Isabel Leavenworthis an instructor in philosophy at Barnard College.
is an instructor in philosophy at Barnard College.
VIRTUE FOR WOMEN
VIRTUE FOR WOMEN
BY ISABEL LEAVENWORTH
In the turmoil of discussion regarding present modes of sex life one can discern a pretty general approval of just one element in the whole situation: the ideal by which the good woman has for so long been controlled. It is commonly held that if changes are to be made they should be in the direction of persuading men, and also the few women who have been at fault, to be just as good as our good women have always been. Thus the young girl of to-day is criticized on the ground that instead of raising men to her level she is descending to theirs. Even those who are inclined to belittle the damage which she is doing to the social structure accompany their mild defense with the consoling reminder that human nature does not change and that in the end the girl of to-day will turn out as well as did the girls of yesterday; that is, she will finallycome around to the good old feminine way of doing things.
It seems to me most unfortunate that the majority of people hope to improve matters through an extension of the feminine ideals of the past. In the established scheme of things one finds a peculiarly gross form of immorality, an immorality incommensurably greater than the dreaded evil of promiscuity; and it is only as an element in this total scheme that woman’s ideals have any significance. The fact that they have always constituted one side of a “double standard” is not merely something which may be said about their relation to other elements after their essential characteristics have been considered. These characteristics can be described only in terms of the double standard and of its attendant evils. It would be as impossible, then, to destroy the double standard and still keep the feminine ideal intact as it would be to preserve the convex nature of a mathematical curve while destroying the concave. According to the present system there is a standard of conduct set up for women which is to constitute virtue. This standard is a combination of specific positivecommands and, more especially, of specific prohibitions. There are certain things which no nice woman will do—a great many things, in fact. She must learn them by heart and accept them on faith as the Pythagoreans must have had to learn their curious list of taboos, a list running from the taboo against eating beans to that against sitting on a quart measure. This ideal of virtue does not apply with equal rigidity to men; quite different things are expected of them and accepted for them. It is obvious that two such conflicting ideals by the very nature of their combination will produce a class of women who do not live up to the standard of virtue set them as members of their sex. This class is not merely an excrescence but an integral part of the situation created by the total sex ideal of society. The function of women of this class is to make possible for men the way of life commonly considered as suited to their sex and to make possible a virtuous life for the remainder of womankind. In fulfilling this function such women lose, in the eyes of society, their moral nature and forfeit the right to live within the pale of social morality. They are considered unfit for normal socialintercourse and are denied those relationships and responsibilities which ordinarily serve as the basis for moral growth. From all normal responsibility toward them society regards itself as released. That which is personal, the inner life, the character, the soul—whatever one prefers to call it—having been sacrificed in the service of the social scheme, one is to treat what is left as of no value in itself, but merely as an instrument to be used in the service of man’s pleasure or woman’s virtue. The prostitute is to society that one thing, defined by the purpose which she serves, and that is all she is, all she is allowed to be. The depersonalization, the moral non-existence, one might call it, of a large number of women is, then, implicit in the social system currently accepted. It is not a punishment meted out to those who fail to act in accordance with the social scheme (though it is as such, of course, that society defends it) but is itself an absolutely essential element in the social scheme, an element woven in and out through the entire fabric of current sex morality.
It is curious how many people feel that a choice between the present system and any otheris reducible to a choice between different degrees of promiscuity. Promiscuity would be an evil, but it does not in itself involve this particular immorality. The worst evils in the present situation are due not to the “lower” half of the double standard but to the doubleness itself.
It is true that the ideal of womanly virtue is only one element in the conventional system of sex morality. But, like a Leibnitzian monad, it reflects the whole universe within itself—the universe of sex mores. It is in no real sense any “higher” than the ideal by which men have lived. They are warp and woof of the same fabric. According to this ideal it is woman’s prime duty to keep aloof from evil. This sounds commendable enough. And it would be at least innocuous if one could interpret it as meaning that woman should hold herself aloof from some imagined evil that would become existent were she to embrace it. This is not, however, a possible interpretation of the varied collection of prohibitions which it is her duty to respect. Their import is clearly enough that she is to keep aloof from evil which is already existent, which is an acknowledged part of her background. Sheis to shun all of those vulgarities, coarsenesses, and immoralities which are to enter into the lives of men and for which, one is forced to conclude, the “other” women are to provide. And from this other class of women she is, of course, to keep herself absolutely separate, distinct. I recently heard an elderly Boston lady make a remark which expresses the horror commonly aroused by any conduct which endangers the distinction between the two classes. “Do you know,” she said, “I heard that a young man of our set said he and his friends no longer had to go to girls of another kind for their enjoyment. They can get all they want from girls of their own class.” This was the outrage. The nice girls were allowing the classes to become confused. Much the same attitude is revealed in the frequent remark that the young girl of to-day appears like “any chorus girl” or like any “common woman.” The horrid picture is usually rounded off with the comment that you simply can’t tell the difference any more between the nice girl and the other kind. One can imagine that this might cause considerable inconvenience. Each of the two classes of womenhas served a special purpose and it is, to say the least, disconcerting for a person not to know which way to turn when he knows very well which purpose he wants fulfilled.
