MARRIAGE, A DIALOGUE.I
MARRIAGE, A DIALOGUE.I
READER.We are about to speak of Marriage from the stand point of the modern ideal—how do you define it?
AUTHOR.Love, sanctioned by Society.
READER.Do you consider Marriage as indissoluble?
AUTHOR.Before the law, I do not; but at the moment of their union, the spouses should have full confidence that the bond will never be dissolved.
I believe that Marriage becomes indissoluble by the will alone of the spouses; that it can be so only in this manner.
READER.What part do you assign to Society in Marriage?
AUTHOR.You shall fix it yourself after recalling our principles.
If man and woman are free beings at any period of their life, they cannotlegally and validlylose their liberty.
If man and woman are beings socially equal in any of their relations, the one cannotlegally, validlybe subordinated to the other.
If the continual end of the human being is to becomeperfected through liberty, and to seek happiness, no law can legitimately,validlyturn him aside from its pursuit.
If the end of society should be to render individualsequalit cannot, under penalty of forfeiting its mission, constitute inequality of persons and of rights.
If Society cannot without iniquity enter the domain of individual liberty, it cannotlawfully, validlyprescribe duties that pertain only to the jurisdiction of the conscience, and annul moral liberty.
Now draw your conclusions.
READER.From these principles, it follows that man and woman should remain free and equal in Marriage; that Society has no right to intervene in their association except to render them equal; that it has no right to prescribe to them duties which proceed only from love, nor consequently to punish their violation, that it cannot in principle grant or refuse divorce, because it belongs to the husband and wife alone to know whether it is useful for their happiness and progress to be separated from each other.
AUTHOR.Your conclusions are right, but if Society has no right over the body or the soul of the husband and wife in their capacity of spouses, if it cannot without abuse of power interfere in any of their intimate relations, it is its right and duty to intervene in Marriage as regards interests and children.
READER.In fact, in the union of the sexes, there is not merely an association of two free and equal persons, but also a partnership of capital and labor; then, from the marriage, children are born for whose education, occupation and subsistence it is necessary to provide.
AUTHOR.Now, the general protection of materialinterests and of the rising generation devolves of right upon Society. In the sight of the law, the husband and wife ought to be regarded only as partners, engaging to employ a certain share of capital, together with their labor, for a definite purpose. Society takes note only of a contract of interests, the execution of which it guarantees like that of any other contract, and the breach of which it makes public, should it take place by the wish of the parties interested. On the other hand, the education of the rising generation is a question of life and death to Society. The children being free with respect to development, and liable to be useful or injurious to their fellow citizens according to the training which they have received, society has a right to watch over them, to secure their material support, their moral future, to fix the age of marriage, to entrust the children to the more deserving parent in case of separation, and if both are unworthy, to take them away entirely.
READER.Do you not go a little too far; on the one hand, do not children belong to their parents, on the other, may not Society err with respect to the choice of the principles to be instilled in them?
AUTHOR.Children do not belong to their parents because they are notTHINGS: to those who obstinately persist in believing themproperty, we say that Society has the right of dispossession for the public good. Then the social right over children is limited so far as principles are concerned to those of morality. Society has no right over religious beliefs which belong to the domain of spiritual jurisdiction. The power that should take away children from their parents because they were not of a certain religious faith would be guilty of despotism, and would merit universal execration. Ifyou say that Society has no right to impose a dogma upon children, you speak truly; but I cannot conceive how you can entertain the thought of forbidding it the right to teach them, even against the will of their parents, enlightening science, purifying morality. Is it not the duty of society to secure the progress of its members, and can any one have a right to keep a human being in ignorance and evil?
READER.You are right, and I condemn myself. Let us return to Marriage. I see with pleasure that you differ in opinion from a number of modern innovators who deny the lawfulness of social interference in the union of the sexes.
AUTHOR.If the union were without protection, who would suffer by it? Not men, but rather women and children.
No one can compel a man to live with a woman whom he has ceased to love; but he must be constrained to fulfill his duties with respect to the children born of this union, and to keep his business engagements: in wronging his companion and escaping from the burdens of paternity, he takes advantage of his liberty to the detriment of others: Society has a right to prevent this.
