omen As Sex Vendors 
 
 BY 
 
 R. B. TOBIAS and MARY E. MARCY
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNiV-r<S|TY OF 
 
 N'A 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS
 
 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 OR 
 WHY WOMEN ARE CONSERVATIVE 
 
 (Being a View of the Economic Status of Woman) 
 
 By 
 
 R. B. TOBIAS and MARY E. MARCY 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY 
 CO-OPERATIVE
 
 Copyright 1918 
 By CHAULES II. KBKU & COMPANY
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 WHY WOMEN ARE CONSERVATIVE 9 
 
 YOUTH AND MAID 30 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAMILY 40 
 
 THE FUTURE. . .54
 
 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 WHY WOMEN ARE CONSERVATIVE 
 
 WE have often heard discussions of 
 the reason we do not find women, 
 as a sex, in the vanguard of world affairs ; 
 why the great educators, strong figures in 
 progressive or revolutionary movements, 
 are men rather than women; why these 
 movements, themselves, are made up al- 
 most entirely of men rather than women. 
 People have asked over and over again 
 why, in the fields of the arts, the sciences, 
 in the world of "practical affairs,*' men, 
 rather than women, generally excel. 
 
 We believe the answer lies in the fact 
 that women, as a sex, are the owners of 
 a commodity vitally necessary to the 
 health and well-being of man. Women 
 
 occupy a more fortunate biologic, and in 
 9
 
 10 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 many countries, a more fortunate eco- 
 nomic position, in the increasingly intensi- 
 fied struggle for existence. And the pre- 
 ferred class, the biologically and economi- 
 cally favored class, or sex, has rarely been 
 efficient-to-do, has never been revolution- 
 ary to attack a social system that accords 
 advantage to it. 
 
 As a sex, women have rarely been 
 rebels or revolutionists. We do not see 
 how they can ever be as long as there 
 exists any system of exploitation to revolt 
 against. Revolt comes from the sub- 
 merged, never from the group occupying 
 a favored place. Today the revolutionist 
 is he who has nothing to sell but his labor 
 power. 
 
 The skilled trade union group is least 
 revolutionary among the workers. The 
 best paid unions are not the most militant 
 in acts calculated to improve the conditions 
 of even their own group, and are least ag- 
 gressive in conduct for improving the
 
 WHY WOMEN ARE CONSERVATIVE 1 1 
 
 conditions of the whole working class. So 
 long as they occupy a more favorable posi- 
 tion in the industrial world, the trade 
 unions will have something to conserve. 
 They become conservative. 
 
 We see the small, struggling farmers, 
 who have probably very little to lose in 
 this world save their debts and their 
 mortgages, counting themselves in a class 
 of possible property owners and small ex- 
 ploiters, and generally throwing their sup- 
 port into movements promising petty re- 
 forms, when nothing but the abolition, or 
 downfall of the system of private owner- 
 ship in the means of production and dis- 
 tribution, can possibly help them. 
 
 The petty shop-keepers rail more 
 against the "outrageously" high wages 
 and the short hours of the skilled workers 
 than against the large business organiza- 
 tions, like the packing interests, or the 
 great monopolies, that hold them con- 
 stantly on the edge of failure. Desper-
 
 12 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 ately and consistently, as they behold their 
 competitors forced out in the irresistible 
 march of centralization, they cling to their 
 sinking ships, their small deceits and petty 
 ideology in the hope of one day winning 
 out against the terrific odds opposed to 
 them, and landing high and dry in the 
 capitalist class. 
 
 No shoe dealer in the darkest side street 
 of the smallest village but hopes some day 
 to leave his dingy shop behind and to 
 climb into the class economically above 
 him. He counts himself a man of busi- 
 ness, and thinks and acts and goes down 
 to failure, individualistically. He hates 
 and fears his competitors, ascribes most of 
 his wrongs to them or to the highly paid 
 skilled workers, and apes and envies the 
 men whom he sees rising to wealth in the 
 economic conflict. 
 
 As a sex, women occupy a position 
 similar to the petty shop-keeper, because 
 they possess a commodity to sell or to
 
 WHY WOMEN ARE CONSERVATIVE 13 
 
 barter. Men, as a sex, are buyers of, or 
 barterers for, this commodity. The gen- 
 eral attitude on this question of sex may 
 be, and in fact usually is, wholly uncon- 
 scious; but the fact remains that men and 
 women meet each other, in the capitalist 
 system, as buyers and sellers of, or barter- 
 ers for, a commodity. 
 
 Scarcely anybody recognizes this fact, 
 and those who sense it fail to understand 
 the inevitable result upon society and 
 upon women themselves. There is no 
 office or saloon scrub-woman so displeas- 
 ing and decrepit, no stenographer so old 
 and so unattractive, no dish-washer so 
 sodden, that she does not know, tucked 
 far away in her inner consciousness, per- 
 haps, that, if the very worst comes and 
 she loses her job, there is the truck driver 
 or the office clerk, the shaky-legged bar 
 patron on the road to early locomotor 
 ataxia, or the squint-eyed out-of-town 
 salesman, who can be counted on to tide
 
 14 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 her over an emergency usually for goods 
 delivered. 
 
 When a man is out of a job and broke, 
 he is flat on his back. His appetites, his 
 desires cry out for satisfaction exactly as 
 they did when he had money in his pockets 
 to pay for the satisfaction of these ap- 
 petites and these desires. 
 
 When a woman loses a job, she has al- 
 ways the sale of her sex to fall back upon 
 as a last resort. 
 
