OBJECTIONS TO THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN.I.
OBJECTIONS TO THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN.I.
What arguments do the adversaries of the emancipation of women use to refute the equality of the rights of the sexes?
Some, theosophists of the old school, claim that one half of humanity is condemned by God himself to submit to the other half, because, they say, the first woman sinned.
Not wishing to depart from the firm ground of justice, reason and proved facts, we will not argue with this class of adversaries.
Others, who claim to be imbued with the modern spirit, and pretend to be disciples of the doctrines of liberty, condemn woman to inferiority and obedience because, they say, she is weaker physically and intellectually than man;
Because she performs functions of an inferior order;
Because she produces less than man in an industrial point of view;
Because her peculiar temperament prevents her from performing certain functions;
Because she is only fit for in-door life; because her vocation is to be mother and housewife, to devote herself entirely to her husband and children;
Because man protects and supports her;
Because man is her proxy, and exercises rights both for her and himself;
Because woman has no more time than capacity to exercise certain rights.
The rights of woman are in her beauty and our love, add some, gallantly.
Woman does not claim her rights; many women themselves are scandalized by the demands made by a few of their sex, continue other men.
And they spare the courageous women who plead the cause of right, and the men who sustain them neither calumnies, nor mockery, nor insult, hoping to intimidate the former and disgust the latter.
Vain hope! the time in which we could be intimidated has gone by. If it is justifiable to fear the opinion of those whom we deem juster and more intelligent than ourselves, it would be folly to be disturbed by those whose irrationality and injustice we feel able to demonstrate.
This double demonstration we are about to attempt, taking up one by one the arguments of these gentlemen.
1. Woman cannot have the same rights as man, because she is inferior to him in intellectual faculties, you say. From this proposition, we have a right to conclude that you consider thehuman faculties as the basis of right;
That, the law proclaiming equality of right for your sex, you are all equal in qualities, all alike strong and alike intelligent.
That, lastly, no woman is as strong and as intelligent as you; I cannot say, as the least among you, since, if right is founded on qualities, as it is equal, your qualities must be equal.
Now gentlemen, what becomes of these pretensions in the presence offactsthat show you all unequal in strength and in intellect? What becomes of these pretensions in the presence offactsthat show us a host of women stronger than many men; a host of women more intelligent than the great mass of men?
Being unequal in strength and in intellect, and notwithstanding declared equal in right, it is evident therefore that you have not founded right on qualities.
And if you have not taken these qualities into account when your right has been in question, why then do you talk so loudly of them when the question is that of the right of woman.
If the faculties were the basis of right, as the faculties are unequal, the right would be unequal; and, to be just, it would be necessary to accord right to those who made good their claims to the necessary faculties and to exclude the rest; by this standard many women would be chosen and an infinite number of men excluded. See where we end when we have not the intellectual energy to take principles into consideration! You have but one means of evicting us of equality; namely, to prove that we do not belong to the same species as you.
2. Woman, you add, cannot have the same rights as man because, as mother and housewife, she performs only functions of an inferior order.
From this second proposition, we have a right to conclude thatfunctions are the basis of right;
That your functions are equivalent, since your right is equal!
That the functions of woman are not equivalent to those of man.
You have to prove then, gentlemen, that the functionsindividuallyperformed by each of you are equivalent; that, for example, Cuvier, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Arago, Fulton, Jacquard, and other inventors and scholars have not done more, are not doing more for humanity and civilization than an equal number of manufacturers of pins' heads.
You have to prove next that the labors of maternity, those of the household to which the workman owes his life, his health, his strength, the possibility of accomplishing his task—that these functions without which there would be no humanity, are not equivalent; that is, as useful to the social body as those of the manufacturer of jewels or of toys.
You have to prove lastly that the functions of the female teacher, merchant, book keeper, clerk, dressmaker, milliner, cook, waiting-maid, etc., are not equivalent to those of the male teacher, merchant, accountant, clerk, cook, tailor, hatter, footman, etc.;
I grant that it is embarrassing to your triumphant argument to encounter the thousands offactswhich show us therealwoman performing numerous functions in competition with you;
So it is, and these facts must be taken into account. But gentlemen, I have you in a dilemma! if functions are the basis of right, as right is equal, functions are equivalent; in which case those performed by woman are not inferior, since none are so. The functions which she performs are therefore equivalent to yours, and, by this equivalence, she again becomes equal.
Or else functions are not the basis of right; did you not take them into account when the establishment of your right was in question; why then do you speak of functions when the question is the right of woman?
Extricate yourself from this as you can; I shall not help you.
II.
3. Woman produces less than man industrially, you say. Admitting this to be true, do you count as nothing the great maternal function—the risks that woman runs in accomplishing it;
Do you count as nothing the labors of the household, the cares that are lavished upon you, and to which you owe cleanliness and health?
If the quantity of the product be the origin of the equality of right, why have those who produce little, those who produce nothing, and all of you who produce unequally, equal right?
Why are all those women who produce, while their husbands and sons enjoy and dissipate, destitute of the rights which the latter possess?
You do not admit the question of product into that of right when man is in question, why then do you admit it when woman is in question?
You see that this is inconsiderate, irrational, unjust.
4. Woman cannot be the equal of man, because her peculiar temperament interdicts to her certain functions.
Well, then a legislator can, without being unreasonable, decree that all men who are unfitted by temperament for the profession of arms, for instance, are excluded from equality of right!
