them out of con- ceit with their own want of principle by allowing the women to claim a mere promise of marriage as a binding contract. But, on the other hand, this legal precaution shows that the least conception of the true essence of marriage is wanting, for a re- lationship which is brought about only through the intervention of the police is no marriage from the start, but an institution of force which can only breed disaster. And such regulations gener- ally accrue only to the benefit of unworthy women who either disclaim all feeling of self-respect and honor to such a degree that they will allow a man to be bound to them by force who is not drawn to them by any inclination, or who are low enough to actually speculate on promises of marriage in order to get themselves provided for. Whether, moreover, the right to establish a promise of mar- riage by a mere oath is not most dangerous in a moral respect is a question which experience is not slow to answer.* * The following interesting case of perjury is said to have hap- pened in Philadelphia several years ago. A handsome young man is summoned before the judge to give an explanation of himself concerning a promise of marriage. He does not remem- AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. I $7 " Liberty and equality" must not only be realized with regard to classes, but also with regard to the sexes. From this we are still far removed, even in America. Especially the marriage and divorce laws, as we have seen above, are still sufficiently barbaric here. The above-mentioned symptoms, however, coupled with isolated regulations, which partly emancipate the women from the economic control of the men, as well as isolated attempts to increase this emancipation through legislation, plainly show how great a start the liberty of American women has already secured, as com- ber ever having made such a promise. But the judge sets aside all doubts by the assurance on oath of a beautiful lady with whom the young man after various denials is finally con- fronted. He had never seen the lady. But she insists that he, on the occasion of a secret rendezvous, has promised to marry her, and claims him for a husband. The astonished candi- date for marriage assures her that her beauty and amiability gave the best proof to the contrary, for force was not needed to make him the husband of a woman who was fitted to meet all his requirements, and for this reason she would certainly believe him if he insisted that he had never seen her before. The lady, however, adheres to her oath, and the marriage is concluded at once. On the way home the young wife confesses to her hus- band that his appearance had long ago excited her love, but as she found no opportunity to make his acquaintance, she at last struck upon the desperate expedient of seeking it by means of perjury. Now after having attained her end she gave him back his full liberty and would, in case he should want a di- vorce, agree to it at once. The divorce, however, was not sought. 158 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN pared with that of European women, in a legal respect. But their chief advantage consists in the liberty to agitate, and in that freedom from prejudice which allows them to themselves take an active part in the work of emancipation, as the woman, conventions have shown. But with this liberty they have not yet accom- plished enough. True liberty does not appear like an oasis in the desert of barbarity surrounding it. Liberty, wherever it appears, stands in the closest connection, in constant interchange, with all other branches of development and with all mundane conditions. There is no narrower prejudice than that which considers American development in- dependent of European development, which is its mother. That does not- only concern politicians, but also women. I do not speak of the fact that American women can gain an infinitely greater store of conceptions from the literature of Ger- many and France, from the profound discussions of the social and humane questions in Europe, than from the limited literature of materialistic America. But I should especially like to make it clear to them that it is indirectly for their greatest interest to see the ideas which have been awakened through German and French literature translated to action and life by the victory of the European revolution. The victory of the European revolu- tion Over barbarity and darkness will also have an AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 1 59 immense influence upon North America. If the air has been cleared by a thunder-shower over there, many a cloud will likewise disappear in the West from the heaven of humanity. The world has not yet been turned around, and now as be- fore the sun will rise in the East, even if the rev- olution of our earthly sphere begins from the West. As I have shown in a former article, wholesale murder, the warrior's trade, constitutes the chief advantage upon which the male sex, consciously or unconsciously, founds its chief prerogative as against the feminine sex. What now will be the chief result of the victory of the European revolu- tion? The interest which American women have in this victory can be made clear in a short series of conclusions. What directly establishes the predominance of men and their inhuman tyranny over women ? As We have seen, war, wholesale murder. Who causes the wars with all their conse- quences of bestiality, and in whose favor are they waged ? In favor of monarchs ! What enables monarchs to wage these wars, and what continually dulls the judgment in regard to the outrage of the " glorious " trade of murder ? The standing armies! How can monarchs, wars, and standing armies be abolished in Europe? By establishing repub- lics ! l6o THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN What will be the universal consequence of Europe republicanized ? Peaceful union of the nations and mutual disarmament ! What follows from all this ? The great interest which American women have in the establishment of the European republic ! Thus the republicanization of Europe is an af- fair whose result must have revolutionizing influ- ence on the conditions and the development of the whole world, especially of America. Will America have to remain prepared for war when the main portion of the world is republicanized, the nations are fraternized, and their destiny taken out of the hands of the barbarous god of war and placed in the hands of a peaceful congress of nations ? Will playing soldiers, which for the men of this republic seems to have become the only poetry of national life, still have any reason for being? When this military diversion for the national mind shall have ceased, will not nobler conceptions and needs force themselves to the surface ? Is not militarism the prop of everything unfree, and the foil for every vulgarity ? But vul- garity is the greatest evil of North America. This vulgarity also makes all true national life and national festivity impossible, whereby women lose every opportunity of making their influence felt in public social intercourse, and of making themselves appreciated. AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS, l6t These suggestions will suffice for far-seeing women to justify me in positively declaring that the European revolution is the most power- ful ally of the women of America as well as of Europe. 1 62 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN CONCLUSION. WOMEN in geiieral still make themselves the slaves of fashion ; their heart is set on gewgaws, and they grow enthusiastic over a thousand trifles. To please women in general one must be a man without intellect or heart. Women in general — but why talk of all these things? I pass them by all the more readily because they stand in relation with most of the chief evils examined above. This examination, the critical and reformatory survey of the existing chief evils, their causes, their relation, and the means of abolishing them, was the only thing of importance. The fair readers must have become convinced by this survey that their oppression, their depend- ence, their degradation is founded on the rule of force, the rule of money, and the rule of priests. It must, therefore, have become clear to them that they cannot depend on an improvement of their lot before the liberty and the right of all men have been attained, the existence of all men has been secured, and AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 163 the essence and dignity of all men have been recognized in purely human conceptions. Everything that they can be and can wish for depends on these three points: their liberty, their rights, their dignity, their social position, their marital happiness, their love, their education, their everything. Therefore these three points also suffice as a guide to women for the direction which their antipathies and sympathies, their hate and their love must take. Let all despotism with its sup- porters, all aristocracy of wealth with its rep- resentatives, all religious humbug with its priests, be recommended to the hatred and the abhorrence of the women ; let liberty with its champions, socialism with its apostles, reason with its teachers, appeal to the love and sympathy of all women of right thought and noble feeling, whose striving, whose interests, whose happiness, whose future do indeed lie only in the path of these revolu- tionary motors. Let them but smile upon you, entice you, flatter you, those brilliant despots, those perfumed slave- holders, those gay soldiers, those suave diplo- matists, those proud money-lords, those fawning priests — turn your backs on them, cast them from you with contempt, and swear to them the hatred of destruction, for they are the creators of your slavery, the fathers of your shame, the teachers of your degradation. Only free men are your 164 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN friends, and only with the era of complete liberty and justice does the morning of your true being dawn for you. Powerless and degraded as you have hitherto been, you can attain to power and distinction from the moment that you combine with the cor- rect appreciation of your ends the sincere will to serve them. Your tender hands are a thousand- fold able to interfere in the course of events and the actions of men, if you will only put them in the service of your hatred and your love, and if you will hate what is bad and love what is right. You can encourage and deter ; you can reward and you can punish ; you can twine wreaths and crowns of thorns. If a virgin, cast off your suitor if he does not prove himself a servant of liberty. If a wife, desert your husband if he deserts the cause of liberty. If a mother, rear your children on the milk of liberty, and early enflame in their hearts the hatred for tyranny, that the dagger of Harmodious and Aristogeiton may become the plaything of their youth. Look about you in Europe! It lies down- trodden beneath the feet of those in whose eyes your entire sex is nothing but a herd of servants and whores, under the feet of those who have had you flogged beneath the gallows on which they had hanged your husbands and sons. What will AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 165 your future be if in the impending struggles these men again remain the victors? Look about you in America ! It was approach- ing a time which was to put the stamp of .slavery on this entire republic in the name of " democracy." And what would your future have been if this slaveholder democracy had not been overthrown ? The poison of corruption would have corroded all moral conceptions, and the passion of vul- garity have severed all moral ties ; expoliation would have completed the right of the stronger, and degradation would have completed the law of the weaker ; power would have been taught to rule everything, and money to buy everything; the recognition of the rights of man would have become a stupidity, and the assertion of humanity treason ; the standard of the slave- holder would have measured every interest, and the interest that would have been felt for you would have been nothing more than that felt for the women in Europe. Well, slavery has been abolished, but its chief supports, vulgarity, wealth, the priesthood, have come into the inheritance, and they will endeavor to keep you in a state of semi-slavery until you help to make them harmless by championing science, justice, and enlightenment. Must you still be told what you are to love and what you are to hate, in America as well as in Europe ? 1 66 7^HE RIGHTS OF WOMEN The reaction everywhere reveals three points : force, money rule, priesthood. The points of the opposition are : liberty, justice, reason. The points of the reaction are always the proper tar- gets for the hatred, the points of the opposition always the proper objects for the sympathy, of women. For they, as the weaker party, are al- ways the ones whom the victory of the reaction, continuing to operate, affects most disastrously, and, as the most disqualified party, they are always the ones who receive the greatest aid for their interests in the most radical opposition. In Europe it is the banner of the revolution, in America the banner of radical democracy, which leads the hosts on towards the time when the free woman can proudly rejoice by the side of the freeman. On the grave of the tyrants blooms your liberty, from the ruins of aristocracy arise your rights. Therefore follow the banner of the revolution in Europe, and the banner of radical democracy in America! It is not for us alone ; no, it is for you yourselves, ye women, if you heed the call of the time which says to you : Women must enter the ranks of the revolution for the object is the revolution of humanity. POSTSCRIPT. In a footnote to my preface, the translator of the foregoing treatise has clearly defined her views regarding the means to be employed in the at- tainment of the common aim, and which she con- siders as radically divergent from those of the au- thor, without, however, in my opinion, at the same time stating the position of her opponent just as clearly. For this reason, as well as in the interest of a better understanding of the matter under dis- cussion, I take occasion to set forth clearly, by means of a succinct resume, Heinzen's views with regard to the important factors in the develop- ment of mankind touched upon by the point at issue. It seems to me it will be seen that there are more points of contact in regard to the subject treated therein between the esteemed translator and the author of this treatise, and that at bottom she does not entertain such fundament- ally divergent views from his as she feels bound to assume. Heinzen defines the conception of the " State " succinctly as follows : u ' Democracy.' I supply this term with quota- tion-marks to indicate that I merely borrow it. For at bottom it does not mean what in the radi- 167 l68 POSTSCRIPT. cal sense it ought to mean. Democracy (popular rule) is by no means an expression for a rational or appropriate conception. Where there is au- thority, there must also be servants. But a free people know neither the one nor the other. Over whom are the people to rule ? Even their office- holders and agents they can only entrust and com- mission with their affairs. The term democracy came into use simply to denote an opposition to an authority over the people. The people are not to be ruled by others, from which it does not fol- low, however, that now the people themselves are to establish an authority, but that all authority must disappear. And with the conception of au- thority the conception of government will vanish. All that remains and all that is necessary is a com- mon administration according to general vote, a supervision of the common interests conducted by the requisite personnel under general control. Control is not authority. " Of an individual freely attending to his affairs or promoting his interests we say neither that he governs nor that he is governed. Just as little can we say so of a society of individuals who form a voluntary association for a common purpose and call this association a State. And if 'for the prac- tical attainment of their purpose they entrust or commission certain persons with certain functions, the exercise of these functions will as little consti- tute an authority or a government as the control of POSTSCRIPT. 169 a joint-stock company or any other joint enterprise by a board of experts and trustees. The conception of authority ought, therefore, to be entirely exclud- ed from radical political thought, and with it the term denoting it. The term republic comes much nearer to expressing the nature of a free State than the term democracy. The most proper term perhaps would be, the commonwealth (Gemeinwe- sen). The popular conception of the State is still tainted by the dominating influence of the exam- ples of the past, the historical models, and therefore most men cannot conceive of even the freest State without a dualism of the people and a special power which is called authority and government. Only by a thorough analysis of the conceptions authority and government do we reach a correct understanding of what is meant to be expressed by the term ' democracy,' but what it does not express. " It is surely not necessary to parry the objec- tion that this definition of the State will lead to what in its bad or good sense is called Anarchy. Anarchy in its bad sense is barbarism, and in its good sense an impossibility. State and Anarchy are contradictions, for a State is as little conceiv- able zvitlwut as Anarchy with organization. " But organization in the free State is nothing more than order and arrangement of business. I should therefore define it thus : The State is, on a common ground, an association of free and, before I/O POSTSCRIPT. the law, equal individuals for the object of facili- tating and securing the realization of the life pur- poses of each individual through the proper au- thorized agents by means of their jointly created and supervised institutions, laws, and resources. " Such a definition of the State — and it is the only correct one — at once directs each to the claims that he has to make, but, at the same time, to the task that he has to perform. It makes of him as it were a State business partner, but it also makes the degree of the satisfaction of his claims dependent on his direct and indirect participation in the administration of the business. " North America is regarded as a ' democratic ' State, and the people in general have learned to put faith in this term. The true significance of this term must become plain to them if, in the con- templation of existing conditions and their power of influencing them, they will take the above defini- tion for a standard. It will appear that we have indeed an authority here, but an authority over the people — a relation that is not improved, but only made worse, by the fact that the people themselves elect their ruler and are thus under the illusion that they govern. Whoever has made this clear to him- self, and surveys the chasm existing between the truly free State, as it has been defined above, and the State we actually have here, he alone will be able to correctly estimate the consequences of the repeated endeavors to still farther extend POSTSCRIPT. 171 this authority, and appreciate the necessity of meeting them by the timely spread of radical con- ceptions of the State. " It having already been sufficiently discussed in the pamphlet * What is True Democracy ?', I re- frain in this place from any further exposition of the fundamentally anti-democratic representative system, according to which the people surrender themselves powerlessly into the hands of executive as well as legislative representatives who are both irresponsible and, during their term of office, in- accessible. The essential requirement of a free people, on which all others depend, is universal suffrage, and this primary right is partly wanting entirely, and partly threatened where it exists. "All reasons which are brought forward to justi- fy departures from universal suffrage are only sham reasons. Not only the considerations of human rights, but even the considerations of expediency, admit of absolutely no exception. Logically con- ceived and carried out, exclusion from suffrage would have to mean exclusion from the State as well. A person without suffrage is an alien, while citizen and voter must be identical. Where the principle of equal rights is once departed from, there no longer any limit is to be drawn fordisen- franchisement. If capacity is to decide, where then is incapacity to end ? And who is to judge of capacity ? But if even property is to be taken as a standard, is not the possessor thus by a two- 172 POSTSCRIPT. fold preponderance made completely the master of the dependent poor ? There is no more mons- trous arrogance than to grant to property over and above the advantages it already confers also the privilege of authority, a privilege to which, if it were ever justifiable, only the deepest insight and the most disinterested concern for the gen- eral welfare could grant a claim. " The dangers which are predicted by the oppo- nents of equal rights are only imaginary, and in the course of time will disappear of themselves. The power of incapacity decreases with increased op- portunity to test itself ; and where, as a result of former neglect, it causes the State temporary em- barrassments, the latter has to overcome them by a proper expiation of its own guilt. The State is as little exempt as the individual from the necessity of either atoning for former mistakes by righting them, or of multiplying them to work its own ruin. The negro slaves had placed this country before such an alternative, and it decided itself for the saving expedient in the eleventh hour. After justice had been done to the negroes, at least as far as form is concerned, the women knocked at the doors of the Capitol. We too, they say, are human beings and are called citizens ; we too are a part of the people, and not its worst part ; we too want to have a part in the associated business which is called State. You speak of democracy and exclude one half of society from it, in order POSTSCRIPT. 173 that you as privileged class and usurpers of the State may rule over them. Even if you had abol- ished all other forms of authority, that of sex, the most senseless of all, you still allow to stand. Do you fear, perchance, that by granting us equal rights you will reap the fruits of the education which you have given us ? Very well ; it is in your power to give us a different one. Or do you fear that we would destroy the ruinous fruits of your own education ? Very well ; then allow them to increase until they have ruined you. No other outlet will lead to your as well as to our welfare than justice, and the sooner you will practise it the better it will be both for you and for us. If you do not wish to take upon yourself the risk of the transition, then take upon yourself the risk of destruction. " Upon due consideration all the evils and dan- gers which are ascribed to the realization of the equal rights of man in the State are only tem- porary and fancied. In any case this realization is a categorical imperative of evolution, which can be silenced only by an honest recognition, and the inauguration and preservation of universal suffrage is its first guarantee. There are thou- sands who possess this right and do not exercise it. Whatever the reason for this neglect may be, let him who has never voted hasten to the polls at least when the issue is to preserve the suffrage for those who already possess it, or to secure it for those who still want it." K. S. PREFACE TO PART II. At last I am in the position to fulfill my promise stated at the conclusion of my preface to the first edition of "The Rights of Women," namely: "to continue the publication in English translation of the immortal treasures of Heinzen's thoughts and thus make them accessible to the American read- ing public." Seven years have elapsed since, and I feel in duty bound to say that adverse circumstances of a peculiar nature, which I do not care to enlarge upon here, were responsible for the long delay in publishing the enlarged volume, the manuscript whereof had been ready for the press a long time ago. However, I desire to say this much: Said delay was not due to an insufficient or a tardy sale of the book, which, on the contrary, sold so well that the 2,500 copies of the first edition were dis- posed of within a imonth after publication, and a second edition had to be printed. I cherish the hope that the present work will fare as well, for its excellent contents certainly merit it, the 176 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN same being fully of the high standard of its predecessor, mirroring the brilliant genius of the author on every page. Its tendency concerns mainly the emancipation of women as to the political and social aspect of the question, while the first part almost exclusively treats upon the sexual rela- tions. It is hardly necessary to state for the information of the reader that the "Convention of German women in Frauenstadt" is a fiction, but it may not be amiss to remark that the report of the same ap- peared for the first time in 1869 in the form of an editorial correspondence in "Der Pionier," a weekly paper edited and published by Heinzen in Boston for more than a quarter of a century until 1879, when a serious illness of Heinzen, caused by an apoplectic stroke, imperiously demanded the cessa- tion of his literary work, and in consequence there- of the discontinuance of the publication *of "Der Pionier." This fearless weekly during its existence gladdened the hearts and fired the courage of its readers by the presentation in its columns of the most thorough-going investigations and elucida- tions in every department of useful knowledge — lit- erary, political, economical and ethical treatises being the topics of every issue. Its appearance was an AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. *77 ever occurring holiday to the educated, cultured and progressive minds of honest truth-seekers, from the first number to the last; it is safe to say that at no time and among no nation there ever was published a paper that breathed a like independent, bold and humane spirit. Heinzen was among the first in- trepid champions of the emancipation of woman, incessantly vindicating the rights of the fair sex to liberate the better half of mankind from the despot- ism of the "lord and master," and the drudgery of a degrading thraldom. Regarding his controversy with Arnold Ruge, the renowned German philosopher, who lived at that time in exile at Brighton, England, about the emancipation and rights of women, which appeared also in "Der Pionier" in the year 1855, it may be necessary to explain that the same was carried on by him under the nom de plume of Luise Meyen. It created not a small sensation in the German liter- ary world; the wonderful logic, boldness and poet- ical beauty that characterize the utterances of the intrepid Luise were without comparison, and considering the fact that they were uttered by a woman on a subject at that time yet so foreign even to the advanced mind, the readers were puzzled as to the genuineness of the authoress' name. A large 178 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN number of curious inquiries rained upon the editor in reference to the real existence and whereabouts of Luise Meyen. Similar occurrences repeated themselves in regard to Julie vom Berg and other pseudonyms which Heinzen, for the sake of anima- tion and diversion, occasionally assumed. The detested cause of the emancipation of woman was espoused by Heinzen at a time when it required more than ordinary moral courage to do so, but in spite of the scorn and ostracism of his fellow-citi- zens there was with him only one divinity, Reason ; only one worship, the cultivation of Truth ; only one Right, the right to life and liberty; only one Duty, the duty of assisting mankind to happiness. I desire yet to state that "Der Pionier" had a world-wide reputation and circulation, wherever the German tongue reigned; in Europe and America it had its readers among the most advanced and cul- tured minds, and when the report of the fictitious convention first appeared therein in such a master- ful style and imitation it created an unusual sensa- tion here and abroad. The collected works of Heinzen as far as pub- lished constitute eleven volumes, the translation of which into English and their publication in that language is a task gradually to be accomplished. AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 179 The time advances and heretofore unpopular radical ideas lose their horror and become more and more the property of the masses. In conclusion I take the liberty of announcing to the reader that the next volume I expect to publish will contain a series of Heinzen's immortal philo- sophical, political and ethical essays, treatises and lectures, namely, "Six Letters to a Pious Man;" "Man's Relation to Nature," "Happiness and Un- happiness ;" "Has the World a Purpose?" "The Ger- mans and the Americans;" "Truth;" "Mankind the Criminal;" "The Future;" "What Is Humanity?" "The True Character of Humboldt" (an oration); "What Is Real Democracy?" "Communism and So- cialism;" "Bad Virtues and Good Vices." KARL SCHMEMANN. Detroit, Mich., October, 1898. PART II. LUISE MEYEN ON MEN AND WOMEN. (From "Der Pionier" of July 15, 1855.) THE RIGHTS AND CONDITION OF WOMEN. OPEN LETTER TO DR. A. RUGE, LONDON. In No. 25 of "Der Pionier" I have read a corre- spondence in which you express yourself in such a peculiar manner, on the legitimate sphere of my sex, that I take the liberty to ask you for further elucidation of your views on this point. I beg you to pardon my audacity as due to the special interest that every liberal minded member of the feminine sex takes in hearing thoughtful men express them- selves exhaustively and frankly, on a question that is still conceived of in such different ways. While one man would have every difference in the rights of the male and female sex abolished, and have all treated as human beings, on a footing of perfect equality, others, who likewise lay claim to a correct judgment, leave the human being out of considera- tion entirely, and consider only sex, and would en- dow each with different rights, according to its weakness, or the mission ascribed to it. You must not be surprised, after your remarks in "Der Pio- 1 82 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN nier," if I count you among the latter — that is, among those men who, ascribing certain occupa- tions and duties to women, would mete out rights to them according to man's estimate of these duties. Yes, permit me to say, you treat women as beings of such inferiority that you deal out our rights to us with the soup ladle, as it were. For the chief ob- jection, which you seem inclined to oppose to equal rights, is contained in the remark that the domestic affairs, especially the kitchen, would have to suffer if women were to take part in public life. Do you really wish to be taken seriously? Granted that the household could not be so promptly attended to as it is now; granted that men's gallantry would not also improve with their improved sense of justice toward us, so that they would not be willing to pre- pare their own coffee occasionally, while we at- tended a meeting, I ask only this: Do you place the kitchen above human rights? I do not be- grudge men anything that they desire, but I must openly declare, if they want their kitchen run at the expense of our human rights they are welcome to a thorough fast, now and then, that they may learn to take care of themselves. Rather than teach men that the weaker sex has fewer rights than they, because it must cook for them, they ought them- selves to be taught to cook, instead of Greek and Latin. That the kitchen will have to suffer when men spend half of each day in the saloon, and half of AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 183 their income for drink, tobacco, etc., and that this is a real calamity for the household, and the family, no one seems to take into account, in considering the theory of human rights; but if women were granted the liberty to devote a few hours weekly or monthly to attending meetings and deliberations on their human rights, this would, according to your opinion, be as great a misfortune for the household and the family as "if the husband should fall on the battlefield." How little men's ideas of rights have yet been developed or purified is proved by nothing so much as by the fact that they would sooner deny the rights of women than find any fault with their abuse of their own rights. I must confess that remarks which apply the standard of kitchen interests to the human rights of women struck me as rather strange in the mouth of a man whom I class among our acutest thinkers and most humane politicians. According to your theory, we women would have some prospects of attaining our rights if there were no cooking to be done. You thus make us wish that humanity might return to a state of nature in which the men would' not even be the masters of the house, because there would be no houses, and would be glad to. eat their food raw. As a man of principle you must admit that, in as- certaining rights, the difficulties that existing con- ditions of disqualification place in the way of their practical realization can not be taken into account. 1 84 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN In practice, this point will receive due attention of its own accord ; in theory we have only to establish the principle, pure and simple, and I am sorry to say, we are still occupied with the mere theory. The question then is simply this: are we women human beings, as well as the men, and have we, accordingly, the same human rights, or no? Do we exist for our own sake, or do we exist only as the slaves of men? Are we therefore entitled to participate in the mak- ing of the laws, which we are to obey in human so- ciety, or must we allow men to dictate these laws to us? Have we a right to assert our wishes and inter- ests in the social institutions, or must we, without choice, be content with the institutions which men alone have created? Is our intelligence, our opposi- tion, our voice, to direct our fate, or are we, in blind submission, to recognize and acknowledge men as our providence and our gods? Only after these questions, whose consequences will then present themselves as a matter of course, have been answered, a consideration of the practical difficulties, which never yet have killed a correct principle, will be in order. You are in favor of the emancipation of the negro slaves, and will not deny them a hair's breadth of the rights which you claim for yourself. But is there any question which presents greater practical diffi- culties than this? You can change a monarchy into a republic over night, but it will take a whole life- time to change negro slaves into beings who will AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 185 know how to use their human rights, and, moreover, the "households" of their present "owners" would receive quite a different shock by the emancipation of the slave than would that of a republican or so- cialist, if his wife were to take part in a deliberation, on, let us say, the reformation of the marriage laws. Yet these difficulties are nothing to you, in tne dis- cussion of the question, whether negroes are human beings and have human rights. But while you are liberal and just toward the ne- groes, do you want to place women below the ne- gro? The interests of the slave-owner are none of your concern, in the emancipation of the negro ; but will you let the privilege of the frying-pan concern you in the emancipation of women? Do not think that I am cruelly indifferent to the dreadful suffering that men would be subjected to if their emancipated wives would occasionally allow the roast to scorch, or if the coffee should be served five minutes later than usual, or if a missing button could not be instantly replaced. No, indeed, I appre- ciate this auffering thoroughly, and I sympathize beforehand with all men who may meet with such a fate. But I take comfort in the thought that devel- opment is never onesided, that inventions for the common good will go hand in hand with the prog- ress in human rights, and that when once we shall have progressed as far as "the emancipation of woman," we shall also have learned the art of secur- ing ithe roast against scorching, of always keeping 1 86 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN the coffee in readiness, and of fastening buttons, without the aid of a needle. It is only necessary for us women to fully realize wherein the obstacle against our emancipation really consists, and when men have called our attention to the fact, that we must look for it in the defective cooking appliances, etc., we shall certainly give all our thought and en- ergy to perfecting them. AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. ^7 OPEN LETTER TO DR. ARNOLD RUGE, LONDON. (From "Der Pionier" of Oct. 7, 1855) Your answer to my provocation, as you call it, has, in spite of all your protestations to the contrary, only strengthened my suspicion that in your heart you have a poor opinion of women, and do not con- cede them equal rights with men. Or, indeed, if I am to spare you this suspicion, I can do it only by taking recourse to a supposition which is equally far from being flattering, namely, that you have not yet comprehended, or are not able to comprehend, what a woman's purpose really is, when she desires to become a free human being. First, I wish to set you at ease with regard to my personal position, as it seems to be of importance to you in the treatment of the question at issue, whether I am Mrs. or a Miss. I am neither, and do not want to be either of the two, 'but I place some value upon being a "woman," to ithe use of which term in the essay of Mr. Heinzen you do object. I have not looked for, or addressed, either the husband or the bachelor in you, but the man, or the male human being; why do you not content yourself with the woman, or the female human being? The subject of our controversy is human rights, but neither Mrs.' nor Misses' rights. 1 88 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN But least of all are we concerned with the rights of "beauty." You address me as "fair lady" and "beautiful Luise." How do you know that I am beautiful, and what has beauty to do with our question? Do you share the belief of the officers of the guards who have such a high opinion of women that they expect their stock compliments to be ef- fective in every case, whether they are appropriate or not? I have long since outgrown the folly of considering beauty as of chief importance, or of feeling flattered on being admired; but if I had not yet outgrown it, beauty would lose greatly in my estimation, by seeing it degraded to serve as a stock compliment to a philosopher who has never seen me. As little as it is to the credit of friendship to have everybody address the next one as "dear friend," so little is it to the advantage of beauty, to call an unknown person beautiful, at random, who may possibly be very homely. What would you say if I were to address you as "pretty sir" or "beau- tiful Arnold?" I do not know whether you deserve such an appellation. But even if I knew you to be an Apollo, I would not call you so, in an open letter, in order not to wrong your beauty by an appearance of mere flattery; and if I were in doubt about it, I would all the more refrain from speaking, in order not to offend you with what might possibly be irony. But why, I ask, do you not observe the same atti- tude toward me? Because you — you yourself have asked not to be spared — with the contemptuous air AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 189 of an officer of the guards, regard women as inferior beings, or toys, whom you think to amuse with the most trivial flatteries, or with compliments which sound doubly shallow, coming from such as you; or whom you think to silence with a bit of irony. It is an apparently trivial matter to which I am here giving so much space, but you will have to admit that there is more in it than most men think, and, I add, most women, too. That the majority of my sex take these shallow compliments, which at bot- tom are nothing but insults, as signs of respect, has often made me indignant, and I could only excuse them on the ground that their education by men has left their minds so empty that they cannot attain to any consciousness of their position and dignity. I shall now take up the important points. The emancipation of woman seems to me to be an ex- pression not well chosen, and easily misunderstood. What is necessary is not to emancipate the woman, but rather the human being in the woman. If we speak of the emancipation of woman, men at once assume that woman is to be introduced into an un- womanly sphere; but the emancipation of the human being in woman signifies that she is to come into possession of the common human rights, of which she is still for the most part dispossessed, and which nobody can deny her upon any tenable grounds. Self-determination, the preservation of our human rights, without let or hindrance in every direction, the possibility of educating ourselves for i go THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN everything for which we have any inclination or calling, the pursuit of our happiness according to our own judgment and our own will, that is what the female human being must be able to claim for herself, as well as the male, but that is what is still everywhere, directly or indirectly, denied her, and withheld from her. I would not have thought it possible that even you would have resource to the untenable objec- tions which I have hundreds of times been obliged to refute in conversation, but which are almost sure to be brought up again, as often as the rights of the female being are discussed with a male being. You, too, persuade yourself, or try to persuade your readers, that we women demanded — how abso- lutely crazy — with this emancipation of ours, the liberty to shoulder a musket, to be pressed into a regiment of soldiers, to go to sea as sailors, in short, to do just those very. things which are quite as con- trary to our wishes as to our nature. What would you say, if I should keep my canary bird caged lest he fall upon and devour my doves and hens? Men treat us just as idiotically as I would in such a case treat my canary bird. Of a canary bird you expect that in a state of liberty he would follow his nature, and use his faculties, but of a woman you expect that in a state of liberty she would change her na- ture, and force herself to do things for which she has as little ability as inclination. How you come to such assumptions is absolutely incomprehens-r AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 191 ible to me. Do we fear, perhaps, that emancipated men would seize our knitting, or sit down by the embroidery frame? Or do you, too, want to frighten us with that bugbear of public duty, and deny us the use of our rights, because we are not able to undertake everything that the present condition of society imposes on its members, as a duty? Should we be slaves, because we are not able, for instance, to become instruments for the preservation of slav- ery — that is, soldiers — like the men? But even men, among themselves, do not measure their rights, ac- cording to their respective abilities, to fulfill public duties. The weak, the cripples, are absolved from military service, without, therefore, being deprived of the least of their human and civil rights; but women are to be disfranchised, because they have not the nature or the limbs of a grenadier. Whence this contradiction? I think you may just as well lay aside your anxiety that we would crowd upon the battlefields and ships, if the right were granted us to do that which our ability and inclination leads us to do, as you might have spared us the lesson that we — women — are not men. You may take offense or not, but I must tell you frankly that at first, of course only at first, I laughed aloud when I learned from your answer that it was the destiny of women to become mothers. In order to learn that, Mr. Ruge, no one need study philosophy; nor need a philosopher fear that we might unlearn this destiny, or be tempted to be- 192 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN come fathers. You will, indeed, have to admit that we have never extended such compliments to the masculine intellect as you have <to the feminine. It has never occurred to a woman to teach man that it is their destiny to become fathers. I am almost tempted to interpret your words as the most bitter irony. That men have denied us the right to be- come mothers, that complaint, Mr. Ruge, we surely never had any occasion to make.