 Please understand that this is in no way 
 a criticism of the conduct of women. We 
 desire to lay no stigma upon them. We 
 lay no stigma upon any class or sex or 
 group, for down at bottom, men and 
 women do what they do because they have 
 to do it. The more we understand the 
 economic and biological status of any 
 group, the more we see they are com- 
 pelled to act, under the circumstances, and 
 in the environment they occupy, precisely 
 as they do act. In the struggle for ex'
 
 WHY WOMEN ARE CONSERVATIVE 1 5 
 
 istence today the laurels are only to those 
 who use any and all methods to save 
 themselves. 
 
 We only want to point out that women 
 are able to save themselves because of 
 their "favored" position in the biological 
 world. Since economic interest and eco- 
 nomic control are at the basis of all social 
 institutions, we want to show some of the 
 results of this sex monopoly possessed by 
 women, and required by men. 
 
 Every group which possesses anything 
 which is necessary to the health and well- 
 being of any other group, is bound to be 
 pursued, wooed, bribed, paid. The mon- 
 opolistic class, or sex, in turn, learns to 
 withhold, to barter, to become "uncertain, 
 coy and hard to please," to enhance and 
 raise the price of her commodity, even 
 though the economic basis of the transac- 
 tion be utterly concealed or disguised. All 
 this is exactly as natural and inevitable as 
 a group of wage workers demanding all
 
 16 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 they can get in payment for their labor 
 power, or the land-owner holding up the 
 farm renters for all the tenants will bear, 
 or the broker selling to the highest bidder. 
 No one is to be blamed. 
 
 The private possession of a commodity 
 necessary to man, the lower cost of living 
 for women, are the natural causes of 
 lower wages for women than for men, and 
 explains why women are actually able to 
 live on lower wages, as a sex, than men. 
 
 Few people speak frankly about sex 
 matters today. And still fewer under- 
 stand them and their economic basis. The 
 subject of sex is clothed in pretense. We 
 discuss women philosophically, idealistic- 
 ally, sometimes from the viewpoint of 
 biology, but never from an economic and 
 a biological standpoint, which is the only 
 scientific basis from which to regard them. 
 
 Everywhere in the animal world except 
 among humankind, the male possesses the 
 gay and attractive plumage, the color and
 
 WHY WOMEN ARE CONSERVATIVE 17 
 
 form to please the eye. Naturally he 
 should possess them. But this is not so in 
 the world of man. Here we find the 
 woman decorating herself in the colorful 
 garb. Woman has ceased to ask, "Is he 
 beautiful?" She asks "What does he 
 own?" or, "How much can he pay?" 
 
 Men love to dress their women in ex- 
 pensive clothes, to provide them with 
 luxurious surroundings, because this ad- 
 vertises to the world the fact that they are 
 able to purchase a superior, i. e., a higher 
 priced commodity. Women give much 
 time and spend money extravagantly in 
 articles of conspicuous waste for the simple 
 reason that by so doing they announce the 
 fact that they are finer than other women, 
 higher priced, of a fancier brand, possessed 
 of better wares. 
 
 Everybody knows that the office clerk 
 who aspires to the affections of an artis- 
 tically gowned, jewel decked young wo- 
 man, often spends most of his wages upon
 
 18 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 her in the hope of winning her attention. 
 His office associates may describe her as 
 "fancy," or speak of her as "an expensive 
 package.*' And so the twenty dollar-a- 
 week clerk magnifies his "income" in 
 order to bribe the young lady into "giving 
 herself" to him in exchange for his name 
 and some sort of life-long support, pro- 
 vided he can produce it. 
 
 How many young wives have learned, 
 to their chagrin, of the deceits thus prac- 
 ticed upon them by their husbands ! Alas ! 
 The scenes that are enacted when it is dis- 
 covered, after the ceremony, that the dia- 
 mond engagement ring is not yet paid for, 
 and that the mahogany furniture in the 
 new flat so joyously selected by the young 
 bride-elect, was bought upon the install- 
 ment plan ! That John earns only twenty 
 dollars a week in the shipping room in- 
 stead of the fifty a week he had declared, 
 as assistant manager! Here the man has 
 not paid as promised and every one
 
 WHY WOMEN ARE CONSERVATIVE 19 
 
 feels that the woman has made a "bad 
 bargain." 
 
 On the other hand, women disguise the 
 economic basis of the deal in every pos- 
 sible way; lie, cheat and compete in a life 
 and death struggle with others of their sex. 
 A thousand illusions, tricks, subtleties, hy- 
 pocrisies are employed to cover the bald 
 fact that wares are being displayed, are 
 being bidden for by other men. The deal 
 is smothered in chivalrous urbanities and 
 sentimental verbiage. Unnumbered cir- 
 cumlocutions are resorted to to conceal the 
 salesmanship of one who has a commodity 
 
 to sell. 
 
 MONOGAMY FOR WIVES 
 
 When certain strong men found them- 
 selves able to garner a larger share of 
 property than their fellows, they rebelled 
 against the communistic ownership of 
 property, and the state, with the system of 
 private ownership, was evolved, came into 
 being to protect the private owners in their
 
 20 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 private ownership against the community, 
 or the mass, which possessed no private 
 property. Wealthy men then began to de- 
 sire to leave their fortunes to their own 
 children and so the marriage system, with 
 theoretical monogamy for both sexes and 
 practical monogamy for wives, arose. 
 Men of property then felt tolerably certain 
 that their wealth would descend to their 
 own sons and to the sons of no others. 
 