Temperament, the source of right?
If a woman had written anything so absurd, she would have been cried down from one end of the world to the other.
Why, gentlemen, do you not exclude from equality all men who are weak, all those who are incapable of performing the functions that youprejudgewoman incapable of performing?
When you are in question, you admit indeed that the right to perform every function supposes neither the faculty nor the inclination to make use of it; why do you not reason in the same manner when the question concerns us? What would you think of women if, having your rights while you were in subjection, they should keep you in an inferior position because you could not accomplish the great functions of gestation and lactation.
Man, they would say, being unable to be mother and nurse, shall not have the right of being instructed like us; of having, like us, civil dignity. His coarser temperament renders him incapable of being a witness to a certificate of birth or death; it is evident that his clumsiness excludes him judicially from diplomatic functions; we cannot therefore recognize his right to solicit them, etc.
Ah! gentlemen, you reason in the same manner in excluding woman from equality under the pretext that, in general, she is of a temperament weaker than your own; that is, you reason absurdly.
5. Woman cannot be the equal of man in right because he protects and maintains her.
If it is because you protect and maintain us, that we ought not to have our right, restore it then to unmarried women who are of age, and to widows whom you neither protect nor maintain.
Restore their right then to the wives who have no need of your protection, since the law protects them, even against you; to the wives whom you do not maintain, since they bring you either a dowry, or a profession, or services which you would be obliged to recompense if any other rendered them to you.
And if to be maintained by another, suffices to deprive an individual of his right, take it away from the host of men who are maintained by the incomes or the labor of their wives.
6. Man, in the exercise of certain rights, is the proxy of woman.
Gentleman, a proxy is chosen freely, and is not imposed on an individual; I do not accept you as proxies: I am intelligent enough to transact my business myself, and I pray you to restore to me, as well as to all the women who think as I do, an authority which you use unworthily. If married women, to have peace, are willing to continue you as their authority, it is their business; but none of you can legitimately retain that of widows and unmarried women who have attained majority.
7. Woman has not the same rights as man, because she has no more time than capacity to exercise them.
Has woman less time and capacity than your working men, pinned twelve hours a day to their petty and stultifying tasks? Affirm it if you dare!
Does it need less time and capacity to make a deposition in a criminal suit, as woman does, than to witness a civil act or a notarial contract, a right that woman has not.
Does it need less time and capacity to be the guardian of sons and to administer their fortune, as woman does,than to be the guardian of a stranger or of a nephew, and administer their property, a right that woman has not.
Does it need less time and capacity to superintend a manufactory, a commercial establishment, workmen, as do so many women, than to be at the head of an office, or of a public administration, and to superintend its officials, a right that woman has not?
Does it need less time and capacity to devote one's self to instruction in a large boarding school, as do so many women, than in the chair of a professorship, as man alone has the right to do?
Woman proves,by her works, that she lacks capacity and time no more than you. Facts stifle affirmations for which you should blush. Fie! I am glad that I am not a man, lest I might say like things and be led to pretend that an instructress, a literary woman, a woman artist, an experienced female merchant has not the capacity of a porter or a rag-picker because she has not a beard on her chin.
8. The rights of woman are in her beauty and in the love of man.
Rights, based on beauty, and on that fragile thing styled man's love! What are these worth, I ask you, gentlemen?
Then woman shall have rights if she is beautiful, and as long as she shall continue so; if she is beloved, and as long as she shall continue so? Old, ugly and forsaken, she must be thrown into the car of the condemned to be transported to the guillotine?
If a woman should say such things, what a universal hue and cry would be raised?
Yet men pretend that they are rational! We congratulatewoman on having too much common sense ever to be so in this wise.
After all these arguments, none of which will bear analysis, comes at last the triumphant objection: women do not claim their rights, many among them are even scandalized by the demand made by a few in the name of all. Do not women demand them, gentlemen?
What are a host of American women doing at the present time?
What have a number of English women done already?
What did Jean Deroin, Pauline Roland and many others, do here in 1848?
What am I doing to-day, in the name of a legion of women of whom I am the interpreter?
Allwomen do not make reclamations, no; but do you not know that every demand of right is made at first singly?
That slaves accustomed to their chains, do not feel them until their instigators to revolt show them the bruises on their flesh?
A few only demand their rights, you say; but is it in accordance with principle or with numbers that you judge of the justice of a cause?
Did you wait untilallthe male population demanded their right of universal suffrage in order to decree it to them?
Did you wait for the revendication ofallthe slaves of your colonies before emancipating them?
Yes, it is true, gentlemen, that many women are opposed to the emancipation of their sex. What does this prove? That there are human beings abased enough to have lost all sentiment of dignity; but not that right is not right.
Among the blacks, there are many who hate, denounce, and deliver up to the scourge and to death those among them who are meditating how to break their chains; which is right, which has the sentiment of human dignity, the latter or the former?
We demand our place at your side, gentlemen, because identity of species gives us the right to occupy it.
We demand our right, because the inferiority inwhich we are kept is one of the most active causes of the decay of morals.
We demand our right, because we are persuaded that woman has to set her stamp on Science, Philosophy, Justice and Politics.