* If they had always been as solicitous about every- thing else as they have been about maternity, we ♦Just after I had read your admonitions upon our destiny to become mothers, I accidentally came across a statistical notice, from which I gathered the following. The number of the known criminal assaults against women, for the year 1854, in this "free country," is no less than three thousand five hundred. In forty-eight of these cases the violated woman was likewise murdered, or died in consequence of the injuries she had received. One hun- dred and eighty-nine women committed suicide, and of these one hundred and twenty-seven did so in consequence of seduction or rape. .Whoever is acquainted with local conditions will not accuse me of exaggeration if I double these known cases, by way of adding those that have not become known. We would thus have before us, for a single year, at least ten thousand men who, as criminals, professed the doc- trine of the destiny of women to become mothers. Do not think that I intend this statistical information as a complement to yours. But you can surely not blame me if I call upon the friends of humanity, who lecture women on motherhood, to first help make them free, fully qualified human beings, in humane conditions. If women had the right to humanize these conditions, surely the time would soon be past when men could be- come beasts with impunity. AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 193 women would never have had any cause of com- plaint. No, they do not hinder us from becoming mothers, any more than from becoming cooks, and it is always either the hearth or the cradle, to which they refer us when we speak of our human rights. Has a woman ever objected on the ground of pa- ternity, when a man claimed his human rights? No more than it ever occurred to a woman to deny a man the right of suffrage because he was by pro- fession a tailor, a baker, etc. But how is it with the rights of those women who have never been mothers, or who have met with the fate of Niobe? According to your logic, they have no destiny as human beings, and whoever has no destiny, why should he have rights? But I want to examine your information concern- ing maternity from another point of view. Just be- cause she is a mother, woman has double claims upon the exercise of rights which man assumes for himself alone. Just because of maternity she must demand that she shall not, on account of social con- ditions, which she cannot change without being fully qualified as a human being and a citizen, be driven perhaps from want, into the arms of a man, through whom she would never have become a mother, could she have acted independently; just because she is a mother, she must demand such an education as will fit her to become the educator of her child; just because she is a mother, she has the deepest interest in exerting an influence upon those 194 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN state institutions in which the fate of her child is hereafter decided; just because she is a mother, she must be able to exert an influence in the passing of laws, through which she, to her own and her chil- drens' ruin, may be held in hateful bondage; just because she is a mother, she must demand the possi- bility of occupying an independent position, in order to be still a mother, after the father has ceased to be a father; just because she is a mother, she must strive to assist in changing conditions, which are daily cursed by infanticides; just because she is a mother, she must have a right to her child, which the man can now take from her by force, if his com- pany has become unbearable to her; just because she is a mother, she must wish to have a right to influence conditions, which compel her to be a help- less spectator, when her children are led out to be slaughtered, to be sacrificed to the whim of a despot, or the savage taste of the rabble. Thus you see that instead of avoiding public life, on account of our maternity, we have, just on account of our maternity, the very deepest interest in gaining an influence upon public life. But I am surprised at my own fervor when I had made up my mind to answer you in the calmest manner. Perhaps it has annoyed me to hear you express opinions that I had expected of you, least of all, and this is the only way I can return your compliments. AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 195 MEN. (From "Der Pionier" of Oct. 14 and 15, 1855.) Mr. Editor — On a former occasion you had asked me to speak without reserve in the columns of "Der Pionier/' I comply with this request all the more willingly because it was needless in my case. I have always been in the habit of speaking my mind freely, which, as I have often been told, is not considered "wise;" but I could never see why it should be less wise, not to suppress my convictions, not to give up my right, and not to sacrifice my freedom, than tOj make my regard for the weakness, the folly, and the errors of others the law of my actions. Least of all can I think of this to-day, when I have made up my mind to discuss a subject which, according to my opinion, cannot be treated inconsiderately enough. Shakspeare says "Frailty, thy name is woman." No one would contradict me less than Shakspeare himself, if I should say, "Deception, thy name is man!" I shall not take the trouble to prove what mountains of lies men have left behind them, when- ever they have entered the realm of history; it is sufficient for my purpose to show, first of all, that their whole relationship to us women has ever been one of lies. Just as every tyrant lies, must lie, so men also have always lied, because they were our igt> THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN tyrants. Whether they coddled us with compli- ments, or pretended to hate us, whether they granted us privileges or disqualified us, whether they carried us on their hands, or trod us under their feet, they never were true, never could be true, because they always proceeded from the great fundamental lie, that we did not possess the same human rights as they, that we are subordinate beings, that we must be their tools. Complete recognition of our equality of rights — that is the first, the indispensable condi- tion, for the possibility that men cease to be liars toward women. It is not possible for any one to commit them- selves more naively than men do, concerning their untruthful attitude toward women, when their argu- ments, which they oppose to our so-called emanci- pation, are attacked. I have always found that the chief objections behind which the more intelligent and refined among the men — of the rest I do not wish to speak at all — always entrench themselves, simply amount to this : that men in general are not sufficiently humanized to make it possible for free women to exist among them. Well, that is at least the beginning of truth. It is a most interesting confession, even if it is a poor proof. What answer would you, <as free men, give a slaveholder, who confessed to you that his brutality and egotism did not allow him to grant his slaves the right to freedom? Would you accept this as a proof against the right of the slave? AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 197 But you place yourself entirely on the ground of the slaveholder. You only go a step further, and, in denying us our rights, tender us compliments at your own expense. You hold these compliments so cheap that you are even willing, to throw a part of your reason, and your honor, into the bargain, if we will only accept them. We are such delicate plants that we cannot flourish in the wild climate of masculine brutality, without a protecting hedge and cover — that is the sense of the compliments in which you clothe your last proofs against our equal- ity of rights. Men would very soon come to recognize our human rights, even without compliments, if we had the power to enforce them. Backed by an army of sharpshooters, and every woman will be recognized by men, not only as their equal in rights, but also honored like a czarina, and worshiped like a god- dess. Fortunate for us all that we women have no sharpshooters at our command! If, indeed, en- forced rights cannot be enjoyed in peace, security and happiness, till after their opponents have been put out of harm's way, we women would have to wage an endless war for our rights, a war, in the real sense of the word, "to the last man." Ought we to exterminate the men, in order to become free? Fear not, oh noble heroes! You alone require force to become free; all that we need is the renunciation of force. It is our pride, as well as our consolation, that humanity alone, and not iron, can free us from 198 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN tyranny, and you from your lies. The triumph of weakness over strength, through the sentiments of humanity, that is the surest and noblest triumph that we can think of, and can wish for, and this triumph is exclusively feminine. It is a lie, therefore, when men deny our equality of rights, and it is a daughter of this lie, when they, instead of acknowledging their own unfitness for a state of humane equality, try to make it appear as though we were not yet adapted to equality. As soon as men begin to be truly humane beings, they will cease to oppose the equality of women ; only so long as they remain brutal egotists will they protest against humanity without the bones of a grenadier, i. e., the women, sharing their dominion. But if that were all we could await the future more calmly, for it would indeed be a difficult task for us to attempt, as a humanizing element, to mitigate the rule of men in the domain of politics, at a time when they still regard it as the greatest honor to slay each other by the hundred thousand, without know- ing why ; when millions of them still stand prepared like gladiators, to fall upon each other at the com- mand of some emperor, to tear each other to pieces, and fertilize the earth with streams of blood. Why? They have not even the incentive that excuses the gladiator. They slay from habit, or from servility; they allow themselves to be slain for a stiver or a gracious look. What glory to be a man ! In other words, there is nothing tempting, even AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. i$9 to an amazon, to share ^he power of such rulers. Then keep your politics for yourselves until one- half of you has butchered and buried the other half! Perhaps the gladiatorial spirit of man will then change into humanity from exhaustion, and to us women will then accrue the task of guarding it against relapses. But there is still another stage of action, upon which we are now daily playing our part, and that is social life. Here, too, we find, as on the throne of legislation, the men as liars, and even as the big- gest liars of all. What is honor? What is character? What is conscience? What is morality? Should any one ask me these questions, I would first inquire whether they meant them for the male sex alone, or also for the relations of the latter to the female sex. For just as men deny women all rights, to begin with, they also are devoid of honor, of character, of conscience, of morality, in their re- lations to women, and when they speak of it they lie. In all these things they use quite different weights and measures for the women than for them- selves, and whatever they condemn and abhor among themselves, they consider permissible and honorable when it is directed toward the weaker sex. (Let it be borne in mind that, throughout this entire article, I am speaking of the great, great ma- jority without condemning the small, the very small, minority along with them.) 200 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN Every day we read in books, and papers, the most beautiful effusions of masculine indignation, if some unworthy individual so degrades himself as to natter some man of money or of power, or a party or even the populace, or sacrifices his principles to attain this or that egotistic aim. But those same moral- izers, who condemn such degradation, are capable, at any moment, to deluge any woman who happens to attract their attention by rosy cheeks, or spark- ling eyes, or a luxuriant figure, with flatteries and assurances, every letter of which is a hypocrisy, and every phrase of which contains a humiliation. And Why ? Often this mendacity is due to a mere habit, but for the most part it is meant to deceive, and to further low ends. Men who, in a circle of men, overflow with honor and character, degrade them- selves to play the contemptible part of the hypocrit- ical flatterer, before every pretty woman. For the sake of a glance, they become actors; for a kiss, they become rhetoricians ; for a favor, they become valets de chambre. And as soon as they have gained their end, they at once rise from the position of valet de chambre to that of tyrant. But for all that, they are always "men!" But I say they are liars. Either that is a lie, which they call honor, and character, before men, or its opposite, which they manifest before women, deserves the name. I at least cannot conceive how a man, who really possesses honor and character, can put it on and off as he pleases, like a badge, to signify whether he is associating with men or women. AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 201 Nothing is more common, and at the same time more disgusting, than the role of hero in love-com- edies, the only role that the average man, and espe- cially our military gentlemen, can play with some talent. That this sort of play-acting has not fallen into greater disrepute among men themselves only shows how general a species of lying has become among them, which degrades not only man, not only woman, but the most beautiful relationship by which the sexes can be united. What a frightful state of things in which the first thought that comes to a woman, when she hears a man talk of love, must be: Is he true or is he a liar? The same question is forced upon me, whenever I hear of or see that kind of "chivalry," which the French call galanterie. Is it a virtue? To me it seems to be either hypocrisy or an abusurdity. A gallant man reminds me either of a lieutenant or a Don Quixote. I can understand how, woman being the weaker, and more fragile being, a man should wish to be helpful and obliging to her, whenever she needs help; but I do not see why this helpfulness and deference need be anything else, but a manifes- tation of general culture and humanity, unless, in- deed, some personal relationship exists between the respective individuals. No more than 'he can be called gallant, who helps or obliges a child, an in- valid, etc., ought he to be gallant who treats a weak woman with humane considerateness. Still less, than honor and character, can the con- 201 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN science, and morality of men — if I am to separate the latter qualities from the former — stand the test of truth before a feminine tribunal. Every man will agree with you unconditionally that it is knavery to rob another of money, honor, liberty and happiness. But this morality is &t once lifted off its feet, as soon as the treachery is directed towards a woman, and concerns a sexual relationship. True, you do have a few laws, which, for instance, make it a penal offense to seduce or compromise a girl ; but few of you have principles that would condemn such an offense. And what is your punishment for it? Mar- riage! That the victim of your depravity receives the name of the miscreant, that the unfortunate one is chained to the originator of her misfortune, by or- der of the police — that is the highest compensation your justice can discover. Men are accustomed to play with the happiness of women, as boys do with the life of an insect. Does not every day experience teach us that their con- science ceases to exist when their animal desires are aroused; that they do not in the least hesitate to sacrifice the happiness of a woman's life to the sen- sual enjoyment of a minute; that no means of cun- ning or even of violence is too vile for the attain- ment of ends which never, and under no circum- stances whatever, can compensate for the one hun- dredth part of the self-degradation, which their at- tainment implies? To deceive a man, you consider a disgrace • but is it not a triumph for you to deceive AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 203 a woman? To lighten a man's purse by a breach of trust is to you a crime; but to poison a heart by a breach of trust is to you a pastime. How many are there among you who would shrink from writing a list of their Don Juan triumphs, with the bloody tears of unhappy women? Have you not been ac- customed, I might almost say trained from early youth, to press women into the service of your low aims, by every means you like, regardless of con- sequences, and even to boast of their misfortune? Do you not regard a girl, whom you have started on the road to shame, or driven to suicide from de- spair, as the hunter regards the game he has wounded or slain? But afterward you are all ready to sing: "Honor to woman ! To her it is given To garden the earth with the roses of heaven I" It is like hearing a hunter sing: "Honor to game, for it tastes good, when we have killed it." What a revolution will yet have to take place, in the conceptions of men; what a dhange education will have to work in their lives, before they can attain to a knowledge and recognition of the most rudimentary principles of honor, and morality, as concerns their relationship to weak woman, chained with a thousand fetters of dependency to man-made conditions ! If you do not yet wish, or are not yet able, to grant woman equal rights in public life, you can at least accustom yourself, in social life, not to degrade her by a morality, which, among yourselves, 204 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN would amount to an actual declaration of war. So long as a dishonorable and unscrupulous act, di- rected against us, has not the same value to you as when it is directed against yourselves, you show that you do not consider us as responsible human beings, that you are our tyrants in life, as you are in politics, and that all your assurances to the con- trary are simply lies. I have begun to discuss a subject which is better adapted for a book than for a newspaper article. In order not to stray too far I will turn aside from my course, and merely add a few concluding remarks about the position which men, entirely apart from their relations to us, now occupy in life and in poli- tics. Men! What is a man? What exuberance of beauty and greatness is contained in the meaning of this word ! It lies in the nature of things, that each of the two sexes should exercise severe criticism over itself, while they are mutually inclined to view each other with favorable eyes, and to discover each other's good qualities. There surely is no woman of any intelligence who would not be willing to find in every man an ideal, and, it seems to me, that the reverse must be just as true. But how bitter the disappointment whenever this willingness casts about for objects of appreciation, among the present masculine world! Can it really have been thus, in all times? It would be terrible to be forced to admit this and to build our expectations of the future upon AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 205 it. Threefold happy is the woman who, in these times of general enervation and vulgarity, has found a man whom she can truly respect and love! Let no one accuse me of not making due allowance for the exceptions; I know them and know how to appreciate them doubly. But what, I ask, is one to think of that ruling mass and its prominent person- ages, among whom genuine men are regarded as proscribed and leprous beings? Has it any other aim than money-making, animal pleasures, and po- litical degradation? What has become of that large emigration which once filled our fatherland with the battle-cry against tyrants? Are those men who forgot liberty as soon as it was vanquished? Are those men who, on the other side of the sea, swore eternal hatred against tyranny, and in this country are so lost to shame that they unite with the owners of human beings for the purpose of undermining the republic? I know the weaknesses of my sex, and admit them, although it is not itself responsible for the most of them ; but so much I can maintain — no woman whose heart has once been stirred with enthusiasm for liberty is capable of forgetting it over night, or of becoming reconciled with its opposite, for any low considerations. We are true to ideas as we are to persons. But, you men can forget and betray everything for which you once seemed to glow, not singly, not by tens and dozens, not only a hundred fold; thousands and thousands of you turn your backs upon liberty, cast your ballot for ao6 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN slavery, and — are not ashamed! Truly, you men are not merely liars, you are also slaves ! Are you not base by nature? In London lives a man who once excited univer- sal sympathy, and Whose romantic fate, I must con- fess, also fascinated me for a time, and created a sort of enthusiasm in me. It is Gottfried Kinkel. He swore that he would wage endless war against the enemies of our fatherland, and traveled through this country to supply himself with the sinews of war. What has become of him? He has disap- peared and is forgotten. His hatred of tyrants has quickly calmed down, his enthusiasm for war has subsided, behind -the counters of a bank, where he deposited the money, collected for the revolution, "on interest," much to the satisfaction of the des- pots! Was there ever a man who claimed the con- fidence of his country people more obtrusively, and has ever any one betrayed it more basely than this Kinkel? No man could have acted thus who had the least conception of honor, and who had the least regard for the respect of respectable people. And yet, did not Mr. Kinkel become the ideal man, for this entire emigration? Did it not praise everything that he did, and approve everything that he omitted to do? Is it not always approving? Does it not always take part in his infamy? Where, then, I ask, are the men ? And is it not a terrible thought that this emigra- tion represents the flower of the German people? AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 207 If the flower is like that, what is to become of the tree? There have been times when, as one author ex- presses it, the men had to feel ashamed of themselves before the women. Even such times seem to be past for us. Men who are no longer ashamed of each other will feel no shame before women. Then let us feel ashamed for them. To feel ashamed for you, whom we ought to love, that is the severest punish- ment that we can conceive of for you; but it is no less severe for us. It makes me sad, unto apathy, when I see how vainly, how hopelessly every nobler aspiration strives, to merely keep alive the humane qualities, — to say nothing at all of progressive development, — which our German emigration has brought over with it. If these qualities had been lost over there, we could at least console ourselves with the thought that they had been crowded out by the tyranny of power; but here one is tempted to lay the blame upon human, or German nature, when one sees how all this liberty, and all the means for a higher de- velopment, are only used to trample upon liberty and development, and to help vulgarity and base- ness to triumph. You have never written anything that expressed my own sentiments so completely as the article on "The Art of Despairing." You have given words to what I have so often thought, but never ventured to say. If it were not for the necessity of expressing yourself freely, and the con- 208 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN sciousness of sympathy with the few who agree with you, that induces you to continue your activity among this rabble, I could not understand your per- severance, and would call it "casting pearls before swine." Sounds which could cause the innermost fibres of sensitive hearts to vibrate, here die away unheard, like the cry of a bird in the primeval forest; the clearest and most impressive truths only serve to win adherants for the advocates of their opposites. I see every noble zeal rebound in vain from this in- sensibility and dullness, to say nothing of the scorn and persecution, with which the vulgarity and re- sentment of the rabble are wont to reward it. It has been an entirely unexpected phenomenon to me that in liberty the higher natures work in vain, and only the meaner natures are successful, and I can- not account for it yet. To see how intellect and sentiment is entirely thrown away upon this popu- lation, which, nevertheless, contains some cultured elements, is to me so hopeless that I almost despair, not merely of the majorities, but even of the minori- ties. It makes me think of the Catholic processions, which I used to see in Germany, and at which the only use that flowers could be put to was to strew them on the way, to be trampled upon by the vulgar feet of a stupid crowd. I cannot at all imagine how the people here can make their lives endurable if they reject everything that can make them beauti- ful. I ask myself what has become of their intellect, what has become of their heart, can they no longer AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 209 think and feel? For if they still thought and felt, they would also feel the necessity of embodying their thoughts and feelings in, and of manifesting them through, corresponding aspirations. I cannot help thinking how much these thousands could ac- complish if they wanted to; and that they do not want to, although everything, just everything has been done to urge them on, is not that a proof of their complete demoralization and baseness? Perhaps the colors of my picture are too somber, perhaps other eyes will see it from a more cheerful point of view, which I do not know. But that, on the whole, I do not see things too darkly, you, at least, cannot deny.* ♦However, our friend forgets to make any allow- ance for the effect which the social and political conditions had upon the emigrants, and especially forgets to consider that a great many of the highest minded, and most cul- tured of them were, moreover, obliged to struggle with miserable circumstances, which made it hard for them, or discouraged them, from taking part in affairs of general interest. But she is perfectly right in condemning the great mass of the older emigration, whose pecuniary con- ditions are much better, but who have actually sworn off, and hate every participation in intellectual life and liberal aspirations, while every low and illiberal tendency seems to meet with their approval; moreover, that part of the younger generation, which is likewise quite numerous, who are not suffering from pecuniary disabilities, but who, guided by a shallow conceit, observe a negative or passive attitude toward everything that does not especially curry their favor. The upshot of it all is, of course, that the entire German emigration does not weigh anything what- 210 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN I should only like to know whether there are people here who are really happy. Is not the spirit that is sensitive to happiness at the same time so sensitive to unhappiness that its environment here turns everything into bitterness? Who, indeed, can be happy in walking over this battlefield of insensi- bility where hearts are broken like glass, and human happiness trampled upon like vermin! How many a soul perishes in this country, friendless and un- known, how many a one carries its woe in silence to the grave, because it has once for all resigned it- self not to find here any sympathy or appreciation! Every ship that plows the waters, every railway carriage, every log cabin in the forest, every garret in the cities, but especially every hospital, every in- sane asylum, and every graveyard, harbors a world of pain, without sympathy, and it seems to me as if the only means by which humanity here could bear the consciousness of individual and general misfor- tune is by becoming callous to it. You might as well write an article on the art of becoming callous as on the art of despairing. I cannot learn this art ; on the contrary, my sensi- bility increases in the same degree as I see the in- ever in the scale of progress, and everybody looks down upon them with contempt. We do not at all blame a thoughtful and feeling woman that she cannot endure this climate in an isolated position; to us it is endurable only on account of the freedom of speech, which at least can scatter the seed for the future- Editor "Pionier," AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 211 sensibility of theirs increase. To tear oneself en- tirely from every relationship with the rest of the world, to ignore it entirely, to seclude oneself com- pletely, is in no way possible. The relationship will at once be re-established, through the atmosphere, if it has been broken off in some other way. This atmosphere seems to be strangely oppres- sive to me. The consciousness of being surrounded by a world so unintellectual and soulless, so com- pletely insensible and unimpressionable to truly hu- mane aspirations, presses upon me and disquiets me, as if I were a prisoner in the midst of liberty. I shall try to liberate myself by returning into bond- When I shall come to New York, for the purpose of taking leave, I shall hand all my papers over to you. I have not yet arranged them all, and still find much that must be consigned to the flames, because it is too insignificant, or immature. You can then do with the package whatever you please. I give you completely free play. At any rate you will not have to complain of a lack of frankness, truthfulness and recklessness. I make only one condition, to begin with : you are not to make my name known before — well, before you hear of my death. I do not mean to say that I hope to die soon, but that is not within our power. Should you, however, suc- ceed in organizing your colony of the despairing, I promise to become a member, and shall induce those to whom I shall have to devote myself over there to come, too. ********** 212 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN I am looking forward with much joy to once more experiencing a European spring. What is called spring here, is like a leap of Nature from the cold shivers into fever heat. In these transitions Nature is unnatural ; and it is neither conducive to health, nor is it aesthetic. American nature, like American humanity, is much more inhuman than the Euro- pean, even where culture has come to its aid ; and we, with our European depth of feeling, remain or- phaned, because we nowhere meet with any re- sponse. In order to infuse our own life into a local landscape, we must either first transform it, or be- come bound to it by the most painful recollections. But even then one must not live near too many people. In Germany, or Switzerland, I felt at home in every pretty spot, even when I had been there but a few days. Here, even the flowers, that I myself have planted, remain strangers to me. Last year I had a couple of crickets about my fireplace. They were the only thing that could really create an illu- sion for me ; but I do not understand how thev came here. This American world is made for homesickness. But what a condition to be in, always to be home- sick and never to have a home ! I believe that all those whom you count among the despairing are the homesick, homeless wander- ers. There is a sort of intellectual or ideal gypsy- dom, and we all belong to it. But we are worse off than the gypsies, for they at least hold together, and AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 213 because they are not granted a portion of this world, they idemnity themselves by stealing it. There are no more helpless people than honest gypsies. And how can intellectual gypsies be otherwise than honest, even if they wanted to? For our opponents have nothing that we could steal from them. Their vulgarity, their intellectual barrenness, their empti- ness of heart, their want of ideas, are nothing that they need to guard from our pilfering passion, by the aid of the police. But, alas, they rule the world. I know of no phrase more meaningless than the consolation that "the whole world is our country." A nice country in which every square foot of ground that is no longer wilderness is occupied and de- formed by our opponents! Therefore our com- panions in misery, or the wild animals, can be our only society. Our country can be conquered only by the revo- lution. But I do not wish to say more on this sub- ject, for I, too, am a German. a 14 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN WOMEN. (From "Der Pionier" of Feb. 3, 1856.) Since I have, some time ago, spoken my mind freely concerning the male sex, I seem to have taken upon myself the obligation to criticise the faults of my own sex with the same frankness. It is not from a lack of good intention that I have failed to do so sooner. Mr. Ruge's last attack has given me a new im- petus, and, I must confess, the necessary energy to speak. But he is to blame if, instead of the prose- cutor of my sex, I again appear as its defendant. I was surprised, indeed, to see how a thinking man like Mr. Ruge can judge so superficially and vulgarly of woman. And I cannot understand how he can praise Goethe and even call him the "freest German." In what did Goethe's freedom consist? As regards religion, it is not even established that he was an "atheist," and as regards politics, his po- sition as minister to a prince testifies against him. What then remains? First of all his individual inde- pendence from the prejudices of the age, and his aesthetic sense of freedom, which asserted itself in the realm of the ideal. But who constituted his so- ciety in this realm? The women! His men, in- cluding Faust, command little respect and admira- tion. Tell me, Mr. Ruge, what would Goethe be AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 215 without the women? Without those despised and unphilosophical creatures, whom you will not ac- knowledge as human beings until twenty-five years after the proclamation of the republic, the "freest German," the greatest German poet, would hardly have had any intellectual existence, and would prob- ably have been forgotten long ago. Listen to what he says of us : "Women are the only receptacle which remains to us moderns, to fill with an ideal content. With the men nothing can be done. Homer has anticipated everything in Achilles and Odysseus, the bravest and the wisest." In another place he says: "That he perceived the ideal in a feminine form, or the form of a woman." "What a man was he did not know at all ; for it was impossible for him to describe a man otherwise than biographically. There must always be something historical to build on." What testimony ! It is hardly possible that Goethe to-day would be opposed to the emancipation of woman, for he would no more wish to exclude "ideality" from his state than from his writings. Mr. Ruge reproaches naturalists with destroying "ideality;" Goethe, the "freest German," declares that women are the only receptacle of ideality, in the society of to-day, and yet the eulogizer of Goethe, and of ideality, would confine women to the kitchen and the nursery that they may do no harm in a so- ciety in which "great men like Hecker, Kinkel," etc., are the most illustrious successors to "Achilles and Odysseus !" Poor men ! 