SUMMARY OF PROPOSED REFORMS.I.
SUMMARY OF PROPOSED REFORMS.I.
AUTHOR.Identity of right being based on identity of species, and woman being of the same species as man, what ought she to be before civil dignity, in the employment of her activity and in marriage?
READER.The equal of man.
AUTHOR.How will she become the equal of man in civil dignity?
READER.When she shall hold a place on the jury and by the side of all civil functionaries; shall be a member of boards of trade and mercantile associations; and shall be a witness in all cases in which the testimony of man is required.
AUTHOR.Why ought the testimony of woman to be admitted in all cases in which that of man is required?
READER.Because woman is as credible as man; because she is, like him, a civil personage.
AUTHOR.Why ought woman to have a place on the jury?
READER.Because the Code declaring her the equal of man as regards culpability, misdemeanor, crime and punishment, she is thus declared capable like him of comprehending wrong in others;
Because the jury being a guarantee for the male culprit, the female culprit should have a similar guarantee;
Because if themalecriminal is better comprehended by men, thefemalecriminal will be better comprehended by women;
Because society in its aggregate being offended by the crime, it is necessary that this society, composed of two sexes, should be represented by both to judge and to condemn it. Because, lastly, where the moral sense is concerned, the feminine element is the more necessary inasmuch as men claim that our sex is in general more moral and more merciful than their own.
AUTHOR.Why ought woman to hold a place among civil functionaries?
READER.Because society, represented by these functionaries, is composed of two sexes;
Because even now in a number of public functions, there is a department more especially belonging to woman;
Because, in the ceremony of the marriage celebration for instance, if woman does not appear as magistrate, not only is society insufficiently represented, but the wife may regard herself as delivered up to the power of a man by all the men of the country.
AUTHOR.Why ought woman to have her place in boards of trade and mercantile associations?
READER.Because she shares equally in industrial production;
Because she shares equally in commerce;
Because she understands business transactions and contracts as well if not better than man;
Because, in all questions of interests, she should be her own representative.
AUTHOR.When will woman become the equal of man in the employment of her activity and of her other faculties?
READER.When she shall have colleges, academies and schools for special instruction, and when all vocations shall be accessible to her.
AUTHOR.Why ought women to receive the same national education as men?
READER.Because they exercise a vast influence over the ideas, sentiments and conduct of men, and because it is for the interest of society that this influence should be salutary;
Because it is for the interest of all to enlarge the views and elevate the sentiments of women, in order that they may use their natural ascendency for the advancement of progress, of truth, of good, of moral beauty;
Because woman has a right, like man, to cultivate her intellect, and to acquire the knowledge bestowed by the state;
Because, lastly, as she pays her part of the expenses of national education, it is robbery to prohibit her from participating in it.
AUTHOR.Why ought woman to be admitted to academies and professional schools?
READER.Because Society, not having a right to deny the existence of any aptitude among its members, has consequently no right to prevent those who claim to possess them from cultivating them, nor to lock up from them the treasures of science and practice which are at its disposal.
Because there are women who are born chemists, physicians, mathematicians, etc., and because these women have a right to find in social institutions the same resources as man for the cultivation of their aptitudes;
Because there are professions practised by women who need the instruction that is interdicted them.
AUTHOR.Why ought every field of occupation to be accessible to woman?
READER.Because woman is a free being, whose vocation no one has a right to contest or to restrict;
Because she, no more than man, will enter vocations forbidden her by temperament, lack of aptitude or want of time; and it is therefore quite as unnecessary to interdict them to her as to those men who are unfit to enter them.
AUTHOR.Do you not even interdict to her those vocations in which strength is needed, or which are attended with danger?
READER.Women are not forbidden to be carpenters or tilers, yet they do not become such, because their nature opposes it; it is precisely because nature does oppose it, that I think society unreasonable in meddling with the nature. There is no need to prohibit what is impossible; and if what has been declared impossible is done, it is because it is possible: now society has no right to prohibit what is possible to any of its members; this appears even absurd where vocation is in question.
AUTHOR.Let each one follow his private occupation at his own risk and peril, then; but are there not certain public functions which are not suitable for women?
READER.No one knows this, since they are not open for her admission; and, were it so, the prohibition would be useless: competition would show the falsity of ill-founded pretentions.
AUTHOR.When will woman become the equal of man in marriage?
READER.When the person of the wife is not pledgedin marriage; when the engagements are reciprocal, and when the wife is not treated as a minor and absorbed in the husband. And this should be so:
Because it is not allowable to alienate one's personality, such an alienation, beingimmoralandvoidof itself;
Because the wife being a distinct individual, cannot be actually absorbed by the husband, and a law is absurd when it rests on a fiction and supposes an impossibility;
Because, in fine, woman, being the equal of man before Society, cannot, under any pretext, lose this equality by reason of a closer association with him.