READER.So you do not grant to Society the right of binding souls or bodies; but that of guaranteeing the contract of Marriage, and the obligations of the spouses towards their future children; of forcing them, in case of separation, to fulfill this last obligation?
AUTHOR.Yes; thus in case of the rupture of the marriage tie, society has only to state publicly the responsibilities of the spouses, the number of children, and the name of the parent on whom their guardianship devolves,either by mutual consent or by social authority. And in confining itself to this part, Society would do more to prevent the separation of married couples than by all that it has hitherto foolishly invented for the purpose. The parties would be free to marry again; but what woman would be willing to unite herself to a man who was burdened with several children, or who had treated his first companion unkindly? What man would consent to wed a woman in the same position?
Do you not think that the difficulty that would be experienced in contracting a new marriage would be a curb on the inconstancy and bad conduct that lead to a rupture?
READER.I believe indeed that marriage, as you understand it, would have more chances of duration than ours: first, because it is our nature to cling most closely to that which we may lose. I have often asked myself why many men remain faithful to their mistresses and treat them kindly, while they are disrespectful and unfaithful to their wives; I have asked myself also why many couples who had long lived happily together when voluntarily united, were unhappy and often driven to a legal separation when they had finally married; and the only reason that I have been able to find is that we set the most value on that which we know may escape us. Man has more respect for a woman who is not his legal property, his inferior, than for her who is thus transformed by the law. Notwithstanding, it must be acknowledged that your ideas appear eccentric.
AUTHOR.Yet they are nothing more than an application of our laws; indeed, do they not decree that covenants can havethingsonly, notpersonsfor their object.That Societydoes not recognize vows, and that proceedings cannot be instituted against their violation?
Now the existing law of marriagealienatesone of the partners in favor of the other; the wifebelongsto the husband; she is in hispower. What is such a contract, if not the violation of the principle which affirms that no covenant can be made involving persons? can it be more lawful to alienate one's person by a contract of slavery?
Some say that we are at liberty to dispose of our freedom as we choose, even though it be to renounce it. Indeed, we may do this, as we may commit suicide, but to make use of our liberty to renounce it or to commit suicide is much less to use aright than to violate the laws of moral or physical nature; these are acts of insanity which we should pity, but which we are not at liberty to erect into a law.
Why does Society refuse to recognize vows and to punish their violation, if not because it admits that it is forbidden to penetrate into the jurisdiction of the conscience? if not because it does not admit that an individual may alienate his moral and intellectual being any more than his body, and devote himself to immobility when it is his duty, on the contrary, to go forward?
I ask then if this same Society is not inconsistent in exacting perpetual vows from the husband and wife, in exacting from the wife a vow of obedience, a tacit vow to deliver up her person to the desires of the husband?
Is not the moral liberty of the spouses as worthy of respect as that of nuns, priests and monks?
Have married persons more right in Nature and Reason, to alienate their moral and intellectual being, their liberty and their person than the celibates of the Church?
Another inconsistency of the law is that it declares Marriage an association; the contract of Marriage is therefore a contract of partnership. Now I ask whether, in a single contract of this kind, it is enjoined by law on one of the partners toobey, to be subjected to aperpetual minority, to beabsorbed?
I doubt not that the law would declare such a contract between independent partners void; why then does it legalize such a monstrosity in the partnership of husband and wife? It is a relic of barbarism, as you will see if you reflect on it.
READER.I hope that, through reason and necessity, the law will be reformed sooner or later: but a reformation which will not take place is that of the forms of religious marriage, which prescribe to the spouses the same oaths as the code, and like it, subject the wife to the husband.
AUTHOR.Well, what matters it to us, since, thanks to liberty, the religious marriage is merely a benediction with which we can dispense. Those who have a disposition to go to the Church, the Temple, or the Synagogue should have full liberty to receive the blessing of their respective priests! this does not concern Society. What we need is that, if afterward their vows should not seem to them binding, social authority should not make them obligatory; they have a right to be absurd, but society has no right to impose absurdity on them. Its duty is, on the contrary, to enlighten them, and to render them free.
II.
READER.Those who subordinate woman in marriage rest on the assertion that unity of direction, consequentlya ruling power, is needed in the family; now, your theory evidently destroys this ruling power.