216 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN Mr. Ruge would not lapse into such inconsist- encies if instead of his dry, scholastic, Hegelian standard of judging woman, he were aided by that living, spiritual relationship, through which Goethe first became Goethe, and through which he attained that wonderful appreciation of the feminine nature. I would call this capacity — which is generally quite complimentary to us, termed the "feminine ele- ment," although a perfect man cannot be conceived of without it, any more than a perfect woman — the aesthetic soul. Whoever does not possess this aes- thetic soul, upon which the direct appreciation of all higher natures depends, or whoever has killed it within himself, by the gymnastics of abstract thought, he will in vain attempt to fill this idealism, about which Mr. Ruge is so anxious, with living contents. And if Mr. Ruge limits it to the mascu- line world, it becomes more than ever a forced ab- straction, or an empty illusion. Strike us women from your account, and then try to construct your idealism! Even without Goethe, I should know, and have the courage to say, that the masculine world of to-day is, with few exceptions, nothing but a world of philistines ; and even if I did not say it — very well, Mr. Ruge himself has indirectly told me so. I quote his words : "Women are essentially attracted by position,* *If this were the case, those men should complain of it least of all who deny women the means of attaining to a position themselves. AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 217 rank, superiority. When they fall in love they look much more to superiority in the position of the man than men look to the rank of her parents. If it is not an office or a title, it surely is a superiority of en- dowment or fame — in short, some kind of aristo- cratic quality, that determines the love of the girl. Love is aristocratic; it is superiority that is loved. Beauty is an aristocracy ; few people in their appear* ance correspond to the conception of beauty," etc. What a confession against men and for women these lines contain! In other words, this confession in favor of the women reads thus : Gifted with quick emotions and a lively imagination, you cannot content yourselves with the merely apathetic consciousness of the ex- istence of these or the other things or persons — no, by means of your more direct and more vital sus- ceptibility to your environment, you quickly place yourself into a personal relationship to it, whether this relationship be one of sympathy or of antipathy. Your nature is especially attuned for sympathy, wherefore your proper element is love. But for all this, you generally have the good taste not to love what is most inferior. If you have your choice, you will love the general and not the corporal, the inde- pendently rich man, and not the dependent beggar, the handsome and not the ugly suitor, the noble and not the low, the cultured and not the vulgar, the famous and not the obscure, the poet and not the shop-keeper; yes, even the genius and not the philis- 218 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN tine ! In short, you women always love "superiori- ties" and not defects, i. e., what is lovable and not what is unlovely! In a garden you would even pick the roses and not the nettles! Such are the reproaches which Mr. Ruge heaps upon us women, in contrast to the men! But the praise which he thereby, indirectly, gives to men must, logically, consist of the opposite of these re- proaches. I shall, however, limit it to the confes- sion, which is contained in Mr. Ruge's demand, that we women ought also to make ourselves worthy of such praise, that is, that we, too, should love the opposite of "superiorities," that we ought not to be "aristocratic" in our love! We ought, then, to love the ugly men, and not the handsome, the insignifi- cant and not the excellent, the philistines and not the men of genius ! No, Mr. Ruge, forever no ! By all that is beauti- ful and noble upon earth, by all the happiness and all the suffering of the feminine soul, by all the ideals and desires of the heart, by all that is sweet and all that is painful, which finds lodgment in the human breast, by the joy of spring and the sadness of au- tumn, by the odor of flowers and the murmuring of the cypress, by all the bliss of life and all the bitter- ness of death, we do not want to love ugliness, in- sufficiency, vulgarity, philistinism, but, with all the fervor, all the devotion of our being, we want to love beauty, nobility of soul, truth, proud manhood- and, above all, genius! Not that false brilliancy which AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 219 seeks greatness in senseless arbitrariness, in disso- lute transgressions of rational rules, and is therefore incompatible with truth, the foremost requirement of genius; not that sham wisdom, whose essence is weakness instead of strength, but that true genius which, regardless of the motives of a mean world, of the calculators and hucksters, of the authorities and scribes, breaks the fetters with which narrow- mindedness and the anxiety of philistine pygmies have bound human nature, and creates for us a paradise of freedom, in which the great and noble thoughts of human happiness and human beauty take on life and form. We could even love a dead genius, but not a living philistine. In this wise, Mr. Ruge, are we women aristocrats, and the only misfortune is that not all of us are. Perhaps the men would then try harder to become aristocrats also, and would drop the conceit that we must love them, on every plebeian condition, just because they are the stronger and we their de- pendents, and because they usually pay for the hearth, upon which we have the honor of cooking for them. We women are not adapted to become philoso- phers. Imagination and feeling — in short, all the more living activities of the soul — fortunately do not admit of that strong calm which is capable of evolv- ing systems of thought in the privacy of the study, that astonish the world just so long as it does not 220 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN comprehend them. Instead of this, every truth, at which philosophers arrive only by the round- about and troublesome way of constructing a "sys- tem," is directly, and without difficulty, accessible to our intelligence. But our stupid and unnatural education generally makes us as diffident as it makes us intellectually dependent, so that we mistrust our own judgment before that of learned men. That is a weakness which men know very well how to utilize in behalf of our continued dispossession and sup- pression; it is quite natural, therefore, that they re- bel when we discard this weakness, when we no longer allow ourselves to be imposed upon by their pretended mysteries, and that the philosophers must be the first to rebel is the most natural of all. We must, however, not allow ourselves to be led astray thereby; we must even dare to compete with the philosophers. I venture, therefore, to turn Mr. Ruge's reproach that we are aristocratic into the greatest praise; I venture to assert — without be- lieving, however, that I have discovered a new truth — that, by our natural "aristocratic" tendency, we unconsciously establish the correct human rule, which men have brought into discredit by their per- verse theories, and which demands that all men should become aristocratic. By what sort of philos- ophy does Mr. Ruge want to prove to me that, in- stead of elevating humanity to the height of the superiorities, which we women love, all must rather be degraded to the opposite, for the sake of being AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 221 "democratic?" I vote for a democracy of superiori- ty, in which the majority of mankind, especially the men, are as noble, as beautiful, as cultured, as inde- pendent, as gifted, as lovable, as happy as possible. Surely the minority will never have to complain of such a democracy. I vote! But Mr. Ruge does not want to let me vote, me and some five hundred million other female beings. He even demands that we should first vote on the question whether we want to vote, and does not ask himself whether it might be adduced, as an argument against the enfranchisement of the slaves, that they had not voted on their human rights. He at least distinguishes us from the slaves in that he fixes a term for our liberation. "In the twenty-fifth year of the republic" we may begin to look upon ourselves as human beings, for by that time we shall have been educated into human beings by those of whom we have not yet sufficient evidence that they themselves are already human beings! I do not discuss my human right, I assert it. It exists and does not cease to exist. Therefore I will not allow any one to fix a term when it is to begin; according to my interpretation, this term would only fix the time when the robbers of my rights would cease to be robbers. In the twenty-fifth year of the republic we shall emancipate the women merely means, in the twenty-fifth year of the republic we shall cease to be despots toward the women. If I had to consider only the male sex I would be modest 222 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN enough to accept this term as tolerably short for the humanization of men. That women, before they had attained to an intel- lectual regeneration, through twenty-five years of training in the republic, would use their right of suffrage against the republic, is an assertion, but no prQof ; it is a pretext, but no reason. But if we should really vote for the priests, as Mr. Ruge maintains, because we were educated by the priests, whose fault would it be? Only the fault of those who have brought the priests into the world, who tolerate the priests, and who intrust the priests with our educa- tion that they may make submissive sufferers of us. But have men, who allow priests to rule, a right to set themselves up as guardians of the female sex, on account of the priests? Can these still priest-ridden men have anything to fear from the female sex? What harm can still come-to them? First abolish the priests, since you have made them, then you are safe from the danger of having us vote for them. It is but a proof of your tyrannical disposition, and at the same time of your weakness, that you want to suppress our rights, on account of conditions for which you, as the lords of history, are alone respons- ible. "I have indeed admitted that we must concede all the rights of men and citizens to these diplomats and aristocrats, these fair and interesting creatures," etc. (namely to women). Thus Mr. Ruge admits the correctness of the prin- AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 223 eiple (apparently to his great sorrow), but he flies from its realization. And how illogical the conclu- sions with which he tries to cover his retreat! That the suffrage, exercised by women, will lead to dis- aster has, as I have observed once before, not yet been put to the test. On the contrary, women al- ways, and in sufficient numbers, considering their education, have taken the part of liberty in every struggle, although it held out no promise to them. But men have undergone the test of suffrage, and have come out of it as discreditably as possible. They have, as Mr. Ruge tells us (by their vote in France) set us back fifty years. To what conclusion ought this to lead him? That the first thing neces- sary would be to fix a term for the education of men, in order to instruct them in voting. His con- clusion, however, is "now we cannot abolish univer- sal suffrage any more." Why? Why, because we are men and not women. Man must demand also the application of the correct principle, but women must bury the principle to avoid the application. For men Mr. Ruge wants to apply the old rule: whoever would learn to swim must not be afraid of the water. But his chivalry wishes to spare us women this discomfort. We learn to swim in the kitchen, or by merely looking on. That is indeed quite complimentary to our intelligence, but not ex- actly "practical." That universal suffrage has set us back fifty years, seems to me to be entirely the fault of those who be- 224 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN gan the revolution with universal suffrage without first providing for the removal of the reactionary candidates, and the enlightenment of the ignorant voters. Nevertheless, after the harm has once been done, it will certainly all come out right in the end. It is no misfortune for a child to stumble, if thereby it learns to walk ; neither is walking ever forbidden to a child for that reason. But we women must not learn to walk until we are grown up, and I can not, for the life of me, see the advantage of this tender regard. To postpone the beginning, when it is a matter of necessity, can never lead to reasonable results. No man can main- tain that the emancipation of woman, the placing her on a footing of complete legal equality with man, can be evaded in practice, since it is impregna- ble in principle. Why, then, this procrastination? The moral of the Sibylline books would hold good here, too. Men have not learned how to exercise their rights in a day ; women will learn it no sooner than they did. But they must make a beginning sometime, and it is a sad thing to see how this be- ginning, which has so many obstacles to overcome, anyway, is attacked, a priori, with the most trivial weapons of scorn and animosity, by those who have nothing to say against the principle. In order to postpone the term for the emancipation of woman so long as possible, this coarse and aggressive state of society certainly does not need the aid of men, who have devoted their lives to the conquest of bru- tality and aggression! AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 225 Strange human beings! Here I stand in the pres- ence of sun, moon and stars, in the presence of the whole universe, as a free being ; no star, no "god," obstructs my way; the whole universe silently ac- knowledges my freedom. Only these beings, which call themselves men, and even free men, have the audacity to deny my freedom, and even to fix a term for my humanization in case I reform. Poor things! You only convince me that I know better what is right and what is wrong, what I can do and what I may do, than you. Me you certainly need not lib- erate ; I have for myself all the liberty that I need and desire. But I know that you yourselves have it not, and that you will never have it without free women. Just as the woman without a man, and the man without the woman fulfills only one-half of his and her existence, just as the contentment and the harmony of human existence, can only come from a union of the two beings, so also, in public life, this union is the indispensable condition of a truly hu- mane and harmonious order of things. Is public life anything else than the sum of all individual lives? Must not every individual life be interested in the public life, and must not every individual union be involved in the union of the whole? To postpone such a state of society would only be to prolong the inhumanity and disharmony of our present social life. Family and state must correspond to each other, and those who constitute the family must also constitute the state, otherwise both can come to 2a6 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN nothing more than they have come to hitherto. You may call yourselves philosophers or revolutionists, scholars or statesmen, and you may as such even allow your conceit to surpass your blindness by con- tinuing to despise woman, because she has not the power to dictate her consciousness to you as your law — you will thereby not annul the law of nature, which equipped us, as human beings, with human rights, as well as with human powers. You may exhaust your wisdom and your strength, you may use up your ink with writing, or shed your blood, you may undertake reforms or revolutions — all your achievements must remain fragmentary, all your creations must be imperfect, so long as you would make laws and institutions for all mankind, but ego- tistically exclude one-half of mankind, and truly not the worst half! AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 227 THE CONVENTION OF GERMAN WOMEN IN FRAUENSTADT. (Editorial Correspondence.) Why so careworn, my friend, and why do you look out of the car window with downcast eyes? You are thinking of the past. "You have guessed right. I am a great friend of traveling by rail, for it allows one's person to catch up with one's thoughts as quickly as possible, but here in America my thoughts generally go back- ward, while the locomotive drags my person for- ward. If I undertake even the smallest journey here I am in memory continually traveling in Eu- rope, and I then feel more than ever what we are missing here. A country in which travel affords no pleasure, life, too, can have no true pleasures to offer. When I am traveling I feel more than ever that I am an exile, and it is more than ever made clear to me that life here is a torture when I am intent on recreation." In some respects I must agree with you in your condemnation of American life, but you are wrong, and it is your own loss if you find nothing to com- pensate you for its deprivations. To me liberty alone is a sufficient compensation for everything that Europe could offer me. 228 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN "That may do for a man ; I find no compensation except in memory." I must put that down as a weakness. Whoever has sufficient resources within himself is able to make himself independent of his surroundings. And so long as one can still find like-minded people one can be recompensed in a quiet way for everything that one misses in the doings of the world at large. "I admit that to some degree, but where does one meet here the like-minded people? Those who seek happiness in amassing wealth, or in dissipation, or in a narrow club life, find plenty of like-minded com- panions ; but how many people have you met so far who make higher demands on life and whose intel- lectual and emotional gifts are of an order to make mutual enjoyment possible? I have known people who in Europe were most excellent companions, and most desirable for social intercourse; here I find them after a few years so changed, so strange, so empty, so blunted, so devoid of aspirations, so common-place that I am glad to have them keep away from me. But the few whom I could recog- nize as like-minded live isolated and scattered throughout this large expanse of country, harbor- ing the same lonely thoughts that I and others do, but suffer likewise from the same fate that prevents us from meeting and associating with each other. When I consider that in this vast country there are perhaps half a dozen people to whom I could feel drawn with my whole soul, and that even these few AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 229 I shall perhaps never have the opportunity of meet- ing, or of associating with, then I feel quite hopeless. Men and women, only men and women with lofty minds and noble hearts, and a pleasant, cozy corner in which to enjoy their companionship — more I do not want." With all my heart I agree with you, but I am more modest than you. I do not need half a dozen in order to be a man among men. But it is perhaps just as hard to find three as six. I, too, have found it easier to find men in Europe without the lantern of Diogenes. There there was more mutual under- standing, a greater need of companionship, of com- mon aspirations, a circumstance that can be readily explained by the common past, in part also by the greater want of liberty, while here each one of us is seeking for a new path, and the greater freedom of life directs the attention more to the external. But in Europe I have noticed a greater disposition among women to seek and cherish the society of free people than here. It is remarkable that among the five million Germans in this country one meets with so few women who by their intellect, their character, and their aspirations rise above the level of philistinism. But in spite of this I cannot yet bring myself to despair of German women as I do of the majority of German men. "If we women are nothing and accomplish noth- ing it is certainly the men who are to blame for it, for it is a pity how thoroughly dependent on them 230 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN we still are. And therefore you will yet make the experience that it is a vain undertaking to attempt to influence the German women and through them the German men. Because most German men are philistines, saloon-loungers, money-makers and born subjects, therefore most German women are mere nothings, neglected, prosaic, apathetic beings, with- out intellectual vitality and higher interests; and since this is the prevailing condition, the few excep- tions are discouraged from coming to the front. I as a woman am looking for superior men and find none; you as a man are looking for superior women and find none. So we can mutually console each other, but we shall both have to come to the con- clusion that it is principally this country and the life here that is to blame. Please to bear in mind, more- over, this one circumstance, which seems to me to be of especial importance. In Europe nature and culture unite in making travel a joy and a need. Traveling in beautiful surroundings and in the at- mosphere of civilization stimulates sociability, opens the hearts, and affords opportunity for making ac- quaintances by bringing like-minded people to- gether in the proper mood. But what has this coun- try to offer? Suppose you and I and half a dozen other friends were to undertake a pleasure trip here, for the sake of flapping our wings with greater liber- ty for a while — whither should we turn? Where is the Italy in whose beauty we could revel; where is the Geneva Lake upon which we could float; where is AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 231 the Rigi upon which we could rest; where the Rhine upon whose shores our fancy could disport itself; where the Heidelberger Schloss in whose surround- ings we could dream; where, at last, is even the inn where we could comfortably and joyously sit behind the sparkling goblet, while our madcap spirits went chasing each other? Nature as well as society here offers us nothing but comfortless, repelling vul- garity; there is nothing engagingly human in men, and nothing classic in Nature and its embellish- ments. Perhaps in a hundred years travel can also be made enjoyable in America; now one can only be transported like an article of freight. When will our exile be at an end?" To this question you will least of all get an answer here where you ought to expect it most. I do not know a dozen of those boastful apostles of liberty of '48 who are still seriously interested in the revolution, and who would make a sacrifice for the sake of shortening their exile. A proof how superficial their zeal for liberty was on the other side of the water. But even if we can do nothing for European liberty here, there is still enough to be done for American liberty, and this will indirectly benefit the other. What especially fills me with hope of progress in this country is the interest which is taken in the question of women's rights, and I am curious to see how our German women will now stand the test. Do you believe that the convention of the German women in Frauenstadt will be well attended? 232 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN "You must have noticed already that I entertain but small hopes. I am going because I do not want to be charged with having neglected a duty. I ad- mire the courage and energy of your friend, Julie vom Berg, who has called the convention, but I fear that it will be a failure, which is worse than if the attempt had not been made." There is nothing worse than discouragement at the start. But the whistle of the locomotive warns me that we must separate. I have, therefore, a favor to ask of you. Will you undertake to report the convention to "Der Pionier?" "What ? Are you not going to attend the con- vention — you?" I am sorry to say that my duty calls for the diffi- cult sacrifice of staying away. It calls me to an- other convention — to the great convention of edi- tors at Cincinnati. ^ "That, of course, is a sufficient, but also your only excuse. Well, I will comply with your request and report faithfully to 'Der Pionier.' Good-by, Herr Laengst." AMD THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 233 THE CONVENTION OF GERMAN WOMEN IN FRAUENSTADT. (Correspondence to "Der Pionier," Frauenstadt.) The numerous attendance and the lively interest for our cause which I found here, compel me to apologize for the want of faith with which I had an- ticipated this gathering of German women. I al- most began to feel reconciled to America. Promptly at the time appointed the convention assembled. The large hall was almost rilled and the attendance so numerous that it astonished all present. Besides those who had announced them- selves a great many more have come, partly from the far west. Some of the women are accompanied by their husbands, some by their brothers, and be- sides these men, several representatives of the strong sex have come alone. Some of them are suspected to be "reporters" and "editors," but they have not yet made themselves known. The first hour was spent in welcoming each othe r and becoming acquainted. Then the meeting was called to order by the venerable Katherine Schmalz of Philadelphia. A most simple and abbreviated mode of organization was adopted. Mrs. Schmalz proposed Julie vom Berg as president, who, how- ever, declined the honor and in her turn proposed 234 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN Ida Johanna Braun of Boston Highlands. The lat- ter was unanimously elected. She opened the con- vention with the following words : — Ladies — Never before did I even dream of the honor that has just been conferred upon me, be- cause I never before even dreamt of the possibility of seeing so much interest displayed in public affairs, and especially in the questions for the consideration of which'we have here come together, by the Ger- man women of this country, of whom, hitherto, nothing has ever been seen, except perhaps in beer- gardens, and nothing ever heard, except in the gibes of men. This interest is all the more a pleasant sur- prise to me because it seems to 'have matured in si- lence and required only a stimulus to come to light. But I am convinced that nobody will be more sur- prised than the mass of our countrymen, for in no country, hitherto, have women been so removed from public life as in Germany, and in no country has the male sex been so unanimously intent, with gibes and vulgarity, on driving her back into her so- called "sphere," as in our old fatherland. Even on this side of the water we have long enough suffered from the effects of former conditions. But here, where so many limitations, by which we had been hemmed in on the other side, have been removed, we have, it seems, gradually learned to find our bearings and to act according to our own impulses. I hope that our coming together here will prove this and will spread the conviction, through the fruits of AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 235 its activity, that our interference with social devel- opment was neither useless nor unjustifiable. We may frankly admit that the American women have set us an example, and have in many respects put us to shame. If that is a reproach to us, it lies entirely with us to clear ourselves of it by setting an example, in our turn, to American women, which they need quite as much as we did theirs. I am alluding to struggles impending in the near future, which will at the same time give our German men an oppor- tunity for freeing themselves from prejudice and of becoming reconciled to our aspirations. I do not consider it doubtful that American women will, within a short time, succeed in gaining the right of suffrage. They will gain it for us, too, and therefore it would be doubly disgraceful for us to bear no part whatever in the achievement, and to accept a right from their hands without some desert of our own. This is a point of honor with us. We cannot permit it to be said of us that, like slaves, we have received a right as a present. Those, only, who help to fight for it deserve it truly. And while we take part in the struggle we at the same time appeal to the honor of German men who cannot wish to expose themselves to the disgrace of withholding from their women a right that others grant them. These men will at the same time come to a recognition of the fact that not only their honor, but their interest as well, bid them to promote our intellectual activity and our partici- pation in public affairs as much as possible. I seem 236 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN to foresee that the granting of the right of suffrage to the women of America will, in the beginning at least, strengthen that political party which will strive to limit social freedom by means of a moral police, and to increase the power of the clergy by religious compulsion. What this party did not hitherto suc- ceed in doing it may perhaps do with the help of the American women, who, on the average, still are more dependent on the representatives of religion than American men; it will certainly succeed if the increase of votes received by the accession to its ranks of those women will not be counterbalanced. And who can and must counterbalance this increase in votes? None other than the German women! (General applause.) We might have the best of op- portunities to let the German men become very un- comfortably aware of what they did, when they lim- ited our "sphere" to the kitchen and nursery. Should we but decline to make use of a right which they had wished to withhold from us, we could expose our German brothers defenselessly to the tyranny of temperance fanatics. But no. Let us not revenge ourselves because men were blind enough to dis- qualify us at their own expense. Let us least of all revenge ourselves by foregoing our own rights. I see the time coming when those of our "Masters" who in the most rudely insulting manner referred us to the "sphere" dictated by themselves will beg us to leave that "sphere" and accompany them to the polls, in order that they may continue 'to drink their AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 237 beer in peace and not be confined to that same "sphere," which they always described to us as so beautiful, but which they were wont to honor with their presence only when they were hungry or sleepy. Should we leave them in the lurch? Let us rather come to their assistance, not in a magnani- mous spirit, however, but in order to do our share in securing liberty and justice. And that we may be prepared for this work it is necessary to make our appearance upon the field of battle, and to begin to drill in good season. But while we are thus assisting the German men to combat temperance tyranny and religious fanati- cism, we have, at the same time, the best of oppor- tunities to set an example of intellectual freedom to American women, and to thus show our gratitude for the example they gave us in their struggle for political freedom. But even that is not the whole of our mission. Our public activity and its consequences will not be limited to this country; it will serve as an in- centive to our country-women on the other side of the ocean, and I hope that we shall succeed in suc- cessfully co-operating with them and especially in convincing them that without political freedom, and without a republic, the female sex cannot hope for an improvement of their lot. Before closing permit me to say a few words con- cerning the attitude we must take in this struggle for reform in order to gain our end. Are we to iso- 23 8 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN late ourselves or not? And if not, with whom ought we to combine? That is the question. If there is any portion of the population of a state that deserves to be designated as a class it is the women. A class in a political sense is caused by legal privilege or disfranchisement. The negroes were a class so long as they had not the right of suffrage. The wealthy form a class when the right of suffrage and govern- ment depends on the possession of money. But the entire female half of humanity bears the most pro- nounced class-character. It has always been dis- tinguished in all countries, even by the disfranchised class of the male portion, as the class without rights. That she could in no way be dispensed with has been her only protection ; and the only guarantee of her rights has rested with the chivalry of men. We daily read, nowadays, of the class-distinctions which are called out and fostered by the "laborers" in Eu- rope as well as in America/the object being to de- velop the most intense "class-consciousness," which must finally lead to "class-wars." Now, we women need not have recourse to artificial means in order to call out a "class-consciousness" among us. The state as well as nature stamp us as the largest and most disfranchised class in the world. If we were to adopt the tactics of the laborers, we would regard only our special interests, concern ourselves only with that which is wanting to and oppressing us as women, we would isolate ourselves as women and as the woman-class take our stand against the entire AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 239 man-class. The mere suggestion of such an idea is sufficient to make all the folly and narrow-minded- ness of it clear to everybody. Just because it was narrow-mindedness and exclusion that have driven us into a position of disqualification, we, in our turn, must occupy higher ground, upon which narrow-mindedness and exclusion disappear. It is the standpoint of a com- mon humanity, of common human rights. Upon this standpoint we learn to unite with all individuals and with all classes, who in the conception of com- mon rights also recognize and strive for our rights ; we further learn to look upon every right for which others struggle as our own cause, even if it does not direotly accrue to our advantage ; and in com- batting every wrong that is perpetrated on others we ward off a blow directed to the common rights in Which we also share. If the negro rattles his chains, we must help him break them; if the laborer fights with his exploiter, we must take his part ; when na- tions rise against their oppressors, we must take part in the uprising; and when intellectual liberty scores a victory in a field where the art of mystifica- tion and dogmatic barbarity have heretofore held sway, we must hail it as a benefactor of mankind. In short, whenever the question is one of human rights, and of the diffusion of humanity, liberty and truth, there we must 'take part and help, not only for the sake of satisfying our own natures, and of put- ting to shame those who declare us incompetent to 240 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN fill the requirements of a higher human calling, but also for the sake of our own interests. For it. is de- termined by the law of social development that the lot of woman deteriorates on a progressive scale, as right and general enlightenment retrograde, that she, as the weaker party, must hold her claims to justice in abeyance until justice has become general in the masculine sphere, and that its true apprecia- tion and its noblest effect can appear only after evo- lution has swept away every vestige of vulgarity, violence and narrowness. Therefore women com- prehend their true interests only when their sym- pathy for right and truth is general, and when they extend their support to every radical cause. The realization of radicalism is the future, the resurrec- tion, the "millennium of women." This address of the president was received with general and most enthusiastic applause. After this the organization of the meeting was completed by the election of the following officers and committees: Vice President — Julie Morgenroth. Secretaries — Johanna Fluegel, Caroline Poltz. Treasurer — Anna Alsen. Committee on Resolutions — Julie vom Berg, Marg. Fluegel, Marie Zehringer. Committee on Miscellaneous Business — Cath. Heisterbach, Mrs. Felsenthal, Elise Luebke. Hereupon the motion was made to adjourn the meeting until 3 p. m. But before the vote could be AND THE SEXUAL EELATIONS. 241 taken a committee of the German radicals of Frauenstadt appeared upon the scene to invite the entire delegation of ladies to take a drive and to view the city and vicinity. A long train of carriages was waiting on the street. The invitation was accepted and the meeting adjourned until the next morning. The weather was mild and suggestive of spring, and all felt themselves most agreeably entertained and refreshed by the drive. Upon their return the com- pany again halted at the hall of the meeting and were not a little surprised to find it transformed into a great dining hall, with tables spread with a steaming repast. It was a simple meal, but substantial and savory, and over the excellent wine many a toast was offered full of the spirit of the hour. The German radicals were treated with special distinctions and felt themselves sufficiently rewarded for their pains by the graceful thanks that were tendered them. After dinner coffee was served and a few hours were spent in agreeable conversation, whereupon the company dispersed in excellent mood to meet again the next morning. On this occasion I made the experience that so- ciability could be found even in America. SECOND DAY. After the minutes of the previous session had been read and approved, the Reverend Mr. Goetzling was introduced to the meeting. REV. GOETZLING — It is as much of an honor as a deeply felt happiness to me to be able to attend 242 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN this noble assembly. It is not in vain that the poet, our highly honored Kloppstock, says : "Honor to woman! To her it is given! To garden the earth with the roses of Heaven!" SEVERAL VOICES— Does Kloppstock say that? REV. GOETZLING— Ah, so you, too, love the adorable poet? The singer of the "Messiah'' has always been my favorite and he appreciated woman very highly. But as the expression "to garden the earth with the roses of Heaven" indicates, we are always to look aloft with one eye while the other is directed toward the earth. Only when the father in Heaven lends his assistance, can the worldly work, succeed. Even the unchristian Goethe says: "The blessing comes from on high." (Murmurs and laughter.) And, 'therefore, my sisters, allow me to remind you of the beautiful example set you by your American sisters, who convene their assemblies with an invocation from the word of God and open them with a prayer to Him. It is the deep interest that I take in your enterprise and the Christian sympathy I feel for you personally, that moves me to offer myself to you as mediator with Him to whom we owe everything. Let us, therefore, my beloved sis- ters, open our meeting with an ardent prayer. PRESIDENT— It is self-evident that outside of the members proper of this convention no one has a right to participate in its deliberations. Neverthe- less everybody, not a member, even every opponent, AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 243 has free access to this convention, and may express his opinion, on condition that he will not interfere with the business of the meeting. The Rev. Mr. Goetzling is personally welcome, like any other in- dividual, but his position does not entitle him to assume a function at his own pleasure. No motion has been made to open our session with prayer. But to show every possible liberality, and to formally establish the pleasure of the meeting, I shall put it to a vote whether we are to accept the reverend gentle- man's offer or not. CATHERINE SCHMALZ— Before the vote is taken I should like to make a few remarks. The reverend gentleman addressed us as sisters. No doubt he means sisters in Christ. But I for my per- son stand in no relation to him whatever, neither in nor out of Christ. Other members of the assembly, whom I know, are as little inclined to call him brother as I am. We certainly all wish him well, but I can desire nothing better for him than that he may go and pray no more and no more molest others. (Applause.) I have not prayed since I be- gan to think for myself, and none of my seven chil- dren has ever learned how. But, on the other hand, I have taught them to do what is right, and have given them this rule to guide them through life, "do right and fear no one," be it God or man. Of the doctrines of Christianity I have retained only this one: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," but have added to it, "Whatever you 244 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN desire for yourself, grant it also to others, and help them to the best of your ability to procure it, espe- cially the common rights of man. These are the principles according to which my children have been brought up, and four of them have become righteous, active and generally respected men, while the other three are lovable, good and happy women. But I myself look back upon the sixty-five years of my life as upon a cheerful, blooming, fertile landscape, which I myself have planted. How, on the other hand, have those of my acquaintances fared who have been brought up on praying and church-go- ing? I do not know of a single one who has not either developed into a hypocrite or gone to the bad, and not one of them was happy. Three of them have married ministers, and of these three one died in an insane asylum, the other committed suicide by hang- ing herself, and the third could save herself from her pious surroundings only by eloping with the sexton to Australia. I should rather be here in America than in Australia. Let us remain here and gratefully decline the reverend gentleman's pious offer. (Cries of "Question! Question!") The offer of the clergyman is unanimously de- clined, whereupon he leaves the hall. The President now requested the Committee on Resolutions to report, and Julie vom Berg, chair- man of the committee, at last had an opportunity to read the following resolutions : AND THE SEXUAL EELATIONS. 245 1. The degradation and subordination of woman had its origin in the most barbaric primeval ages, in man's superior physical strength and wildness of temperament, and received permanent sanction from the monstrous creations of his ignorance and delusion, which placed a "God" upon the throne of the world without a goddess, and created man in the "image" of this "God," and woman merely from a "rib" of this man. The belief in God and its impli- cations excludes the equality of woman from the start. The religious woman is the upholder of her own debasement, and only the pure, sovereign human mind is the savior of her dignity and of her rights. 2. The profound prejudice which has accus- tomed men to look upon the difference of the sexes as an inequality must be traced back to the origin of mankind. The manner in which the first men as well as the first animals originated is a mystery ; but this manner, as well as the matter from which they originated, must have been the same for both sexes, and this equality must by their union logically have been preserved to the present day. Animals know of no inequality of the sexes and unite on a basis of equal rights for a common life-purpose. Man alone, who has the power to depart from nature, in order to return to it as a thinking being, could become so barbarous as to sophisticate the companionship by an arbitrary subordination of the weaker sex, thus establishing a union upon a difference of rights. 246 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN 3. The conception of man as a genus excludes every inequality of rights as an inherent contradic- tion and irrationality. Equality of kind implies equality of rights. By subordinating woman man raves against himself. If vulgarity and habit have led him to make this monstrous mistake of branding his mother and his wife as slaves by disqualifying them, while he would have his children and himself free, of degrading the woman below himself while desiring to love her as an equal, then the time has indeed come when he must be brought to realize this contradiction, by the abolition of which, alone, will he himself, as well as woman, be able to occupy their true position in life. 4. Equal rights will suffer no deductions and no exceptions. They can be thought of only as a com- plete, absolute, individual sovereignty, secured from all sides, in the state as well as in the family, in social as well as business intercourse. To exclude woman from suffrage is simply tyranny; to subordinate her in the family is barbarism; to limit her in social intercourse is arbitrariness; to measure the fruits of her labor with an unequal standard is fraud. 