AUTHOR.There are two questions in marriage, aside from that of the person—property and children. Do you not think that the married woman ought, like the unmarried woman who has attained majority, to be mistress of her property, to be free to exercise any profession that suits her, and to be at liberty to sell, to buy, to give, to receive, and to institute suits at law?
READER.The married man having all these rights, it is evident that the married woman ought to have them under the law of equality. Are you not of the same opinion?
AUTHOR.In all partnerships, we pledge a portion of our liberty on certain points agreed upon. Now the husband and wife are partners; they cannot therefore be as perfectly free with respect to each other as though they were strangers; but it is necessary, we repeat, that their position should be the same and their pledges mutual. If the wife can neither sell, nor alienate, nor give, nor receive, nor appear in court without the consent of the husband, it is not allowable for the husband to do these things without the consent of the wife; ifthe wife is not permitted to practise a profession without the consent of the husband, the husband is not at liberty to do so without the consent of the wife; if the wife cannot pledge the common property without authority from the husband, the husband cannot pledge it without the consent of the wife. I go further; I would not willingly permit the wife, before the age of twenty-five, to give her husband authority to alienate anything belonging to one of the two; the husband has too much influence over her for her to be really free before this age.
READER.But what if one of the parties through caprice or evil motives is unwilling that the other should do something that is proper and advantageous?
AUTHOR.Arbiters are frequently chosen in the differences that arise between partners in business; society, represented by the judicial power, is the general arbiter between the husband and wife; still we think that it would be well to establish between them a perpetual arbiter, holding the first degree of jurisdiction: this might be the family council, organized differently from the present. Before this confidential tribunal, better fitted than any other to understand the case, the husband and wife should carry, not only the differences arising between them concerning questions of interests, but those relating to the education, profession and marriage of the children. This tribunal should give the first judgment, and much scandal would be avoided by its decisions, from which besides one could always appeal to the social court.
I need not add that the right of the father and the mother over the children is absolutely equal, and that, if the right of either could be contested, it would not be that of the mother, who alone can say, Iknow, I amcertainthat these children are mine.
READER.In fact, it is odious that the plenitude of right should be found on the side of the mere legal presumption, the act of faith, uncertainty.
Regarding marriage as a partnership of equals, do you not think that it would be well to mark this equality and the distinction of personalities in the name borne by the spouses and their children?
AUTHOR.Certainly, on the day of marriage each of the spouses should join his partner's name to his own; this is done already in certain cantons of Switzerland, and even in France, among a few individuals.
The children should bear the double name of their parents until marriage, when the daughters should keep the mother's name, and the sons the father's; or else, if we wish to bring into the question the system of liberty, it might be decreed that, on attaining majority, the child himself should choose which of the two names he would bear and transmit.
II.
READER.Now, let us take up the political right.
AUTHOR.A nation is an association of free and equal individuals, co-operating, by their labor and contributions, to the maintenance of the common work; they have an incontestible right to do whatever is necessary to protect their persons, their rights and their property from injury. Man has political rights because he is free and the equal of his co-partners; according to others, because he is a producer and a tax-payer; now, woman being, through identity of species, free and the equal of man; being in point of fact, a producer and a tax-payer; and having the same general instincts as man,it is evident that she has the same political rights as he. Such are the principles, let us proceed to the application.
We have said elsewhere, that it is not enough that a thing should be true in an absolute sense; it is necessary under penalty of transforming good into evil, to take into account the surroundings into which we seek to introduce it; this men too often forget, thepracticaltruth in our question is that it is profitable to recognize political rightsonly to the extent to which it is demanded, because those who do not demand it are intellectually incapable of making use of it, and because if they should exercise it, in a majority of cases, it would be against their own interests; Prudence exacts that we should be sure that the possessor of a right is really emancipated, and that he will not be the blind tool of a man or a party.
Now, in the existing state of affairs, women not only do not demand their political rights, but laugh at those who address them on the subject; they pride themselves on being thought unfit for that which regards general interests; they recognize themselves therefore as incapable.
On the other hand, they are minors civilly, slaves of prejudice, deprived of general education, submissive for the most part to the influence of their husbands, lovers or confessors, clinging as a majority to the ways of the past. If therefore they should enter without preparation into political life, they would either duplicate men or cause humanity to retrograde.
You comprehend now why many women who are more capable than an infinite number of men of coöperating in great political acts, choose rather to renouncethem than to compromise the cause of progress by the extension of political right to all women.