The precautions which a good woman takes to preserve her purity are indeed legion. There are places where no nice woman will go, situations with which she must have no immediate acquaintance, people with whom she must not associate; there are various embodiments of evil, in short, to which she must not expose herself. That these evils should exist, that they should be tolerated as meeting certain needs in the lives of men and be made possible by other women—all this the average good woman swallows without repulsion, or, more commonly, ignores. She is aroused to a state of true indignation only when her own moral exclusiveness, or that of her kind, is threatened. The same woman who accepts with a good deal of equanimity the fact that men she associates with also associate with “gay” women would be considerably upset if these men were to attempt to associate with both kinds of women at the same time. Why is the average woman so upset if a man of her acquaintancemakes “improper advances”? Is it that she is horrified to find that he is willing to indulge his irregular sex desires? No. She is outraged because he thinks she is willing to indulge hers, because he holds her virtue too lightly. Sex evils, coarsenesses are then to be part of the good woman’s environment in the intimate sense that they often enter into the lives of the men she accepts as friends, even of the men with whom she is to have the most personal and supposedly ideal relationships. Her sole function is to turn her back on these evils. The point of prime importance to her is that they should not pollute her; and the first demand which she makes upon men is that they shall show their respect for this ideal by keeping her apart.
The acceptance of this situation is implied in the ideals which are passed down to girls by the good old-fashioned parent. Do the mothers who insist that their daughters shall not go with boys on certain occasions and at certain hours unchaperoned expect boys to refrain from seeing any girls except on occasions thus carefully timed and adequately supervised? I doubt it. Whatever their expectations may be, it is certain thatthey would rather that the good girl should cling to protection, letting the man seek gayety where he may, than that she should take the chance involved in seeking gayety by his side. They would rather have what they consider the evil sex element taken care of by men and by a class of women devoted by society to that purpose than to risk any slip in conduct on the part of their own daughters. Purity purchased at such a price may be purity in some magical sense, similar to that secured in the ancient mysteries by passing through fire or going in bathing with sacred pigs. Purity in any moral sense it certainly is not. It is simply a social asset, like physical beauty or pleasing accomplishments, so tremendously valuable to woman that for it she has been willing to pay any moral price, however degrading. Its non-moral character is revealed in the common assumption that any man can, without injury to himself, pass through experiences or be placed in situations from which, since they would pollute her, every good woman must be guarded. This assumption, so obviously insulting to women, is at present complacently accepted by them as something of a compliment.
William Graham Sumner in his remarkably unemotional and objective treatment of social customs devotes some pages to a description of the houses of prostitution established and run by the cities of medieval Europe “in the interest of virtuous women.” In this connectionMr.Sumner for once indulges in terms of opprobrium, judging the custom as “the most incredible case” illustrating “the power of the mores to extend toleration and sanction to an evil thing.” The inmates of these houses were dedicated entirely to this special function, wore distinctive dress, and were taboo to all “good” women whose virtue, according to the scheme of things, they made possible. Authority for such a custom can be found, as Sumner points out, in Saint Augustine, the reformed rake. “The bishop,” writes Sumner, “has laid down the proposition that evil things in human society, under the great orderly scheme of things which he was trying to expound, are overruled to produce good.” Is not this the position taken by people who hold that it is better to have prostitution in order to provide for the assumed sexirregularity of men than to risk the loss of a woman’s “virtue” through the removal of those conventions and taboos which prevent her from coping with the situation herself and making her own moral decisions? I can see no difference. Has man at any period of his checkered moral career devised a more unpleasant method of saving his own soul? The good woman sits serenely on the structure upheld for her by prostitutes and occasionally even commits the absurdity of attempting to “reform” these women, the necessity for whose existence is implied by the beliefs according to which she herself lives.
It is hard to follow the mental processes of those persons who, while deploring the increased freedom allowed women and the tendency to judge them less severely, still claim belief in a single standard for both sexes. In so far as woman’s virtue consists in aloofness from the evils which the double standard implies it quite obviously cannot be adopted as the single standard by which all members of society are to live. Even aside from this consideration it would seem to be as undesirable as it is impossible to extend to men the traditions and restrictions which havefor so long governed women. Does any one really wish to have grown boys constantly accompanied and watched over by their elders? Does any one wish that the goings and comings of men should be as specifically determined as those of women have always been? Should we look forward to a day when a man will be judged as good or bad on the sole basis of whether or not he has ever had any irregular sex relation?