5. In the family, as well as in the state, this col- lection of families, interests, sentiments and aspira- tions can be brought into a state of humane har- mony only by a co-operation of both sexes on a basis of equality. The one-sided preponderance of one sex to the exclusion of the other from public activity is not accompanied merely by the disastrous AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 247 consequences which inevitably follow every sup- pression of rights, but must needs maintain a de- fective, discontented state of society, by depriving it of the co-operation of its noblest perfecting and humanizing forces. All reforms will remain frag- mentary and botch-work so long as not all the mem- bers of society can participate in them as equals. 6. The foundation of a humane co-operation of both the sexes in the state is their personal union in marriage for the purpose of forming a family. But in order that marriage may accomplish its aim of a harmonious relationship, it must be the result of a free need and a free choice, and not be treated as a duty and a coercion. It is a glaring inconsistency to expect free individuals to unite to form a state in order that this same state may, through the institu- tion of marriage, rob them of their individual liberty. It is the inherent and exclusive right of every in- dividual to determine his own actions. This right cannot 'be forfeited by a voluntary union with an- other individual. Marriage is a free relationship be- tween sovereign and equal individuals, entered into for the sake of mutual happiness, and its dissolution, as well as its contraction, cannot be determined by any other will than that of the united parties, even although the conception of a true marriage presup- poses a union for life. Corresponding to this conception of marriage, and the equality of the two individuals concerned in it, all the property of the united couple, that which 248 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN was brought into the union, and that which is accu- mulated by both in common, must, as the basis of their united existence, be administrated in common, and must, in case of a separation, be divided in equal parts. 7. So long as perfect equality in all departments of life has not been established, and an equal op- portunity for education in their chosen calling, in any field, has not been secured to both sexes alike, a proportionately larger share of the property of the parents should by inheritance fall to the female chil- dren, for the purpose of securing their existence. Thus far the resolutions. Julie vom Berg recom- mended their adoption with the following remarks : I need not call special attention to the fact that the resolutions are somewhat irregular in form, and also ignore many a point upon which much empha- sis is generally placed, on similar occasions. These points have received such frequent consideration that we have intentionally avoided their repetition. While we were careful to duly acknowledge general principles, our chief concern was to emphasize those sides of the question which usually, especially in American conventions, are ignored or receive a false interpretation. While, for instance, American women make the mistake of attempting the confir- mation of their rights by religious authorities, our special object is to show that religion itself — this eternal enemy of nature and free humanity — con- tains the root of the tyranny, which has ever de- AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 249 graded one-half of humanity to be the servant and slave of the other half. Only nature and reason can assign us our proper place; all religions begin and end with our degradation, but especially the Chris- tian religion, the most unnatural and inhuman of all. Have Christians ever doubted the human na- ture of male man? Have they ever classified him as an animal? In the middle ages the question was discussed whether woman was a human being. But they nevertheless, since they could not do without her, assigned 'her a high position in the divine royal family, not, however, without first divesting her of all womanly or human attributes, except the "seven swords" in her breast. Perhaps this, too, is an illus- tration to the Christian command : Taceat muJier in ecclesia — 'let the woman be silent in the church"— she may not speak, but she may weap. And she has indeed wept enough, both with and without swords in her breast, and not only in the Christian church. I hear her weeping in the Mohammedan church, where she is driven in troops to satisfy male lust; I hear her weeping in the Babylonian church, where she was at the mercy of every stranger, for money, which the priest pocketed; I hear her weeping in the Hindoo church, which drove her living into the flames, that it might write a ghastly epitaph for the dead master with the coal of the burned slave. Hun- dreds of thousands and millions of these epitaphs 'have been 'written since the religious campaign of Alexander, during two thousand years, and they are 250 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN still being written to-day. It is surprising that Christianity, which also at a later day came to greatly relish roasted living human flesh, has not adopted this Hindoo method of beatification. Thus the spirit of all religions established by men, whose pious delig'ht has always been in human sacri- fice, the sacrifice of the helpless, has understood the rights of women ! If woman wished, by a single fact, to prove herself the representative -of true humanity, and by a single word to deny all complicity in the misery of the world, she need but say: Never has a woman, whatever else she may have done, in the capacity of queen, for instance, never has she founded a religion! In drawing up our resolutions we have gone back to nature, this fountain head of all knowledge, to open men's eyes to the barbaric prejudice that per- meates all his opinions, habits and laws, and through which he has deemed himself justified in conducting himself as the lord and owner of his fellow-beings of the feminine sex. Not until he has become en- tirely conscious of this prejudice, not until he has learned to recognize in the subordination of woman the debasement of his own race and humanity, will he be able to grant equal rights to us honestly and completely. Before this even the most just and hu- mane man will concede them more or less as an act of mercy, rather than a demand of inexorable logic, the fulfillment of a categorical command of duty, the expiation of an ancient wrong. But when this false AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 251 fundamental conception that a difference of sex may involve a difference of rights, and annul the sov- ereignty of the individual, is once destroyed, it will become clear to everyone that all further objections to the absolute equality of rights can be turned against men as well as against women. In touching upon a few other points we wished to indicate the consequences of equal rights upon relations which are generally passed over in silence, but which have hitherto been regulated entirely to the disadvantage of woman, and are rarely con- ceived of in a radical sense. I am tempted to ask the question whether men would ever have thought of founding the institution they call marriage if they had felt sure that without it women would be as eager to do their "dirties" as they themselves have always been to disregard theirs. The women were to be chained while the men went free. This seems to have been the original meaning of man-created "marriage." Marriage as reformed by women abol- ishes all chains as superfluous in the true, and disas- trous in the false, union. The motion to adopt the resolutions, in toto, was favorably received by many, especially by Marie Zehringer of St. Louis, wibo spoke as follows : "It is incomprehensible to me how a woman, who is not entirely devoid of judgment and self- respect, can love a man and accept him as her com- panion for life, who does not grant her every right which he claims for himself. By the assumption of 252 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN a difference or by the denial of her rights, he either declares her as unable or as unworthy to stand upon an equal plane with himself; he divests her of her human dignity or degrades her into a second-class human being. He says to her: I >love you as a per- son, but this person has no will of her own, only my will; you are an angel, but this angel does not know what she is about ; I adore you as a goddess, but this goddess has not brains enough to judge of the most commonplace things; you can make me happy for life, but you cannot decide what is good or bad, right or wrong, reasonable or unreasonable ; I am wholly yours, but I am your law-maker and your judge; all my possessions are at your disposal, but I must be your guardian, and must vote for you as the slave-holder does for the slave ; you are my mistress in theory, but my servant in practice. How ought she to answer all these inconsistencies? Sim- ply thus : You are either a hypocrite in your profes- sions of love, or a fool in your arrogance ; in the first case, I despise you, and in the second case, I laugh at you, but in no case do I love you. Adieu ! The contradictions in which men involve them- selves, in their struggle against 'the equality of the sexes, are as obvious as they are innumerable. They think they are paying us the very highest compli- ment when, in assigning us our "sphere" in their well-known arbitrary manner, they entrust us with the high task of educating their children. We are to be educators without having had an education our- AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 253 selves. We are to do our share in making the chil- dren worthy members of society, competent citizens, without having learned ourselves what society needs, and What constitutes a good citizen. We are to teach them the rights of man when we have none ourselves. We are slaves and are expected to rear free men; we are brought up as dolls, and are en- trusted with the task of training men. In short, we are charged with incapacity for and deprived of the opportunity of learning and practicing the very thing which it is to be our highest task to teach. But although women in general have no oppor- tunity to fit themselves for public life, they neverthe- less show, in all questions that do not require a special training, that they stand on the right side. I need only to call to mind the slave question. Slavery, so long admired by the majority of men, would certainly have been abolished several decades earlier had women had a voice in the matter. That women of the South, spoiled by education, and de- humanized by habit, have taken the side of slavery need not astonish us ; but how many women in the North sided with this 'barbaric institution, of the preservation of which the men made a vital ques- tion? And especially among the German women, where do you find that revolting fanaticism for slavery, that stupid 'hatred of the negro, by which the majority of the German men have distinguished and are stil'l distinguishing themselves as "Demo- crats?" I have never yet found a German woman 254 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN who hated a negro woman on account of her color. To the disgrace of our nationality be it said that there are hundreds of thousands of German male "Democrats," but to the honor of our sex be it like- wise said, very few female "Democrats." The test has never yet been made how much woman in general can accomplish, but rather the test to what degree her capacities can be curbed. And yet the sons of the mothers who have been put to this test have not all turned out idiots and bar- barians ! Ought not that to arouse a desire in men to see what can be made of women, if they are not only placed on a footing of equality with men, but also receive equal liberty and opportunity to de- velop their capacities and unfold their activities? We always point with satisfaction to the fact that great men usually had excellent mothers. The qualities of the mothers are therefore to be consid- ered an index to the qualities of the sons, and the influence of a mother does not seldom decide the trend of a whole life. And yet there seems to be a determination to limit the number of superior women as much as possible, by hindering the de- velopment of their faculties. Do not the men thus defraud themselves most surely, while they think they are working for their own best interests? When the mothers are enslaved and degraded, the sons can not be born as champions of liberty and men of genius. Let us turn our eyes to the Orient. Is it not, and will it not always be, an intellectual desert, AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 255 a monotonous merely vegetating spiritual waste, a hopeless stagnation? And why? Because woman is everywhere degraded to an unconscious slave and incapacitated for producing other beings than after the prevailing type. When do we ever hear of one remarkable intellect, one superior character among the hundreds of sons of which a Sultan or lord of a harem can boast? And yet their mothers are the most charming, the choicest specimens of their sex; and yet their fathers have all the means at their dis- posal to give their sons every opportunity for the development of their faculties. Even if these fathers were all men of genius, the sons would neverthe- less be born stupid and degraded because all higher nature, all intellectual life has been killed in the mothers by the customary degradation and slavery. But we need not go to the Orient, to the so-called heathen, we have instructive examples in our midst, which can at the same time bear witness to the blessings of Christianity, Within this great republic Christianity has bred an offspring which, so far as the female sex is concerned, might serve as a model to the Turkc. The Mormons consider it their mis- sion to populate heaven, and for this purpose they provide for the greatest possible increase of their progeny. W 7 lhat will be the nature of this heavenly population? We can surmise it from the condition of their mothers. I have before me a report by a pious Christian, who has just returned from a tour around the world, who has visited the most dif- 256 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN ferent nations, who has everywhere studied woman in her degradation, and who has made some very true observations on the pernicious influences of religion, so far as his own religion was not con- cerned. From him we hear how in Salt Lake City "the resisting woman is made a prostitute in the name of God, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." She is taught that in Utah, the same as in the Bible, the man is her "Lord and Master;" she is shown from examples in the Bible (Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon) that her "lord and master" must have as many women at his disposal as he likes; it is im- pressed upon her that the "salvation" of her soul depends on her compliance, commanded by God, so that the most beautiful maiden will not dare to re- fuse the most disgusting old fellow, for this would <be a sin against God, whereby she forfeits her eternal blessedness. And how about the unfortun- ate victims of this holy prostitution? "There is," says the reporter, "no religious doctrine too sense- less for men to believe. Is it possible for ignorance, for fanaticism, for superstition to change sensual vulgarity into virtue, in the name of religion? Do you ask whether these women of Salt Lake City believe in polygamy? I answer, Yes. They believe that Brig i ham Young is the servant of God, that his revelations come from God. They are serious and sincere in their belief. Do you ask whether they like polygamy? I answer, No. They accept it as a religious sacrifice. It is the will of God. They AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 257 •honor Him by obeying, they secure their own salva- tion, and at the same time eternal blessedness for un- born souls, who are waiting for an earthly dwelling. I venture to assert that in all Utah there is not a single happy -woman united to a man who has more than one wife. Polygamy is contrary to nature. You can read nature's protest in the sad, careworn face of every woman whom you meet." Such are Christian conditions, religious condi- tions resulting from a belief in the Bible. Christians, that is, those who consider themselves true Chris- tians, curse them, but 'with what right? Who has given. these believers in the Bible a monopoly on their interpretation? Is not every vice, every most hideous act, every crime, that claims to have relig- ion, the Bible, God on its side, justified? And since the weakest are always the first target and the first victims of every vice, every hideous act, every crime, it is but natural that woman should be the first to experience most thoroughly the benefactions of re- ligion. But Mormonism, this masterpiece of sys- tematized hypocrisy for the satisfaction of animal lust at the expense of degraded womanhood, teaches still more plainly than its mother, "legitimate" Chris- tianity, how religion can even serve as a means for making crimes, committed in its name, appear like the greatest boon to those against whom they are perpetrated; so that in the name of "God," the patron of every imaginable barbarity, and horror, they aillow themselves to be not only defrauded of 258 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN their lives, but to regard this as their highest des- tiny! It would be easier for me to understand a woman who considered suicide as her destiny, than one who, claiming human rights for herself, could still feel some enthusiasm for religion. The resolutions also met with some opposition. Johanna Fuchs of Buffalo took exception to the sixth resolution, so far as it demanded communism of property between married people. She feared "that such an arrangement would lead to the greatest abuse, and was more likely to create false marriages than to preserve the true ones. Would not every girl of means run the risk of having her property squandered by the man who knew how to gain her affections, and who really cared only for her money? What protection has she if she is no longer to possess and administrate her property in her own name? And would not, on the other hand, many a shrewd woman try to insinuate herself into the affec- tions of a rich man, then wilfully provoke a ground for divorce, in order to walk off with one-half of his property? It seems to me that if property is to be held in common, divorce should not depend merely on the will of the united couple; but if di- vorce is to be free the property ought to belong to the one who brought it into the union. Such as the world is, I cannot expect any good to come from the arrangement as recommended." JULIE VOM BERG— The objections that have AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 259 been raised seem to be justified if we consider merely the present conditions of society. But we must re- member above all things that our point of departure is an assumption of better conditions, which we our- selves will help to create. Just as the exercise of suffrage, which we demand, and the equality of the sexes for which we strive, can only be expected in a future which is more susceptible to such reforms than the present, so in the conception of a reformed institution of marriage, we must count upon future conditions in which the obstructive elements of the present are at least partially removed. When we imagine the marriage relation of the future, as we desire it, we also assume, for example, that the women of the future have received a more adequate education, that they will be better able to secure their own existence, that their economic dependence on men ceases in part, and that they are to that ex- tent less tempted to marry from necessity and specu- lation instead of from love. On the other hand, we must expect that in the same proportion as women gain in independence and influence, men will change their habits, and ennoble their sentiments, whose present vulgarity and baseness find their chief nour- ishment in the existing helplessness and degradation of woman. We must here, above all things, remem- ber that this is a question of principle, which can- not be modified, or condemned to silence, out of consideration of existing conditions. What do equal rights demand? And what does a true conception 260 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN of marriage demand? These alone are the questions we must answer. There is not an uncorrupted woman in the world, who, in considering all her wishes, with regard to marriage, would ask anything else than to be united to a man to whom she may be devoted in love for her whole life. Now may each one ask herself how she can harmonize the thought of such unity of feeling, of devotion and of exist- ence, with the precautions of securing the dollar, inherited, or obtained by some other favorable cir- cumstance, against the beloved man, in whom she trusts as in herself, and with whom she would share everything that is her own! How does the calcu- lating spirit of the merchant or the lawyer, that keeps strict account over his dollars and her dollars, agree with the relationship of two lovers, who lead a common life, and see themselves rejuvenated in their children? Frightful discord! Disgusting con- tradiction! What! am I to entrust and devote my person, my whole life and being to a man, but guard my purse against him by law and the police? Do I not thereby declare my purse more valuable than my person? And is the man to see in this anxiety about the dollar a proof of his wife's confidence in him? Is it not as though she were saying to him: I love you infinitely, but I take you for a thief and a sharper who wishes to rob me of my money? How a man can debase himself to "marry" such a woman, who at the outset meets him with the most sordid distrust by locking up her money from him, I can ANh THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 261 comprehend as little as that such a woman can really expect her love to be considered genuine. For it is a condition of true love that each side finds his or her happiness in turning over to the other every desirable thing over which he or she has any power. A financial barrier must necessarily also create or indicate a moral barrier, a barrier between the feel- ings, and it does not seem to me that any marriage can be a happy one in which a separation of the property indicates a life apart, or, in making the one dependent on the other, subordinates one to the other. If a millionaire offers you his hand without at the same time offering his millions, then reject him or demand of him that he throw his millions out of the window for your sake. He who does not want to marry without securing his property from his chosen life-companion will act more wisely and more worthily if he continues to hve without a com- panion. There is a custom which prevails in America, more than elsewhere, according to which a woman upon marrying secures her property, if she has any, for her own person. In giving her one hand to the man, she points with the other to her strong-box upon which is written : Hands off! Very romantic, and most promising of future happiness! But the husband finds this as unobjectionable as the wife, because both of them have no conception of true love and marriage. Take, says she or he, my hand, take my liberty, take my person, take my heart — 262 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN as much as there is of it — but, dearest creature, leave me my money! And thus they enter into the business of "loving" each other. Think of Abelard and Heloise with a lawyer or notary between them guarding their separate accounts. To be sure, Abelard and Heloise did not live in America. In this country of calculators and money-makers, where the number of dollars constitutes the "worth" of a person, one can sacrifice the person and keep the worth, if one keeps the money. I do not venture a conjecture as to how many true marriages there are here; but they are surely not to be found where man and wife keep separate accounts. If, however, in objection to the proposed resolu- tion, and in consideration of present conditions, the anxiety is expressed that the female sex will be placed at a disadvantage should the resolution be put into practice, I am of an entirely different opin- ion. If we consider that the majority of women are still economically dependent upon men and will re- main so for some time to come, and that, as a rule, the men provide the means of existence, it follows that an arrangement which in marriage makes the property of both common, and in case of divorce divides it into equal parts, must in general result to the advantage of woman. The resolution, therefore, offers a security to the weaker party. This security may go 'even further, for since the husbands, having complete control of everything, are generally the ones who furnish the occasion for a divorce, the AND THE SEXUAL BELATIOKS. 263 temptation and opportunity for it will consequently be lessened if women have a word to say with regard to the disposal and administration of the property. For all these reasons I repeat the motion to adopt the resolutions in toto. At these words a respectable-looking man arose, gave his name as Backfuss from New York, and asked for the floor. He had polished manners, but his physiognomy was most commonplace. On close observation one could see that his right eye was an immovable glass ball. "If men are permitted," said Mr. Backfuss, "to join in the discussion, I will take the liberty to call your attention to one important point, which has not yet found expression in this meeting. I am of the opinion that it is an insurmountable obstacle to the emancipation of woman. You demand, ladies, complete equality of rights with men in the state and society. You claim that a difference of sex can be no objection. Well, I will concede everything if you are able to disprove a saying which has been con- sidered true as long as the world stands, and will have to hold for all time if human society is not to collapse. Do you know what this saying is? I will tell you. It is: Equal rights call for equal duties! If you lay claim upon everything which men possess, you must also accomplish everything that we men accomplish. What do we men accom- plish? Our most important and highest achievement is that we risk our lives for our country, that we take 264 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN up weapons and go out upon the field of battle, that we shed our blood, and in the thunder of cannons defend our country, and our institutions, and you also, honored ladies, against the common enemy. Now I ask: Do you do that, too? Can you do it? No, forever no. Our highest duty you cannot fulfill, consequently you cannot lay claim to our highest right. I say that without wishing to offend you, for you have so many other rights, and such a beautiful vocation in your sphere " (Voices from all sides: "Nothing about the sphere ! We alone know about that." Mr. Backfuss sits down.) JULIE VOM BERG— I know a great many men Who do not go to war, although they are able to go. And I know many others who cannot go on account of some infirmity or other hindrance. But I do not know a single one who has forfeited his rights, be- cause he did not allow himself to be made into an instrument of murder on the drill ground, or has not taken part in a mass-murder, in the thunder of can- nons. Upon what do those, who are exempted, found their privileges as against us? On the other hand, I know thousands of women, who during the war have saved the lives of thousands of men, or relieved their suffering with tender care, providing all those things which their condition needed, but would never have found without the sympathy of women. In this manner women also have fulfilled duties during the war, which are surely equal to AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 265 those df the men, especially if we also take. account of the suffering and the sacrifices to which they were exposed through the loss of their husbands and sons. Thus the distinction men win for themselves as murderers is transmuted into a distinction for women as sufferers. Would it not be humane logic to deduce from this distinction of women a right to assist in doing away with this murdering for which men claim so much credit, by the participation of women in public life? Do these barbarians really consider it their destiny to shed as much blood in the future as they have shed in the past? Is this, then, and will it always be their "sphere?" Is it to remain man's highest estate to achieve that for which beasts of the desert, the tiger and the hyena could serve as models? This martial infatuation and bluster, continued even to the present day, proves more than anything else to what extent the animal and savage nature still prevails in man, and how much barbaric admixture, all his culture notwith- standing, he must still eliminate from his mode of thought, before he is truly humane. His right — the strength of bones; his fame — bloodshed — thus it was in primordial times, when he devoured his slain opponent,, and thus it is even to-day, when he buries him "decently." In Europe, the cradle of universal culture, that man stands highest even to- day, who has the greatest number of victims on his list of murdered ; and in America, the model repub- lic elects a man to the Presidency, who could sail 266 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN into the White House on a ship of war, if all the blood which he has shed, and shed for the most part unnecessarily, could be collected in Washing- ton. Had he saved his country, as they call it, by a great thought, or any other peaceful deed of the intellect, he would probably be neglected or for- gotten; but because he reeks with blood, because blood marks his path, and blood surges about his seat, it is that which gives him the true color to suit the taste of this barbaric masculine world, and to secure for him precedence above all other un- bloody greatness. If murder and bloodshed are thus still to mark the path of man's aspirations and glory, would we women not be justified in considering ourselves as the only true human beings? And yet our claims to human rights are to 'be measured according to our ability to participate in the deeds of inhuman beings ? Would the gentleman, who has just enlightened us concerning the duties of citizens, consider our claims to the rights of citizens as better grounded, if we possessed the proper qualifications for the amazons of the dictator Lopez, or the king of Dahomey? If we women were as intent upon handling murderous weapons, and shedding blood, as men are, and could, therefore, perform their vaunted "duties" as their equals, it seems to me the "lords of creation" would long for nothing more ardently than to see us once more transformed into unarmed and unbloody be- ings. They would most willingly con-cede to us AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 267 every right, yea, every privilege, and even force it upon us, to escape the danger of having the relation- ship reversed and of having masculine right dealt out to them by the feminine sword." AGNES KOEHLER— I beg pardon, but has the gentleman who reminded us of the military duty, been in the war himself? BACKFUSS — Certainly, I have been through the entire campaign of the army of the Potomac. A. KOEHLER— Were you also in the battle? BACKFUSS— Not just in it. But I filled my position. A. KOEHLER— What position did you hold? Were you a soldier or an officer? BACKFUSS— Neither of the two. The loss of the right eye by a stone disabled me for service. A. KOEHLER — Ah, no warrior, no thunderer of cannons then ! And yet you retained your political rights? And yet you enlighten us as to our in- capacity for equal rights because we are unfitted for war? But what position did you hold in the army? Perhaps my brother knows you, who was there also. BACKFUSS— Well, I was a sutler. (General merriment.) MARGARETHE NIEVENHEIM— The sister of my washerwoman, whose husband was a corporal in the army of the Potomac, accompanied him fear- lessly and faithfully, and went through the entire campaign, likewise in the capacity of — sutler. I 268 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN hope you will at least accept this woman as a col- league, with equal rights, especially since she never sold adulterated drinks, and was very moderate in her prices. (Mr. Backfuss rises.) A. KOEHLER — Beg pardon, but are you not now an "editor?" BACKFUSS — I have an engagement with a paper in New York. (Leaves the hall.) A. KOEHLER— Then he will change from a sutler into a muddler. • After Mr. Backfuss had withdrawn, another op- ponent succeeded him, a gentleman with the face of a fox, whose diplomatic self-complacent air be- trayed the consciousness of his ability to greatly embarrass the ladies. He was a politician and editor from the West, who considered himself a great statesman, and his name was Schuerze. MR. SCHUERZE — Ladies, I have followed your discussions with great interest, but do not presume to be able to give an opinion on the questions which are brought up here. The right of women is for you the chief, yes, the exclusive question, and you undertake to solve it at once. It seems to me that another question ought to be solved first, upon which the entire significance of this one depends. The question of woman's rights, as many another question, belongs to the realm of theory. Theoret- ical questions in themselves have no meaning in AND THE SEXUAL BELATIOJSTS. 269 politics. They have meaning and significance only when they represent a power in practical life which is strong enough to uphold and execute them. Poli- tics reckons with powers and num'bers. Assuming that your resolutions had found favor before all the world, as theoretical principles, but not a person besides yourselves could be found to give them sup- port in practical politics, or to attempt to make them law, would they then be anything more than mere phrases? They would have to be considered as non- existent. It is clear, then, that the standard which the practical statesman must apply to a question is that of the power and support at its disposal. If it has no party it can receive no attention. The interest in it grows with its party. But where is the party to back your demands? I see a number of ladies assembled here, who individually, or as a debating society, can call out the greatest interest. But measured by the party standard which politics must apply, this society will be of no importance, even if its theories were entirely correct. How many voters are ready to adopt these theories and support them at the polls? This is the main question. But even this is preceded 'by another: How many women are there back of your theories and demands? Suppose, now, that you stood all alone. Will any practical statesman wish and be able to work for woman's rights, if the majority of women them- selves do not demand them, and thus declare them- selves against them? Could we let the majority of 270 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN women, especially of German women, vote on this so-called emancipation, I am convinced, regardless of its theoretical correctness or incorrectness, that the majority -would vote against it, or not at all. "What sort of a case have you now? The majority of men against it, and the majority of women not for it. If the contrary were the case, the theoretical side of the question would present few difficulties; but under present circumstances a discussion of the subject has neither a definite aim, nor any chance of success whatever. JULIE VOM BERG— If the speaker has con- vinced me of anything it is of the fact that he is in- deed a "practical statesman." The principle, by him called theory, has in itself no significance for him; power alone has significance. Where this exists, there the principle, whose part it takes, has value. The principle is merely the accident of power, and might just as well not exist at all. A practical states- man has no principle whatever, to begin with, and does not decide upon any, in order not to compro- mise himself; he waits cautiously until one that promises well for his position has sufficient adherents, that is a party strong enough to insure victory. Then the practical statesman takes its side, conducts him- self as its enthusiastic champion, and reaps all the advantages of the victory, which his cunning and daring manages to appropriate for himself, without having incurred the least risk in the struggle. He merely waits until a question of progress has become AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 271 mature, and strong, through the exertion of others, then he attaches himself to it and becomes its spokes- man, thus securing not only his reputation as a liberal man, who belongs to the advance guard everywhere, where the struggle is for liberty and development, but also as a far-sighted politician, whose championship is always coupled with success. Whoever is sly enough in his operations to keep away from a struggle so long as a superior enemy makes the outcome doubtful, but who later, when the downfall of this enemy can be foreseen, takes his place in the ranks of the aggressors with eclat, he certainly adopts the most practical way to share in the glory of the victory, without having assisted in the struggle. Remember the spectacle that pre- sented itself in the development of the slave ques- tion. The abolition of slavery was in the beginning agitated only by "impractical" albolitionists, who were forever "harping" on their "theory," were hated by all true "patriots," and despised or ridi- culed by all "practical statesmen." ' In spite of these animosities the abolitionists did not relinquish their efforts, and when they alone could not gain a hear- ing, the natural course of events brought the slave- holder, cuddled and reared by the practical states- man, to their aid, and opened the ears of these prac- tical statesmen very practically; that is, unmisak- ably. What happened? During the exciting stress of this reaction, the enemies of slavery increased a millionfold, and grew to a party whose victory had 272 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN become as 'much of a certainty as of a necessity. What did the "practical statesmen" do now? Did they continue to ridicule the abolitionists? They, who from cowardice and want of principle, had but a short time ago attempted to withdraw the slave question from all contention, as an inviolable sanc- tuary; they, who. had boasted of "not being aboli- tionists, not even in silence," now suddenly became, of necessity, the leaders of the combat; they took possession of abolitionism, as though they alone had worked for it from childhood up, and now boast of themselves as champions of liberty, in order to reap the reward of their achievements. I am not afraid of being a false prophet, if I pre- dict that the question of woman's rights will run the same course that the question of negro rights took. Our victory is to us as certain as the victory of the enemies of slavery has been to the abolitionists. But when shall it be consummated? Can we assign the day in the calender? Can we determine the time according to month, week, and day? Think of the dreadful possibility of having to fight five, ten, twenty years longer for the recognition and accomplishment of our rights! A man of principle, a friend o<f jus- tice, a warrior of liberty, and advocate of truth, a promoter of humanity, who takes his cause seriously for the sake of the cause, does not reckon by days, months and years. He has patience, and persever- ance, and finds his reward in striving for a noble end, and hoping for its final attainment. But is it AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 273 not unreasonable, yes, cruel, to torture a so-called politician, or practical statesman, on the rack of such waiting? Remember that he has no principle; how can he be expected to strike and wait for it? Re- member that he must live by success, how then can he be expected to join a party whose success seems still so doubtful, even in a remote distance? Remem- ber that the poor wretch cries for an "office," that he wants to become Governor, Ambassador, Senator, how can he be expected to entrust his destiny to the future of a society that has as yet no "office" at its disposal, except perhaps the position of President or Secretary of a woman's convention? No, let us not be crue'l, above all things! But I know of no greater cruelty than to expect a "practical states- man" to risk his "office" in a ruling party, and his reputation, £s a successful man, by identifying him- self with a principle that has still to win a party and to create a power. Let us be fair, let us judge mildly, and show forbearance. We, too, shall some- time have the practical statesman on our side, namely, at a time when we shall no longer need their help. At that time not only all meeting halls, but also the halls of the capitol will resound with "woman's rights," and among those who will con- gratulate us, on our victory and who, of course, will have the highest honor of it, the "practical states- men," will be the most chivalrous and debonair. Will we be grateful? Will we be generous? Will we distribute the "offices" only among the "theorizers?" 