We demand our right, lastly, because we are convinced that the general questions, the lack of solution of which threatens our modern civilization with ruin, can only be resolved by the co-operation of woman delivered from her fetters and left free in her genius.
Is it not a great proof of our insanity, ourimpurity, gentlemen, that we feel this ardent desire to check the corruption of morals, and to labor for the triumph of Justice, the coming of the reign of Duty and Reason, the establishment of an order of things in which humanity, worthier and happier, shall pursue its glorious destinies without the accompaniment of cannon or the shedding of blood?
Is it not because the advocates of emancipation areimpure women whom sin has rendered mad, beings incapable of comprehending Justice and conscientious works?
III.
Gentlemen, we will conclude.
Though that were true which I deny; that womanis inferior to you; though that were true whichfactsprove false; that she can perform none of the functions which you perform, that she is fit only for maternity and the household, she would be none the less your equal in right, because right is based neither on superiority of faculties nor on that of the functions which proceed from them, but on identity of species.
A human being, like you, having, like you, intellect, will, free will and various aptitudes, woman has the right, like you, to be free and autonomous, to develop her faculties freely, to exercise her activity freely; to mark out her path, to reduce her to subjection, as you do, is therefore a violation of Human Right in the person of woman—an odious abuse of force.
From the stand point of facts, this violation of right takes the form of grievous inconsistency; for we find many women far superior to the majority of men; whence it follows that right is granted to those who ought not to have it, according to your doctrine, and refused to those who ought to possess it, according to the same doctrine, since they make good their claim to the qualities requisite.
We find that you accord right to qualities and functions,because the individual is a man, and that you cease to recognize it in the same case,because the individual is a woman.
Yet you boast of your lofty reason,—yet you boast of possessing the sense of justice!
Take care, gentlemen! Our rights have the same foundation as yours: in denying the former, you deny the latter in principle.
A word more to you, pretended disciples of the doctrines of '89, and we have done. Do you know whyso many women took part with our Revolution, armed the men, and rocked their children to the song of theMarseillaise! It was because they thought they saw under the Declaration of the rights of men and citizens, the declaration of the rights of women and female citizens.
When the Assembly took it upon itself to undeceive them, by lacking logic with respect to them, and closing their meetings, they abandoned the Revolution, and you know what ensued.
Do you know why, in 1848, so many women, especially among the people, declared themselves for the Revolution? It was because they hoped that this Revolution would be more consistent with respect to them than the former had been.
When, in their senseless arrogance and lack of intelligence, the representatives not only forbid them to assemble, butdrovethem from the assemblies of men, the women abandoned the Revolution by detaching their husbands and sons from it, and you know what ensued.
Do you comprehend at last?
I tell you truly; all your struggles are in vain, if woman does not go with you.
An order of things may be established by acoup de main, but it is only maintained by the adhesion of majorities; and these majorities, gentlemen, are formed by us women, through the influence that we possess over men, through the education that we give them with our milk.
We have it in our power to inspire them from their cradles with love, hatred or indifference for certain principles; in this is our strength; and you are blind notto comprehend that if man is on one side and woman on the other, humanity is condemned to weave Penelope's web.
Gentlemen, woman is ripe for civil liberty, and we declare to you that we shall henceforth regard whoever shall rise against our lawful claim as an enemy of progress and of the Revolution; while we shall rank among the friends of progress and of the Revolution, those who declare themselves in favor of our civil emancipation,SHOULD THEY BE YOUR ADVERSARIES?
If you refuse to listen to our lawful demands, we shall accuse you before posterity of the crime with which you reproach the holders of slaves.
We shall accuse you before posterity of having denied the faculties of woman, because you feared her competition.
We shall accuse you before posterity of having refused her justice, because you wished to make her your servant and plaything. We shall accuse you before posterity of being enemies of right and progress.
And our accusation will remain standing and living before future generations who, more enlightened, more just, more moral than you, will turn away their eyes with disdain and contempt from the tomb of their fathers.
NATURE AND FUNCTIONS OF WOMANI.
I think that we have sufficiently though summarily proved to all honest inquiries that social right is identical for both sexes since they are identical in species. The question of right being placed beyond discussion, we can now ask what use woman shall make of her right; in other terms, what functions she is qualified to perform in accordance with her whole nature.
Let us first mark the profound difference that exists between right and function, then define and divide the latter.
Rightis the conditionsine qua nonof the development and manifestations of the human being: it is absolute, general for the whole species, because the individuals who compose it should be able lawfully to develop and manifest themselves.
Functionis the use of the faculties of the individual with a view to a purpose useful to himself and to others; function is therefore a production of utility and, in conclusion, the manifestation of the aptitudes predominating in each of us, whether naturally, or in consequence of education and habit.
Society, having needs of every kind, has functions ofevery nature and various scope; these functions may be classified as follows:
This classification, which would be very imperfect and insufficient, were this a treatise on social organization, being all that is needed for the use that we have to make of it, we shall adhere to it in this place.
Men, and women after them, have deemed proper hitherto to class man and woman separately; to define each type, and to deduce from this ideal the functions suited to each sex. Neither have chosen to see that numerous facts contradict their classification.
What! exclaims the classifiers, do you deny that the sexes differ? Do you deny that, if they differ, they should have different functions?
If our classification does not seem good to you, criticise it, we ask nothing more; but replace it by a better one.