 We are not inclined to believe this was 
 due to the prevalence of any so-called 
 paternal instinct. Paternal instinct is, we 
 suspect, a minus, rather than a plus, 
 quantity. It seems to us that fathers more 
 often learn to love their children through 
 following the conduct prescribed by good 
 form and pretending to love them, or 
 through love of display, pride or by as- 
 sociation, than through any "natural ten- 
 dency.*' 
 
 The almost universality of the maternal 
 instinct is proven by the peoples in the
 
 WHY WOMEN ARE CONSERVATIVE 21 
 
 world today, for scarcely anybody would 
 have a chance for existence if it were not 
 for the care of the mothers. 
 
 Generally the coming of children is a 
 handicap to a woman in the market in 
 which Nature and the present system have 
 placed her. Where this is the case, it is 
 here that society, customs and laws speak 
 for the family, in ways built up, sometimes 
 blindly, sometimes consciously, to pre- 
 serve the species, and upon the old bio- 
 logical and economic foundations. 
 
 It is generally granted that women with 
 children are more conservative than wo- 
 men without children. We believe this is 
 true only when they and their children are 
 provided for. When a mother is left with 
 no one to support her children, she be- 
 comes more predatory than other women 
 in the pursuit of a new provider. Our 
 jails and workhouses are full of unsuccess- 
 ful mothers of this class, convicted of 
 crimes against property.
 
 22 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 Mothers are conservative when their 
 children are secure ; more predatory when 
 they are in want. Mothers often compete 
 successfully in making their wares attrac- 
 tive and in binding the male by habits and 
 associations that hold him and induce him 
 to continue to pay. 
 
 Among men, the possession of, and 
 ability to support a woman in perpetuity, 
 whom no other may touch, is honorific, a 
 high sign of display. It announces to the 
 world that such a man is able to hold a 
 trophy in the struggle for existence. A 
 monogamous wife is, in fact, an emblem 
 of well-off-ness, and greatly to be desired. 
 
 A man does not wish to be one among 
 a corporation of men owning a woman 
 any more than he desires to be owner of a 
 sixth part of an automobile. Not because 
 there is anything more intrinsically wrong 
 in purchasing one-sixth than six-sixths, 
 but because, in a world where the owner- 
 ship of private property is the greatest of
 
 WHY WOMEN ARE CONSERVATIVE 23 
 
 all good things, individual ownership de- 
 notes respectability, comfort, ability to 
 buy outright. Hence we have monogamy 
 for wives and mistresses in general, and 
 polygamy for men. 
 
 For if it is honorific to possess one 
 woman, it is still more proof of one's buy- 
 ing power to support half a dozen differ- 
 ent establishments. Besides, biologically, 
 a man may require many women for the 
 satisfaction of his desires. 
 
 CHASTITY 
 
 Why do young girls remain chaste be- 
 fore the importunities of their lovers and, 
 perhaps, against their own desires, if not 
 for the purpose of forcing or inducing 
 them to offer the sure and permanent price 
 of matrimony? 
 
 Do not all respectable and well-meaning 
 parents (and others not so respectable) 
 seek gently to guide their daughters into 
 safe matrimonial harbors where they
 
 24 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 barter themselves for a respectable meal- 
 ticket, or an income, presumably, for life? 
 They would be shocked beyond measure 
 if you told them that back of all their 
 exalted mummeries, they desired to see 
 their daughters barter their sex for the 
 highest and most enduring stake rather 
 than to see them selling their labor or 
 brain power for wages, or selling their sex 
 on the installment, or retail plan, to the 
 chance purchaser. Yet these are the facts. 
 And it is this hope of bartering their sex 
 privileges for permanent support and the 
 title of "wife" that keeps the girls of the 
 working class in the same category as the 
 small shop-keeper. Nearly every ordinary 
 woman under ninety, hopes some day to 
 find a man who will marry her and support 
 her for the rest of her days. Instead of 
 fitting herself for a trade or a profession, 
 young women, and old women, devote 
 their time to schemes for prevailing upon
 
 WHY WOMEN ARE CONSERVATIVE 25 
 
 some man, to pay the ultimate price and 
 marry them. 
 
 And so women, not every individual, 
 but as a sex, are ever individualistic, ever 
 competing among themselves, ever dis- 
 playing their wares, ever looking for a 
 possible purchaser of the commodity they 
 have to sell, ever endeavoring to keep the 
 purchaser satisfied and willing to pay 
 more. 
 
 Human beings are human animals 
 however much we may pretend to the con- 
 trary. In the rest of the animal world the 
 fact of the mating season is frankly ack- 
 nowledged. It has never been recognized 
 among humankind within the period of 
 written history. Is it possible that when 
 women are released from economic and 
 social coercion, this periodic mating in- 
 stinct in the woman of the species may 
 assert, or reassert, itself? 
 
 Wives and mistresses often submit to 
 their husbands or lovers only through fear
 
 26 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 of losing economic security to the ever 
 alert competitor. It is certain that when 
 all men and all women have gained indi- 
 vidual economic opportunity and security, 
 social institutions will change also. May 
 it not be possible that the jealousies now 
 prevalent, because of the economic import 
 or the social standing that the private 
 claim on the individual brings, may vanish 
 
 also? 
 
 WHICH IS SUPERIOR? 
 