274 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN I for my part vote for extreme liberality, and even Mr. Schuerze will not 'be forgotten, if he will answer me one question definitely and unequivocally. It is not the following question: If all men were "prac- tical statesmen" who became interested in a right only after it had become a power sure of victory, could an unrecognized right then ever come up for discussion, and would progress ever be possible? Neither is it the following: Are not the radical friends of reform, who are the first to agitate for universal rights and better institutions, trusting that whatever is correct in principle must and will find its way into practice, more practical and far- sighted statesmen than the calculating business and state "politicians" of the moment, who take advan- tage of progress only when it is already in full swing, in spite of them? Nor the following: Were the majority of the slaves, a few years ago, in favor of the abolition of slavery? Was this abolition un- timely or unjust, because not the slaves themselves but the free people demanded it? And is not op- pression everywhere detrimental to those that exe- cute it as well as to those who suffer from it? Is not the recognition and security of rights a beneficence and a duty even where no one expressly claims them? I will excuse the practical statesman from answering all these, and other questions — I only wish to address one personal question to him. SCHUERZE— And that is ? JULIE VOM BERG— Are you in principle, or as AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 275 you say, theory, for granting absolute equality of rights to the female sex? Yes or no. SCHUERZE— I hold that the entire female sex has absolutely equal rights. JULIE VOM BERG— I see. You mean to say that one woman has as many, that is as few, rights as the other. I shall now vote that Mr. Schuerze is not to have any "office." Mr. Schuerze departs amid general merriment. Not discouraged by this failure, another opponent appears. It is a man with very little forehead, but much beard, and a powerful voice. He gives his name as Gerstaeker. Several questions from the meeting: "Are you the traveler and writer, Ger- staeker?" GERSTAEKER — I am his namesake and like- wise a traveler, but I travel for a wine-house. But that makes no difference. I only wanted to say something that my namesake has said. He said it in the "Gartenlaube," with which you are probably acquainted; it is the most distinguished and bright- est paper in our German fatherland. My name- sake is of the opinion that the emancipation of woman is against her own interests. For, he says, so long as she is not emancipated, that is, not on a footing of equality with man, he will protect her; she is for him the weaker sex, over whom he must watch, and for whom he must show tender consid- eration. But when she is made 'his equal, he will treat her as his equal, and will abandon all indul- 276 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN gence, compassion and consideration that we owe to the weaker part. My namesake proves this by a striking example. He relates how a young lady entered an American street car, but found all seats occupied. A gentleman jumped up to offer her his place, but at the same time asked her the question whether she was in favor of woman's emancipation. When she answered in the affirmative, he resumed his seat, saying: "If you want to be the equal of man I may also treat you as a man." You see, that is what you would have to expect, if your resolutions were to become law. JULIE VOM BERG— The prospects that the namesake of Mr. Gerstaeker lays before us are at least better than those of the young lady in the street car. We may at least expect to have a seat vacated for us by chivalrous gentlemen, so long as our resolutions have not become law; that is, so long as our equality has not become a fact, while the unfortunate young lady was condemned to stand, because she only desired the equality, only expected it "theoretically" as the "practical states- man" puts it. But I think we had better stick to our rights, even at the risk of going without all mascu- line chivalry at this early date. Later on, when we take part in the law-making, we Shall see to it that the street car companies no longer will let anybody stand, but will furnish a seat for his or her money to every passenger. In this as well as in other cases we shall inaugurate the reforms which the prac- AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 277 tical statesman as well as the chivalrous gentlemen have forgotten or neglected. For the present let us examine the chivalry and the tender considera- tions, the secret of which Mr. Gerstaeker has so naively disclosed to us. He makes the observance of these considerations toward the weaker sex de- pendent on its disqualification. He offers us chiv- alry as a reward for the renunciation of our rights. As slaves we may hope to sit down in the street car; as free individuals we must stand. So long as I cannot vote my legs are too weak to carry me; as soon as I have the suffrage they suddenly grow strong. To subordinate one's rights to the rights of men is a service that must be rewarded with chivalrous attentions; to be his equal in rights is an offense that must be punished by rudeness. You see, this is the correct interpretation of Gerstaekerian chivalry. He also might have expressed himself thus : So long as you women are satisfied to be our disqualified servants, we are the chivalrous be- stowers of compliments; but as soon as you demand and receive rights, we become brutal churls. Mr. Gerstaeker, I mean the namesake of the wine mer- chant, has had much intercourse with savage men, and beasts, as I see from the accounts of his travels. He also has been a frequent guest at "courts" which has the same effect. Can it be that he has learned his chivalry there? I would quietly leave him to his society if I were not compelled to also see in him a representative of a great number of men, who have 278 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN not lived among savages and courtiers, but in civil- ized circles. May it be made known to these gentle- men that we thoroughly detest and abominate their entire chivalry, of which they seem so proud. It is nothing but a mask for brutality and vulgarity. If it were a disinterested virtue and an outcome of their humanity, how could they have the barbaric arrogance to demand as its price, a renunciation of human rights? And how could they then, make the difference which we daily see them make, accord- ing to circumstances, and external appearances? Look, how chivalrous these knight-errants are when they see a pretty face, and how indifferent, when a plain unfortunate woman appeals to their pity! At the sight of an affected society belle, they start from their seats; but the sick negress may stand till she drops. Do but become humane, and no one will demand or miss your chivalry any more. Then also a better lot will be in store for that numerous class of unfortunates, whom your anxious chivalry has consigned to misery and shame, although they have no rights. And here is the true test of your chiv- alry: Those unfortunates do not offend your mas- culine superiority by the demand of equal rights — where then is your tender consideration for the weaker sex? Here the question is not merely one of a seat in the street car; here it is a matter of rescuing thousands from degradation and despair. Where are you now, chivalrous gentlemen, upon whose protection and shelter, considerateness and AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 279 aid the disfranchised can lay claim? Would those unfortunates be what they are without your chivalry? And could you have made them what they are, if they were not disfranchised? If, after the schooling you have given them, they are still able t<y arouse themselves- to a consciousness of moral worth, they will call out to you : To hell with your chivalry, but give us our human rights, that we can protect our- selves against the dangers of want, and need no longer be the helpless victims of your lust! By the reply of Julie vom Berg the wine drum- mer, Gerstaeker, was thrown into a great state of excitement. He arose, but for some time could not find words for his indignation. At last he called out in a stentorian voice: "I hope that the speaker's insinuations were not meant to be personal. But I shall report the affair at once to my illustrious namesake that he may write it up for the "Gartenlaube." Then he rushed from the hall, upsetting two chairs in his haste. Upon one of them sat the doctor, spiritualist and editor, Bluethe of New York, in a state of deep reflection, to which philosophy applies the term "trance." Aroused by the violent shock and fall, he sprang bravely to his feet and at once assumed the attitude of a speaker. DR. BLUETHE— The movement for the polit- ical equality of woman is steadily gaining ground, even among the German women of North America. A VOICE — More ground, it is to be hoped, than it has so far gained among German men. 280 THE EIGHTS OF WOMEN DR. BLUETHE— But "in itself." TWO VOICES— What in itself? DR. BLUETHE — I mean the movement, no, the thought, I was going to say — well, what did I want? THREE VOICES — You wanted something in itself. DR. BLUETHE— Ah, yes, in itself. I was going to say, namely, that "the aspiring minds of the German adopted population" could inaugurate "the most profound and systematic opposition" to the principles of the movement. AGNES KOEHLER— The aspiring minds? Aspiring to what? To get an "office?" And these "aspiring minds," to whom profound thinking as well as principles are a horror, are to inaugurate a profound opposition to the principles? Hitherto only men of thought and principle have fought on our side of the movement; they have helped to start it. I remind you, among other things, of a pamph- let, from the pen of the late Karl Heinzen, whose early death we lament, printed as early as 1849 in New York: "Concerning the Rights and Position of Women." In this work you will find the woman question treated comprehensively and in connection with the entire evolution and revolution of society, so that the author can justly exclaim at the end: "Women must enter the ranks of the revolution, for the object is the revolution of humanity." DR. BLUETHE— This work is 'beneath all criti- AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 281 cism, as are also his comedies in which he disparages the German editors. A. KOEHLER— Have you read it? Dr. BLUETHE— No, I have not, but it stands condemned in itself. A. KOEHLER— You seem to be "in itself" both a logical thinker and a just critic. DR. BLUETHE — I have thought so myself, and I am glad to have it acknowledged by others. There- fore let me continue. The American Woman's Suf- frage agitation arouses the well-founded apprehen- sion that it may lead to a resuscitation of the asphyx- iated nativist party, to a new installment of know- nothingism, which had seemed to be entirely van- quished. The chief speakers show a bitter and hostile atti- tude toward the adopted element, especially that of the German tongue, perhaps because they suspect or know that from this side their agitation will receive the least support, but to some extent even the most profound and systematic opposition from principle. MRS. STIEGLER— But would they not be justi- fied in that? If these "German tongues" can do nothing but gulp down beer, saturate themselves with tobacco smoke and bleat after the party bell- wether; if they are so coarse that they have not a word of sympathy for the rights of the weaker half of humanity; if they can only hoot and hiss with the rabble and even pass off such vulgarities as "most profound opposition," then I not only do not take 282 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN it ill of the American women that they feel bitter toward such a valuable "element," but I could my- self become nativistic, and at least cast my vote in favor of depriving such "thinkers" of the right of suffrage, that the power of withholding it any longer from women may be taken from them. DR. BLUETHE— "In itself,"— "in a wider sense," — "most profound."— (He slowly sinks back upon his chair, closes his eyes and is again in a "trance.") A. KOEHLER— If he did not have so much of a beard I would take him for a woman in disguise, who has come here to ridicule the men. He seems to be a "medium." Does nobody here understand spiritualism? We ought to ask him some questions. KAROLINE WACHENBERG— I know him. I have often seen him in New York. He is an ex- cellent "editor" and sees spirits besides, although no one can see his. I will examine him. In a "trance" he imagines himself another person, and perhaps we will hear some truth. For an "editor" speaks the truth only when he does not know what he is talking about. How does a man think? DR. BLUETHE— With the stomach. K. WACHENBERG— In itself or for itself? DR. BLUETHE— In itself and for itself. K. WACHENBERG— Who causes the stomach to think? DR. BLUETHE— Whoever fills it. AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 283 K. WACHENBERG— Who fills yours? DR. BLUETHE— The proprietor of the type. K. WACHENBERG— And who fills his stom- ach? DR. BLUETHE— The "party" and the public. K. WACHENBERG— Consequently you must think just as the party and the public wants you to. But if you should now think and speak otherwise? DR. BLUETHE — That is impossible, for my stomach knows what to expect "if he should be- come guilty of this little mistake." K. WACHENBERG— "In a wider sense?" DR. BLUETHE— In the widest sense. K. WACHENBERG— And what do you call this, politics or philosophy of the stomach? DR. BLUETHE— "Most profound and system- atic opposition from principle," or the. "German thought of the aspiring minds of the German adopt- ed population." K. WACHENBERG— But did you not formerly say that "reforms, the correctness of whose prin- ciples could not be contested, must not be left to time to be inaugurated from so-called considera- tions of expediency?" DR. BLUETHE— That was true in itself, and so far as one's bread-giver agreed with it, but not for things antagonistic to the considerations of expe- diency of the stomach. K. WACHENBERG— So if at any time you say anything that is true it must be regarded as a mere phrase? 284 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN DR. BLUETHE — Everything is a mere phrase in the world. One cannot live by truth-telling, and even lying is badly paid if it does not sometimes look like truth. The world is so filled with lies that even a genuine lie can no longer be sold, unless it is adulterated to a certain degree with truth. K. WACHENBERG— Are you not as fully con- vinced of the equal rights of women which you com- bat in your paper, as of the equal rights of negroes, which you advocate? DR. BLUETHE— Completely. But the latter are demanded by my party, my public, and my bread-giver, the former not, and my stomach A VOICE — I begin to feel nausea. SEVERAL VOICES— The whole "German tongue" is beginning to be nauseating. MRS. KALITSCH— So deeply fallen are these lords of creation, and yet they will not accept us as saviors! THE WHOLE MEETING— Take the wretch away! We cannot endure his presence. (The usher arouses him with the call: "The comedies of Heinzen!" whereupon Dr. Bluethe darts up, horror struck, and rushes out.) JULIE VOM BERG— What fruits can we ex- pect from such "blossoms!"* And such ninnies, such imbeciles, sudi caricatures of manhood mount the high horse, conduct themselves as an intellectual *The English for Bluethe is blossom. AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 285 aristocracy, try to clothe their pygmy stature with a nimbus of dark possibilities, and deep mysteries, by significantly pointing to the "aims of aspiring minds" of whom they are the leaders! Really, when I see that such celebrities as these, such abso- lute nothings, in intellect and character, are the spokesmen of our opponents, I feel ashamed for my own sex because it is still so far from attaining its rights. Those among them who consider them- selves great "statesmen" cannot adduce any more weighty reason against our equality than this; that but few of us as yet demand it. Why, if few of us demand, and make use of it, so much less danger is there for the "statesmen." Thus they confess that from fear of these few they condemn one-half of humanity, their mothers and wives inclusive, to be without rights. A brilliant testimony to their wit as well as their courage. Ah, gentlemen, it is time that you protect yourselves against these imputa- tions and humiliations, to which your spokesmen expose you, or you will en masse get a reputation for brainlessness and cowardice! Dr. Bluethe had scarcely been dismissed when another opponent emerged from the background. It could not be ascertained who he was or how he called himself, although it seemed to everybody that they had already seen him, or some one who resem- bled him. All that was known was that he hailed from New York. He was a man of about forty years of age, but bald-headed and with a shriveled 286 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN face that, in spite of its dull eyes, had a brazen, inso- lent expression. If he was not an editor, he might at least have been one. In order to give him a name, and a cosmopolitan one at that, I will call him Mr. Morality. MR. MORALITY— One of your resolutions de- mands the free, unrestrained contraction and disso- lution of marriage. Is that not merely another way of saying "free love?" I am astonished to see Ger- man women make a demand whicn even among American women has called out disgust. What would it lead to, if it were left to the option of every woman to run away from her husband, as soon as he had crossed her whims, and offended her sensi- bilities in any way, or as soon as another one pleased her better ? What would become of feminine dignity and virtue if our women could rush into the arms of another man every day? Indeed, what would become of marriage, and love, that divine theme of our songs, if all were chasing after sensual pleas- ures in perpetual change? Think of the moral an- archy that would be the inevitable consequence of your new institution. I must confess that I am hor- rified, and can hardly believe it possible that the moral sense of our German women can be put to shame by men. JULIE VOM BERG— The gentleman's objec- tions, which so pathetically appeal to our conscience, and are so anxiously concerned about our dignity, are most welcome They give me an opporunity to AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 287 speak openly on this subject, which even in this country is still treated with. the most unbecoming prudery, and the most senseless reserve I do not know the gentleman whom I am to answer. He need not take my remarks personally — they are aimed at the masculine world in general. I begin with the declaration that I advocate "free love" completely and decidedly. But the expression is incorrect and ought to be "freedom in love." In- deed, can any other kind of love exist except free love? Can love be commanded or forced? Some- thing of this sort seems hitherto to have been in the minds of our rihilosophers of love, who have learned their philosophy in Constantinople or Utah appar- ently, and who can let a slave pass as their beloved. Among all the daughters of the goddess Liberty there is none, who, according to her nature, must possess the properties of her mother in a higher degree than Love. Love and free love are therefore synonymous. It ought not to be necessary to talk of free love, any more than of wet water, or hot fii e. I might, however, conceive of love as not free in the sense that the feeling, the necessity, the pas- sion that unites two beings, binds them completely, destroys their free will, turns them irresistibly away from everything else. But just because true love has this effect, exerts this power, creates this neces- sity, it ought no more to be hindered in its choice, by external force, than it will require external bonds to insure its permanence. A man and woman who 288 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN do not love each other ought not to be united, or where they are united, they ought again to be separ- ated; a man and woman who love each other ought not to be kept apart, and they need no external force to remain together. This is the simple statement of what I understand by freedom in love, which is the only means of securing what has now become so rare — a true marriage and a happy family life. Let him who does not agree with me 'have the courage to postulate the opposite and declare, that those who do not love each other ought to be united, and to be kept together by force, those who love each other ought to be separated and to be kept apart by force — both in the interest of humanity and human hap- piness ! Although no man in sound mind dares to make such a demand, it seems, in practice, to be the guid- ing principle almost everywhere. If all the consid- erations, whose slaves men are nowadays, would suddenly drop for only a period of twenty-four hours, not ten of the so-called marriages would exist next day. For married people and their progeny the consequences of the existing relation- ships of force and prostitution are truly appalling. But this same society, especially the male portion of it, never wearies of pronouncing their anathemas on freedom in love. "Free love" is a word of terror, but free prostitution has become a social institution, which is approved inside and outside of marriage by a legal license. And shall I tell you why men con- AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 289 demn freedom in love? Because it would be the death of freedom in prostitution! Our male teach- ers, who can discourse so wisely on our nature, no- where show their incapacity to judge of our nature more than in their anxiety that freedom will lead us Whither it has led them. Give woman freedom, and she will love according to her own tastes and emo- tional needs, give man freedom — -he already has it — without giving it to woman, and he will prostitute himself according to his habit. Prostitution does not proceed from woman any more than slavery does from the slave; as the latter must be charged to the oppressor, so the former must be charged to man. "Free love" for woman signifies the end of prostitution, just as free self-determination for the slave signified the end of slavery. What more I have to say on the subject I will say in the words of one who is gone, who died and was forgotten too soon, and whose memory I consider it an honor to revive. Years ago one of the first woman conventions took place in Rutland, in the State of Vermont. On this occasion — there were also a great many spiritualists present — much ab- surd and foolish stuff was brought up for discussion, but at the same time several women speakers created general consternation by their talent and boldness. A hitherto unknown woman attracted the greatest attention. The chief organ of the prostitution party, the "New York Herald," describes her personality thus: "She is a pale, delicate looking woman, with «9° THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN a sweet, calm smile continually playing about her pretty little mouth. Nobody would suspect that such a woman could utter sentiments like those which de- filed her mouth at Rutland." The woman's name was Julia Branch from New York. And what were the criminal sentiments by which Julia Branch so greatly incensed the moral judges of the male per- suasion? Listen: "No man has a right to dictate to me where and whom I must love." This was the subject of her address. Shocking! A little woman with a pretty mouth dares to assert that no one in the world except herself can determine her love. "Free love !" Down with it ! Later a similar convention took place in Utica, in the State of New York at which Julia Branch once more appeared. This time the chief subject of her address was "Prostitution and Infanticide." Referring to the verdict of condemnation, which had been pronounced on her former speech, she said, among other things, the following: "I do not fear any public opinion, or public condemnation, for I must denounce everybody, be it man or woman, as a coward, who in his heart holds a belief or prin- ciple, which he dares not advocate openly before all the world. Such men do not know the true mean- ing of the word freedom, and still have to learn the true meaning of the word slavery. True enough, it is not an easy matter to defy public opinion. I am not astonished to see strong hearts grown 'weary and weak in doing good.' It is happiness after AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 291 which all the world aspires; but the way to happiness has been planted with the cross of duty, and has been made so narrow, and steep, that but few ven- ture upon it unless driven by the fear of hopeless condemnation, or allured by the promise of a spark- ling crown — in every case a poor recommendation for their own or the general conception of happiness. The ambition to become great in public opinion or to gain the applause or approval of the masses, is a childish sentiment. The most faithful and noblest reformers of to-day as well as of all former genera- tions are those who have lost their 'reputation' by advocating unpopular principles. Indeed, neither man nor woman can do thorough reform work in the present state of society so long as they have not lost their 'reputation.' " Has ever man or woman spoken nobler or prouder words than this "delicate" woman, with the "small mouth" and the "sweet smile?" She then proceeds to describe the condition of so- ciety and especially of the institution of marriage, which, above all, she holds responsible for the two evils upon which she is about to speak — prostitu- tion and infanticide. "I hope," she says, "that the meeting will listen to me calmly while I speak of the first evil. It is without doubt a disagreeable subject for an audience to listen to. Many of you, perhaps all, have grown up amid the limitations of false shame and false delicacy, and if a woman dares only to hint at such a subject publicly, or betrays any knowl- 292 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN edge of it, it suffices to cast a suspicion upon her own morality. But whatever may be thought of me, I openly confess that I take an interest in every- thing human, not excepting the woman who has abandoned the path of virtue, and who is considered a worthy representative of that place of eternal tor- ture, to which our Christian friends mercilessly condemn her." Is it not inspiring to hear, in the midst of this bab- bling and howling hypocrisy, which oppresses the minds of this pious world of scoundrels like a night- mare, such noble contempt of the stupid monster, called public opinion, expressed by a "delicate" woman ? Of this dreadful pest, prostitution, which poisons, both physically and morally, millions of the coming as well as of the present generations of men, Mrs. Branch contents herself with unfolding a picture by means of statistical tables, which she has received from physicians, especially from Dr. Saenger, of Blackwell's Island. Dr. Saenger explored the city of New York under police escort and found four hundred notorious brothels with eight thousand fe- male inhabitants. The number of the frequenters of these houses, which consume some eight million dollars, he estimates at sixty thousand a day. Of the private prostitution, which exceeds the public (New York is said to contain forty thousand prosti- tutes) Dr. Saenger could give no estimate; but in England they count one prostitute to every fourteen AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 293 women (in France the proportion is said to be much worse) and on the average the unfortunates there lead this sort of life only for four years, whereupon they "marry" and become "respectable wives and mothers. ,, For this increase the "married state" shows itself sufficiently grateful. Mrs. Branch emphasizes the fact that five-sixths of the frequenters of houses of prostitution are mar- ried men ! And how necessary present society con- siders prostitution to be, is shown by the answer with which the Mayor of New Bedford met the re- quest that the houses of prostitution should be abol- ished: "If these houses are abolished, our wives and daughters will no longer be safe anywhere — on every street they will be in danger of being insulted." (That reminds one of the worthy Mr. Stringfellow, who argued that slavery was necessary, because the female slaves were a moral lightning-rod, so to speak, for the Caucasian women.) Insulted on the street! "But," Mrs. Branch asks, "by whom would they be insulted? Not by any man outside of the world, but by somebody in the world, somebody here and there and everywhere — sixty thousand of these men are in the streets of New York daily, they meet you everywhere, their warm breath fills the air, and the purest and most modest girls are constantly brought into contact with them! Who are they? Who but husbands, fathers, broth- ers? Whose husband, father, brother? Is it yours? Is it mine? The blood rushes into my cheeks as 294 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN well as into yours, at the thought that they could be our friends." And yet, she ought to have added, each one of the sixty thousand considers himself qualified to play the part of superior moral teacher, and to condemn Mrs. Julia Branch, because she said that she alone was to decide where, when and whom she was to love. The fact that this liberty is not recognized and practiced everywhere, she considers to be the chief cause of prostitution. "The cause lies in our pres- ent institution of marriage, which forces a man and woman to remain together until death separates them, without love, without intellectual, moral and physical harmony." The objection, that without the present marriage bonds our sexual relations would sink into a state of anarchy, she meets with the true observation that worse conditions than the present are impossible, and that perfect liberty at its worst would create a better generation of men and women. The hypocrisy which declares that bonds are necessary to restrain those who cannot restrain themselves, and as an example mentions "Mr. So-and-so, who neglects his wife," etc., she silences with the question, "How old is the youngest child of Mr. So-and-so?" Answer: "Two or three months." "Does it not make one heart-sick to see such degraded conditions and the wretched subter- fuges behind which they are to be concealed?" The second subject upon which Mrs. Branch spoke was infanticide. She proved by statistical AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 295 statements that this crime, which has here come to be an every-day measure of expediency and correc- tion, has increased in a frightful degree. In the year 1805 the proportion in New York of still-born chil- dren to the entire population was one to sixteen hundred and twelve; in 1820, one to six hundred and fifty-four; in 1840, one to five hundred and six- teen; in 1850, one to three hundred and eighty-six. Dr. Wyne calculated that for the year 1805 there was one abortion in forty-nine births, for 1810 one in thirty-three, for 181 5 one in thirty-two, for 1830 one in twenty, for 1840 one in sixteen, for 1845 one m thirteen, for 1850 one in twelve. The same physi- cian told Mrs. Branch that the crime of infanticide had increased since 1805 four hundred and fifteen per cent. If this ratio continues, hardly a child will be born alive in New York, at the end of the cen- tury. And such a population listens to condemna- tion of "free love" as if it still had any right to con- demn anything whatever except itself! How many of the mothers of those thousands of murdered chil- dren could say of themselves that they alone were to decide where, when and whom they should love? None of the pharisees, who condemn women like Julia Branch as immoral, have ever asked them- selves this weighty question. "What," asks Mrs. Branch, "is the cause of this frightful increase of this most unnatural of crimes? I can find it only in our present institution of mar- riage. Not the slightest scruple exists, either in or 296 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN out of wedlock, to destroy the life of a child — out of wedlock on account of the fear of losing 'respect- ability' since society condemns the mother as im- moral; in wedlock because the cares of maternity are binding, annoying and difficult. We can have no idea to what extent this system of murder is prac- ticed, and yet if we consider the numbers of children which fill our prisons, we must almost call it a boon. Mothers, think of it! Every son whom you place into this world, whom you have not conceived in purest love, has all the qualities which fill our prisons and poor-houses, inherent within him; every daugh- ter of this kind is born with the tendencies which lead to houses of prostitution. Therefore it is your responsibility as well as your right to say, where and when and how you want to become mothers. Therefore it is also a necessity for you to acquire a knowledge of every art and science which now are the monopoly of men, that you may learn how to bring better children into this world. I reject in all things the stupid saying that ignorance is a blessing. Woman is to know everything that man is capable of knowing, and is to have full liberty to acquire the knowledge. You must break every chain that hin- ders your development, be it church or state, man or woman, wife or child, who forges it." In closing she refers to the fact that the existence of the present institution of marriage does not hin- der propagation outside of marriage, and that, for example, in the year 1852, fifty-five thousand "ille- AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 297 gitimate" children were born in England and Wales. Therefore nature ought to be restored to her right, and the difference between legitimate and illegiti- mate births ought to be abolished that at least one ground for infanticide may be done away with. She then closes with the resolution : "Since the crime of infanticide has increased and still increases, from year to year, under the present false form of marriage, therefore all children, under whatever conditions they may be born, should be declared legitimate." Thus far Julia Branch. Oh, that I could recall her to life, this pale, little woman, with the pretty mouth, and the sweet smile! By the death of this woman who so boldly advocated the rights of the free woman, and who knew how to put men to shame by holding a mirror up to their arrogance and vulgarity, our cause has received an incalculable loss. In honor to her memory, and in proof of our apprecia- tion for this noble woman, who departed from life in quiet unpretentiousness, I request the entire meet- ing, men and women, to rise from their seats. The entire meeting arose, and all eyes went in quest of Mr. Morality of New York, who had brought Julie vom Berg to the platform. But in vain. He had availed himself of the rapt attention, with which everybody listened to the speaker, to steal away unnoticed. As no one else desired to be heard, the order of business was resumed. 298 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN Just as the President was on the point of putting the resolutions to a vote the following letter from Waldeck, Virginia, was read to the convention by the Secretary: Dear Countrywomen: I am a born American, although no true Cau- casian. My mother was a native of Africa, and only my father, whose slave she was, belonged to the Caucasian race. Now if I address you as country- women I do it because my husband is a German, or because I look upon you as Americans, or because we all belong together as cosmopolitans. I hope you place as little importance upon the merely ex- ternal differences in men as I do. But if I am to make a difference for once, and choose a place for myself, I want to be a German. I shall tell you why. My poor mother was dead, and I grew up with the white daughters of my father, who were younger than I, partly as a sister, partly as a nurse. Then the war broke out. My father went as colonel. (He fell later at Richmond.) When he was gone his wife thought it advisable to have her slaves taken further south for security. She could never endure me and therefore wanted to send me away first, to an acquaintance in South Carolina, who had formerly offered $3,000 for me. I knew what that meant, and determined to fly to the North. I was then only eighteen years old, but strong and courageous, and so I started on my way at night with an old slave, a AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 299 relative of my mother's. I had a revolver, and he a bowie-knife. After a tramp of several days, through forests and desolate places, we one evening, weary and half-starved, approached a farm house that lay at the foot of a hill, half-hidden by the edge of a forest. The house was pretty, it stood in a large garden, and the entire surroundings showed that it was not inhabited by Southern people. We looked in at the window, and saw four persons in the lighted room — two old men, an old woman, and a young man. They did not look like Americans, and we determined to enter. As soon as we had made our- selves known as fugitives, we were received and en- tertained in the most friendly manner. Only one of the old men did not regard us with a friendly eye. On the second day we wanted to push on, but were advised to wait, because the region towards the north was not safe. We were quite content to com- ply, since we were with such excellent people, and took a hand in the work wherever we found an op- portunity. I won the affections of the old woman, •whom I relieved of almost all the housework, and the young man showed me the most friendly regard. I had never been in such pleasant company, and the thought of continuing my journey filled me with dismay. Suddenly came the news that rebel troops were close by. Caesar, my old companion, who was always on the lookout, had seen them. He did not fear anything for himself; he could pass him- self off as the slave of the farmer, and nobody cared 300 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN for an old man. But the son of the house was to be pressed into the rebel army, and I would have been recognized as a fugitive at once. There was no time for consideration; I took my revolver and hastened with the young man, who had his rifle over his shoulder, into the forest, where we kept ourselves hidden for two days. Then Caesar brought us the news that the rebels had all departed, and were at a safe distance. They had searched 'the house, and the neighborhood, and had at last contented them- selves with the assurance that the son had left for the army, as long as two weeks ago. When I came out of the woods with him, he presented me to his parents as his fiancee. In order to win my love it would not have been necessary at all for him to de- clare his love for me, for from the first moment that I saw him, I had said to myself: Him I should like for a husband. As he presented me, his mother at once approved, only his father, who had been a "Democrat," shook his head and made a sulky face. But Fritz said: "She has a clear head, she has a good heart, she has the best of principles, she has a bright sense of humor, she is an industrious worker, and with all that she is prettier than all the girls I can think of. I love her, and she loves me, and we shall be happy. What more can you ask?" The old man had to give his consent and we became husband and wife. This we have now been for seven years, and are still as happy as on the first day. We have also laid by something. We now have one AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 3°i hundred and twenty acres of land, fifty acres of grain, six of grapes and the rest in meadow land and forest — everything like one large garden. But you ought to see my children ! The girl is only two years old. Oh, I tremble with fear and rage, if I think back to the time when such a child could be torn from one's arms and be sold. Take this child away from me? No, nobody could have done that. I would have torn him with my teeth ; I would rather have allowed myself to be torn to pieces than to have the child taken from me. But then the boy! He is five years old. You have never seen such a boy. He is an intermediate between an angel and a young lion. It seems to me in the evening that it could not be- come dark at all, so long as he keeps his great eyes open. Otherwise he is just like his father, especially the mouth. Even our dog sometimes sits down in front of him, when he is playing, just to look at him. We call him Fritz, after his father, and his little sister Elizabeth after myself. I had to write you all this that you might know >how I came to be your country-woman. Several German families have now settled in our neighbor- hood, very good and educated people. We often visit among each other, take German papers, espe- cially "Der Pionier," and discuss everything they contain. My husband and I are always the most radical, and when we read of your convention we felt like starting for Frauenstadt at once. But that could not be, because my father-in-law died recently, 302 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN my good mother-in-law is ailing, and old Uncle Jacob is away. But I must at least write to you in order to tell you how I rejoice that there are radical German women besides myself. I really do not com- prehend wfiy they are not all radical. To be radical, after all, means nothing else than to have common sense. But it seems to be easier to rob people of their common sense than to use it fearlessly. When they hear strange words, which they do not under- stand, or when learned people talk to them, they have more confidence in the stuff which they do not understand than in themselves. A few days ago I read an essay, in which a most learned doctor ex- plained what a great difference there is between the separate parts of the male and the female body, and how different therefore must be the avocation and the rights of men and women. A few of my neigh- fors took this seriously. But I asked them: "Why do you not reason according to your own ideas, in- stead of believing the teachings of this doctor? This man's theory proves the very opposite of what he wishes it to prove. Just because man and woman are different, each can