To criticise your classification, ladies and gentlemen, is what I intend to do; but if the elements are wanting to establish a better, can you, ought you even to require me to present you one.
Do you think me a man, that you exact of me abuse of theà priora, and a startling arbitrary course of reasoning. "Proudhon is right," murmur these gentlemen; "woman is incapable of abstract reasoning, of generalizing, ofknowing herself"....
Really, gentlemen, do you think that it is through incapacity that I am unwilling to present to you a classification of the sexes, a theory of the nature of woman?... Let us hasten then to prove the contrary: instead of one theory, we will give youfour. Man and woman form a series only with respect to the reproduction of the species: all the other characteristics by which it has been attempted to make a distinction between them are only generalities contradicted by a multitude of facts; now, as a generality is not a law, nothing can be therefore concluded from these, nothing absolute deduced from them in a functional point of view.
On the other hand, the greatest radical difference of zoological species lies in the nervous system, especially in the greater or lesser bulk and complexity of the encephalus; now, Anatomy admits, after numerous experiments, that, in proportion to the whole size of the body, the brain of woman equals in volume that of man; that the composition of both is the same, and Phrenology adds that the organs of the brain are the same in both sexes.
Lastly, it is a biological principle that organs are developed by exercise and atrophied by continued repose; now, man and woman do not exercise their encephalic organs in the same manner; educational training, manners, prejudice, enforced habits tend to develop in the masculine what becomes atrophied in the feminine head; whence it follows that the differences empirically establishedare by no means the result of Nature, but of the accidental causes by which they have been produced.
Conclusion: the two sexes therefore, when reared alike become developed alike, and are fit for the same functions, except those which concern the reproduction of the species.
Here, gentlemen, is a theory complete in all its parts, tenable in an anatomo-biologic point of view, and which I challenge you to prove false, for I shall find replies to all your objections.
II.
We admit the principle that the sexes form series in physical, moral, intellectual, consequently functional respects.
We believe that they should become subordinate to each other in proportion to their relative excellence; and we take the destiny of the species as the touchstone of their respective value.
If we compare the sexes with each other, we prove in a general way, that man is merely woman on a coarser scale; we prove in the second place that he is far more animal than woman, since his muscular system is more fully developed and since he respires lower; so that he is most evidently a medium between woman and the higher species of apes.
Woman alone contains and develops the human germ; she is the creator and preserver of the race.
It is not quite certain that the co-operation of man is necessary for the work of reproduction;this is the means chosen by Nature, but human science will succeed, we hope, in delivering woman from this insupportable subjection.
Analogy authorises us to believe that woman, the sole depositary of the human germ, is equally the sole depositary of all the moral and intellectual germs, whence it follows that she is the inspirer of all knowledge, all discoveries, all justice, the mother of all virtue. Our analogous deductions are confirmed by facts; woman employs her intellect in the concrete; she is an acute observer; man is only fit to construct paradoxes and to lose himself in the abyss of metaphysics; science has only emerged from the limbo ofà priorawithout confirmation, since the advent into this domain of the form of the feminine mind; we shall affirm, therefore, that true scholars are feminized minds.
In moral respects, man and woman differ greatly; the former is harsh, rough, without delicacy, devoid of sensibility and modesty; his habitual relations with the other sex modify him only with great difficulty; woman is naturally gentle, loving, feeling, equitable, modest; to her, man owes justice and his other virtues, when he has any; whence it follows that it is really to woman alone that social progress is due; hence it is that every step made towards civilization is marked by an advance of woman towards liberty.
If we consider each of the sexes in their relation to human destiny, we are forced to admit that, if there was reason for the predominance of man in the necessity of hewing out this destiny, the pre-eminence of woman is ensured in the future reign of right and peace.
It was necessary to struggle and fight in order to establish justice and to subject nature to humanity; this belonged of right to man, who represents muscular force, the spirit of conflict; but as we already foresee in the approaching future, the coming of peace, thesubstitution of pacific labor and negotiations for war, it is clear that woman will take rightfully the direction of human affairs, to which she will be called by her faculties, found better adapted to the end henceforth to be pursued.
Woman should be the last to develop and manifest herself socially, for the same reason that the human species is the last creation of our globe; the perfect being always appears after those that have served to pave the way.
As it is demonstrated, on the other hand, that, in the scale of the various organisms, the organ that is superadded to the others to constitute a change of species, governs those which the individual derives from inferior species, so woman, fully developed in a social body organized for peace and pacific labor, will be the new organ that will govern the social body.
Does this signify that woman should oppress man? By no means; she would thus be ungrateful for the services rendered her, and would trespass against her gentle nature; but she will teach him to comprehend thathis glory is to obey, to become subordinate to the other sex, because he is less perfect, and because his qualities are no longer necessary to the general good.
You laugh, gentlemen, at this second theory; you think it absurd.... So it is; for it is the counterpart of the thetic woman of Proudhon. Let us proceed then to the third theory.
III.
Every classification of the human species is a pure subjective creation; that is, one which exists only inthe form given to the perception by the intellect; the very conception of humanity with the enumeration of the characteristics which are reputed to distinguish it from the other species, is stamped with subjectivity.
The truth is that not a single human being resembles his neighbor; that there are as many different men and women as there are men and women composing the species.