 But do not imagine for a single moment 
 that women are inferior to men. Biology 
 has long since proven that daughters in- 
 herit the same natural tendencies from 
 their fathers and their grandfathers, their 
 mothers and their grandmothers that sons 
 do. In the case of the girls it is only as 
 it would be if the sons in a family all in- 
 herited a share in the monopoly of a com- 
 modity that half the human race requires. 
 
 The son of your butcher may have all 
 the nervous and intellectual capacities of
 
 WHY WOMEN ARE CONSERVATIVE 27 
 
 Thomas Edison, or Dr. E. L. Thorndyke. 
 Perhaps he has. But the economic en- 
 vironment in which he is born will give 
 him small opportunity to so prove him- 
 self. 
 
 Women are intellectually capable of all 
 that men can do. They always will be 
 because the paternal branch of the family 
 bequeathes to its daughters the same 
 natural tendencies and capacities that are 
 the heritage of its sons. It is biologically 
 impossible for sons to inherit the cumu- 
 lative capacities of their fathers alone just 
 as it is biologically impossible for the 
 daughters to inherit from their mothers 
 alone. So that, at birth, it appears that 
 both sexes must remain on an equal foot- 
 ing so far as heredity is concerned. But 
 the social and economic environment dif- 
 ferentiates. Boys and girls learn to differ 
 more than they differ physically at birth. 
 
 We believe it is due to the fact that 
 woman, biologically possessed of a neces-
 
 28 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 sary commodity, something to sell besides 
 her labor power, leans and reckons upon 
 this ownership, which prevents her, not 
 individually, but as a sex, from taking an 
 active and permanent part in the affairs 
 and workshops of the world today. There 
 are exceptions to the rule, of course. And 
 often, unconsciously, perhaps, she seeks 
 to excel in the fields occupied by the men 
 who surround her, for the purpose of en- 
 hancing her wares. 
 
 It is to be remembered that in nearly 
 all phases of the relations between men 
 and women, both are almost always at 
 least partially unconscious of the eco- 
 nomic basis of the bargain they make, al- 
 though, legally, marriage is a contract. 
 Here society and social institutions protect 
 the possible future mothers of the race. 
 
 We are in no way denying the existence 
 of affection between the sexes. We see 
 undoubted instances of self-sacrifice (in 
 the economic sense) on the part of women
 
 WHY WOMEN ARE CONSERVATIVE 29 
 
 everywhere. We are not gainsaying 
 these. We only claim that the root of the 
 relation of the sexes in America is today 
 the economic basis of buyers and sellers 
 of a commodity and that this basis of sex, 
 sold as a commodity, affects every phase 
 of our social life, and all of our social in- 
 stitutions, and that we fail to recognize 
 these economic roots because of the leaves 
 upon the social tree. 
 
 Why, do you imagine, the woman who 
 brings to a penniless husband, not only 
 herself but a fortune as well, is looked 
 down upon in many countries? Why is 
 the woman of the streets, who spends her 
 sex earnings upon her lover, scorned uni- 
 versally? Is it not because both are, un- 
 consciously violating the code, or the trade 
 "understandings," in giving not only of 
 themselves, but their substance as well? 
 These women are selling below the mar- 
 ket, or scabbing on the job.
 
 YOUTH AND MAID 
 
 IT is customary to speak of Youth as 
 the period of rebellion or revolt. But 
 to us it seems to be the normal age of 
 conquest. Youth is the world's eternal 
 and undaunted conqueror. No matter 
 what the odds, no matter how slim the 
 chances of success in any undertaking, 
 Youth dares. Experience and wisdom 
 know, fear and hesitate. Youth rushes in 
 and- sometimes finds a way. 
 
 People speak of the colossal egotism of 
 Youth. It is not egotism ; it is unfathom- 
 able ignorance. The youth knows neither 
 himself, the world nor his adversaries. He 
 is unafraid because he does not know the 
 strength of the forces he would conquer. 
 But society learns from the threshings 
 
 about of its individuals. And it is the 
 30
 
 YOUTH AND MAID 31 
 
 young who thresh about. Mailed in their 
 own ignorance, and propelled by their own 
 marvelous energy, the young go forth to 
 conquer. And so the world learns many 
 things. 
 
 Youth rebels only when it is thwarted 
 in entering the lists and may then turn 
 the flood of its activities into channels of 
 rebellion or revolt against authority. The 
 boy revolts when his father declines to 
 permit him to accomplish the impossible, 
 to invent, discover, explore, to overwhelm. 
 It seems to him that if he received encour- 
 agement and help instead of censure at 
 home, the son of the house would soon be 
 recognized by the *world as one of the 
 Great Ones of the Earth. 
 
 When he finds his talents unappre- 
 ciated, he usually decides to write a book 
 that will influence the whole future course 
 of human events, or a novel that will alter 
 dynasties and change social systems; or 
 he decides to become a powerful political
 
 32 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 leader, or the silver-tongued orator of the 
 times. Thwarted youth may aspire to be- 
 come the world's greatest rebel, or the 
 most heroic victim of despotic authority. 
 Even in rebellion youth aspires to conquer 
 the heights, though it be through the 
 depths. A boy finds consolation in plan- 
 ning to become the world's greatest hero 
 or martyr when he is thwarted in becom- 
 ing an epoch-making inventor, or dis- 
 coverer. This on the male side of the 
 house. 
 
 The daughter aspires to beauty, lovely 
 clothes, charm, or to stardom on the 
 theatrical or operatic stage, achievements 
 and characteristics which mean popularity 
 and the ultimate disposal of her wares to 
 the highest available bidder. 
 