decide and judge only about himself or herself. Is it not perfect nonsense to have a man tell me that I am an entirely different being than he is, and that therefore he may or must tell me what I am capable of doing, what I am cut out for, what I want, and what is becoming to me? Would not that be the same as saying: Because he is a man, therefore, he can think and will like a AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 3°3 woman, more womanly than I myself? Because he has not my nature, therefore he must teach me what my nature ought to be? That is as despotic as it is senseless. Just because he is different from me, for that very reason he cannot and shall not prescribe to me what I am to think and to want, for that very reason he cannot represent me, for that very reason I will and must have the right to follow my own inclinations to guard my own interests. Would he not be highly indignant, and pronounce me insane should I presume to be better able to judge of his nature than he himself, and derive a right from that to act as his guardian?" This seemed quite plausi- ble to my neighbors, and they declared the doctor to be an insolent humbug. My dear countrywomen, I find that human affairs always grow more simple, the more humanely you look at them, and the less you allow yourself to be im- posed upon by learned people, who are frequently greater blockheads than the simplest day-laborers. These gentlemen think we women are not able to have anopinionon affairs of the state. Well, I always read the papers and gather from them what sort of affairs of state those are on which we are not to have an opinion and in which we are not to have a voice. But I have not yet come across any question where I could not at once decide for myself how I should have to vote, while statesmen and scholars quarrel over them for years. Liberty or slavery? I vote for liberty, although I have a different physique than 304 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN either a statesman or a doctor. Prerogative of the States or of the Union? I vote for the prerogative of the Union, since the States belong to the Union, but not the Union to the States. President or legis- lature ? Away with the servant who rules his master ! Well, these are great "complex" "political" ques- tions, and yet as simple as a question of domestic economy. Now if you examine the minor questions of legislation, in the affairs of the Union, the State, the county, you wil'l be still les9 able to find one over which you can long remain in doubt, on which sid'e is sense or nonsense, right or wrong. But one thing I will admit : We women shall vote differently upon many questions than the men, just because they, for thousands of years, have become habituated to force and wrong, and still too frequently mistake the one for reason and the other for right. I have not met very many men in my life, but sometimes I think that the majority of them must be fools. Twice two is four, that is, acording to the masculine arithmetic. But when a woman multi- plies, they expect the result to be five. They think a woman is unable to distinguish black from white, straight from crooked, big from little, warm from cold, and yet they expect us to be able at once to se- lect from them the best, the noblest, the cleverest, the greatest, the most lovable, and of course, each one expects himself to be that one. Is that anything but crazy? But even if they had faith in our correct judgment on other things than their own amiability, AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 3°5 they still insist that we have at least no right to ex- ercise that judgment where it can be of use, namely, at the polls. Is not that more than crazy? I always have to laugh at our old Uncle Jacob. He is no "Democrat," as his brother was, and he also has quite a different opinion of women, but he draws the line at suffrage. At every election in our neighborhood, he comes to me for advice, and then generally votes as I wish him to. But when I ask him why it would not be just as well for me to vote, since he always abides by my judgment, he answers: "You women are either too stupid or too clever for it." The former expression I should fre- quently like to apply tc the men, but I am not so stupid as to acquiesce in the other alternative. I must now bid you farewell. I hope that your convention will pass off satisfactorily, and be a suc- cess. But if any one of you should ever come to our beautiful country, she must make us a visit. Sin- cerely yours, ELIZABETH STARK. My husband also sends his best regards. The letter was received with general applause, and the Secretary instructed to answer it appropriately. THIRD DAY. After the meeting was called to order the most excellent spirit came to prevail at once by the read- ing of the following document, directed to the Presi- dent: To the Presidentsy of the German Woman's Con- venshun in Frauenstadt, Protestantation : 3O0 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN Our editor has told us, and has also made up this protestantation, that you want to immancerpate all women folks and let them all become men folks, and do all men's work, and that no man would then any longer be sure of his work, or his business. Now, see here, we haven't work enough anyhow and bad pay at that, and now you even want to take that away from us? Why don't you stick to your needles and scissors, and pots and kettles? What do you want in our sphere? You must stay in your nature and not step into our feelings. We warn you that we shall appeal to the government and that we here- by protestantate with our whole instinct. Signed : A. Hammer, blacksmith. M. Beam, carpenter. R. Backup, coal-shoveler. Th. Craft, sailor. F. Trotter, teamster. S. Lager, brewer. K. Granit, quarry man. G. Clay, bricklayer. V. Steer, butcher. B. Skin, flayer. N. Strong, longshoreman. JULIE VOM BERG— We need not stop to ascertain whether this document is genuine or spuri- Translators Note— I have here attempted to reproduce the faulty spelling and grammar by which the author wished to characterize the ignorance and illiteracy of the petitioners and their "editor." AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 3°7 ous. It is in any case a most striking and down- right satire upon those shining lights of the press, who seem to depend only on a public, such as the undersigned, whom they can constantly alarm with the anxiety that women could, by an equality of rights, lose their nature, adopt masculine habits, seek masculine employment, usurp masculine "spheres of action," in short, transform themselves into female men. How fortunate that these moni- tors remind us of ourselves; otherwise we might forget that we are women! But is it not remark- able that those men, who are least of all qualified to serve us as models for imitation, are most fre- quently haunted by a fear that our enfranchisement might induce us to cast off our feminine nature, and to pass over into the male sex? If some malign power should ever irresistibly tempt me to adopt a masculine nature, models, of the sort of these Ger- man editors, would cure me thoroughly for all time, and would drive me back into my feminine nature for the salvation of my humanity and respectabil- ity." After these remarks, which were received with cheerful acclamations, the committee for special motions was requested to report. The first motion concerned the permanent asso- ciation of radical German women. To gain this point it was resolved to establish a central com- mittee in New York, whidh was to take the initial steps towards organizing the movement throughout 308 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN m the whole land, and enter into relations with the American woman suffrage committee, and with the German "Association for the Dissemination of Radical Principles." Second Motion — "Since the rights of women are championed among German men only by the real radicals, who are trying to inaugurate a general propaganda, through their 'Association for the Dis- semination of Radical Principles/ it is the interest as well as the duty of radical German women to sup- port this association to the best of their ability. Fairs ought therefore to be started, as soon as pos- sible, in all places, where a number of such women can come together, and the proceeds turned over to this association." In discussing this motion, attention was called to the fact that German men, in general, even many who call themselves radical, have no money to spare for intellectual purposes, because they must spend everything for beer and cigars — a need which na- ture has fortunately denied to the feminine se*. That, although our sex, on the other hand, has a passion for fine dresses and gewgaws, this would yield in a direct ratio to an increasingly rational education, while radical women were free from it even now. It would, therefore, be quite an easy thing for women to spend a part of their pocket money, not, indeed, for gewgaws and ribbons, but for material for handiwork, etc., that could be util- ized for fairs. AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 3°9 Third Motion — Attempts ought to be made, and especially ought to be recommended to the central committee in New York, to see to it that at least two women, and one of them a German, are appointed as members of the board of "Commissioners of Emi- gration." The reason given for this motion was that accord- ing to everything that could be learned, either through the press or incidentally, of the existing ar- rangements for the protection of immigrants, these arrangements did not benefit the women in the same degree as the men, although the former needed pro- tection more than the latter. This want could only be remedied through feminine watchfulness and care. At present the chief aim of the board is to se- cure the immigrants against pecuniary losses through swindling; but the immigrating women and girls, especially those who arrive without male com- panions, were threatened with entirely different dangers, besides the loss of money, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, had already perished, because there was no one to pay especial attention to their condition and their welfare. It was also natural that a stranger, upon her arrival, would at once confide her plans and grievances to a woman, appointed to guard the new-comer's interests, while she would be reticent toward a male official. This would be especially true with regard to the treatment on board ship, concerning which scandalous stories get abroad subsequently. It was most urgently neces- 3io THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN sary, therefore, that the board of commissioners of immigration should be perfected by the appoint- ment of capable women, whose special duty it would be to look after those of their own sex in need of help, and to protect them against all dangers that lurk in the way to their destination. Accepted. Fourth Motion — All German women ought to make it their especial task to send their children to German schools, and to insist upon their speaking German among themselves, which, of course, must not preclude the learning of the English language. Accepted and recommended. Fifth Motion — The chief means for spreading en- lightenment, truth and humane progress is the press, especially the daily press. Women, all whose inter- ests depend upon this progress, act against their own interests if they do not exert themselves to the utmost to support the radical press — the only one which champions their rights — and to discounten- ance the reactionary and indifferent papers. It is, therefore, the duty of all radical women, to introduce radical papers into their circles, and to banish all others from them. This motion was especially supported by Julie vom Berg, who spoke as follows: The feminine sex is all the more interested in re- forming the press because it has so far been con- trolled, almost exclusively, by men. Men write the papers, men circulate them, and most women read without choice or hesitation, what is placed before AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 3" them. But what does the reading matter, that is placed before them as their intellectual food, offer them? Disregarding religious papers, which self- evidently are or ought to be excluded from our cir- cles, we are offered little more than the daily reiter- ated, stupid disgusting disputes of the party slaves, who try to mutually outdo each other, both in their accusations, and in their defenses, by unscrupulous lying; or reprints of the most unprincipled and cor- rupt fiction, by which servile litterateurs in Germany try to keep the oppressed subjects from thinking about their execrable conditions. The whole land is deluged with the organs of the party slaves, and the products of the manufacturers of "entertaining literature." Every means, even the most mendicant, is adopted for their circulation, and peddling agents obtrude themselves into every house, for the special purpose of inducing women to buy their wares. It is not astonishing that with such reading matter, which is intended only for subjects, even the free spirit of the republic is led astray, minds become effeminate or poisoned, and good taste corrupted. We deplore the stagnation of all intellectual life, and the want of sympathy for higher aspirations, among the German women of this country. Is any- thing else to be expected, when we consider the character of their intellectual food, which consists mainly of criminal stories, insipid tea-table novels, local gossip, the advertisements of fortune-tellers, or masked medical murderers, etc.? All this litera- 312 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN ture seems to be designed to confine women to the intellectual level of the populace, and to keep every incentive to thought and aspiration away from them. And what sort of minds are they, who send such reading matter forth into the world? We have made the acquaintance of several examples. They are the so-called "editors.'' The journalistic profession seems to distinguish itself above all others, not only in that it throws open its doors to all manner of in- capacity, and unworthiness, but also in that it re- wards incapacity, and unworthiness better than any other profession does. No shoemaker, no tailor, no mason, no woodchopper finds employment, and cus- tomers, if he does not know his trade. But in the journalistic trade — it is indeed a mere trade for most of them — every thirsty loafer, every unsuc- cessful clerk, who never before in his life thought of literature, is at once a finished "editor." And if that sort of genius has once taken his seat upon the "editor's" chair, he becomes a "great man" in the twinkling of an eye. What of modesty there may still have been in him, what of possibility to learn, what of doubt in his own competency, is suddenly clean blown away; he is superior to everybody, re- pels every sort of information, advocates every stu- pidity with the consciousness of infallibility, and drags everything into the mire that does not chime in with his own vulgar conceptions, or his party ser- vility. But the trait by which these representatives of German intelligence, and German language, dis- AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 3*3 tinguish themselves chiefly, and most uniformly, in- cluding even the more highly educated among them, is the sublime brutality with which they deride and combat the aspirations and rights of their fellow beings of the female sex. The mere consciousness that they belong to the sex that supplies the prize- fighters and cut-throats makes of them competent judges, and privileged lords over everything fem- inine. No question furnishes a better and surer test of a man's vulgarity than the question of woman's rights; and since the true rabble, everywhere, is wont to dilate upon it con amore, and with complete liberty, fearing neither the police, nor the bones of the weaker sex, it is a tid-bit with which this scrib- bling rabble tempts the appetite of its readers, by serving it with a sauce piquante of beer-saloon wit and street-corner esprit. Women have it in their power to take the bread away from a large number of this scribbling rabble. I know that many of them are driven by hunger, rather than viciousness, to lend themselves to even the lowest kind of newspaper work, and I do not wish the poor wretches any harm. Still I cannot agree, even apart from our special interests, to have the press, this most important institution for the education of mankind, used as a mere charitable in- stitution for every poverty-stricken incapacity — that ought rather to turn to some manual labor — and degraded by every low-minded individual, who is willing for board and lodging to commit treason 314 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN against all intellectual and humane interests of the race. It is better that an "editor," without ability and calling, should go hungry, than that the minds of thousands, who would have been open to the influence of better teaching, should be mislead and corrupted. All women, who are not acquainted with, or in- different to, liberal thought, good taste, and noble tendencies, by completely banishing from their cir- cles all those "intelligence papers that are not papers of intelligence," and all so-called entertaining litera- ture that requires nothing of the publisher but bad taste, a mean, mercenary spirit, and indiscriminate reprinting, ought to set themselves squarely against them, and replace them by radical journals, which combine a genuine will to serve minkind, with the ability to do so. What we need is to adhere strictly to the principles of universal human rights and keep them pure; to expose and assert truth fearlessly and unsparingly on all sides; to keep an open and un- prejudiced mind, for the purpose of securing intel- lectual progress; to subject all questions and oc- currences in public life to independent criticism; to wage relentless war against all baseness and corrup- tion; and if we need additional intellectual enter- tainment, let it conform to a normal taste, possess real intellectual worth, and be free from illiberal or unworthy tendencies. But where do we find all this, where can we find it, except in outspoken radical papers, which are as independent of the rabble as of AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 3*5 party service? Let no woman object that, in favor- ing the radical press, which advocates her rights, she might come into collision with her stronger half. She who dreads such a collision is not fit to take part in our struggle; but she for whom such a col- lision would assume a serious character, is suf- ficiently matured in her ideas to withdraw herself entirely from every collision with her stronger half. If we want to be free women, let us show it first of all by being no longer afraid of the unfree men, whom we cannot convert. The motion was accepted with enthusiastic ap- proval. Sixth Motion — Women in general never cast greater doubt upon their intellectual ability, and never furnish their opponents with a better weapon than by their thoughtless acquiescense in the tyr- anny of even the most senseless fashions, and by the unscrupulous vanity with which they spend sums for the most trivial finery that could furnish them the means for reforming society. It is therefore both an urgent and a worthy task for sensible women, not only personally to emancipate them- selves from fashion, and to set the example of wear- ing simple and tasteful garments, but also to en- courage general co-operation in such reforms. K. HEISTERBACH— The subject, to which this motion calls our attention, is so important that I am almost afraid to express myself upon it, since a brief elucidation is not sufficient to place it in its 3 ib THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN proper light, and it would fill a book to treat of it exhaustively. Woman's slavery to fashion fur- nishes an appalling amount of matter for questions such as these. •Can a being who, without choice or will of her own allows her external appearance to be pre- scribed to her, have a sufficient independence of char- acter to act, in serious matters, according to her own judgment and decision? Can a being be con- sidered as intellectually responsible who is immedi- ately reconciled to, and eager to adopt, the most senseless attire, as soon as others set a bad exam- ple? What inner worth can a being have, who is so anxiously and continually occupied with the ex- ternal? Can we still believe the feminine sex to have any of that aesthetic faculty, which we call good taste, when we see how stubbornly it adheres to the most unbecoming styles? Is not the passion for fashionable and extrava- gant dress a chief source of moral ruin? Does not this passion supply prostitution with as many vic- tims as want? If one considers how infinitely much good women might do, if instead of spending hundreds of millions on the most trivial finery they would spend these sums for their children, for the needy, for social re- forms, for intellectual culture, for the fine arts; in short, for all those purposes which are in accordance AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 3*7 with the true essence of noble womanhood, one must resort to the theory of a complete degeneracy through habit, in order not to charge this criminal extravagance of wealthy women to innate unscru- pulousness and depravity, and impeach feminine nature itself as entirely inferior and mean. It is impossible for me to express myself upon all these points in detail as it ought to be done. I must content myself with mere suggestions which will surely suffice to call your attention to the im- portance of the question, and to show you what a great problem the German women would solve, if they would lead the way in a reform of woman's dress. Should we accomplish nothing more in this country we could regard it as a great distinction if the people on the street, upon seeing a simply and tastefully attired lady, would have to say "that is a German woman," and not one of those slaves of fashion, overloaded with bad taste, who always im- press me as so much walking merchandise looking for a buyer. We need not even agree on the cut of the garments, or the combination of colors, or on any detail whatever, if we only observe the follow- ing principles : 1. The beautiful is always simple. 2. Gaudiness is never beautiful. 3. The garment must be fitted to the body, not the body to the garment. 4. Excellence of quality is the best extravagance. Let us act according to these principles, and let 3i 8 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN us make propaganda for them, both theoretically and practically. Those who abide by them will find that they will not only fare better, from an econ- omic point of view, but that, in every respect, they will make a better impression than by the most os- tentatious display. It is a mistaken calculation when girls think that they are more attractive to men in a conspicuous and extravagant attire, than in a simple and tasteful garment. Their extrava- gance and repudiation of good taste is, therefore, useless, even in that respect. When this is appre- ciated, the chief reason for adhering to the slavery of fashion falls to the ground. MISS SCHWARTENBACH— If we do not soon begin to act in accordance with this motion our sex will really lay itself open to the suspicion of having lost its common sense, or of celebrating a perennial carnival. The present styles are indeed such that almost every woman would be in danger of being arrested, if public offenses against sense and good taste were under police surveillance, the same as offenses against public morals and safety are. If I had the power I would put an end to these almost scandalous fashion crazes, by not only plac- ing them under police control, but by proceeding against them in court in a manner whereby the en- tire wardrobe of the fair delinquents would be sub- jected to investigation. First of all I would call those photopihobiac ladies before the tribunal, who give their heads a most inhuman shape by fastening AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 3*9 a flat plate upon it, reaching down to the eyes, and then attaching behind this plate a hairbomb con- structed of all manner of suspicious ingredients, which, although unexplosive, is most disagree- able to behold. But I would treat those monstrous fools, who think they have changed themselves into ethereal beings by the addition of the so-called "Grecian bend" still worse. A more shameless and more absurd coquetry with the pose of modesty than this disfigurement has never yet been prac- ticed. All the lunatic asylums of Christendom can- not produce the equal of these caricatures of woman- hood, who think they are making themselves immensely interesting and mythologically roman- tic, if they defy the scorn of every unsophisticated spectator, and, with abdomen artificially drawn in, an ostrich-like appendage in the rear, and stilts under their shoes, trip along the street as if they were afflicted with chronic colic, while they carry their arms before them like kangaroos, in a constant shielding of themselves against a fall on their nose. Recently I overheard a gentleman remarking to an- other, as one of these monsters of fashion passed by: "She is caparisoned like a horse, but has the saddle strapped on wrong side before." This is undoubt- edly coarse, thought I, but nothing could be more appropriate than if every word would change itself into a tangible lash, to drive this shameless woman — she was a pretty girl, scarcely more than seven- teen, and her suit was worth at least two hundred 320 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN dollars — back into her dressing stable. I call her shameless, and would like to use a still stronger ex- pression, for I do not consider anyone who can abuse good taste and common sense so cruelly be- fore all the world, capable of true morality. A sense of the beautiful and a moral sense belong together. I consider a woman with a "Grecian bend" capable of anything but what is reasonable and humane. There is no expression of public opinion that a being can dread who has stood the test of exposing herself to the criticism of the "Grecian bend." Among the present fashions there is a third which might be called a heinous offense against good taste, and the ladies who adopt it can justly be com- pared to inverted cabbages, on account of the many- leaved character of their attire. To wear a simple dress would be shocking to these ladies. Indeed, nobody can tell what is the real dress, there are nothing but dress fragments, piled one upon the other, each successive one shaped and draped more idiotically than the other, and, perhaps, of a different color, so that the ideal costume seems to be the one made up of the most senseless accumulation and mixture of rags and colors imaginable. I confess I am ashamed of my sex, when I see thousands of women parading in the streets and places of meeting, day after day, as if their entire oc- cupation and aim in life consisted in placing them- selves on exhibition, loaded down with all sorts of rags and absurd finery and in defying the criticism AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 321 of sound common sense. Something must be done to put an end to this absurdity, this shame, this scandal. So long as women were satisfied with the honor of being pampered as mere elegant dolls, and amusing playthings, the demands made upon their reason, even with regard to their external appear- ance, corresponded to this lot; the sillier the better. Nobody can be used to better advantage than the fool. But since the word goes round that women are also human beings, and as rational human beings can lay claim to and make use of human rights, it is high time that they doff the uniform, so to speak, which they wore in their former state of servitude. I vote for the motion and suggest that both the motion and the debate upon it be separately printed and sent to all the votaries of fashion whose ad- dresses we can ascertain." Accepted. Seventh Motion — Where the men are still sub- jects, the liberty and rights of women are entirely out of the question. Only in a republic is there any possibility of demanding and attaining the rights of women. An address ought, therefore, to be drawn up, to the women of Germany, in which the cause of their degradation is made clear to them and in which they are exhorted to spur the men on toward the rev- olutionizing and republicanizing of their fatherland, and to bring up their children in this spirit. In giving the reasons for this motion, attention was called to the sad fact that in the fatherland of 322 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN idealism, the fatherland of Schiller and Goethe, wom- an was actually more deeply degraded and less re- spected than in any civilized country in the world. Among the uneducated classes she was almost everywhere looked upon as a servant, and a beast of burden, and if it is reported that some men harness their wives to the plow, together with the cow, the report may here and there be founded on actual truth; but the exclusive mission of "housewife," emphasized by the educated classes, was founded on ideas not much higher than the above, while every more extended career led into the horrible realm of prostitution. But this realm owed its population chiefly to monarchy and its servants, especially to the standing armies of idlers, whose entire object and occupation it was to oppress men and degrade women. Accepted, with instructions to the Secretary to draw up an appropriate address to be circulated in Germany. This ended the list of motions and propositions by the respective committees. Upon the President's question, whether any one else had any suggestion to offer, Miss Schwartenbach arose and proposed the following: Resolved, The vice of smoking implies a disgrace- ful slavery of the man and is an inconsiderate insult to the woman who is to keep him company. Be it, therefore, further Resolved, that we will not only shun all society in AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 323 which tobacco is smoked 'but will not invite men who are subject to this slavery, and carry the odor of it on their clothes into our society. MISS SCHWARTENBACH— I have limited my resolution as much as I could. If I had chosen to express my whole heart on the subject, it would have also contained the determination not to marry a man who is a slave to this odoriferous tyrant that oppresses the whole masculine world in the form of pipes and cigars. But I refrained from making this addition, first, because I was afraid of subjecting the courage of many of the women present to too severe a test, and, secondly, because I did not wish to de- prive men of the possibility of reforming after mar- riage. If Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, Napoleon, Frederick II., Boerne, Heine, and other gifted and aesthetically inclined men had not redeemed the honor of their sex by their disgust for the pipe, we would be actually driven to make the disgraceful statement: All men, especially all German men, smoke, or, to use an Aristotelian phrase, man is a smoking animal. But how are they to be broken of this habit? They are generally so enslaved to and so hardened by the habit of smoking that we cannot count upon them themselves for any revolution or effective opposition to the vice. That it injures their health, that they waste their money in smoke, that they offend good taste, that they declare war against the aesthetic sense, that they deny reason, that they make themselves the slaves of a senseless habit; all 324 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN these things have been told them hundreds of times, without having the least effect on them. They can hope for recovery only when we come to their res- cue, and we cannot do that in any more effective manner than by forcing them to do without our society, if they will not do without tobacco. But this passive resistance is at the same time the best way to guard our own interests. It is not only to relieve ourselves from the physical suffering, to which we are exposed by the horrid stench, the fumes that take away our breath, the smoke that makes our eyes smart, and all the other abominations which accompany the operation, but also from the moral degradation of subjecting our persons, without hesi- tation and without regard to an ordeal of self-abne- gation against which our whole nature rebels for the sake of a coarse male amusement. When I see a woman sitting in the company of men, enveloped by tobacco smoke, I feel that she is denied, insulted, sacrificed. She gives me an impression of vulgarity or self-degradation, and a feeling of contempt, be- cause she endures or even enjoys without protest an atmosphere entirely antagonistic to womanliness. In the interest of both sexes, and, I may add, in the interest of marital happiness, I recommend the adoption of my resolution. JULIE VOM BERG— I am willing to cast my vote for any expedient that can possibly break men of the tobacco vice. Fortunately our German men have not yet sunk so low as to adopt the American AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 3 2 5 vice of chewing tobacco — a "pleasure" that dis- gusts even savages. Instead of that they achieve almost superhuman feats in the art of smoking to- bacco. And how does that come about? Simply through imitation. The youthful lord of creation sees the adult lord of creation with a stump in his mouth, and, accordingly, puts a stump into his own mouth, that he may feel himself the equal of his senior. If fathers would refrain from smoking, this savage diversion would never occur to the sons. It is only the example that leads them to do it. To harden his nature, as early as possible to vices which no quadruped could endure, seems to the young biped a means of speedily becoming a man. Just because these fumes are disgusting, and the nicotine abominable, and the whole a most unnatural piece of business, which tests the senses and the nerves to the utmost, therefore, it may be, the young look upon it as a sort of heroism, which carries them in one stride over years of development, to the full estate of man; and thus one generation of heroes fumes and spits the next into existence, and people, who have not been inured to such a barbaric atmos- phere, and have not been entirely deprived of their aesthetic feeling, must needs escape into solitude, to save themselves from the persecutions of these to- bacco heroes. Whatever is created by mere habit, and not through a natural necessity, can, in its turn, be made to yield to habit. All that is necessary is to 326 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN realize that the habit in question is an evil and to have the will to be free. Fortunately there still are some men who hate the vice of smoking as much as we do, and we can appeal to them, should we be accused of egotism. Besides, men know better how to steep their tobacco-steeped fellows in shame. Permit me to read you an article from "Der Pio- nier," in which an enemy of smoking attacks an habitual smoker who claims to have discovered that smoking is an intellectual entertainment, a sort of substitute for thinking. "Whoever is so thoughtless/' we read, "that smoking can take the place of thinking for him, simply sleeps with open eyes, and ought to be able to sleep just as well without, as with a stump in his mouth. Is the Turk a thinker? He will laugh at you if you suspect him to be one, and yet he is the hardest and most enduring smoker in the world. Whoever imitates him in this respect must not be surprised if he is put on an intellectual level with the Turk. If you read a paper at home, or chat with your family, or play a game of chess or whist, are you not as well entertained as when you hold an odious stick between your lips and blow odious fumes into the air that irritate your eyes? I have never yet found a man who could explain wherein the enjoyment of smoking really consisted; but neither have I ever found a smoker who was not a downright slave to this undefinable enjoyment. The entire enjoyment consists in a thoughtless illusion AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 3*7 and habit, which has such a dehumanizing effect that the smoker not only loses his aesthetic sense, but actually his five senses as well; he no longer feels how the smoke effects his eyes, no longer sees how disgustingly the tobacco juice soils his fingers and lips, he does not hear how idiotic this continual puffing sounds, he does not smell the disagreeable odor of this Indian perfume, and he does not taste the diabolical flavor of the noxious herb. A mag- nificent enjoyment, indeed, that one can fully ap- preciate only after having lost both his reason and his five senses together. And a great many of the members of that sex which calls itself the strong sex, purchase. this enjoyment with the ruin of their health and their finances. If Cleopatra dissolves a precious pearl in a glass of wine and drinks it, I can understand the sense of this nonsense; I can also understand why Lucullus, on special occasions, serves a dish of peacocks' tongues, or another gas- tronomic genius devours carps that have been fed on human flesh. But how a man can spend half a dollar or even a dollar for a roll of stinking herb, which he tosses about between his unsavory lips for five minutes, puffing and cutting up faces the while, to throw the chewed half out of the window, I can- not understand. And yet there are multitudes of such monsters. They, of course, smoke a cheaper variety, but since their front chimney is puffing all day long, they do not escape more cheaply in the end, than those insane aristocrats of the tobacco 328 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN mania. We may assume that smoking, on the aver- age, costs as much as drinking, and while the one gulps the sustenance of a family down his throat, the other puffs it into the air as smoke. And if the family could but in the least participate in this so- called enjoyment! But there is no more egotistical 'entertainment' than smoking; it not only excludes every second person from sharing in it, it actually drives everyone who is not hardened to it to seek safety in flight. A drinker can at least offer his glass to his wife, but no smoker would lend his nasty weed to his wife, even if she were so unrefined as to share his loathsome taste." Another article signed "J. Oelkopf," upbraids the tobacco barbarians still more emphatically. "However ridiculous it may seem," says Mr. Oel- kopf, "I shall advance a new theory of development that, for me, contains a profound truth, superficial and paradoxical as it may appear. My theory is: So long as men smoke tobacco they are not free and cannot become free. "I have just attended a meeting of German rad- icals. I feel as if I were in a paroxysm of sea-sick- ness. My smarting eyes water. I cannot breathe; whenever I move I am threatened with an attack of vomiting, my clothes are saturated to my very skin with the odor of the disgusting weed, the use of which we have learned from the joyless, bestial sav- ages, and all my female friends flee from me as from a monster. And why is all this? Because, in def- AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 3 2 9 erence to my principles, I felt obliged to attend a meeting of men, who call themselves free, and rad- ical, but who are neither free enough in themselves to refrain for an hour from the fuming, stinking weed, nor liberal enough towards others to save them from the necessity of undergoing this un- bearable, nauseating torture in the interests of liberty. To see those fellows sit there, as' if under orders, tossing the tobacco stick about between their lips, with the most important air in the world, raising their enraptured eyes to heaven, to puff out the stink- ing fumes, as a whale throws up water, and filling the room with smoke so thick that one is tempted to grasp it and form it into balls to throw at the smokers, and knock the sticks out of their distorted mouths! O, how often have I had the desire to seal people's mouths with court-plaster when they were talking nonsense! But the desire is still stronger when they use their mouths as a crater for their suffocating, eye-destroying pestilent fumes. "The tobacco-smokers are themselves slaves and tyrants to others. Is not he a slave who cannot live, not even discuss liberty, without an indulgence, which is not a necessity of nature, and has become bearable only through habit? And is not he a tyrant, who, in his indulgence, has not the least regard for others, to whom it is utterly intolerable, but who, from social considerations and circumstances, are obliged to be in his company? If the mere circum- stance of a man's enjoying, or being addicted to a 330 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN thing, gives him the right to indulge himself with- out regard for others, then all good manners and all decency cease, and every sin against aesthetics is permissible. "Enjoyments and needs agree with liberty only when they are natural necessities and justified by reason, i. e., when they are aesthetic and not in- jurious. But the smoking of tobacco is : "i. Not a natural necessity. "2. Known to be injurious to the health of the mind as well as of the body. "3. Unaesthetic in the highest degree, in that it affects in the most disagreeable manner the sense of smell, the sense of taste, and also (through the grimaces of the executing artist, as well as by the visible traces on his mouth, his hands, his dress, and the floor) the eyes of every not utterly callous per- son. "Whoever, therefore, cannot dispense with this 'pleasure' consciously acts contrary to his reason, is not free in the use of it, and makes himself the slave of a habit that is a sin against nature, against health and against aesthetics. How can such a weakling call himself a free man? "But the inconsiderateness with which these puf- fing tobacco-chimneys victimize others is their greatest condemnation. I have been present in com- panies of "respectable" Germans, where, with truly boorish obtuseness, ladies, to whom tobacco smoke was actual poison, have been expected to endure AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 33* hours of torture without a minute's respite from the barbaric fuming, puffing, spitting and nauseating stench. Is it thus that liberty is to be understood and practiced? If indecency and vulgarity towards others is liberty, what then, pray, is tyranny? Our 'free' men talk so much of 'culture.' Is there no incongruity between tobacco smoking and culture? "By right of habit tobacco smoking has come to be a legitimate means of "Slavery among the free. "Tyranny among liberators, "And vulgarity among the cultured. "How can any one who is not able to free even himself from so unnatural, so disgusting and so in- jurious a need, be expected to have the necessary insight and strength to remain faithful in other things, to reason, liberty and the beautiful. "Therefore, I repeat, so long as men smoke to- bacco they are not free and can not become free." Now let me read you one more communication from a woman who has something to say about the effect of this Oelkopf article, an effect which we would rejoice to observe on all men, who still have enough reason and strength left to renounce a vice which has nothing to justify it. "Mr. Oelkopf has laid the colors on thick, in order to demonstrate the nastiness and injurious- ness of tobacco-smoking; but whoever loves truth cannot gainsay him, and I agree with his assertion : 'So long as men smoke they are not free and cannot 332 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN become free.' But I beg permission to add a few points which he seems to have forgotten. "My husband is a good and most excellent man, and an enthusiastic champion of liberty. At the same time he is so fortunate as to possess sufficient pecuniary means to live free from special care. He has carefully systematized his expenditures, and spends annually for liberal journals, the support of free thought projects, etc, three hundred dollars. His cigars and pipes cost him annually three hun- dred and twenty-five dollars, exactly twenty-five dollars more than liberty. And what does he gain from them? For the three hundred and twenty-five dollars, he does more harm to his health than I ven- ture to estimate. I have realized it long ago, and his physician likewise, who has repeatedly reproached him with it; but what was I to do? Everybody knows how hard it is for a wife to deny any pleas- ure, especially if this pleasure only costs money, and his other needs are few, to the man she loves. I suffered physically and morally from this hobby of his, although I never betrayed myself, in order not to appear egotistical, and he himself never suspected it. Only now, after reading the article of Mr. Oel- kopf, his attention was aroused, and he asked me whether the smoke and odor of the tobacco was dis- agreeable to me, too? I confessed that the torture the weed caused me was as great as my anxiety for the injury he was doing to his health. It was just on my birthday. 