AUTHOR.What is the ruling power? Practically, it is manifested through the function of government. Formerly, it was based upon two principles, now recognized as radically false:Divine rightandinequality. It was therightof those who exercised it to call themselves kings, autocrats, priests, men; it was thedutytherefore of the people, the church, woman to obey the elect of God, their superiors by the grace of right delegated from on high.
But in modern opinion, the ruling power is nothing more than a function delegated by the parties interested in order to execute their will.
It is not our business to inquire here whether this modern interpretation has become incarnated in facts; whether the old principle is not still struggling with the new; whether the holders of political and familial authority are not still making insane pretensions to divine right; we have only to show what the notion of the ruling power has become in the present state of thought and feeling.
What will be the ruling power in marriage, in accordance with modern opinion, if not the delegation by one spouse to the other of the management of business and of the family—a delegation of function; no longer a right?
And if man and woman are socially equal in principle, if the aptitudes, upon which all functions are based, are not dependent on sex, by what right does society interfere to give the authority either to the husband or the wife?
If there is need of a ruling power in the household,are not the parties themselves best capable of bestowing it on the one who can best and most usefully exercise it?
But among partners, is there really room for a ruling power? No, there is room only for division of labor, mutual understanding with respect to common interests. To consult each other, to come to an agreement, to divide the tasks, to remain master each of his own department; this is what the spouses should do, and what they do in general.
The law has so little part in our customs that to-day things happen in this wise: many rich women translate two articles of the Code as follows;the husband shall obey his wife, and shall follow her wherever she sees fit to dwell or sojourn. And the husbands obey, because it would not do to offend a wife with a large dowry; because it would make a scandal to thwart their wife; because they need her, being unable, without dishonoring themselves, to keep a mistress.
Husbands in the great centres of population escape obedience through love outside of marriage; they lay no restrictions on their part; Madame is free.
Among the working classes of the citizens and the people, it is practically admitted that neither shall command, and that the husband shall do nothing without consulting his wife and obtaining her consent.
In all classes, if any husband is simple enough to take his pretended right in earnest, he is cited as a bad man, an intolerable despot whom his wife may hate and deceive with a safe conscience; and it is a curious fact that the greater part of the legal separations are for no other cause at the bottom than the exercise of the rights and prerogatives conceded to the husbands by law.
I ask you now, what is the use of maintaining against reason and custom, an authority which does not exist, or which is transferred to the spouse condemned to subjection.
READER.On this point, I am wholly of your opinion; not a single woman of modern times takes the rights of her husband in earnest. But your theory not only attacks his authority; it also wages war against the indissolubility of marriage, which it is affirmed, is necessary to the dignity of this tie; to the happiness and future of the children, to the morality of the family.
AUTHOR.I claim, on the contrary, that my theory secures, as far as is humanly possible, the perpetuity and purity of marriage. At present, when the knot is tied, the spouses, no longer fearing to lose each other, find in the absence of this fear the germ of a mutual coolness; they may quarrel, be discourteous or unfaithful to each other; there will be scandal, a legal separation perhaps, but they are riveted together; they can never become strangers. Contrast with this picture a household in which the bond is dissoluble; all is changed; the despotic or brutal husband represses his evil propensities, because he knows that his companion, whom after all he loves, would quit him and transfer to another the attentions she lavishes on him; and that no honest woman would be willing to take her place.
The husband disposed to be unfaithful would continue in the path of duty, because his abandonment and offences would alienate his wife, blast his reputation, and prevent him from forming an honorable alliance.
The worn out profligate would no longer espouse the dowry of a young girl, because he would know that, promptly disenchanted, the young wife, instead of havingrecourse to adultery, would break the ill assorted union.
The woman who should take advantage of her dowry, of the necessity of her husband to remain faithful, to tyrannise over him, would fear a divorce which would throw the blame on her and condemn her to a life of solitude.
A shrewish wife would no longer dare to inflict suffering on her husband, or a coquette to deceive or torment him; who would marry them after a separation?
Do you not see that free marriages are happier and more lasting than any others?
Have you not yourself admitted that to separate the parties in these unions, it often suffices to join them legally?