Classifications, in all things, are illusions of the mind, for nature hates identity and never repeats herself: there are not two grains of sand, not two drops of water, not two leaves alike; and most probably the sun, since the commencement of its existence, has not appeared twice identically the same at its rising. Yet despite the evidence of these truths, despite the conviction which we have attained of the illusion of the senses, of the weakness of our intellect, which can know nothing of the inmost nature of beings; which can only seize upon a few fleeting traces of their personal characteristics; yet despite all these things we dare establish series, attribute to them characteristics which are speedily contradicted by facts, and torture and do violence to the only beings that really exist; namely, individuals, in the name of that other thing which exists only in our sick brain: kind, class!
The bitter fruits that have been produced by our mania for classification ought to cure us of this. Has not this malady, impelling theocratists and legislators to divide humanity into castes and classes, caused most of the calamities of our species? Have we not, thanks to these execrable divisions, a hideous past, the echoes of which bring back to our shrinking ears naught but sobs, cries of anger, rebellion, malediction andvengeance, and sinister clanking of weapons and chains?
Have we not also to thank them that, on the pages of our history, all stained with blood and tears and exhaling an odor of the charnel house, we read nought but tyranny, brutishness and demoralization?
Have we not further to thank them that king and subject, master and serf, white and black, man and woman become demoralized by oppression, injustice and cruelty on one hand; and intrigue, baseness, and vengeance on the other?
Are not wrong and wretchedness found everywhere, because inequality, the offspring of insane classifications, is found everywhere?
Ah! who shall deliver us from our infatuation!
Let us class animals, vegetables, minerals if we will! our errors do not influence and cannot disturb them; but let us respect the human species which will escape all classification, however reasonable the process may be, because every human being is changeable, progressive, and differs far more from his fellows than the most intelligent animal from the rest of his species.
Let us leave each one then to make his own autonomic law and to manifest himself in conformity with his nature, and take care only that right shall be equal for all; that the strong shall not oppress the weak; that each function shall be entrusted to the one individual that is proved the best qualified to perform it; this is all that we can do, all that we should do, if we seek to show ourselves wise and just.
Harmony exists in nature, because each being in it follows peaceably the laws that govern his individuality; it will be the same in humanity, when universal reasonshall comprehend that human order is pre-established in the co-operation of individual faculties left free in their manifestations; and that to establish a factitious, wholly imaginary order; that is, true disorder, is to retard the coming of order, peace and happiness.
Let us refrain then from all classification of faculties and functions according to the sexes: besides being false, they will lead us to cruelty; for we shall oppress those, whether men or women, who are neither yielding enough to submit to it nor hypocritical enough to appear to do so; and we shall do this without profit to human destiny, but, on the contrary, to its detriment.
Here, gentlemen, is anominalistictheory which I challenge you to overthrow by sufficient reasons: for, as in the first, I shall have answers to all your objections.
We now come to our last theory, which is yours in the major and minor terms, but the opposite in the conclusions.
IV.
All the different parts of the same organism are modified by each other, and in this manner the functions become mutually modified.
Now, man and woman differ from each other in important organs.
Each of the sexes must therefore differ from the other not only through the organs that distinguish them, but through the modifications produced by the presence of these organs.
This, gentleman, is my first syllogism: I know that we shall not contest this point—it is classical Biology.
Let us investigate anatomically the organic differences to which sexuality subjects man and woman.
Nervous System.The so called nerves of feeling are more fully developed in woman than in man, those of motion are less developed in the former than in the latter; the cerebellum is more fully developed in the head of man than in that of woman; in the latter, the antero-posterior diameter of the brain preponderates over the bi-lateral, which is greater in proportion in the masculine sex: it is also observed that the organs of observation, circumspection, subtleness and philoprogenitiveness are more prominent in the head of woman than in that of man, in which the reasoning organs, with those of combativeness and destructiveness predominate.
Locomotive System.Man is larger than woman, he has more compact bones, and larger and better developed muscles, his thorax is the reverse of that of woman, in which, the greatest breadth is between the shoulders, while, with him, it is at the base; the pelvis is larger and broader in the female than the male sex.
Epidermic and cellular systems.Man has a more hairy skin than woman; what is called fat is less abundant in the masculine than in the feminine organism; in general, the skin of man is rougher, and his form less round; woman has longer and more silky hair.Splanchnic organs.The cerebral mass is the same in proportion in both sexes, as well as the organs of the brain, with the exception of the predominances which we have pointed out; the respiratory systems differ somewhat; woman breaths higher than man; in the latter, the circulation is more active and energetic.
To these physical differences correspond intellectual and moral differences.
Woman, having the nerves of feeling more fully developed, is more impressionable and more mobile than man.
Being weaker and as persistent, she obtains by address and stratagem what she cannot obtain by force; her weakness gives her timidity, circumspection, the necessity of feeling herself protected.
The kinds of labor that require strength are repugnant to her.
Her maternal destiny renders her an enemy of destruction, of war; and her more delicate organization makes her dread and shun contention. This same maternal destination impresses a peculiar stamp on her intellect; she loves the concrete, and is always inclined to transform thought into facts, to incarnate it, to give it a fixed form; her reasoning is intuition or quick perception of a general relation, of a truth that man elucidates only with great difficulty, by the aid of stilted logic.
Woman is a better observer than man, and carries induction farther than he; she is consequently more penetrating, and is a much better judge of the moral and intellectual value of those about her.