 Listen to a group of boys talking among 
 themselves. You will probably add some 
 useful knowledge to your mental equip- 
 ment, for you will hear them discussing 
 feats in civil engineering, problems in
 
 YOUTH AND MAID 33 
 
 electricity, mechanics, physics, chemistry, 
 surgery, as well as events in the world of 
 sports. On the other hand, the conversa- 
 tions among girls are almost entirely on 
 the subject of boys, men, clothes and the 
 theatre. 
 
 The psychology of the sexes in youth 
 is totally different. The ideas of the aver- 
 age young man are those of one who ex- 
 pects to become some day a producer or 
 at least a worker; the ideas of the average 
 young woman are those of one who 
 expects and intends (for here, too, Youth 
 sees only personal victory) to rise into 
 the leisure, non-producing or supported 
 class. 
 
 The small boy sent forth to play with 
 his comrades with his hair done up in curls 
 by a fond mama, would encounter the 
 jeers of the whole neighborhood. From 
 babyhood, the ribbons, curls, frills and 
 silks are for the girls, who are thereby 
 rendered deeply conscious of their appear-
 
 34 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 ance and taught above all things to keep 
 themselves clean and "looking nice." 
 
 Nothing is sacred from the invasion of 
 small boys, who climb in, and under and 
 over all obstacles to discover what makes 
 the wheels go around, while the small girls 
 sit about and take care of their clothes 
 and learn to count them of supreme im- 
 portance. 
 
 And the matter of clothes is a vital 
 one to the woman of today. Clothes are 
 the frame that enhances the picture as 
 well as its price tag; they are the carton 
 wrapping the package in the show win- 
 dow, the case that best displays the jewel 
 for sale within. 
 
 All our social institutions encourage 
 girls and young women, and all women 
 up to the age of ninety, or more, in be- 
 lieving that it is the supreme good for a 
 woman to make the best possible matri- 
 monial bargain. On the stage, in our 
 press, and pulpit, in the books and maga-
 
 YOUTH AND MAID 35 
 
 zines produced for the consumption of the 
 young people in this country, marriage is 
 nearly always represented as the safe, ulti- 
 mate and greatly-to-be-desired haven for a 
 woman. 
 
 Hence, young women, intent upon se- 
 curing the best the world has to offer, 
 rarely take any sort of work seriously. 
 They regard jobs as merely temporary 
 conveniences, or inconveniences. 
 
 The wise employer hires ugly women 
 stenographers, when he cannot afford to 
 engage men, because he knows they 
 usually possess more brains than their 
 lovely sisters, and because they remain 
 longer. The beautiful woman sees no 
 need for intelligence nor for understand- 
 ing because she has always been able to 
 outstrip her less attractive competitors in 
 making the best match and securing the 
 rich husbands. And so her neurones 
 rarely "connect," or react, except to 
 stimuli pertaining to things that will en-
 
 36 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 hance her charms and increase her selling 
 price. 
 
 The young man expects to accomplish 
 something in the world, to earn much 
 money, or "high position," in order to be 
 able to marry the most charming girl. 
 The "most charming girl," if she be tem- 
 porarily forced to earn her own living, 
 expects to find somebody who will marry 
 her, give her more luxuries than she has 
 been accustomed to, and lift her far above 
 her companions. She hopes to become a 
 member of the leisure class even if she 
 never attains it. 
 
 Arnold Bennett says that men usually 
 marry through the desire to mate, while 
 women marry for economic reasons. It 
 seems to us that this is often true. 
 
 Women are potential parasites even if 
 they never become real ones, and this is 
 the gist of the matter we are discussing. 
 Why are nearly all small farmers reaction- 
 ary, individualistic, distrustful, competi-
 
 YOUTH AND MAID 37 
 
 tive? Because they hope some day to be- 
 come gentleman farmers. Why are most 
 small business men narrow, egoistic, con- 
 servative? For the reason that they hope 
 one day to become men of Big Business. 
 The young woman in America today pos- 
 sesses the same psychology. Being young, 
 she not only hopes, she expects, to rise 
 into the leisure class when some young 
 man asks her for the privilege of support- 
 ing her through life. 
 
 We are making no claim that the lot of 
 millions of housekeeping mothers, married 
 to workingmen, is more enviable than is 
 the condition of their husbands. We 
 merely wish to point out that millions of 
 women, potentially, actually, or psycho- 
 logically, are "of the leisure class," and 
 that fact and expectation keep women, as 
 a sex, allied to the forces of reaction. 
 When a woman is competing in a life and 
 death struggle among a score of other 
 young women, to make a permanent legal
 
 38 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 bargain which entails the promise of an 
 income or support for life, she has little 
 leisure or energy to spare in making 
 over, or revolutionizing the present social 
 system. 
 
 The mind of the average woman today 
 is that of the petty shop-keeper. Enter- 
 taining, ofttimes, impossible dreams, these 
 dreams, are, nevertheless, productive of a 
 conservative and bourgeois ideology of a 
 life of leisure and non-productiveness. 
 
