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. 
 
JSk 
 
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