READER.Personally, I am of your opinion; but it is necessary to foresee and to refute the objections that may be made to you by very intelligent women; these women will say, Reflect, the negation of right is iniquitous, for it is the negation of equality and of human nature. It is as false as dangerous to lay down the principle of the recognition of right only to the extent in which it is claimed; for it is notorious that slaves are not the ones in general to demand their own rights; your affirmation therefore condemns the emancipation of slaves and serfs, and universal suffrage.
The objection that you raise against the right on account of the incapacity of women and the low use which they would make of it, might apply quite as well to men who are scarcely more fully emancipated than they; who are often the duplicate of their wife or confessor, or who have no other opinion than that of their electoral committee.
In right, as in everything else, an apprenticeship is necessary: woman will make use of it at first badly, then better, then well; for we learn to play on an instrument much more quickly by using it than by learning its theory.
The exercise of right gives elevation and dignity, elevates the individual in his own esteem, and causes him to study questions which he would have neglected had he not been obliged to examine them in order to concur in and resolve them. Do you wish women to take to heart matters of general interest? Then give them political right.
These objections, may be raised against you.
AUTHOR.They were raised against me in 1848 by a number of eminent women, and by many men devoted to the triumph of the new principles.
I answered them then and I answer them again to-day: We should speedily agree, if our modern society were not the scene of conflict between two diametrically opposite principles.
The question is not to decide whether political right belongs to woman, whether she would develop it, enlarge it, etc., but rather whether she would use it to ensure the triumph of the principle that says to humanity, Advance! or of that which gives as the word of command, Retreat!
What is the end of political right? Evidently, to accomplish a great duty in the direction of progress. Well, is it not dangerous to accord it to those who would employ it against this end?
What! you struggle for right, in order to obtain the triumph of a holy cause, yet feel no hesitation in according it to those who would certainly make use of right to kill right!
You reproach me for acting like the Jesuits, who value justice much less than expediency. Well, gentlemen, if you had had half their ability, you would have been successful long ago. Like true savages, you would think yourselves dishonored by possessing prudence and practical sense, by offering yourselves to battle otherwise than with naked bodies; this may be very fine, very courageous—but as to being sensible, that is another thing.
I am not guilty of the crime of denying right, since I do not deny it; I only desire that it shall not be demanded since this would be suicidal, I do not lay downthe principle thatevery kindof right should be recognized only to the extent in which it is claimed, since I speak to you of political rights alone; there are rights which make their own demand, such as those of living, of development, of enjoyment, of the fruit of one's labor, and it is shameful for society not to recognize them to their full extent. But we awaken later to the sentiment of civil right, and still later to that of political right; take the logical advance of humanity into account therefore and do not remain in the absolute.
I know that my objection on the score of the incapacity of women is quite as applicable to that of men; but is it a reason, because you have admitted the right of the ignorant masses of men who had not demanded it, to show yourselves equally unwise with respect to women who are in the same position? I will correct myself, gentlemen, of what you term myaristocraticspirit, when I see your political freedmen comprehending the tendencies of civilization, and making use of their right to drive the abettors of the past to despair by promoting the triumph of liberty and equality. Until then, permit me to keep my opinion.
And I have kept my opinion, which is this: the exercise of political right is a means of reform and progress, only if those who enjoy it believe in progress and are anxious for reforms: in the opposite case, the popular vote can be nothing but the expression of prejudices, errors and passions—instead of learning to exercise it through the use of it, as it is urged, they employ it simply to cut their own fingers.
READER.May it not be objected that, in accordance with your theory of right, all being equal, no one can arrogate to himself the function of distributing rights?
AUTHOR.Theory is the ideal towards which practice should tend; if we had not this ideal, we could not know by what principle to guide ourselves; but in socialreality, there are individuals who have attained majority, and others who, being minors, are destined to attain it.
If I should assert that those who have attained majority can rightfully accord or refuse right to the minors, I should depart essentially from my principles; it is by thelaw, which is the expression of the conscience of those most advanced, while waiting till it shall be the conscience of all, that political majority is decreed and that its conditions are established. The right is virtual in each of us; no one therefore has the right to give it, to take it away, or to contest it; it is recognized when we are in a condition to exercise and to demand it; and we prove that we are in a condition to exercise it when we satisfy the conditions fixed by the law.
READER.What should be these conditions for the enjoyment of political right, in your opinion?