She has, more than man, sentiment of the beautiful, delicacy of heart, love of good, respect for modesty, veneration for everything superior.
More provident than he, she has more order and economy, and looks after administrative details with a carefulness which is often carried to puerility.
Woman is adroit, sedulous; she excels in works of taste, and possesses strong artistic tendencies.
Gentler, more tender, more patient than man, she loves everything that is weak, protects everything thatsuffers; every sorrow, every calamity brings a tear to her eye and draws a sigh from her breast.
This is woman, such as you paint her, gentlemen.
You then add:
The vocation of woman therefore is love, maternity, the household, sedentary occupations.
She is too weak for occupations that demand strength, and for those of war.
She is too impressionable and too feeling, too good, too gentle to be legislator, judge or juror.
Her taste for household details, a retired life, and the grave functions of maternity indicate clearly that she is not made for public employments. She is too variable to cultivate science with profit; too feeble and too much occupied beside to pursue protracted experiments.
Her kind of rationality renders her unsuited to the elaboration of theories; and she is too fond of the concrete and of details to become seriously interested in general ideas; which excludes her from all high professional functions and from those requiring serious study.
Her place is therefore at the fireside to make man better, to sustain him, to care for him, to procure him the joys of paternity, and to fill the place of a good housewife.
Such are your conclusions: here are mine, admitting as a hypothesis, what I affirm with you of woman.
V.
1. Woman carrying into Philosophy and Science her subtleness of observation, her love of the concrete, will correct the exaggerated tendency of man for abstractreasoning, and demonstrate the falsity of theories constructed,à priori, on a few facts alone. Then only will ontology disappear, then will it be recognized that a hypothesis is merely an interrogation point; that truth is always intelligible in its nature, however unknown it may be; we shall generalize nothing but known facts, we shall carefully avoid erecting simple generalities into laws, and we shall thus have veritable philosophy, and true human science, because they will bear the imprint of both sexes.
2. Woman carrying her peculiar faculties into the arts and manufactures, will increasingly introduce therein art, perfection in details. Cultivated in the direction of her aptitudes, she will find ingenious methods of application of scientific discoveries.
3. Patient, gentle, good, more moral than man, she is the born educator of childhood, the moralizer of the grown man; the majority of the educational functions revert to her of right, and she has her assigned place in special instruction.
4. By her quick intuition and her acuteness of observation, woman alone can discover the therapeutics of nervous affections; her dexterity will render her valuable in all delicate surgical operations. On her should devolve the care of treating the diseases of women and children, because she alone is capable of fully comprehending them; she has her especial place in hospitals, not only for the cure of disease, but also for the execution and surveillance of the details of management and the care of the patients.
5. The presence of woman in judicial functions, as juror and arbiter, will be a guarantee of veritable human justice to all; that is, of equity.
Woman alone through her gentleness, her mercy, her sympathetic disposition, and her subtleness and observation, can comprehend that society has its share of culpability in every fault committed; for it should be organized to prevent wrong rather than to punish it. This point of view, especially feminine, will transform the penitentiary system and raise up numerous institutions. Then only will the world comprehend that the punishment inflicted on the guilty should be a means of reparation and regeneration; society will no longer slay its prisoners as if weak and fearful: it will amend the assassin instead of imitating him; it will force the thief to work to make restitution of what he has stolen; it will no longer believe that it has the right by imprisoning a criminal to deprive him of his reason, to drive him to despair, to suicide by solitary confinement; to deprive him completely of marriage; to couple him with those more corrupt than himself. Conscious of its own share of culpability, society will repair in penitentiaries the fault of its carelessness: it will be firm, yet kind and moralizing: it will give in them the education which it ought to have given outside, and will prepare work houses for the liberated convicts in order that the contempt and horror often shown toward them by men worse than they may not drive them to a second offence.
7. Woman, carrying into the social household her spirit of order and economy, her love of details and abhorrence of waste and foolish expense, will reform government: she will simplify everything; will suppress sinecures and the accumulation of offices, and will produce much from little instead of, like man, producing little from much: the purse of the tax-payers will not complain of the change.
8. Under the direct influence of woman as legislator, we shall have a reconstruction of all laws; first and before everything, we shall have preventive measures, a compulsory education; then the form of legal proceedings will be simplified, the civil code recast, and all laws concerning illegitimate children and the inequality of the sexes banished from it; the laws concerning morals will be more severe, and the penal code more rational and equitable.
By her administrative reforms born of the economical instinct of woman, taxes will be diminished; her abhorrence of blood and war will greatly reduce the fearful impost of blood-shed. Having a deliberative voice, and knowing, by her griefs and love the value of a man, it will be only from sheer necessity that she will consent to vote bevies of citizens for the shambles called wars: she will do this only when her country is menaced or when it is necessary to protect oppressed nationalities; in all other cases, she will employ the system of conciliation.
9. Woman, being much more economical and a better analyst than man, when thoroughly instructed, will soon perceive that nations, like individuals, differ in aptitudes, and that the end of these differences is union and fraternity through exchange of products: she will therefore deter her country from cultivating certain branches of the acts and manufactures in which other nations excel and which they can produce to better advantage; she will cure it of the foolish pretension of being sufficient unto itself, and will prevent it from sacrificing the interest of the mass of consumers to that of a few producers: thus the barriers and custom duties that separate the different organs of humanity will fall bydegrees; there will be treaties of free trade, and all will be gainers by the cheapness of products, and the suppression of the expenses of maintaining a too often annoying department of customs.