I know myself of a voluntary union that was very happy duringtwenty-twoyears, and was dissolved by separation at the end of three years of legal marriage; I have known of many others of a shorter duration which legality contributed to dissolve instead of rendering eternal.
You would hardly believe how many married couples reformed in their treatment of each other in 1848, when they feared that the law of divorce might be accepted. If the simple expedient of divorce has power to produce good results, what may not be expected from a rational law.
We need only to reflect in order to comprehend that voluntary dissolubility, without social intervention, would render unions better assorted, for it would be for one's interest, for his own reputation, to enter into them only with the moral conviction of being able to preserve them; then only would no excuse be found forinfidelity; loyalty would make part of the relations of the spouses. The law of perpetuity has perverted everything, corrupted everything; on the side of the woman, it favors, yes, necessitates stratagem; on the side of the man, it favors brutality and despotism; it provokes on both sides adultery, poisoning and assassination; and leads to those separations which are daily increasing in number, and which, by giving the lie to the indissolubility of marriage, place the partners in a painful and perilous situation, and bring in their train a host of irregularities.
In fact, if the spouses are separated while young, concubinage is their refuge. The man in this false position finds many to excuse him; but the woman is forced to conceal herself, to tremble at the thought of a pregnancy and to make it disappear. Legal separation leads the spouses not only to concubinage, to mutual hatred, but causes the birth of thousands of children whose future is compromised, destroyed by the fact of their illegitimacy. Let the spouses be free in accordance with their right, and all will fall into its proper order, for all will be done openly and truly.
READER.But the future of the children?
AUTHOR.The morality of the children is better insured under the system of liberty than under that of indissolubility, for they will not be witnesses for years of the bitter contention and licentiousness which now render them deceitful and vicious, and inspire them with contempt or hatred for one of the authors of their being, sometimes of both, when they do not take them for models; if life in common becomes impossible to the parents, which will be more rare under the law of liberty, the children will not be subjected to the power ofthose who violate the law of received morality; they may see these parents contract a new allianceas now, but this alliance will be honored by all.
From these unions children may be bornas now, but these children, instead of being cast into the hospital, will share with the first the affection and inheritance of their father or mother. The so-styled legitimate children will lose in fortune, it is true; but they will gain in good examples; many children who are now in the category of the illegitimate will be ranked among the former, and will be no longer condemned by desertion to die young, or else to grovel in ignorance, vice and misery; to see their brow branded with the fault of their parents as of their own by a host of imbeciles and men without heart, who have no other guarantee for what they call their legitimacy than the presumption accorded them by the law.
III.
READER.It will be long yet, perhaps, before collective Reason comprehends liberty in the union of the sexes as you do, and men will ascribe to themselves the right not only of binding the interests, but the souls and bodies of the spouses.
AUTHOR.As far as we can foresee, Society must necessarily? pass through two stages to realize our opinion; it must first grant divorcefor a declared cause; later it will grant divorce decreed in private on the petition of one or both of the spouses. We will not take up this last form of the rupture of the conjugal tie, but that which is nearest us—divorce for a declared cause.
What are the reasons which you would consider valid for a petition for divorce?
READER.First, those which now give rise to separation from bed and board: adultery of the wife, cruelty, grave abuses, condemnation of one of the spouses to punishment affecting the liberty or person, the fraudulent management of the property by the husband; next, infidelity of the husband, qualified adultery, incompatibility of temper, notable vices, such as drunkenness, gaming, etc.
AUTHOR.Very well; these causes suffice.
READER.During the proceedings for divorce, the wife should be as free as the husband. The child that should be born to her after more than ten months' separation should be reputed natural, even though the divorce had not been pronounced; and should bear her name and inherit from her like one of her legitimate children.
AUTHOR.Who should take custody of the children and the property during the proceedings?
READER.The court should decide who should have the care of the children, in accordance with the causes for the petition for divorce and the testimony of the parents, friends and neighbors.
AUTHOR.But if the spouses ask to be divorced only on account of incompatibility of temper, and are both honorable?