 It was the machine process in produc- 
 tion that permitted the rise of a parasitical, 
 or leisure, class. As long as both men and 
 women were forced to produce things in 
 order to live, an exploiting class, that lives 
 off the labor of others, was impossible. 
 But as spinning, weaving, canning, soap- 
 making, butter, bread, candle, clothes- 
 making and a hundred other functions 
 formerly performed by women in the 
 home, were absorbed into the factories, 
 the young girls often followed the old task
 
 YOUTH AND MAID 39 
 
 into the new plant. This was also true of 
 the boys on the farms, who turned toward 
 the cities and entered factories, where 
 hogs were slaughtered, farm machines 
 manufactured, or where shoes were made. 
 But the farm youths expected to be- 
 come permanent producers in the shops 
 and mills; they sought to become able to 
 support a woman, and, perhaps, children. 
 The girls entering the factories, on the 
 other hand, did so to earn money to help 
 pay their expenses at home until they 
 married, or in order to buy gay and ex- 
 pensive clothes, unconsciously, perhaps, 
 for advertising as well as decorative pur- 
 poses.
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAMILY 
 
 T TNDOUBTEDLY the early savages 
 ^' drew together for self-protection 
 against their forest enemies. And 
 out of this necessity grew the love of 
 society. Man became a gregarious 
 animal. 
 
 Promiscuity in sexual intercourse 
 among these herds was another factor 
 for holding the tribes, or groups together. 
 
 In his "Origin of the Family," Frederick 
 Engels says: 
 
 "The development of the family is 
 founded on the continual contraction of 
 the circle, originally comprising the whole 
 tribe, within which marital intercourse be- 
 tween both sexes was general. By the 
 continual exclusion, first of near, then of 
 ever remoter relatives, including finally 
 
 even those who were simply related 
 40
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAMILY 41 
 
 legally, all group marriage becomes prac- 
 tically impossible. At last only one 
 couple, temporarily and loosely united, 
 remains . . . even from this we may 
 infer how little the sexual love of the in- 
 dividual in the modern sense of the word 
 had to do with the origin of monogamy." 
 
 Any casual student of sociology can 
 prove that marriage and the family have 
 not always been what they are today. 
 Lewis J. Morgan, in his well-known work, 
 "Ancient Society," says: 
 
 "When the fact is accepted that the 
 family has passed through four successive 
 forms, and is now in a fifth, the question 
 at once arises whether this form can be 
 permanent in the future. The only 
 answer that can be given is that it must 
 advance as society advances, and change 
 as society changes, even as it has done in 
 the past. It is the creature of the social 
 system and will reflect its culture." 
 
 Engels says:
 
 42 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 "We have three main forms of the 
 family, corresponding in general to the 
 three main stages of human development. 
 For savagery group marriage, for bar- 
 barism the pairing family, for civilization, 
 monogamy supplemented by adultery and 
 prostitution." 
 
 THE PAIRING FAMILY 
 
 "A certain pairing for a longer or 
 shorter term took place even during the 
 group marriage or still earlier. A man 
 had his principal wife among other 
 women, and he was to her the principal 
 husband among others. . . . Such a 
 habitual pairing would gain ground the 
 more the gens developed and the more 
 numerous the classes of "brothers" and 
 "sisters" became who were not permitted 
 to marry one another. 
 
 "By this increasing complication of 
 marriage restrictions, group marriage be- 
 came more and more impossible; it was 
 displaced by the pairing family.
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAMILY 43 
 
 "The communistic household, in which 
 most or all the women belong to one and 
 the same gens, while the husbands come 
 from different gentes, is the cause and 
 foundation of the general and widespread 
 supremacy of women in primeval times. 
 
 "It is one of the most absurd notions 
 derived from eighteenth century enlight- 
 enment that in the beginning of society 
 woman was the slave of man. Among all 
 savages and barbarians of the lower and 
 middle stages, sometimes even of the 
 higher stage, women not only have free- 
 dom but are held in high esteem." 
 
 In writing of the pairing family among 
 the Iroquois, Arthur Wright says: 
 
 "As to their families, at a time when 
 they still lived in their old long houses 
 (communistic households of several fam- 
 ilies) ... a certain clan (gens) 
 always reigned so that the women chose 
 their husbands from other clans. The 
 female part generally ruled the house;
 
 44 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 the provisions were held in common; but 
 woe to the luckless husband or lover who 
 was too indolent or too clumsy to con- 
 tribute his share to the common stock. 
 No matter how many children or how 
 much private property he had in the house, 
 he was liable at any moment to receive a 
 hint to gather up his belongings and get 
 out. And he could not dare to venture 
 any resistance; the house was made too 
 hot for him and he had no other choice 
 but to return to his own clan or, as was 
 mostly the case, to look for another wife 
 in some other clan. The women were the 
 dominating power in the clans and every- 
 where else." 
 
 Bachofen discovered that in the com- 
 munistic household, the supremacy of 
 woman was caused by the fact that the 
 women all belonged to the same gens 
 while the men came from different gentcs. 
 
 During this period the children belonged 
 to the same gens as the mother and took
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAMILY 45 
 
 her name. At this time man's tools and 
 weapons were yet crude and they were his 
 only possession. The woman owned the 
 household goods and utensils, the value of 
 which for the preservation and prepara- 
 tion of food was very great. 
 
 Bachofen has shown how women were 
 strong factors in the demand for mo- 
 nogamy through this and the earlier 
 periods. 
 
 Man learned to till the soil and to do- 
 mesticate animals; he captured enemies 
 from neighboring tribes and learned to 
 make slaves instead of food of them. And 
 the conqueror became a master, and the 
 slave an instrument of production. It 
 was the men who were lucky enough to 
 be first to enslave the enemy, to acquire 
 more precious metals and larger flocks, 
 who evolved the state, to protect them 
 against the commune, or the mass, in 
 their ownership of private property. 
 