The qualities and faculties of woman not only make her an educator, but assure her preponderance in all functions arising from social solidarity; she alone knows how to console, to encourage, to moralize with gentleness, to comfort with delicacy; she has the genius of charity; to her therefore should revert the superintendence and direction of hospitals and prisons for women, the management of charitable institutions, the care of abandoned children, etc. She should create institutions to furnish employment to workmen out of work, and to save liberated convicts from indolence and relapse into crime.
Thus, gentleman, without departing from the data of your theory, you behold woman placed everywhere by the side of man, except in the hard labor from which you yourselves will soon be released by machinery, and in the military institutions which, in all probability, will some day disappear.
Hitherto institutions, laws, sciences, philosophy have chiefly borne the masculine imprint; all of these things are only half human; in order that they may become wholly so, woman must be associated in them ostensibly and lawfully, consequently, she must be cultivated like you; culture will not make her like you, do not fear it; the rose and the carnation growing in the same soil, under the same sky, in the same sunshine, with the cares of the same gardener, remain rose and carnation: they are more beautiful in proportion as they are better cultivated, and as the elements which they absorb are more abundant: if man and womandiffer, a similar education will only make them differ still more, because each will employ it in the development of that which is peculiar to himself.
For the interest of all things and people it is necessary that woman should enter all the avocations of life, that she should have her function in all the functions:afterthe general interest of humanity, comes that of the family; it cannot gobeforeit.
Since woman now is generally mother and housewife while performing at the same time a host of other functions, she will become none the less so in taking upon herself a few more; besides, the time of life at which an individual enters certain important functions is that at which woman has finished her maternal task. A few women acting as public functionaries will not hinder the great majority of their companions from remaining in private life, any more than a few men in the same position hinder the mass of men from continuing there.
VI.
You admit a classification at last, you say, and still more you grant that there are masculine and feminine functions. You are mistaken, gentlemen: you accused me of being incapable of giving you a complete theory, I have given you the outlines of four—outlines which it would be easy for me to extend and perfect. But I do not admit a single one of these theories as a whole.
Are you eclectic, then?
The gods forbid! I have as much repugnance to eclecticism, as tomystic trinitarianismandandrogyny.
I do not admit the theory of the identity of the sexes, because I believe with Biology that an essential organicdifference modifies the entire being; that therefore woman must differ from man.
I do not admit the theory of the superiority of either sex, because it is absurd; humanity is man-woman or woman-man; we do not know what one sex would be if it were not incessantly modified by its relations with the other, and we know them only as thus modified: What we know to a certainty is that they form together the existing condition of humanity; that they are equally necessary and equally useful to each other and to society.
I do not admit my third theory because it is ultra-nominalism nominalism; if it is really true that all the individuals of both sexes differ among themselves in a far more remarkable manner than those of the other species, it is none the less true that a classification, founded upon a constant anatomical characteristic, is legitimate, and that the principle of classification lies in the nature of things, for if things appear to us classified, it is because they are so; the laws of the mind are the same as those of Nature so far as knowledge is concerned; we must admit this, unless we are sceptics or idealists, and I am neither the one nor the other; neither am I a realist in the philosophic acceptation of the word, for I do not believe that the species is something apart from the individuals in which it is manifested; it is in them and through them; this repeats the affirmation that there are individuals identical in one or several respects, although different in all others.
Lastly, I do not admit the fourth theory, although it may be true in principle, because the numerous facts that contradict the distinguishing characteristics, do not permit me to believe that these characteristics are laws established by sexuality.
In fact, there are brains of men in heads of women, andvice versa.
Men mobile and impressionable; women firm and insensible.
Women large, strong and muscular, lifting a man like a feather; men small, frail, and of extreme delicacy of constitution.
Women with a stentorian voice and abrupt manners; men with a soft voice and graceful manners.
Women with short, harsh hair, bearded, with rough skin and angular figures; men with long, silky hair without beard, round and portly.
Women with an energetic circulation of blood; men in whose veins it courses feebly and slowly.
Women frank, inconsiderate and daring; men strategic, dissembling and timid.
Women violent, loving strife, war and contention, and wont to storm on every occasion; men gentle, patient, dreading strife, and exceedingly timid.
Women loving abstract reasoning, generalizing and synthetizing much, and without intuition of any sort; men intuitive, acute observers, good analysts, incapable of generalizing.... I know many such.
Women insensible to works of art, and without the sentiment of the beautiful; men full of enthusiasm for both.
Women immoral, immodest, respecting nothing or no one; men moral, chaste and reverential.
Women extravagant and disorderly; men economical and parsimonious to avarice.
Women thoroughly selfish, rigid, disposed to take advantage of the weakness, kindness, folly or misery of others; men full of generosity, mansuetude, and self-sacrifice.
What follows from these undeniable facts? that the law of sexual differences is not manifested through the several characteristics which have been laid down.
That these characteristics may be only the result of education, of the difference of prejudices, of that of occupations, etc.