READER.They should be requested to agree mutually either to share the children, or to entrust them to one of the two, or to give the younger children to the mother, leaving the sons over fifteen to the father. The court, besides, should appoint from the family of the mother, a guardian to watch over the conduct of the father towards the children left in his care; and from the family of the father, a similar guardian to the mother and the children remaining with her. This guardianship, whichshould be strictly moral, should continue till the children had attained majority.
AUTHOR.And in case the parents should be alike unworthy?
READER.In such a case, which would seldom happen, the judge, in behalf of society, should deprive them of the custody of the children, and entrust it to a member of the family of one of the parents, appointing a guardian to watch over his conduct and protect the interests of his ward from the family of the other.
AUTHOR.Very well; I see with pleasure that you are cured of the erroneous belief that the childrenbelongto the parents, and that you comprehend the high function of society as the protector of minors.
During the suit for divorce, who shall have the control of the property?
READER.If the contract has been made under the system of separation of property, and for paraphernalia, there is no need of putting the question; each one will manage his own.
But I am somewhat puzzled how to answer you in case of communion of goods, or in case the capital is embarked in a common business, carried on solely by one of the parties. The present law does not seem to me sufficiently to protect the interests of the wife in case of separation.
AUTHOR.Without entangling ourselves in a host of individual cases which modify or contradict each other, let us provide that in case of communion of goods, the administration of the property shall be taken from the spouse holding it if the petition for divorce be based on his bad management, his dissipated habits, or his condemnation to a penalty affecting his liberty or person;that in all other cases, he shall make an inventory of the property and the condition of the business; and a person shall be appointed from the family of the spouse excluded from the management to watch over the conduct of the spouse to whom it is entrusted, who shall be bound to pay alimony to the other until the divorce shall be decreed.
READER.And if there is no fortune?
AUTHOR.Until the spouses become strangers, they owe assistance to each other: the court should therefore require the spouse that earns the more to aid the other.
READER.How long a time should elapse between the admission of the petition and the judgment of divorce?
AUTHOR.A year, in order that the parties may have time for reflection.
READER.The divorce being granted, and the ex-partners restored to liberty, would you permit them to marry others?
AUTHOR.Most assuredly; else what signifies our arguments against separation?
READER.What! the adulterous and brutal spouse, he who has inflicted suffering on his partner, who has been wholly in the wrong, should enjoy like the other the privilege of marrying again? I confess that this shocks me.
AUTHOR.Because you are not sufficiently imbued with the doctrines of liberty and the sentiment of right. Marriage is the natural right of every adult; society has no right therefore to prohibit it or to make it a privilege; on the other hand, in every divorce, there is wrong or the lack of something on either side with respect to the other; the man or woman who commitsadultery may be a model of fidelity to a partner better suited to his or her temperament and disposition; he who has been brutal and violent may be wholly different with a wife possessing a different character; in short, we repeat, to prohibit marriage is to permit libertinism, and it is not the interest of society to pervert itself. Both partners therefore should have a right to marry, but the law should take care that all should be informed of the burdens resting upon them by reason of their first marriage, and know that they are divorced. Consequently, society has a right to publish the bill of divorce, and to require that the parties divorced should provide for the necessities of their minor children, and that the bill of divorce, joined to the one setting forth this obligation, should accompany the publication of the bans of a new marriage; in this, there is neither injustice nor abuse of power; for each one will submit to the consequence of what he has done in perfect freedom.
READER.And would you not fix the number of times that a divorced person might re-marry?
AUTHOR.Why fix it? do you fix the number of times that a widow or widower may marry again?
READER.But a libertine, a bad man might marry ten times, and thus render ten women unhappy.
AUTHOR.What are you talking of! do you seriously believe that there would be a woman insane enough to marry a mannine timesdivorced, a man obliged to accompany the publication of his bans with nine bills of divorce, with nine judgements compelling him to pay so much yearly for the support of seven, eight or nine children. Do you seriously believe that a woman would consent to become the companion of such a man!This man might indeed marry twice—but three times! do you think that it would be possible?
READER.You are right, and on reflection, the measures which you advocate appear perhaps severe.
AUTHOR.I know it; but our aim is not to favor divorces nor subsequent unions; but, on the contrary, to prevent the former as far as possible by the difficulties of forming the latter. Now for this it is not necessary to restrict the liberty of the individual, but to render him responsible for his acts, and to rivet the chain that he has forged for himself in such a manner that he can neither cast it aside nor lay the burden of it on others unless they are duly warned of it and consent thereto.