'From to-day on,' said my hus- AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS 333 band, /not another cigar will touch these lips.' I never had a more valuable birthday present given to me, and I feel no less grateful to Mr. Oelkopf for it than to my husband. - " 'But what,' I asked him, 'are you going to do with the three hundred and twenty-five dollars now?' 'Presumably,' he answered, 'I am now going to have a better appetite and will make greater de- mands upon your larder. I shall also, now and then, feel like drinking a bottle of wine. I shall allow one hundred and twenty-five dollars for this. The remaining two hundred dollars I place at your disposal for the cause of liberty.' "I cannot sufficiently express to Mr. Oelkopf how happy this resolve made me. But, at the same time, I could not help thinking, what great means liberty would have at its command if all the smokers who are its champions would turn the money, which they have hitherto puffed into the air in the form of tobacco smoke, into a liberty fund! What a great change could be brought about in the world by the general resolution to renounce tobacco in favor of liberty! And what a great pecuniary loss this would be to despots! Does not despotism, in Europe, as well as in America, live to a great extent from to- bacco? The Italians stopped smoking in order to ruin the Austrians. Shall we not try, in America, to ruin the slave-holders of Virginia and Cuba by ban- ishing their tobacco? It would be a double gain for liberty; an immense increase of the sinews of war 334 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN and at the same time an immense falling off of the means of the enemy. Really, when one thinks of this result, and considers how easily it might be attained, and must live to see that nobody is inter- ested in it, he can justly exclaim: 'So long as men smoke tobacco they are not free and cannot become freef "The friends of liberty in all countries ought to distinguish themselves by ceasing to smoke, and by contributing their tobacco money henceforth to lib- erty ! I would venture to begin a new era from the day when this resolve would go into practice. Very well, then, show that you are men, like my husband; from the 226. of February, the birthday of Washing- ton, no enemy of slavery and no friend of revolution ought any longer to smoke ! "Another advantage which Mr. Oelkopf has passed over, consists in the increased ability to think, the restoration of the mind. My husband confessed to me that he invariably stopped thinking when he began to smoke, and that this was the chief enjoy- ment which the vice afforded him. What a con- fession, what weakness! A man whose chief pride ought to be his ability to think, strives to escape thought by means of a poison ! And what does he exchange it for? I asked my husband: 'What did you think as a man if you did not think as a smoker? In what did the "pleasure" exist, if by depriving you of thought, it deprived you of the means of be- coming conscious of the "pleasure?" What occu- AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 335 pied your mind while you sat there staring at the wall, tossing the cigar about between your lips, puffing the smoke to the ceiling, knocking off the ashes against the edge of the table, to begin anew and puff, and making a round hole of your mouth for the smoke to escape in circles into the air?' "He answered: 'So long as my nerves had not become completely obtuse the tobacco induced a sort of intoxication, during which I could give my- self up to indefinite phantasies. That was especially the case after dinner when the body was inclined to indolence, anyway, and the energy of the mind had relaxed. It was the natural indolence of digestion, rendered romantic by the listlessness of artificial stupidity. Later this effect ceased, and the dullness came of its own accord, by the mere belief that the tobacco would cause it. Smoking had become a mere matter of thoughtless and purposeless habit, and I would no longer have known that I was smok- ing at all if I had not seen the smoke before my face. But now the smoke became the chief thing; I im- agined that it was entertaining, a comfort, a "pleas- ure" to blow the smoke into the air. Therefore, I practiced the art of blowing smoke with variations ; now I would blow the smoke from the middle of the mouth, now from the right, now from the left corner, now through the nose. Then again I would expel it while I held the cigar between my lips, and the next time I would take the cigar in my hand. Yes, I even learned to make an essential difference 336 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN between the smoke that I blew away immediately, after I inhaled it, and that which I retained in my mouth for a quarter of a minute. But the greatest pleasure was to take a very long pull and then to puff out my entire stock of smoke in perfect rings, so that it made a chain of ever larger and larger rings, up to the ceiling. It is self-evident that during this en- tire performance no thought could approach within a distance of ten miles. Vacancy within me, and nothing but smoke before me — that was the world of my thought, and after smoking for several hours it took several more hours before the smoke had dissipated before my mind.' "This confession actually frightened me. It is dreadful to think of a man in his best years, a man of intellect and character, a man that we can respect and love, in a condition of childishness, even of idiocy. Whenever I think of tobacco now I think of idiocy, and whenever I see an otherwise presentable man with a 'tobacco sausage' in his mouth I say to myself: 'I wonder how this man looked when he still had his reason, when he still saw the light!' " STUDENT SCHWARTENBAGH— I second my sister's motion with all my heart. When she ex- posed me to public disgrace in the meeting day be- fore yesterday I left the hall with the determination to revenge myself thoroughly. But, after I had thought the matter over calmly, I realized that the best revenge, and one that would be most likely to be in accordance with my own interests, would be AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 337 to resolve to reform. (Bravo, from all si'des.) In- stead of scolding my sister, I am, on the contrary grateful to her that she took this opportunity to use a most drastic and energetic method, when, hitherto, she had exhausted all remonstrances and admoni- tions in vain. For the crime that I committed in this assembly I now atone, with the confession that the method has proved effective, and with the prom- ise that never again shall either pipe or cigar touch my lips. (Bravo.) I have always been for woman's rights. I am glad that I also give you an oppor- tunity to exercise them, especially the right to free men from their evil habits, assumptions, vulgarities and vices. General clapping of hands. The motion is ac- cepted. After all the propositions were disposed of, the President closed the transactions with the following farewell address : IDA JOH. BRAUN— Permit me to make a few closing remarks concerning the question which has been the subject of our transactions. It is a ques- tion of such transcendent importance that even among those who advocate it, perhaps the very fewest are able to realize its entire scope. In the race's struggle for development, hitherto, the issue has always been between hostile forces within the masculine half of humanity, of which the feminine half was merely a passive appendage, always sharing the fate of the former. Now, at last, the feminine 338 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN half has come to a consciousness of its own rights, and likewise begins to take an active part. However, its struggles are not within its own ranks as are those of the masculine half, but against this latter, which opposes it as a hostile force. It is a separation of the two halves of humanity that belong together. Six hundred millions of women stand opposed to six hundred millions of men to claim only through a small number of pioneers, as yet, recognition as hu- man beings. As human beings, I say, for only he is of value as a human being who is his own master and law-giver. To the extent to which I deny rights to a man, which I myself possess and exercise, to that extent do I degrade him as man below myself. To deny him all rights would be to degrade him com- pletely to the level of the brute. What the feminine half of humanity has hitherto possessed of so-called rights does not deserve the name, because women did not themselves determine them, nor were they able to maintain them. They were only a gift of mercy, and arbitrary power, presented in the inter- ests of the giver himself. What women want now is to change this gift of grace not only into their own achievement, but to extend this achievement so far as to annihilate every difference that exists between their rights and the rights of men. They demand that since there has hitherto existed only a male right, there should now at last be established a human right which excludes no one, and no longer metes out uneven measure AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 339 to anyone. This is the greatest, the most comprehen- sive progress after which human aspirations have so far aimed, and to misapprehend this is possible only to the blindness of an ancient habit, and a hardened egotism, that sees in a hoary privilege the immuta- ble decree of nature. This universal prejudice, so old, and so deeply rooted, which has erected a barrier 'between the two halves of humanity, must be over- thrown by a revolution that will create a new ethical consciousness, but a revolution, which, although it is directed against a wrong sustained only by force, will for the first time give an example of a peaceful, purely intellectual resistance. Six hundred million women are fighting with purely intellectual, humane weapons against six hundred mil'lion men, and will conquer them, that they may change themselves as well as their opponents into truly humane beings. Was there ever a struggle more interesting than this? I know that our aspirations will also meet with opposition from some women, but they are irre- sponsible, by their numbers, as well 1 as by their qualities. It is a well-known fact that in Paris, after the storming of the Bastille, several of the prisoners, instead of rejoicing in their liberty, begged to be returned to the prison. Long habit had so dulled them and estranged them from the external world that the prison atmosphere had become their vital air. In a somewhat similar manner some of the negroes in the South, after the emancipation, pre- 34° THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN ferreci their slavery to the liberty of which they never had had any conception. Women who oppose their emancipation belong to the same class, but are just as exceptional in civilized countries as the ne- groes and prisoners just mentioned. We may there- fore rest assured that the opposition we have to face comes from the men. Although I can very well un- derstand this opposition, I am nevertheless tempted to exclaim: "Forgive them, they know not what they do." Indeed, they are not aware of the vul- garity they evince by denying us that which they un- hesitatingly grant to the most degraded of their own sex; they do not know how they expose their intel- lectual and moral deficiencies when they betray and deny all the principles and arguments in our case, which they promulgate and emphasize in their own ; and finally they do not know that it is treachery to themselves to prevent us from doing our share to- wards ennobling and humanizing their own lives. What I am here saying holds good especially of German men, for the Americans have outstripped them in this question by half a century. When do you ever hear an American dispose of woman's rights by such vulgar witticisms as are customary among the German spokesmen of their sex? And, if our local legislatures were constituted of Germans, how long would we still have to wait until such im- portant minorities would appear in behalf of our emancipation, as have already appeared in several Western legislatures? But the majority of our AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 34 1 German men, however ostentatiously they flaunt the flag of "radicalism," cannot yet quite divest themselves of the spirit of servility. Descended from a country where the degradation of both men and women was systematically eonducted by three dozen courts, through a million agents of vulgarity, throughout every stratum of society, where, natur- ally, the stronger of the oppressed found a sort of consolation or diversion in the assumption of su- periority over the weaker of the oppressed — some- what after the manner the "Democratic" party slaves in this country deported themselves as a sort of lord over the negro slaves — and where the contempt for women as subordinate beings created only for the service and lust of men was bred into them from childhood in an infected moral atmosphere, although now emancipated from their prince, these one-time subjects cannot yet emancipate themselves from themselves, and while they, as superior minds, dic- tate our "sphere" to us, they are not aware that it is only the degenerate spirit of the creature of roy- alty, the student, the musketeer, the philistine, that asserts itself in them. In the officer's clubs, the beer-houses, the guard-rooms, and the students' inns on the other side of the water the question of woman's rights is probably treated in exactly the same manner as here by the German newspaper writers, and popular leaders. I regret this, I am ashamed of it, for the sake of the German name, which is boasted of so much, 34 2 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN whenever the talk is of "ideas," "principles," "hu- manity," and "radicalism." But I am not so faint- hearted as to fear that our aims could be frustrated by this vulgar opposition of the German subject. No, this movement, because it is based upon reason and right, will overcome every obstacle, and will not rest until its last demand is fulfilled, exactly as in the question of negro rights. And exactly like this will be its practical course, after the victory of the prin- ciple has once been acknowledged; the sanguine will, therefore, be as much disappointed as the whin- ers. The negroes, after attaining the suffrage, did not all immediately turn politicians and hasten to the polls in a body in order to rule the state, neither will the women immediately come in multitudes to take part in political life; the emancipated negroes do not now claim the daughters of their former mas- ters as wives, or turn communists, as some brilliant "Democrats" had feared; neither will the emanci- pated women change into masculine beings, and sacrifice their domesticity. Their pioneers will have to continue to break the way, after the attainment of the suffrage, as well as before, and only very gradu- ally will the participation in public life become gen- eral. At the same time nature will continue to assert her rights, in private or family life, as hitherto, but according to humane agreement, and not by a one- sided dictatorship. Thus gradually a condition of society will be developed that has sacrificed nothing that was good and tenable, but that, by abolishing AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 343 the privilege of the stronger sex, ceases to cripple the weaker and enriches a nobler life with the fruits of free co-operation. I feel actual compassion with the shortsightedness that does not foresee all this. But we must not allow our activity to flag on this account any more than we must allow ourselves to be overcome with indigna- tion at the vulgarity we meet. The honor of the feminine sex, yes, of the entire human race is at stake, and it is of vital importance what part the Ger- man women play in its redemption. Even if we should never be able to make use of the rights for which we fight, merely to attain them is worth the struggle of a lifetime. As I have already intimated, the most immediate issue to be decided is whether we are human beings ; it is necessary to establish a new, comprehensive conception of humanity; it is necessary to legally establish the abstract truth that we are sovereign members of the human race, as well as the men, equipped with the right of self- determination and self-government; that one-half of this human race is not born and destined to be under the tutelage of a foreign will, and used like children, or even like animals. If we have once attained to the recognition of our sovereign human dignity, all practical reform will become a matter of course. With this recognition we have reached the turning point, and that part of humanity, to whom we must be an example here in America, will enter upon the path of true, universal humanity. The 344 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN accession of women, the weakest part of society, in- capable of using force, to the common rights of men and citizens, will form the keystone of the edifice of the humane state. With this confidence in a beautiful future, I close the transactions of our convention, which, it is to be hoped, will not remain without influence upon the thought, and the aspirations, of the German women of this country. When the members of the convention were on the point of separating, a committee of the German radicals of Frauenstadt appeared upon the scene, with an invitation to a farewell reception and ball for the evening. The President accepted the invitation with the following words: "I do not fear to meet with any opposition if I accept this cordial invitation of our male sym- pathizers, in the name of the entire assembly; but with the following condition : Among the privileges which men have hitherto possessed and asserted was that of entertaining the ladies at parties and balls and of asking them to dance. The gentlemen who have now tendered us this invitation are no usurpers of power, but as members of the male sex they are accustomed to the above privilege like all the rest. In any case, it can do no harm to let them feel, for once, how it is to be disqualified. Therefore, we want to make this condition, that the roles be changed this evening, and that the ladies entertain AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 345 the gentlemen, and ask them to dance. Every gen- tlemen who acts contrary to this condition commits a breach of etiquette, and for punishment is not asked to dance." The invitation was accepted with this condition. The new order of things proved a great success that evening, and all were agreed that they had never on a similar occasion enjoyed themselves so much. Several American ladies, who were present, were of the opinion that things were managed in a more humane and more social manner at a German con- vention of women than at an American convention, and declared that they would hereafter try to intro- duce the German fashion. Thus closed the first convention of German women in America. 34 6 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN CONCERNING WOMANHOOD AND MAN- HOOD. (A Lecture. 1873.) In the treatment of my subject the question arose with which sex I should make the beginning, to which I should give precedence. The answer to this question would not embarrass me if I were to con- sult merely my taste or the injunctions of "gallantry." My hesitation arises from the story, especially the Christian story of the origin of the sexes. The Bible, the source of the prevailing wisdom and knowledge, accords priority to man, and traces the descent of woman directly from him, from one of his ribs. Not- withstanding the high authority, however, on which such genesis is based, it does not seem to me reason- able, for the simple reason that, according to general belief, man and woman are made to love each other. Montaigne says: "I should not like to be a woman because I could no longer love her then," and Lady Montaigne declared that "the only reason why she should not wish to be a man is that she would then have to marry a woman." How then could a woman have any charm for a man if she were formed out of his bodily substance? Conceive of Adam kissing Eve, after having, only yesterday, carried her about AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. l\l him as a rib. And then the vexing rib as such! I have sought in vain to trace the meaning of the Biblical origin of woman, and could explain it only if man belonged to those beings whose best part is the cutlet. Perhaps this interpretation is also ad- missible, that the Bible meant to convey the impres- sion that man's need of woman was so great that he would even "cut her out of his ribs," as we say, rather than do without her. But in that case it would have been more poetical and aesthetic to cut her out of his heart; however, at the time the Bible was written, aesthetics was as yet in a bad way. The male origin of woman is, therefore, untenable, and if anyone insists on adhering to it, I would agree with him only if he meant to indicate thereby that man lost his most human part when woman was separated from him, and that that is the reason why he has remained as brutal and barbaric as he still shows himself to be on the average. Lessing says: "Nature wished to make of woman her masterpiece. But she made a mistake in the clay; she took too fine a quality." The fineness of the clay is certainly not one of man's defects; in that respect we shall still have to make the most strenuous efforts in or- der to become masterpieces. I attribute the fable of the paradisiacal genesis to the domineering ar- rogance, with which man always condemns the weaker sex to dependence, and would even have it believe that it is indebted to him for its very exist- ence. I, therefore, consider that interpretation of 34 8 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN the Biblical story of the origin of woman as the most correct one, which sees in it the most striking expression of masculine egotism and despotism; in order to condemn woman to the most complete dependency upon himself, he traces her origin to his own sex, but at the same time, the cowardly barbarian is not ashamed, in the story of the "fall of man," to shift his own guilt on the shoulders of his own creature. The Christian myth of the origin of Eve corresponds to the Grecian myth of the birth of Pallas, the goddess of wisdom, from the head of Zeus, who, on his part, manifested his chief wisdom by shaking his locks, by the noise of thunder and lightning, and occasionally by amorous adventures with the daughters of the earth. But the noble Greeks, however, greatly they sinned against woman elsewhere, at least did her the honor to let the source of her intelligence be the brain of the highest God, while the vulgar Bible, out of a masculine bone, creates a being possessing so little intelligence that she must call a serpent and an appletree to her aid, to make the man understand that she is a woman. If both sexes did not come into existence simul- taneously, or were formerly united into one, if one is to claim priority before the other, then this pri- ority must be granted to the woman, by the logic of development, and if, according to the most recent theory of development, man has evoluted from the ape, it certainly was the female ape who first smiled a human smile, and who weaned her forest-mate AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 349 from grinning and showing his teeth. Even Chris- tianity cannot refrain from correcting the Biblical genesis by the story of the Virgin, who, without human aid, brought into the world the noblest of men, according to the Christian conception. Where is the man who would attempt, without the aid of a woman, to bring a Virgin Mary into the world? Let us therefore place woman first, and let us prepare ourselves by a reflection upon womanhood for an adequate examination of manhood. But the object of this reflection cannot be to merely em- phasize the difference between the two sexes; the object is rather to find the characteristic traits through which each sex presents itself in its ideal character, its greatest perfection; in other words, to learn to know the ideal woman as well as the ideal man. This task presents the peculiar difficulty that it cannot be solved in an objective sense, and with- out partnership, because, although both sexes are dependent upon each other, they have, in spite of their belonging together, different interests and dif- ferent points of view. In truth, man and woman can only be judged objectively by a neuter. But since we have not yet reached this neutrality, since all that is possible, to us, is the peculiar point of view of the one sex with regard to the other, since neither sex exists for itself, but each for the sake of the other, or has significance only with relation to the other, therefore this relationship alone ought to determine the judgment, so that woman would be the com- 35° THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN petent judge of true manhood, and man the com- petent judge of true womanhood. It is a futile at- tempt to investigate why this dualism of the sexes must exist, and if it were not possible to have an organic world without this division; the fact is that the organic world does consist of male and female beings, who could not and would not exist without each other, and a sex "in itself" and "for itself," without relation to the other, is no more to be thought of than a thing in itself or for itself. There- fore, it is proper for each of the two parts to decide what qualities the other ought to have, in order to meet its expectations. According to this I ought to be content to express my opinions only on true womanhood, and to leave the judgment of my own sex to a representative of the other. But since, ac- cording to various signs, there is danger that a great part of the male sex, at least of the German tongue, is about to disappear, and all the world seems will- ing to leave it to its fate, I must, even in the interest of the female sex, include the male in my observa- tions, and do my duty in attempting to come to its rescue. Another difficulty, besides the one resulting from sexual one-sidedness that stands in the way of find- ing an ideal of universal validity, is the diverging conceptions of various nations and finally of the single individuals. Every nation has a different ideal of womanhood, and among the individual men each one will be inclined to make that woman his ideal AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 35 1 with whom he happens to have fallen in love. An average ideal of manhood could be established with much greater ease than one of womanhood. If a vote could be taken on the matter, then surely a bearded biped in uniform, that is, a trained homicide, skull-splitter, or first-class blood-and-iron man, would receive the majority among men. But which woman would receive the majority, whether it would be the Virgin Mary or the not Virgin Venus, I can- not tell in these Christian times. In this state of helplessness I am thrown upon my own taste, and if I follow this I have the encouraging consciousness that in at least one important particular, namely in regard to nationality, my judgment is no prejudice. Let Olympia — in order to give a name to the ideal woman — speak German, or French, or English, or Italian, or Spanish, I shall honor her equally if Only she unites within herself those qualities which make of her the model female of the human species. Even without being a materialist, I would have to begin with the physical personality in order to sketch the model female of the human species, and the first physical requirement is, of course, beauty. But what is beauty? Even if all the artists and philoso- phers, all the painters, sculptors and poets came to my aid, I would not be able to determine absolutely and exactly what feminine beauty consisted of. Shall I study it in Raphael's Madonna, or in the Venus of Medici? Neither of the two would call out my enthusiasm if I saw them bodily before me. This 35 2 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN spirituality may infatuate, this sensual charm may intoxicate, but only intellect can inspire. As often as I visit a picture gallery I am astonished at the lack of intellect and imagination that most painters display in the choice of their subjects. Why has none of them yet had the idea of painting a modern Venus, that is, a model woman, who represents those qualities which the perfected taste, the superior con- ception of womanhood, and the more liberal views of a new era attribute to a female ideal, not only in the physical form, but also in the expression of the face? Artists have 'never been wanting in the rep- resentation of blameless physical forms, any more than they have been hampered for want of models, both living and copies; but where is the painter or sculptor, who has created a face that could belong to a modern Venus, that is, to a woman in whom the greatest physical charm was united with the highest expression of intellectual endowment. That such a work of art has <not yet been created is due, in my opinion, not only to a paucity of artistic imagination but also to the position of woman up to the present time. Whoever studies the statues of the antique Venus carefully must at once be struck by the mean- inglessness x>f the face which shows itself especially in the unintellectual forehead, a significant fact for the thoughtful observers. The Greeks looked upon and treated woman in general as a subordinate be- ing that existed only for the gratification of male desires. Therefore, physical charms had to furnish AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 353 the chief points of excellence in their feminine ideal. For did they not designate the girdle of the goddess of love as the seat of her charms, and even give her the surname of Kallopygos, by which they glorified the beauty of her back? An expressive and intel- lectual face did not harmonize with the conception of a slave. Venus might be a ruler in so far as she could subdue men by her physical charms; but she must be a slave, like all women, in so far as she was not allowed to be intellectually equal to man, and thus, as an equal, to make the same claims upon him as he made upon her. In my opinion the con- temptuous conception of woman in Grecian myth- ology is nowhere brought out more significantly than in the choice of a husband for the beautiful Venus. According to human and aesthetic logic it ought to have married her to Apollo, the god of beauty and of light ; but instead of that, it gave her to his direct opposite, the god of ugliness and dark- ness, the blacksmith Hephaestos, or Vulcan, whose only qualification for a husband consisted in his ability to forge chains. To be sure, the sentiment of justice and common sense tried to correct this incongruity by allowing Venus to seek compensa- tion in the society of Mars, Bacchus, and other friends; but, after all, the antique goddess of beauty, and of love, never really advanced beyond the posi- tion of a slave or a prostitute, be she called Urania or Vulgivaga. Wherever the mythology of the an- cients accorded to woman a higher, an intellectual 354 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN position or function, it left out love. Its goddess of wisdom was even a cold, inaccessible virgin. Who would nowadays hold up a woman as a model of wisdom who does not or cannot love? A woman without love, or ability to love, inspires as little interest as a man without valor and without aspira- tion. But as I have said before, woman's love ought, according to the more worthy conceptions of our age, not meet the passion of man passively, with- out intelligence, and without will; but in the con- sciousness of her equal sovereignty and dignity, she ought to demand and exchange choice for choice, passion for passion, devotion for devotion, adora- tion for adoration. But such a position can be thought of only as coupled with gieat intellectual endowment. Nevertheless the artists of our time still adhere to the models of antiquity, whose addi- tional characteristic is that they celebrate feminine beauty more through sculpture than through paint- ing, presumably because the former can better satis- fy the sensual taste, by its plastic physical form, while the latter, with the same facial expression of intellectual insignificance, can produce only a very unsatisfactory effect. Were I to offer any sugges- tions to an artist, concerning the creation of a mod- ern Venus, they would be something like the fol- lowing: For the physical form, as far as the head, you may choose among the customary models, if you will avoid excessive length of fingers, sloping shoulders, AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 355 and the famous swan's neck — beauties of which only a lover of consumption can approve. Do not study only the conditions of beauty, but also those of health, even of strength, in so far as it is compat- ible with grace. Do not choose a decidedly national type, above all not a too northern character, and not a blonde Thusnelda. The northern element is more typical of the masculine, the southern of the feminine character. But for both a blending of the two is the foundation and condition of elevation and perfection. Let your picture have brown eyes and black hair; if you make the eyes blue, then let the color of the hair, eyebrows and eyelashes be a dark blonde, approaching to black. The complexion must not incline toward yellow or brown, but must, in spite of the dark hair and dark eyes, betray the predominance of rosy, Caucasian blood. Spare the red on cheeks and lips, but be not sparing of intel- lectual expression in the shape of the eyes, the mouth and the forehead. Would not a picture of this sort, derived from the most advanced civilization and executed by a Praxiteles or Apelles of our time, to represent the modern Venus, make a different impression than the sea-born Venus of the ancients? Would she not be a nobler and more timely object of adoration than the unintellectual, comfortless and joyless Madonna? Would it not give a higher tone to the culture of the beautiful? Would it not, as the fem- inine ideal, help to elevate woman in general? 