Marriage the Sole Means of MaintenanceBy Josephine Butler(English. Editor of “Woman’s Work and Woman’s Culture,” published in 1869. From the Introduction.)
By Josephine Butler
(English. Editor of “Woman’s Work and Woman’s Culture,” published in 1869. From the Introduction.)
What dignity can there be in the attitude of women in general, and toward men, in particular, when marriage is held (and often necessarily so, being the sole means of maintenance) to be the one end of a woman’s life, when it is degraded to the level of a feminine profession, when those who are soliciting a place in this profession resemble those flaccid Brazilian creepers which cannot exist without support, and which sprawl out their limp tendrils in every direction to find something—no matter what—to hang upon; when the insipidity or the material necessities of so many women’s lives make them ready to accept almost any man who may offer himself? There has been a pretense of admiring this pretty helplessness of women. But let me explain that I am not deprecating the condition of dependence in which God has placed every human being, man or woman,—the sweet interchange of services, the give and take of true affection,the mutual support and aid of friends or lovers, who have each something to give and to receive. That is a wholly different thing from the abject dependence of one entire class of persons on another and a stronger class. In the present case such a dependence is liable to peculiar dangers by its complication with sexual emotions and motives, and with relations which ought, in an advanced and Christian community, to rest upon a free and deliberate choice,—a decision of the judgment and of the heart, and into which the admission of a necessity, moral or material, introduces a degrading element.... Cordelia ... declared, “Love is not love when it is mingled with respects that stand aloof from the entire point.” Truly, the present condition of society ... leaves little room for the heart’s choice.