IV.
READER.Ought society to permit unions disproportioned in age? Is it not to expose a woman to adultery, to marry her at seventeen or eighteen to a man of thirty, forty or even fifty years of age? What harmony of sentiments and views can exist at that time between the spouses? The wife sees in her husband a sort of father, whom notwithstanding she can neither love nor respect like a father, and she remains a minor all her life.
AUTHOR.These unions are very prejudicial to woman and the race, and they would be for the most part averted, if the law should fix the marriageable age at twenty-four or twenty-five for both sexes. At seventeen, we marry to be called Madame, and to wear a bridal dress and a wreath of orange flowers; we certainly should not do this at twenty-five.
If the flower is not called on to form its fruit untilit is fully matured, neither should man and woman: now, in our climate the organization of neither is complete until twenty-four or twenty-five.
Woman gives more to the great work of reproduction and wears out faster in it; to render her liable to become a mother prematurely is therefore to expose her to greater sufferings.
In the first place, she is forced to share between herself and her offspring the elements necessary to her own nutrition, which weakens both her and the child.
Her development is checked, her constitution is changed, she becomes predisposed to uterine affections, and runs the risk of becoming an invalid at the age when she ought to enjoy robust health.
The enervation of the body brings with it that of the mind: the woman becomes nervous, irritable, and often capricious; she cannot nurse her children; she will not be capable of rearing them properly, she will make dolls of them, and will favor the development of faults which afterwards becoming vices, will afflict the family and society.
This woman, a mother before her time, not only will never become the thoughtful companion and counsellor of her husband who, being much older than she, will amuse himself with her as with a child, but will be his ward for her whole life, and will have recourse to artifice to have her own way. Thus to weaken woman in every respect, to shorten her life, to put her under guardianship, to prepare the way for puny and badly reared offspring,—such are the most obvious results of her precocious marriage.
To hold women in voluntary subjection and to organize the harem among us, we need only take advantageof the permission of the law authorising their marriage at the age of fifteen.
That woman may not be in subjection; that she may be able to become a mother without detriment to her health and under circumstances favorable to the good organization of her children; that she may be a worthy and earnest wife, prepared to fulfill all her duties, she must not be married, I repeat, before twenty-four or twenty-five; and she must not marry a man older than herself.
READER.But it is claimed that the husband ought to be ten years older than the wife, because the latter grows old faster, and because it is necessary that the husband should have had experience in life in order to appreciate his wife and to render her happy.
AUTHOR.Errors and prejudices all. Woman grows old sooner than man only through premature marriage and maternity; a well preserved man and woman are alike old at the same age. But the woman consents to grow old while the man is much less willing to do so, since he does not blush when gray haired, to marry a young girl, and to set up the ridiculous pretention of being loved by her for love. Men must be broken of the habit of believing themselves perpetually at the age of pleasing; of imagining that they are quite as agreeable to our eyes when they are old and ugly as if they were Adonises. They must be told unceasingly that what is unbecoming in us is equally so in them; and that an old woman would be no more ridiculous in seeking the love of a young man, than an old man in pretending to that of a young girl.
The husband and wife should be nearly of the same age; first, to treat each other more easily as equals;next, because there will be more harmony in their feelings and views, as well as in their temperaments, all things very necessary to the organization of children.
It is necessary besides, in order that the woman may not be tempted to infidelity; you know how many troubles arise from unions disproportioned in age.
The husband must haveseen life, it is said; this is the opinion of those who permit their sons tosow their wild oats; who believe that man is at liberty to wallow in the mire of dens of infamy, and that there are two kinds of morality. We do not belong to this class. You would not give your daughter to a man who hadseen life, because he would beblasé, because he would pervert her or expose her, through the disenchantment that would follow, to seek in another what she did not find in her husband.
What we have said as regards your daughter applies also to your son; he must not marry a woman younger than himself; for you would no more desire a disadvantageous position for your daughter-in-law than for your daughter; both are dear to you and worthy of respect before the solidarity of sex.