35 6 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN Would not the idea of personifying the goddess of love, in union with intellectual endowment, give to love itself a higher sanction and help to destroy the dominant, although not openly avowed, conception, according to which love and intellect do not agree with each other in woman? Does not the concep- tion, which men in general entertain of the destiny of woman, presuppose her intellectual inferiority? Do they not, even where they adore her beauty and loveliness, secretly look upon her intellect either with contempt or with jealousy? There is no true beauty which is not permeated with intelligence, and there is nothing more glorious in the world than a beautiful woman of intellect. But how many men have enough intellect, masculine and humane intel- lect, not to fear the feminine intellect where they extol and demand feminine beauty? Are not most of them inclined to attach the suspicion of unwom- anliness to the intellectual endowments of a woman, merely because their instinct tells them that a gifted woman can and must lay claim to a higher position, and greater respect, than that of a slave to man? "The eternal womanly draws us on" — thus declaims every hero with a tuft of hair under his nose. A woman could answer him: "The eternal manly draws us down." If I have so far coupled true womanliness with physical beauty I do not wish to be understood that the former could not exist without the latter. Two chief requirements of true womanliness are grace AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 357 and goodness, and both can suffice without physical beauty; they can even conciliate one with homeli- ness, or shall I say that they actually preclude home- liness? Just as there is no true physical beauty, without the expression of soul, so the expression of the soul can compensate for the lack of physical beauty. These two indispensable qualities, grace and goodness, can bestow advantages and charms to a woman under circumstances and at a period of life when a man sees his disappear or turn into their opposites. There are few fathers, who, at an ad- vanced age, can still inspire their children with in- terest in them, while the filial love for a mother, especially that of sons, can increase with her age. On this occasion I should also like to protest against the prejudice, confirmed by many facts, that the physical charms of a woman are a necessary condition for the duration of man's love. To be sure, it cannot be a matter of indifference to any man, whether the object of his regard retains or loses the agreeable appearance which she possessed in Schiller's "beautiful time of young love;'' but if he cannot fold her in his arms as tenderly after she has become the emaciated inmate of the sickbed, as he embraced her on the bridal couch, then he lies when he asserts that he ever really loved her. But it is a sad fact that most men, as they are now edu- cated, lose the capacity for true love, together with the true respect for women, before they have had any opportunity to test this love. 358 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN So far, for the sake of realizing a picture of true womanliness, I have taken a point of view from which intellectual endowment is one of the indis- pensable attributes of woman. It is self-evident that this presupposes all the accompanying results of intellectual endowment, such as participation in all the achievements of education and science, interest in everything that is good and beautiful, the taking of an active part in the humanization of human society, the noble assertion of nature and truth in manners and life. Now let us see what will become of our ideal picture if we leave our point of view, to step down into the street, and place it face to face with* reality, with the present. To the great annoy- ance of our musical or music-making German coun- trymen I once asked the question: "Need a musi- cian have brains?" At the risk of incurring the ill- will of the entire fair sex, I would like, in reviewing the great majority of our present female world, to put the question: "Must a woman have brains?" When I began my campaign of the so-called emanci- pation of woman in New York, twenty-two years ago, a German woman said to me: "What do you want with this emancipation? We women do not need to be emancipated. If my husband beats me, I scratch his eyes out." Well, this woman was modest enough to consider security against conjugal blows as sufficient emancipation, and had sense and cour- age enough to obtain this security for herself by means of her own natural weapons. But how many AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 359 are there not, who will quietly submit to the blows, without thinking of the eyes of their affectionate executioner, and who nevertheless consider them- selves emancipated? How many are there not who have never thought of rights, because they do not know what to do with them? How many are there, even among the cultured, who have brains enough to know that a man who does not accord to his wife equal rights with himself, in all things, cannot truly love her? But then these are domestic affairs be- longing to the department of the interior. Let us step outside the door, and look at these candidates of emancipation on the street. There we shall be able to admire feminine brains, especially in two of its appendages by which women strive to assist nature. One will construct a monstrous elevation on her head, the other an even more monstrous ele- vation on another part, which nature has found best to deprive of the ornament with which it has embel- lished only animals. There might be some sense in the elevation on the head, as indicating a desire to enlarge, at least externally, that member, which is known as the seat of the understanding, and this is corroborated by the fact that those skulls which contain the least within them are wont to be loaded with the highest structures. But the passion of women to increase the opposite part by an appen- dage is all the more incomprehensible, because among animals it is the male sex that distinguishes itself by the size of its rear ornaments, as we can 360 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN observe in the turkey, the peacock, and other tail- bearing dignitaries. What is to become of our views of the feminine ideal, if we see even the model speci- mens of the fair sex wander about the streets, the delicate head adorned with a Babylonian tower, con- sisting of a collection of international hair and in- fusoria, and the curved model back ending in a mys- terious elevation of drygoods and architectural de- signs, moving with strange contortions, and threat- ening changes of form, before which, if they really were a part of the person, the entire male sex would flee into the forest? At such a sight the question: "Must a woman have brains?" involuntarily changes into the question: "Can a woman have brains?" And yet nobody will maintain that "there is nothing to it." Fairy lore has told us of mermaids who are women above and fish below; but without straying into the realm of fancy we could say of most of our landmaids, they are grenadier above and dromedary below. And to complete the model woman as a monstrosity in the extreme, she also drags a silk or velvet train, of several yards, along her earthly pil- grimage, in order to bring home with her into her boudoir, redolent with ^patchuli, all the odors and delicacies of the public thoroughfare. George Sand, Ninon de l'Enclos, Heloise, Aspasia and all ye other women of intellect and taste, of aesthetic sense and feeling, save me from despairing of your living sis- ters, who, by such monstrous deformities and con- cessions, voluntarily and assiduously, without com- AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 3&i punction and without shame, prostitute themselves into thoughtless and vulgar slaves of the most in- sane tyranny of fashion! And these want to be emancipated? Every tower of hair, and every "bustle" is the public exhibition of a protest against emancipation! What a grand triumph for the opponents of woman's rights, when they see the pre-eminently fair sex abjure, not only all common sense, but also all sense of the beautiful and all good taste! And what humiliation, what an embarrassing position for the advocates of those rights, who, with the claim for equal rights, must at the same time assert and prove equal ability! But even in this predicament comfort and encouragement is not wanting. For without drawing parallels, without, for instance, contrasting woman's slavery to fashion, her passion for finery and gew-gaws, with the imitative passion of men for tobacco fumes and playing at soldiers, and thus balancing the two sides of the scales, or even causing them to fluctuate in favor of woman, we must admit that the time for a final test has not yet come for either sex. And if this holds of man, who could assert his rights and choose his task un- hampered, how much more must it hold of woman, who has hitherto been without rights and without self-determination, and who, dragging with her the inheritance of thousands of years of dependence and degradation, has had no opportunity to arrive at a sovereign consciousness of her own ability, and 3b2 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN could only become what man either directly or in- directly made of her through education and ruler- ship! To demand qualities and to pass judgment on qualities in a state of slavery which only liberty can develop or destroy, would be to crown injustice by stupidity. Only the free woman can manifest the true nature of woman. The woman of the future will be an entirely different being from the woman of the present. What she may once be, what she may strive after and accomplish, we can even now realize by the aid of the example given us by several favored natures, and by the contrast between free conditions and the unfree conditions in which she moves and has her being. What a difference, for instance, between the aspirations and achievements of American and of German women! Women, brought up in the philistine, police and military at- mosphere of Germany, have no idea of what women undertake and accomplish in America. Neither can we now have an adequate conception of that which American, and, it is to be hoped, also German- American women, will one day undertake and ac- complish, when they can enter every arena which a free government opens to human aspirations, in the full possession of their rights and independence. Let us not be afraid that in an atmosphere of liberty womanliness will disappear. It will not commit suicide because it is permitted to unfold freely. Op- pression, not liberty, destroys true womanliness, as it does true manliness. This so frequently expressed AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 3^3 anxiety, translated into sincere language, is nothing more than the fear that masculine vulgarity must retreat before the civilizing influence of woman. In order to secure its existence and continued sole- rulership, this vulgarity strives to prevent woman from entering public life, by intimidating her with the false alarm that she will sacrifice or besmirch her nobler self, by associating with her former mas- ters on a plane of equality. A very extraordinary way, this, of making the calling of a person the de- cisive judge in the matter of the exercise of human rights! Is it not strange that men do not trust women to decide for themselves what is womanly? Let them once learn to recognize and appreciate the true woman and it will be with pride, rather than anxiety, that they will behold woman entering the polls or the halls of legislation side by side with them. Before the woman who breaks her chains, before the free woman trembles not — the free man. In the time when this shall have become the de- sire, the senseless clamor will also cease, that now still arises whenever woman tries to make her most personal property, her emotions and affections, her person and her happiness, independent of the tyran- nical egotism of man, by asserting that inalienable right, which is wont to be called "free love." There are certain ruling prejudices and dogmas of habit, which, being favored by narrowmindedness and hypocrisy, take on the character of a moral ban, be- cause the intellectual arguments which could give 364 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN them the power to convince are wanting. I should like to designate such dogmas and prejudices by the general name of rabble philosophy, and to this rabble philosophy belong also the denunciations and the sham indignation against "free love." "Free love" can surely not encounter any more hostile op- position than it meets with on the part of proprie- tors of harems. The Sultan of Constantinople will condemn it as true reprobateness, as a danger to so- ciety, as an underminer of all morality. Among the men of our present education there are not ten in a hundred who are not sultans at heart. Under the reign of free love, many a one who now triumph- antly recites the list of Don Juan, would sing the sentimental tune of "Lonely am I, all alone." When I hear a man denounce even the theory of free love as a crime, I suspect him of being in practice a friend of free lust. Free love, rightly understood, is noth- ing else than free marriage, that is, true marriage; but the conception of such a marriage completely excludes those abominations, which male egotism and male corruption try to connect with woman's free choice, in order to keep her in servitude by a false idea of duty. Whoever wishes to bind a woman by another tie than that of her free love, and thinks of deserving this love by something else than his own worthiness and reciprocal affection, is as much fool as despot, and has no idea of the most beautiful relationship, for which nature has fitted mankind. Having always treated the love of a woman in a AND THE SEXUAL BELAT10NS. 3^5 domineering manner, as a matter of duty, liberty alone can teach men the meaning and the price of true love. The free woman will teach them to re- gard that as a reward that must be earned, which in the unfree woman they had regarded as booty. With the liberation and elevation of woman we liberate and elevate ourselves. Indeed, I would almost say: Only in so far, as we men learn to understand and appreciate woman, are we true human beings. The full wealth and the complete significance of the relationship between man and woman only superior individuals have hitherto been able to grasp and to represent. We must look to the liberty of the future to bring it into more general consciousness. Love is more than the desire for sexual union, or the renewal of self in progeny; marriage is more than the means of setting up housekeeping and founding a family; the upward striving toward the "eternal womanly" is more than a dark longing for an object that may agreeably occupy the emotions and the imagination. It is the longing, equivalent to a noble life, toward the per- fection of our being through the union with a being in harmony with ourselves; toward the complete satisfaction of our personality by becoming one with another personality, by a blending of souls that per- fects both, as the blending of two metals results in a third that is superior to and more durable than either alone. It is finally the need that every nobler indi- vidual feels for the realization of the ideal, a realiza- 366 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN tion which we look for in vain in every direction, and Which life can offer us nowhere but in true love. Whithersoever a man's fancy, his discoveries, or aspirations, may lead him, nothing in the whole do- main of nature can take the place of the relationship that true love unfolds to two thinking and harmoni- ous beings. Such a double life alone is true life. Place man into nature alone, as its sole ruler, place all its secrets, all its* pleasures at his disposal, make earth into a paradise or a heaven for him wherein every fabled splendor becomes a reality — still he will remain a stranger in his great realm, he will feel forsaken and impoverished with all his riches, he will despair in all his wisdom, his thought will search through all the spaces of the universe to find the something that he lacks, his fancy will strive to fill out the deadening void with the pictures of that which he longs for, and he will arraign nature, who has lavished her gifts upon him with the supplicating reproach , take everything from me, wherewith you have vainly sought to bless me, and give me instead that which you have denied me, the best, the most indispensable gift of all, give me a woman ! And if nature sihould then grant his wish, and he should hold in his arms the object of his desire, would it be with the Christian barbaric greeting, I will be "your master," that he would receive her? Let us now turn from the pre-eminently "fair" to the pre-eminently "strong" sex. The appellation itself indicates that as grace is considered the chief AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 3^7 attribute of womanliness, so strength is considered the chief attribute of manliness. But what is strength and which strength is of the right kind? Here we find ourselves placed before a delicate question. It must be answered relentlessly, even if the answer should be : What is considered by most men to be manly strength is nothing but animal na- ture, brutality and barbarity. As in the case of woman, so let us in the case of man begin with the physique. But the chapter on beauty I must here skip entirely, since in this re- spect we can count upon the indulgence of women, who are more apt to be guided in their choice by minor qualities than we. It is not empty flattery if I say of them : Beauty is not much to miss, Women's verdicts are not serious, One that no Thersites is, Often may cut out a Nireus. Die Schoen'heit wird nicht oft vermisst, Die Weiber sind nicht streng im Schaetzen, Und wenn du kein Thersites bist, Den Nireus kannst du leicht ersetzen. It is, however, self-evident that we cannot look for an ideal of manliness in a crippled Liliputian, or a scrofulous weakling, but neither will Herculean limbs, a broad bull's neck, and the strong fists of a prize-fighter represent it. A vigorous, symmetrical 368 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN body with sound organs, to which must be added — in contrast to woman — broad shoulders, with a corresponding chest, and narrow hips over legs which are neither too long nor bowed, that is the necessary material substratum for a manly intellect and character, for endurance and energy ; but phys- ical size as well as physical strength becomes doubt- ful as soon as they exceed the general standard to a marked degree. The usual outcome in such a case is that the animal and aggressive element predom- inates, and that the intellectual and humane element does not suffice to spiritualize the bodily organism correspondingly. How many physical giants have there been who were also intellectual giants? The human brain does not seem to grow beyond a cer- tain measure. The largest male skulls that have been measured were twenty-four inches in circum- ference. If a skull of twenty-four inches can make a genius of a man six feet and less, then a skull of twenty-two indhes on a seven-footer would stamp him as a partial idiot. I actually feel like warning people against men that are too tall as well as against those that are too stout. Tall men rarely are great men. In short, no one, desirous of entering the lists in a review of manliness, ought to be taller than six feet, and if any one can lift a weight of a thousand pounds it would be wise for him not to mention it, and if he can throw six opponents, he ought to be satisfied with two, so as not be banished from the ranks of respectable men and classed AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 3^9 among the uncouth Cyclops and giants. The an- cients made of their mythological representative of clumsy physical strength, Hercules, a stable-sweep, while they represented Apollo as their ideal of man- liness, whose moderate physical dimensions corre- sponded to as much athletic strength and skill as he required. In spite of this well-known type, however, the man with the strongest bones approaches most nearly to the vulgar, I am tempted to say the demo- cratic ideal of manliness, and if a man should arise, who could pick his teeth with a church steeple, the priests themselves would proclaim him pope. In America he would be elected king in a frock coat for life, with an extra allowance for cloth for his immense coat, and extra grub-money for his un- usual stomach. But in Germany, in the fatherland of Goethe and Schiller — ah! what an ideal suc- cessor to Barbarossa! Of course, he would then also have to have a corresponding beard, that would grow through the table, and down into Hades, so that the spirits of Father Arndt and Father Jahn could most submissively twitch it, by way of tele- graphing their patriotic blessedness to him. What would a man be without a beard, and what especially would our Germans be without hair on their face? Hair is so essential and indispensable to them that they even transfer them from the face into the mouth, and have not only hair on their lips but "hair on their teeth." It surely cannot be very compli- 37° THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN mentary to a man, to receive his name from his beard instead of from his head. And yet Frederick the Red-Beard has become the German ideal of a ruler. Barbarossa would surely not have become such a popular figure if he had not had such a large red beard, and his present substitute, ad interim, in Berlin, has already been dubbed Barba blanca by German professors, in order to increase his popular- ity. If his beard were likewise red, half of the popu- lation of Germany would now be inmates of the in- sane asylum, from sheer red-haired ecstacy, and would be playing Kyffhaeuser. A malicious demo- crat, to be sure, might be struck by quite a different thought. He might call attention to the fact that the most intellecual of the Hohenzollerns, Freder- ick II., and Frederick William IV., had no beards, but that the hero-emperor and his son, like their bushy brother, Victor Emanuel, let theirs grow into regular coachmen's beards, as if anxious to manifest thereby their ability to guide the wagon of state. What a mysterious thing it is, this hair in the face! With our first ancestors, the apes, who did not yet indulge in any reflections on womanhood and manhood, much less on humanity, and who had no women as yet, but only females, the latter, ac- cording to Darwin, also had hairy faces ; but as the female gradually became a woman, the hair dis- appeared, and if we should now imagine our women with hairy cheeks, our hair would stand on end. Does the beardless face of the woman not indicate AND THE SEXUAL BELATlONS. 37 * that the hairy face of the man is a survival of the time of brute man? Does it not suggest the conclu- sion, .the more hair the less human being? It must not be inferred, however, that bald-headed men are the representatives of humanity. We also note that where inhumanity is cultivated most — namely, among soldiers, the beard, too, plays a great part, just as animals of prey, lions, bears, wolves, etc., distinguish themselves by the thickest and most shaggy furs. We cannot well imagine a true cham- pion of the sword, a model policeman, a thoroughly qualified bailiff, without a bristling thicket under his nose wherein his commanding and swearing voice can break itself in a right threatening manner. If we could imagine all beards as suddenly extermin- ated we should involuntarily have to presuppose at the same time the abolition of wars, for hairless faces remind us of humanity, while the shaggy, rough appearance can be interpreted and justified only as a constant advertisement of a corresponding barbaric calling. It seems to me that if two armies of smooth- ly shaven faces were confronted with each other, they would hesitate to fire. I cannot help thinking that the more men ad- vance in intelligence and humanity, the more will they lose the hair in their faces. Also in this re- spect the intellectual and refined Greeks give us an- other eloquent hint. While they furnished all those gods to whom they attributed the coarser qualities and manifestations — Zeus, the thunderer, first of 372 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN all — with an abundant growth of hair on the face, they represent their ideal of manliness, the god of light, of beauty and of the muses, without a beard. They spared him all the cheap, martial distinctions that remind one of coarseness, in order to let his intellect and character speak undisguised in all his lines and forms. The whole Apollo would now be distasteful to us if we were to conceive of him like one of our modern men, with cheeks, mouth and chin covered by a growth of hair, beneath which the lips would open like a hidden fissure in a rock that led into an underground cave, while the nose would protrude like a wind-broken tree trunk from the underbrush. And now the aesthetic reflections to which such a hairy god of the muses would stimu- late us, if, with the help of the achievements of our modern civilization, we should equip him with all the consequences of a beard, among others such as remnants of food adhering from the just completed divine meal, flavored with the juice of the Olympian cigar, smoked after dessert, and perfumed with in- fernal tobacco-smoke — and then imagine this di- vine mouth, enriched by this threefold cosmetic, pressed upon the unsoiled lips of a horrified muse. Alas, our women submit to such kisses without being horrified. They are as great sufferers as their tobacco perfumed lords are aesthetic barbarians. Is there any more hostile contrast in the world than a tender kiss on a beautiful mouth, by the lip adorned with a tobacco-saturated brush? But they meet, AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 373 nevertheless. Truly, man is always the greatest monster when he least thinks of it. But is not, in spite of all aesthetics, a beard, espe- cially a beard under the nose, considered to be just as indispensable an attribute of manliness as the fuming instrument called a pipe or cigar, with which even ten-year-old fire-eaters practice manliness, un- til they, like other volcanoes, emit smoke followed by an eruption? How very cheap is this manliness, whose credentials are a bush of hair and a cloud of smoke ! Even the ancients felt that this pretentious growth of hair was a superfluous addition, or a cheap ornament, and they tried to get rid of it by the aid of burning nutshells and similar expedients. But since the razor has been invented, this greatly depreciated instrument of civilization, almost all in- tellectual men have attempted to free themselves of this animal distinction, and to show their human physiognomy openly to the world. We can no more think of a Rousseau or Voltaire, a Schiller and Goethe, a Lessing -and Boerne, a Kant and Hegel, a Mozart and Beethoven with a mustache, or a Henry IV., than we can think of the hero-emperor, and his blood-and-iron men, without bristles in their faces. But this man of bristles cannot hide his taste for the barracks, even behind the diplomat, unlike that French ambassador to the Turkish court, who, when the Sultan made some remarks about his smooth face, answered : "If my master had known that the beard was considered the principal thing 374 THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN here he would have sent a billy-goat as ambassa- dor." If I could ascribe design to nature, I could see behind this freak of afflicting man with a beard no other motive than that of helping along the barber business, or of thwarting physiognomy. While our women show us all the feature of their face openly, so that we can read everything that nature has im- printed there in her own language, our overgrown countenance is to them, if not a book with seven seals, at least one with an obscure text, from which they perhaps read something very different than it really contains. Who knows but that many a bride, who goes to the altar with a bearded man, would think of divorce on reaching home, if her new hus- band should happen to get shaved on the way? If 1 were a girl, I should only accept my husband from the hands of the barber, and should at most show some leniency toward his side whiskers, for I should want to see his true face ,and only the face without the beard is the true face. But I should certainly not allow the beard to decide his manliness. We see many a man, viewing his surroundings from out of his shaggy face like a lion, seeking whom he may devour; but after he has been under the barber's care, a most pathetically innocent and childlike physiognomy will perhaps smile at us, so that a mother might be tempted to offer her breast to the lion. Nature seems to have supplied many a man with a beard for no other reason than that no other AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 375 man should be tempted to propose marriage to him. Nevertheless, these bushy men are all proud of their shagginess, as a sign of "manliness." Whoever is afflicted with a strong beard, very well, let him see how he can get along with it; but whoever is proud of his beard, he surely has nothing else of which he can be proud. I have spent so much time over the physique of the male sex, and its most striking characteristic, because it furnishes the foundation for the coarse and stupid conceptions of manliness that have come down to us from past barbaric times, but are even now the prevailing notions of the great majority. If we suppose the bony framework of the male re- duced to a moderate size, and the male faces de- prived of their bearded addition, then the chief foundation for male brutality and conceit seems likewise to have disappeared. The soldier, as well as the rowdy, the tyrant of woman as well as the braggadocio, is lost to view, and the human being alone stands before us. But it is the human being that we have above all to deal with. Whenever, therefore, we investigate the requirements of true manliness, we must first of all answer the question: Can he be a true man, who is not, first of all, a true human being? And what is it to be a true human being? This last question I have attempted to an- swer in a special lecture on "Humanity." I must, therefore, be as brief as possible in its application to manliness. 376 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN Although we must retain strength as a necessary attribute of manliness, we are yet bound to look for the distinctions of manliness in the intellectual and ethical domain, especially in an age when in- ventions and discoveries constantly tend to diminish the value of physical strength. It is in the work of its own destruction in murder at wholesale that it still plays a chief part. What a hopeless and dis- gusting thought this is that we must form our mas- culine ideal according to the ideas of a king of Prus- sia, or a similar military type ! And yet how many men and women are there who would not bow be- fore the uniformed, betressed, beribboned and bearded form of a barbarian, whose entire skill and knowledge, whose whole thinking and striving, consists in the senseless and bloody craft of mur- dering his fellowmen! The longer his list of slain, the greater the man; the more bullets he heard whistling past him, the more admirable his cour- age. Picked patriots harness themselves to his tri- umphal chariot, and virgins, all clad in white — O Lord, forgive them, they know not what they do ! — strew flowers in the path of the monster. But who- ever expresses his disgust at such manliness, and allows his disgust to increase with the size of the bloody deeds, who despises such courage as the brutal insensibility of a hardened barbarian, he is branded by the vulgar judgment of thoughtless slaves and patriots as an enemy of the people or fantastic crank. How very cheap would be man- AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 377 liness and manly courage if we had to con-cede it to all those who have stood in a "shower of bullets," or looked into the mouths of cannon ! Every Rus- sian musketeer would by this test occupy a higher plane than the noblest and most courageous trib- une of the people. Let those be most highly appre- ciated as men who, although they are enemies of the murderous craft, still risk their lives against bar- barians for humane ends; but so long as we do not place this bloody craft itself, and all those that do homage to it, together with their distinctions and heroic deeds, their glamour and their fame, under the ban of our contempt and disgust, so long as we do not acknowledge it to have a brutal rather than a manly character, so long have we no idea of true manliness. Where manliness shall and must still be decorated with blood, let it be at least with the blood of barbarians or tyrants. But the contemptibility of these greatly admired models of manliness, reared in the barracks, be- comes downright unfathomable, if we view them in the light of a combination of slaves and barbari- ans. What caricatures of men do those proud com- manding heroes present who, in the thunder of can- nons, gallop at the head of thousands of drilled homicides, in order to shrink back tremblingly be- fore the glance of an august superior, and who would perish under the frown of a most gracious master! Even the most dreadful become carica- tures like these through their servility. There is no 378 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN more glaring antagonism and contrast than that be- tween subject and man; but a uniformed subject, let him wear epaulets or shoulder flaps, who will allow himself to be drilled and butchered for a master, does not only renounce every manly and human dignity, he even sinks below the animal, for even the trained hound does not make an attack with the consciousness that he is using his teeth for his master. Only a free man, conscious of his sover- eignty and individual aims, deserves the name of man, and below the republican there cannot be a true man any more than a true human being. So true as it is that there are still slaves in the world, so true is it that he can lay no claims to manliness who can live and sacrifice himself for a master. For our loved ones and friends, as well as for an im- periled right, or any other noble cause of our con- viction, we may risk our lives without forfeiting the consciousness of manliness, and individuality; but to give it up for a master or idol, who sends us into the fire as his creatures and instruments, is the deep- est degradation and prostitution of which a male being is capable. What a boon for mankind would it be if this great and simple truth could be made clear to all subjects! If the twenty millions of our male countrymen on the other side of the water, who have allowed themselves to be puffed up as masculine ideals, on account of their deeds of servile heroism, would but once become truly conscious of what it is to be a man, Germany would be a re- public within twenty-four hours ! AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 379 Struggle, constant struggle is the soul of human life, but let the objects of the struggle be humane, and the weapons intellectual. Let us struggle with nature, through whose bounty we are able to achieve a more beautiful and a nobler existence. Let us likewise struggle with ourselves, in whom nature has repeated the play between its destructive and creative forces, in the strife between passion and reason. That man must be tedious and devoid of character who is not stirred by passions; but he who has not learned how to control himself becomes despicable and disgusting. Let us struggle with the necessities and adversities of life, which impose upon us the ordeal of remaining firm in our pur- poses and true to ourselves. Let us struggle with baseness, that would degrade everything that is beautiful and noble to its own level. Let us finally struggle with those numerous enemies, who live longer than the uniformed ones, and will never be exterminated — the enemies of intellectual progress, of the universal rights of man, of universal truth. This struggle will bring our strength and our courage to a nobler test than the raging turmoil of the battle- field, in which even the best is but a blind, uncon- scious murderer of unknown victims. Without courage there is no manliness, and cowardice is the death of manliness; but its highest courage is moral courage, the courage of truth, just as moral coward- ice is the most shameful cowardice, and the lie is the most unmanly vice. Falsehood and manliness — 380 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN who would undertake to harmonize the two? And yet how many are there who do not lie, with whom it is a point of honor, and a necessity of character, that their words shall always correspond to their thoughts, and their deeds to their words? How many, indeed, who as much as live up to the adage, which has become an everyday and popular motto : "A word, a man?" How many care whether they are acting manly or unmanly? Is it manly to be satisfied with half-way measures and compromises, in the antagonism of irreconcilable contrasts, while an unflinching principle calls for completeness and decision? Is it manly to wax enthusiastic over a cause while it is on parade, but to desert it later on, when action is called for? Is it manly by means of intrigue and hypocrisies, to indulge in a vain ambi- tion, that finds higher satisfaction in external posi- tion, than in the consciousness of inner worth? Is it manly to devote all the activities of life merely to base gain, that leaves no inclination and no strength for nobler aspirations ? Is it manly to flee from sens- ual enjoyment after the fashion of the ascetic, and is it manly to sink into debauchery? Is it manly to be a slave to woman, and is it manly to be a woman- hater? These and similar questions suggest their own answer as soon as they are put. But another, which will furnish us material for some final obser- vations, we must consider more at length. It is the serious question : Is it manly to condemn woman to subordination and refuse to grant her equal rights? AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 381 If even in general anyjwant of magnanimity toward the defenseless, and the abuse of superior strength as a right against the weak, is considered unmanly, I know of nothing in the world that is more un- manly than the egotistic denial of equal rights to beings whose equal worth we cannot question, and who are, moreover, as indispensable to us as our own life, whom we, in a state of exaltation, elevate to angels and goddesses, and "at whose feet we lie," according to a common poetic expression of the Don Juans, in order to gain their favor. Is it per- haps more manly "to lie at the feet" of a being who is our inferior in rights than of one who is our equal? I should like to hear such a prostrate model of man- liness deliver one of his usual declamations on the "feminine sphere," at the moment when, with hum- ble mien, he is bending his knee before his adored. The sovereign master kneeling before the disfran- chised slave, from whom, by cringing flattery, he would obtain a gracious smile, in order, later on, to turn against her as the brutal tyrant, the heartless deceiver! What model specimens of manliness! Any little goose with a pretty face can daily amuse herself with putting a grim-bearded lord of crea- tion to the test, and then avenge her disfranchise- ment upon him by a scornful refusal. Indeed, no- where does this proud manliness, that rises with so much sovereign dignity above the disfranchised woman, suffer shipwreck more frequently and more wretchedly, than in his dealings with this weak 382 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN woman, without whom the "strong sex" would feel so desperately lonely that it would have to curse its .own existence. Alas, that the greatest part of the curse still falls upon the weaker sex, whose de- plorable lot of misery, grief and shame, in hundreds of millions of its degraded members, impeaches male brutality, baseness and want of conscience! If humanity is one hundred thousand years old we men have to atone to women for a wrong of one hundred thousand years' standing, and we can do that only if, by granting them equal rights most completely, we give them an opportunity of not only bettering their own lot, but also of helping to make us unworthy ones worthy of them. Who can real- ize the self-delusion of egotism that it requires not to be surprised at the monstrous contradiction of which man makes himself guilty in refusing rights, most obstinately and most invidiously, just there where he claims to be ruled by the most tender re- gards, and the most powerful affections! To the despised negro he grants his rights, because he is forced to do so by the stress of circumstances; to the adored woman he refuses them because she is not backed by an overpowering necessity that came to the aid of the negro. Even with the promptings of his most powerful, most irrepressible emotions, only force, and not a voluntary resolution, can bring him to acknowledge and grant rights which he can- not contest on any reasonable grounds. Does this not prove the shameful fact that the entire male AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS. 383 sex, in blind egotism, insists on the same thousand- year-old, historical wrong, for the senseless and wicked allegation of which we have always re- proach feudalists and princes? The thorough de- struction of this egotism, the complete renuncia- tion of every privilege, and the free union of the sovereign woman with the sovereign man that will result from it, will usher in a new, a nobler, more beautiful and happier life for humanity. It is not difficult to show that the degradation of woman is not only the chief symptom, but also the chief cause, of the social and moral corruption of society. Her elevation, however, will be its salvation and will ennoble the race in general. And, however we may meditate upon and construct a picture of a fu- ture humanity, its most beautiful adorment, and highest happiness, will consist in the nobler rela- tionship between the two sexes, resulting from an equality of rights. Already Goethe declared woman to be the bearer of the ideal, which he missed in the masculine world, and minds who have been unable to perceive this have always shown themselves un- able to reconcile human existence with the course of the world. Let me call attention to two notable personages of most modern times. The philosopher Schopenhauer was a woman-hater. An apostle of his, von Hartmann, a blase Berlinian, and son of a general, is a despiser of woman, who would grant man the privilege of ending his so-called love with the satisfaction of his sensual desire, to which the 3 8 4 THE BIGHTS OF WOMEN loving woman must of course submit. And what is the meaning, the moral, the logical outcome of the "pessimistic" philosophy of these two woman haters? In a word, the hopeless doctrine that it were better if the world did not exist at all, that really life is not worth living. Of course, life is not worth preservation, if we cannot appreciate its most beautiful part, or trample it under foot, as the bru- tality or satiety of men has hitherto done, in spite of all the poems and romances of love. Every philosophy of the world and of life which results in despair must be unsound, unnatural and false, since a contradiction, justifying such despair and its con- sequence, the self-destruction of that part of the world-life that we represent, is inconceivable. Everything that we, as thinking products of the world, require, must be attainable by us on the spot upon which we have been placed by its develop- ment. All phantasies about a heaven and another life are done away with for us. Outside of humanity there are for us no motives, no hopes, no future, no ideals. Here upon this planet our being must run its course, and our contentment be found. But where and wi/th whom shall we find it but in living with our fellow-beings? And what nobler and more complete contentment could this life and all nature offer to man but the true love of man and woman? In this relationship must the aspirations and the outcomes of the reforms of the future find their sublime culmination, and their most beautiful suc- cess. To educate humanity not only for knowing AND THE SEXUAL BELATIONS. 3§5 and thinking, for working and creating, but also for loving, which our present groveling life seems designed to destroy, that will be the most beautiful and most profitable task of future society. But by education for love I do not mean instruction in the "art of loving," as was given by the frivolous Ovid, but an education which, beginning in youth, strives to secure all the conditions for true marriage, which will free love from all narrow-minded prejudices and hypocrisies, but will lead the free virgin into the arms of the uncorrupted man, and teach both to find their most beautiful destiny and their only true hap- piness in an intimate and lasting union. What we are now reforming and striving for will some time lead us to such an end, however distant its future may be, and however meager the hope that we our- selves may live to see it. That will neither discour- age us or weaken our interest. In the realm of ideas is it not always the better future that we anticipate in thought which inspires and sustains our reforma- tory efforts? Do not the highest aims toward which the mind strives always lie beyond the grave? And has the striving, on that account, less of charm and of value ? Where we ourselves live to see the accom- plishment of that for which we have struggled, the reality always falls short of our expectations, and the residue that remains must then serve as an in- centive to further aspiration; only that which we experience in thought, either by retrospection or prevision, do we experience wholly, undefiled and unobscured. 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