AUTHOR.Twenty-five years of age; and a certificate attesting that the individual knows how to read, write and reckon, that he possesses an elementary knowledge of the history and geography of his country; together with a correct theory with respect to Right and Duty, and the destiny of humanity upon earth. The knowledge of a small volume would be sufficient, as you see, to enable every man and woman, twenty-five years of age and healthy in mind, to enjoy political rights, after having been subjected to an initiation by the enjoyment of civil rights. But, I ask you, what could those do with political right who confound liberty with license, who scarcely know the meaning of the wordsRight and Duty, and who are even incapable of writing their own vote! Men have their rights, let them keep them! a right once admitted cannot be taken away: let them render themselves fit to exercise them. As to women, let them first emancipate themselves civilly and become educated: their turn will come.
READER.It is very important that men should comprehend that you do not deny, but merely postpone the political rights of our sex.
AUTHOR.Be easy; they will comprehend it rightly; they will not mistake counsel dictated by prudence for an acknowledgement of inferiority and a resignation of functions.
III.
READER.Will you now state the legal reforms which we should demand successively.
AUTHOR.So far as civil life is concerned, we should ask:
That a woman who is a foreigner may be able to become naturalized in a country otherwise than by marriage.
That woman shall not lose her nationality by the same sacrament.
That woman be admitted to sign, as a witness, all certificates of social condition, with all others that have been hitherto interdicted to her.
You know that already, in derogation of the law, midwives sign certificates of birth of unacknowledged natural children, and that, in certain notarial documents, drawn up by justices of the peace, to attest to a fact in the absence of written evidence, the testimony of women is admitted.
We demand that tradeswomen and merchant women shall form a part of the boards of trade; that in every criminal trial, women shall be placed on the jury: that to women shall be entrusted the management and superintendence of hospitals, prisons for women, and charitable associations.
That in every district, a woman shall be appointed to superintend girls' schools, infant asylums, and nurses.
You know that women are already filling public employments in derogation of the law, since the teaching and inspection of girls' schools, and other asylums, are entrusted to them, and since women keep post-offices, stamp offices, etc.
READER.This regards civil Right in general; what reforms shall we demand concerning married women?
AUTHOR.That the conjugal abode shall be that which is inhabited by the husband and wifetogether, no longer by the man alone.
That the articles shall be suppressed which command the wife to obey her husband, and to follow him wherever he sees fit to reside.
That the prohibition to sell, mortgage, receive, give, appear in law, etc., without the consent of the husband or court, shall be extended to the husband as far as to the wife.
That marriage under the system of separation of goods shall become the public law.
READER.What reforms do you demand with respect to the family council and guardianship?
AUTHOR.We demand that the family council shall be composed of twenty persons; ten men and ten women, parents, relatives and friends, chosen by the spouses.
That the powers of this council, presided over by the justice of the peace, shall be so determined that it shall give the first judgment in differences arising between the spouses as to children, property, guardianship, etc.
We demand that every woman may be qualified to be appointed guardian or to watch over the conduct of the guardian towards the ward.
That the guardianship of the spouse interdicted shall be always confessed by the family council.
That the wife like the husband, may name a definitive guardian and a council of guardianship for her surviving spouse.
That the spouses may name during their lifetime, the father, a male inspecting guardian from his family, the mother, a female inspecting guardian from hers, that in case of pre-decease, the children may be always under the influence of both sexes.
That this superior guardianship, in the absence of any expressed desire, belongs of right to a member of the family of the defunct, who must be of the same sex.
That in case of a second marriage, if the child is maltreated or unhappy, the inspecting guardian, whether male or female, can have it adjudged to him by the family council, without excluding the appeal of the guardian to the courts.
That in case of the death of the father or mother, the guardianship belongs of right to the nearest ancestor, and the inspecting guardianship to the nearest ancestor of the other line.
If there be competition between the two lines, the family councils shall choose the guardian from one family and the inspecting guardian from the other, and of opposite sex.
That the duties of guardianship and inspecting guardianship shall comprehend, not only the material, but also the moral and intellectual interests of the wards.
That the father who is guardian, shall lose the right of guardianship over the children if he re-marries without first having had it continued to him by the family council.
That lastly, the State shall so organize a board of guardianship for abandoned children that the boys shall be under the superintendence of the men and the girls under that of the women; this board will form a great family council.
READER.I like your system better than that of the law, not only because woman is the equal of man therein, but because wards will be better protected by it; I have known men to cause their wives, over-excited by their ill treatment, to be placed under interdict, in order to remain masters of their property; on the other hand, you know how many children are wronged or made unhappy by the second marriage of their father. A step-mother has full power to inflict suffering on the little unfortunates.
But you have said nothing of the authority of parents over their children.