One would think that the suspicions of even the most uncritical might be aroused by the rigidly absolute and impersonal nature of women’s sex ideals. The notion of purity as lying in the abstention from a particular act except under carefully prescribed circumstances has all the marks of a primitive taboo and none of the characteristics of a rational moral principle. The ideals of woman’s honor and chastity have without doubt been built up in answer to human wants—the defense which is invariably given of customs, good or bad. Probably those sociologists are not far wrong who hold that they have developed as a response, in early times, to the sentiments of man as a property owner; later, in response to masculine vanity and jealousy,though these motives have, of course, been idealized beyond all recognition. We need not be surprised, then, to find that they bear no relation to an interest in woman’s spiritual welfare and growth, an interest to which society is only now giving birth with pitiable pains of labor. To follow an ideal which almost entirely excludes sex interest as something evil is to condemn one of the richest elements in personal experience. And this ideal has regulated not only woman’s sex experience but has demanded and received incalculable sacrifices in all the phases of her life, mercilessly limiting the sphere of her activities, smothering interests of value and nourishing others to an unnatural state of development, and warping her character to satisfy its most exacting demands. Because she must first of all conform to an unpolluted archetype, and because society must be secure in the knowledge that she is indeed so conforming, she has never been able to meet life freely, to make what experience she could out of circumstances, to poke about here and there in the nooks and crannies of her surroundings better to understand the world in which she lives. We find here a more subtle butmore deadly limitation than exclusion from institutions of learning or from political privileges. And under this limitation woman has labored in the service of a paltry ideal.
Not only is it undesirable that men should attempt to follow such an ideal but it is quite obvious that as long as they accept it as adequate for women they are prevented in innumerable ways from developing intelligent principles for their own guidance. For one thing, they will come to look upon the sex element in most of its forms as a moral evil. Experience tells them, however, that it is, in their own case, a natural good. Thus they are led to accept a distinction fatal to moral integrity and progress. The sex element is admitted to the life of the average man by the back door; once within, it has fair run of the establishment though it is always looked on askance by the other members of the household. Sex interests are to be recognized and indulged but divorced from all that is “fine” and “ideal.” They are considered desirable though immoral and so are to be tolerated just to the extent that they are divorced from those elements in society—the family, the home, and goodwomen—which are supposed to embody virtue. It is not realized that virtue, far from being a rival of the other good things of life, is to be attained only through an intelligent interest in good things, and that to divorce moral from natural good is to deal a death blow to both. We cannot wonder that at present sex interest so often expresses itself in the form of dubious stories, coarse revues, and degrading physical relations. While the “good” woman who considers sex somehow lowering is apt to develop a personality which is anemic and immature, the man who accepts the conventional scheme of life develops a personality coarse and uncoördinated.
I do not mean to say that there have been no elements of value in the ideal of purity by which some women have lived. It is undoubtedly true that unregulated and impersonal sex desires and activities quarrel with more stable and fruitful interests in life. But while the most valuable experiences of love are, in general, to be found in more lasting relations, it does not follow that society should prescribe for every one of its members a particular line of sex conduct and attempt to see, through constant supervision, thatits prescriptions are carried out. The sacrifice in terms of freedom of activity and experience is too great and the living flower of personal purity cannot be manufactured by any such artificial methods.
The sex relations of an individual should no more be subjected to social regulation than his friendships. There is indeed a closely related matter for which he is immediately responsible to society—that is the welfare of any children resulting from such relations. The two matters are, however, quite distinguishable and no one could hold that the effort which society makes to control sex relations is to any extent based upon concern for the welfare of possible offspring. If this were so, one would not hear so much condemnation of birth-control measures on the ground that they “encourage immorality.” No. It is personal experience which society would like to prescribe for its members, personal virtue that it would like to mold for them. But virtue is not a predetermined result, a kind of spiritual dessert that any one can cook up who will follow with due care the proper ethical receipt. It is,on the contrary, something which is never twice alike; something which appears in ever new and lovely forms as the fruit of harmoniously developed elements in a unique character complex. Experience cannot be defined in terms of external circumstances and bodily acts and thus judged as absolutely good or bad. Sex experiences, like other experiences, can be judged of only on the basis of the part which they play in the creative drama of the individual soul. There are as many possibilities for successful sex life as there are men and women in the world. A significant single standard can be attained only through the habit of judging every case, man or woman, in the light of the character of the individual and of the particular circumstances in which he or she is placed.
From the changes taking place in sex morality we may, with sufficient wisdom and courage, win inestimable gains. Certainly we should be grateful that young people are forming the habit of meeting this old problem in a quite new way—that is, with the coöperation of the two sexes. In the interest of this newer approach we shouldaccord to girls as much freedom from immediate supervision as we have always given to boys. The old restrictions, imposed upon girls alone, imply, of course, the double standard with all its attendant evils; imply the placid acceptance of two essentially different systems of value; imply the preference for physical purity over personal responsibility and true moral development. We should encourage the daughters of to-day in their fast developing scorn for the “respect” which our feminine predecessors thought was their due—a respect which man was expected to reveal in the habit of keeping the nice woman untouched by certain rather conspicuous elements, interests, and activities in his own life. In so far as there is something truly gay in these aspects of life, something which men know at the bottom of their hearts they should not be called on to forego, there is much that women can learn. Most people to-day hold in their minds an image of two worlds—one of gayety and freedom, the other of morality. It is because gayety and morality are thus divorced that gayety becomes sordidness, morality dreariness. Not until men and women develop together the legitimate interests whichboth of these worlds satisfy will the present inconsistency and hypocrisy be done away with and both men and women be free to achieve, if they can, rich and unified personal lives.