READER.I shall educate my son to comprehend that the form of marriage prescribed by the Code is merely a relic of barbarism, that his wife owes obedience only to Duty, that she is a free being and his equal; and that he has no rights over her person but those which she herself accords to him. I shall tell him that love is a tender plant which must be tended carefully to keep it alive; that it is blighted by unceremoniousness and slovenliness; that he should therefore be as careful of his personal appearance after marriage as he was to be pleasing to the eyes of his betrothed. I shall say tohim: ask nothing except from the love of your wife; remember that more than one husband has excited repulsion by the brutality of the wedding night. Marriage, my son, is a grave and holy thing; purity is its choicest jewel; know that many men have owed the adultery of their wife to the deplorable pains that they have taken to deprave her imagination. Far from using your influence over her who will be the half of yourself in order to render her docile to your wishes, and to make her your echo, develop reason and character in her; in elevating her, you will become better, and will prepare for yourself a counsel and stay. I have married you under the system of separation of goods in order that your wife may be protected against you, should you depart from your principles; and should you ever grieve me by straying from them, your wife will became doubly my daughter. I shall be her companion and consoler, and shall close my arms and my doors on you.
AUTHOR.Right, and you will do well to add: interest your wife in your occupation; take care that she is always busy, for labor is the preserver of chastity.
READER.To my daughter I will say: the social order in which we live requires, my child, that you shall superintend your house; the state of Society is still far distant in which our sex will be relieved from this function. Do not forget that the prosperity of the family depends on the spirit of order and economy of the wife. What your fortune or special business exempts you from executing, superintend and direct. Extravagance of dress and furniture now surpasses all bounds. Luxury is not wrong in itself, but in the existing state of things, it is a great relative evil, for we have not yet resolvedthe problem of increasing and varying products without at the same time increasing the wretchedness and debasement of their producers. Be simple therefore: this does not exclude elegance, but only those piles of silks and laces which trail in the dust of the streets, those diamonds and precious stones which make the fortune of the few at the expense of the morality of the many, and which are only dead capital, the liberation of which would be productive of great good. Do not suffer yourself to be ensnared by the sophism that honest women must adorn themselves to hinder men from passing their time with courtesans. Would you not be ashamed to compete in dress with women whom you do not esteem, and would the man who could be retained by such means be worth the trouble?
I have instructed you in your legal position as wife, mother and property holder; I marry you under the system of separation of goods in order to spare your husband the temptation of regarding himself as your master; in order that he may be obliged to take your advice and to look upon you as his partner. Despite these precautions, you will be a minor, since the law thus decrees. But our law is not Reason: never forget that you are a human being; that is, a being endowed like your husband with intellect, sentiments, free will, and inclination; that you owe submission only to Reason and your conscience; that if it is your duty to make sacrifices to the peace in little things, and to tolerate the faults of your husband as he should tolerate yours, it is none the less your duty resolutely to resist a brutal—I will have it so.
You will be a mother, I hope; nurse your children yourself, rear them in the principles of Right and Dutywhich I have instilled into your intellect and heart, in order to make of them, not only just, good, chaste men and women, but laborers in the great work of Progress.
You understand the great destiny of our species; you understand your rights and duties; I need not therefore repeat to you that woman is no more made for man than man for woman; that consequently woman cannot, without failing in her duty, become lost and absorbed in man; for with him, she should love her children, her country, humanity; she owes more to her children than she does to him; and if forced to choose between family interests and generous sentiments of a higher order woman should no more hesitate than should man to sacrifice the former to justice.
AUTHOR.It will be said that you instruct your daughter in a very manly way.
READER.Since in our days men play the mandolin, is it not necessary that women should speak seriously? Since men, in the name of their naïve selfishness, claim the right to confiscate woman to their use, to extol to her the charms of the gyneceum, to suppress her rights, and to preach to her the sweets of absorption, must not women re-act against these soporific doctrines, and recall their daughters to the sentiment of dignity and individuality.
AUTHOR.I endorse you with all my heart!
Now that we are nearly agreed on all points, we have only to sum up what we have said, and to give an outline of the principal reforms necessary to be wrought in order that woman my be placed in a position more in conformity with Right and Justice.