AUTHOR.The authority of the parents over the children is the same; the expression, paternal authority, is incomplete; the true phrase would beparentalauthority. On this head, we demand that if there be dissension between the father and mother with regard to the children, the family council shall decide in the first instance.
That neither the father nor the mother shall have power to shut up the child unlessboth are agreed.
That the father or the mother acting as guardian shall not have power to have recourse to this measure except with the concurrence of the inspecting guardian, or, in case of difference, with the approbation of the family council, always reserving the right of appeal to the court.
That the marriageable age shall be fixed at twenty-five for both sexes.
READER.Shall we demand the suppression of separation from bed and board?
AUTHOR.No; but we must demand thatdivorce shall be established.
That divorce may be obtained for the adultery of one of the parties, cruelty, grave abuses, condemnation to punishment affecting the liberty or person, notorious vices, incompatibility of temper, mutual consent.
That, during the suit for separation or for divorce, the guardianship of the children shall be given to the most deserving parent; and that, if both are alike unworthy, a guardian and inspecting guardian of different sexes shall be appointed.
That, if both are deserving, they shall settle it amicably between themselves before the family council.
That parties married under the dotal system or under that of the separation of goods, shall have control of their own property.
That if the petition for divorce be on account of the bad management of the common property, the administration shall be taken away from the husband and entrusted to the wife.
That if the petition be on account of the condemnation of one of the parties to punishment affecting the liberty or person, the other shall remain administrator.
That, in all other cases, an inventory shall be made and the spouse best fitted to the task be appointed guardian under the surveillance of one or two members of the family of the other spouse, with the obligation of furnishing estovers to the other.
That the decree granting the divorce or separation shall bear the number, name and age of the children born of the marriage, together with the annual sum that each party is bound to furnish for their maintenance and education.
That this decree shall state to whose custody the children are entrusted, whether by natural consent or by familial or judicial authority.
That it shall be placarded publicly in the courts, and inserted in the leading journals of the vicinity.
That this instrument shall accompany the publication of the bans of a subsequent marriage, under pain of heavy penalties.
READER.These measures are severe; if it would be easy to become divorced, it would not be easy to marry afterwards.
AUTHOR.I do not deny it; but it is better to prevent divorce by the difficulty of marrying afterwards, than by placing restrictions upon it; in the first case, the difficulty comes from the fetters which the individual has forged for himself; he makes his own destiny; in the second, individual liberty is infringed upon by social authority, which is an abuse of power.
READER.Let us enter upon the legal reforms concerning morals.
AUTHOR.We demand that every promise of marriage which is not fulfilled shall be punished with a fine and damages.
That every man whom an unmarried mother can prove by witnesses or letters, to be the father of her child, shall be subject to the burdens of paternity.
That the investigation of paternity shall be authorized like that of maternity.
That the seduction of an unmarried woman under twenty-five shall be severely punished.
That no unmarried woman can be registered among the public women before twenty-five years old, and that she shall be put into the house of correction if she abandons herself to prostitution before this age.
That every abandoned woman who receives a man under twenty-five years of age shall be punished with fine and imprisonment, and that the penalty shall be terrible if she is diseased.
READER.It will be said that paternity cannot be proved.
AUTHOR.I do not deny that it may be possible that the father attributed to the natural child will not be the true one; but it will be necessary to establish by proofs that he has rendered himself liable to be reputed such: it is the probability of paternity in marriage extended to paternity out of marriage. So much the worse for men who suffer themselves to be caught! it is shameful to attach impunity to the most disorderly and subversive of selfish desires; women must no longer bear alone the burden of natural children, and no longer be tempted to abandon them.
READER.But what if it be proved that a married man has rendered himself liable to become a father outside his household.
AUTHOR.This should be first a case of divorce; next, of punishment for him and his accomplice. Asto the child, the man should bear the charge of it in concert with the mother.
READER.These are indeed Draconian laws!
AUTHOR.Do you not see that corruption is shutting us in, body and soul; and that if we do not create a vigorous reaction against it by the severity of the laws, the reform of education, and the awakening of the ideal, our society will be, ere long, only an immense brothel?
READER.Alas! it is but too true.
AUTHOR.Let us demand then, not only a rational reform of the national education, but also that the number of lyceums shall be doubled for girls.
That all the institutions of higher instruction dependent on the state shall be open to them as to boys.
That they shall be admitted to receive the same university degrees, and the same diplomas of capacity as men.
That every field of occupation shall be opened to them as to men;
So that, elevated in public opinion by equality, their activity shall no longer be nominally compensated; that they may live by their labor, and that want, discouragement and suicide may no longer terminate their life when they do not make choice of the sad part of elements of demoralization.