 At the death of the father his own
 
 46 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 children were disinherited, in the matri- 
 archy. As increasing wealth strengthened 
 the position of man, he began to desire to 
 overthrow the old maternal law and to 
 establish a new one that would permit 
 inheritance in favor of his children. And 
 so monogamy became the law, and descent 
 was traced by male instead of female 
 lineage. Engels says that "the downfall 
 of maternal law was the historic defeat 
 of the female sex." 
 
 In order to insure the faithfulness of the 
 v/ife, and the reliability of paternal lineage, 
 the women were given absolutely into the 
 power of the men. Husbands had power 
 of life and death over their wives. In 
 certain countries today it is only the man 
 who can dissolve the marriage bonds and 
 cast off his wife. 
 
 But gradually the old standards which 
 were applied to men and women are 
 changing. New laws are written on 
 our statute books. Civil laws protecting
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAMILY 47 
 
 male rule apply only to the wealthy classes 
 and their intercouse with the working 
 class. In sex relations the sentiment, in 
 America particularly, has swung around 
 in favor of woman. 
 
 Undoubtedly her growing economic in- 
 dependence, arising from her ability to 
 support herself in shop and factory, has 
 had some influence on this social attitude. 
 Also, one can imagine the feelings of the 
 tax-payers of a small community when 
 the father of several small children de- 
 serted his wife and the expenses of sup- 
 porting his family devolved upon them. 
 It would call for little imagination to pic- 
 ture these respectable members of society 
 scrambling to pass laws for the punish- 
 ment of the errant one and to force him 
 back to his wife and support-producing 
 labor. But, basically, the legal favorit- 
 ism which has arisen in the past thirty 
 years in America, is probably due to a de- 
 sire on the part of the employing class to
 
 48 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 protect and make secure the mothers of 
 children for the sake of the future labor 
 supply. Only recently a great national 
 reform body, dedicated to child welfare, 
 declared frankly that there are "no illegiti- 
 mate" children; that the misdeeds of 
 parents can remove nothing from the 
 legality of birth and that unmarried 
 mothers must be granted some legal status 
 and a measure of economic security for 
 the sake of the future supply of labor. 
 
 It is evident, whether due to one cause 
 or to many, that the law, which usually 
 protects those who possess bestowable 
 favors, has gradually built up strong pro- 
 tective measures for women. Among the 
 rich, men and women find protection for 
 their property in the laws, according to the 
 measure of their economic power, but 
 among the wage working and middle 
 classes, woman occupies a privileged legal 
 position. 
 
 As long as a husband possesses any-
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAMILY 49 
 
 thing, his wife may be certain of support 
 or an "adequate" income at least. The 
 husband may be punished for his lack of 
 possessions, or his failure to produce an 
 
 income. 
 
 THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT 
 
 Of course, every one knows that mar- 
 riage is a legal contract ; but whom does it 
 bind? Certainly not the woman, nor any 
 woman in America. For she may easily 
 free herself and even divorce and penalize 
 her husband if she is dissatisfied either 
 with him or his earnings; or she may 
 evade all the obligations she is supposed 
 to meet, almost always with absolute 
 impunity. 
 
 Whatever she may do or leave undone 
 in the marriage relation, if it but be with 
 sufficient pretense and discretion, in 
 America, at least, the world and the courts 
 absolve her from all blame. 
 
 If she be discreet, she may entertain 
 lovers galore; she may refuse to perform
 
 30 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 any of the theoretical duties of the home ; 
 she may refuse to bear children or to 
 surrender to her husband, without censure, 
 and often without the knowledge of the 
 world. If she be addicted to drunkenness, 
 people will divine that her husband must 
 have treated her brutally; if she be seen 
 with other men, folks suspect that he 
 neglects her. 
 
 If her husband seeks satisfaction for his 
 desires elsewhere, she may divorce him 
 and secure alimony; if he deserts her the 
 law will return him to her side, if it can 
 find him. If he fails to bring home the 
 wherewithall to provide for her, she may 
 have him sent to jail. If she discovers that 
 he is getting the affection and the sex life 
 which she has denied him, outside of his 
 home, and if she buys a revolver and 
 murders him in cold blood, the jury will 
 exonerate her. 
 
 If a wife deserts her husband and her 
 children, the law does not make her a
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAMILY 51 
 
 criminal; for wife abandonment, the hus- 
 band is held criminally liable. 
 
 No matter what the offense of the 
 woman, custom and public opinion de- 
 mand that every "decent" man permit his 
 wife to accuse him on "just grounds" and 
 to secure the divorce and call on the law 
 to force him to pay her alimony for the 
 rest of their natural lives. 
 
 No matter what the provocation, le- 
 gally or sentimentally, no man can be ex- 
 onerated for killing a woman. No matter 
 how little the provocation, legally or senti- 
 mentally, any woman may kill almost any 
 man, and the jury will render a verdict of 
 Not Guilty. She has only to say that he 
 "deceived her." 
 
 A husband may become crippled or 
 invalided and there is no law even sug- 
 gesting that it is the duty of his wife to 
 support him; most communities would 
 lynch a man who neglected a sick or help- 
 less wife, and the law would certainly deal
 
 52 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 most harshly with him. The law throws 
 no safeguards about the man, to protect 
 him against his wife's failure to live up to 
 her theoretical marital obligations, to pro- 
 tect him when he is ill, or in the enjoyment 
 of separate maintenance, alimony, or 
 against non-support or abandonment. 
 