That, as these generalities may be the fruit of the difference of training and surroundings, nothing can be legitimately deduced from them as to the functions of woman; would it not be absurd, in fact, to pretend that a woman who is organized for philosophy and the sciencescan not, ought not to occupy herself with them because she is a woman, while a man, who is incapable of them but foolish and vain enough to be ignorant of his incapacity, can and ought to engage in them because he is a man?
Functions belong to those who prove their aptitude for them, and not to an abstraction called sex, for, definitively, every function is individual in its aggregate or in its elements.
VII.
We have explained why we reject the theories that we have sketched; we will now explain why we neither give nor wish to give a classification of the sexes.
We do not give a classification, because we neither have nor can have one; the elements for its establishment are lacking. A biological deduction permits us to affirm that such a one exists; but it is impossible to disengage its law in the present surroundings; the veritable feminine stamp will be known only after one or two centuries of like education and equal rights: then there will be no need of a classification, for the function willfall naturally to the proper functionary under a system of equality in which the social elements classify themselves.
My belief and my hopes concerning the future, I shall not confess; for I may be in error, since I have no facts to control my intuitions, and everything that is purely Utopian has always a dangerous side. Besides have I not said that, had I formed a classification, I should not give it? Why not? Because, a detestable use would be made of it, as usual, if it were adopted.
Hitherto, have not men availed themselves of classifications based upon characteristics afterwards recognized as purely imaginary to oppress, distort and calumniate those banished to the inferior ranks?
History is at hand to give us this salutary lesson. Where is now to-day theville-pedaille, the villains and base-tenants, fit only to drain ditches and to be stripped to the skin? Inventing, governing, making laws for, and gradually transforming our globe, devastated by thesuperior and only capablespecies, into a smiling and peaceful domain.
Upon all classification of the human species, whether in castes, in classes, or in sexes, are based three wrongs.
The first is to make it a crime in the individual degraded into the lower series, that he does not resemble the conventional type that has been formed of this series, while the so called superior being is not required to resemble his type; thus a weak, cowardly, unintelligent man, aman millineror anembroiderer, is none the less a man, while a virago, a firm and courageous woman, a great queen, a woman philosopher are not women, but men whom none love and who are given over as a prey to wild beasts, jealous, effeminate men, to devour.
The second wrong is to take advantage of the conventional type to deform the being classed in the inferior series in order to kill his energies and to hinder his progress. Then, to attain this end, education, social surroundings are organized, prejudices are invented; and so successfully is this done in general that the oppressed, ignorant of himself, believes himself really of an inferior nature, resigns himself to his chains, and is even indignant at the rebellion of those of his series who are too energetic and individual not to react against the part to which social imbecility has condemned them.
The third wrong is to take advantage of the state of debasement to which the oppressed has been reduced, to calumniate him and deny his rights; men exclaim, Look! See the serf! see the slave! see the negro! see the workingman! see woman! What rights would you grant these inferior and feeble natures?They are incapable of knowing and ruling themselves: we must therefore think for them, wish for them, and govern them.
Ah no, gentlemen, these are not men and women; they are the deplorable results of your selfishness, of your frightful spirit of domination, of your imbecility.... If there were infernal gods, I should devote you to them relentlessly with all my heart. Instead of calumniating your fellows that you may preserve your privileges, give them instruction and liberty; then only will you have the right to pass judgment on their nature: for we can only know the nature of a human being when it has become freely developed in equality.
I think that I have justified my repugnance to give a classification of the sexes, both by the impossibility of actually establishing a reasonable one, and by the very legitimate fear of the bad use that would be made of it.
But it will be objected, and not without reason, that a classification is necessary for social practice.
I consent to it with all my heart, since I have reserved my positions, and proved the worthlessness of existing classifications.
As it is my principle that the function should fall to the functionary who proves his capacity, I say that at present, through the difference of education, man and woman have distinct functions; and that we must give to the latter the place that in general she deserves.
I add that it is a violation of the natural right of woman to form her with a view to certain functions to which she is destined; she should in all respects enjoy the rights common to all; it cannot rightfully be said to her any more than to man, "your sex cannot do that, cannot pretend to that;" if it does it and pretends to it, it is because the sex can do it and pretend to it; if it could not, it would not do it; the first right is liberty, the first duty, the culture of one's aptitudes, the development of his reason and his power of usefulness: if a god should affirm the contrary, not conscience, but the god would speak falsely.
Let woman take the place therefore that is suited to her present development, but let her never cease to remember that this place is not a fixed point, and that she should continually strive to mount upwards until, her peculiar nature revealing itself through equality of education, instruction, right and duty, she takes her rightful place by the side of man and on a level with him.
Let her laugh at all the utopian follies elaborated concerning her nature, her functions determined for eternity, and remember that she is not what nature, but what subjection, prejudice, ignorance has made her; lether escape from all her chains, and no longer permit herself to be intimidated and debased.
Thus, gentlemen, all my ideas on the nature and functions of woman may be summed up in these few propositions:
I believe, because a physiological deduction authorizes me to do so, that general humanity common to both sexes is stamped by sexuality.
Infact, I know not, and you know no better than I, what are the true characteristics arising from the distinction of the sexes, and I believe that they can be revealed only by liberty in equality, parity of instruction and of education.
In social practice, functions should belong to those who can perform them: woman therefore should perform those functions for which she shows herself qualified, and society should become so organized that this may be possible.
What are these functions relative to her degree of present development? I will tell you directly.