 The laws today protect the owners of 
 property and the economically powerful. 
 The more economic power a group, or a 
 class, or a sex possesses, the more the 
 state throws the mantle of its protective 
 laws about it. Women are owners of a 
 commodity for which men are buyers or 
 barterers, and our modern laws protect 
 woman at the expense of man. 
 
 In his "Origin of the Family/' Engels 
 says: 
 
 "The supremacy of man in marriage is 
 simply the consequence of his economic 
 superiority and will fall with the abolition 
 of the latter." 
 
 In a large per cent of the American
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAMILY 53 
 
 homes, man no longer possesses any eco- 
 nomic superiority. He has four vital 
 needs to satisfy while woman has only 
 three, and woman possesses, for barter, 
 for sale, or for gift, the wherewithall to 
 satisfy one of these. 
 
 Few men any longer possess any prop- 
 erty worthy of the name; hence, they are 
 forced to sell their labor power for wages 
 to keep from starving. And men are not 
 always able to secure jobs. 
 
 The propertyless woman today is rarely 
 reduced to starvation. If the price (or 
 wages) offered for the sale of her laboring 
 power are unsatisfactory, she may always 
 supplement them through the barter or 
 sale of her sex. That there are no women 
 hoboes in the civilized world today is in- 
 contestable proof of the superiority of the 
 economic status of woman over man.
 
 THE FUTURE 
 
 WE still hear people talk about the 
 relations of the sexes, the family 
 and marriage, as though these human and 
 social relationships had always been and 
 were bound to remain what they are today, 
 whereas they have undergone far-reaching 
 modifications within the period of our own 
 lives. 
 
 Every change taking place in industry 
 is always bound to send out infinite ramifi- 
 cations through every branch of our social 
 institutions. The increasing specialization 
 in industry, drawing more and more of 
 the household arts out of the home and 
 into factory, mill and shops, and the fol- 
 lowing of the jobs by women into the mills 
 and factories, thus freeing woman from 
 
 economic dependence on man, has already 
 54
 
 THE FUTURE 55 
 
 colored every branch of our social fabric. 
 Having become more independent, wom- 
 an has grown more exacting. She de- 
 mands a better bargain when she marries, 
 or, refusing to barter, she chooses a mate. 
 
 In the early days of America, when the 
 home was the economic unit, and almost 
 all industry was performed in the home 
 and on the farm, women were economi- 
 cally dependent on men. Then woman's 
 place was undoubtedly in the home, since 
 there was no place else where she could 
 earn a living. Modern industry has 
 changed all that. 
 
 Women compete for jobs with men 
 today, force down wages to a lower level 
 and demand more from men before they 
 will marry. And yet we see $25.00 a 
 week stenographers giving up their posi- 
 tions to barter themselves, presumably for 
 life, to $35.00 a week clerks or salesmen, 
 rarely because of the mating instinct, but 
 usually because of the personal triumph
 
 56 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 this means in the competition between 
 members of the sex, and the social ap- 
 probation which marriage brings. 
 
 The only certain thing the wisest man 
 may say about our social institutions is 
 that they have changed in the past and 
 that they will continue to change, or be 
 modified, or to pass away, in the future. 
 In one short year, the war has altered some 
 of our old institutions beyond recall. We 
 believe that a continuation of the war for 
 a considerable period will mean economic 
 and social changes that will rock the world. 
 And out of the storm and stress of things 
 we doubt very much whether any of our 
 existing social institutions will emerge 
 intact if it emerge at all. 
 
 The family as it is known in America 
 today, the marriage contract, the relations 
 of the sexes are bound to alter as they re- 
 flect changed economic conditions. Some 
 of the old "pillars of the social structure" 
 in Russia have already crumbled away.
 
 THE FUTURE 57 
 
 Women are becoming ever more neces- 
 sary and important in the role they play in 
 industry. With this growing economic 
 importance, and with the increasing need 
 of capitalism for more children to augment 
 the labor and military supply, the power 
 of women will probably increase marvel- 
 ously during the next few years. Gov- 
 ernments will reward the surrender of 
 woman to man, while employers compete 
 among themselves for her labor power. 
 Much will be offered to women. 
 
 This, we believe, for only a brief period, 
 for we cannot but think that the final re- 
 sults of this war the fruit of the present 
 system of production and distribution 
 will be the utter collapse of the system 
 itself making way for a New Society 
 wherein the only aristocracy shall be that 
 of Labor and of Merit. 
 
 Undoubtedly, in the New Society, con- 
 ditions will be very much changed for 
 women. But they will also be greatly
 
 58 WOMEN AS SEX VENDORS 
 
 changed for men. What the future sex 
 relations will be, we do not pretend to 
 know. Perhaps the statement by Fred- 
 erick Engels in his "Origin of the Family," 
 is as good a forecast as any. He says : 
 
 "What we may anticipate about the 
 adjustment of sexual relations after the 
 impending downfall of capitalist produc- 
 tion is mainly of a negative nature and 
 mostly confined to elements that will dis- 
 appear. But what will be added? That 
 will be decided after a new generation has 
 come to maturity: a race of men who 
 never in their lives have had any occasion 
 for buying with money or other economic 
 means of power the surrender of a 
 woman ; a race of women who have never 
 had any occasion for surrendering to any 
 man for any other reason but love, or for 
 refusing to surrender to their lover from 
 fear of economic consequences. Once 
 such people are in the world, they will not 
 give a moment's thought to what we today
 
 THE FUTURE 59 
 
 believe should be their course. They will 
 follow their own practice and fashion their 
 own public opinion about the individual 
 practice of every person only this and 
 nothing more."