FOOTNOTES:

Seamstresses, female tailors, milliners, factory girls by the hundreds of thousands find themselves in similar plight. Employers and their subalterns—merchants, mill owners, landlords, etc.,—who keep female hands and employes, frequently consider it a sort of privilege to find these women handy to administer to their lusts. Our pious and conservative folks love to represent the rural districts as truly idyllic inpoint of morality, compared with the large cities and industrial centers. Everyone acquainted with the actual state of things knows that it is not so; and the fact was evidenced by the address, delivered by a baronial landlord of Saxony in the fall of 1889, reported as follows in the papers of the place:

"Grimma.—Baron Dr. v. Waechter of Roecknitz, recently delivered an address, before a diocese meeting that took place here, upon the subject of 'Sexual Immorality in Our Rural Communities.' Local conditions were not presented by him in a rosy color. The speaker admitted with great candor thatemployers, evenmarriedones, are frequently invery intimate relationswith their female domestics, the consequences of which were either cancelled withcash, or were removed from the eyes of the world through acrime. The fact could, unfortunately, not be cloaked over, that immorality was nursed in these communities, not alone by girls, who, as nurses in cities, had taken in the poison, or by fellows, who made its acquaintance in the military service, but that, sad to say, also thecultured classes, through the stewards of manorial estates, and through the officers on the occasions of field manoeuvres, carried lax principles of morality into the country districts. According to Dr. v. Waechter, there areactually here in the country few girls who reach the age of seventeenwithout having fallen." The open-hearted speaker's love of truth was answered with a social boycott, placed upon him by the officers who felt insulted. Thejus primae noctisof the medieval feudal lord continues in another form in these very days of ours.

The majority of prostitutes are thrown into the arms of this occupation at a time when they can hardly be said to have arrived at the age of discretion. Of 2,582 girls, arrested in Paris for the secret practice of prostitution, 1,500 were minors; of 607 others, 487 had been deflowered under the age of twenty. In September, 1894, a scandal of first rank took the stage in Buda-Pest. It appeared that about 400 girls of from twelve to fifteen years fell prey to a band of rich rakes. The sons of our "property and cultured classes" generally consider it an attribute of their rank to seduce the daughters of the people, whom they then leave in the lurch. Only too readily do the trustful daughters of the people, untutored in life and experience, and generally joyless and friendless, fall a prey to the seduction that approaches them in brilliant and seductive guise. Disillusion, then sorrows, finally crime,—such are the sequels. Of 1,846,171 live births in Germany in 1891, 172,456 were illegitimate. Only conjure up the volume of worry and heartaches prepared for a great number of these mothers, by the birth of their illegitimate children, even if allowance is made for the many instances when the children are legitimatized by their fathers!Suicide by women and infanticideare to a large extent traceable to the destitution and wretchedness in which the women are left when deserted. The trials for child murder cast a dark and instructive picture upon the canvas. To cite just one case, in the fall of 1894, a young girl, who, eight days after her delivery, had been turned out of the lying-in institute in Vienna and thrown upon the streets with her child and without means, and who, in her distress and desperation, killed the infant,was sentenced to be hangedby a jury of Krems in Lower Austria. About the scamp of a father nothing was said. And how often do not similar instances occur! The seduced and outrageously deserted woman, cast helpless into the abyss of despair and shame, resorts to extreme measures: she kills the fruit of her womb, is dragged before the tribunals, is sentenced to penitentiary or the gallows. The unconscionable, and actual murderer,—he goes off scott-free; marries, perchance, shortly after, the daughter of a "respectable and honest" family, and becomes a much honored, upright man. There is many a gentleman, floating about in honors and distinctions, who has soiled his honor and his conscience in this manner. Had women a word to say in legislation, much would be otherwise in this direction.

Most cruel of all, as already indicated, is the posture of French legislation, which forbids inquiry after the child's paternity, and, instead, sets up foundling asylums. The resolution on the subject, by the Convention of June 28, 1793, runs thus: "The nation takes charge of the physical and moral education of abandoned children. From that moment they will be designated only by the term of orphans. No other designation shall be allowed." Quite convenient for the men, who, thereby, shifted the obligation of the individual upon the collectivity, to the end of escaping exposure before the public and their wives. In all the provinces of the land, orphan and foundling asylums were set up. The number of orphans and foundlings ran up, in 1893, to 130,945, of which it was estimated that each tenth child was legitimate, but not wanted by its parents. But no particular care was taken of these children, and the mortality among them was, accordingly, great. In that year, fully 59 per cent., i. e., more than one-half died during the first year of their lives; 78 per cent. died twelve years of age and under. Accordingly, of every 100 only 22 reached the age of twelve years and over. It is claimed that matters have in the meantime improved in those establishments.

In Austria and Italy also foundling asylums were established, and their support assumed by the State. "Ici on fait mourir les enfants" (Here children are killed) is the inscription that a certain King is said to have recommended as fit for foundling asylums. In Austria, they are gradually disappearing; there are now only eight of them left; also thetreatment and care of the children has considerably improved to what it was. In 1888, there were 40,865 children cared for in Austria, including Galicia; of these 10,466 were placed in public institutions, 30,399 under private care, at a joint cost of 1,817,372 florins. Mortality was slighter among the children in the public institutions than among those placed under private care. This was especially the case in Galicia. There, 31.25 per cent. of the children died during the year 1888 in the public establishments, by far more than in the public establishments of other countries; but of those under private care, 84.21 per cent. died,—a veritable mass-assassination. It almost looks as though the Polish slaughterhouse system aimed at killing off these poor little worms as swiftly as possible. It is a generally accepted fact that the percentage of deaths among children born out of wedlock is far higher than among those born in wedlock. In Prussia there died, early in the sixties, during the first year of their lives 18.23 per cent. of children born in wedlock, and 33.11 per cent. of children born out of wedlock, accordingly twice as many of the latter. In Paris there died, 100 children born in wedlock to every 139 born out of wedlock, and in the country districts 215. Italian statistics throw up this picture: Out of every 10,000 live-births, there died—

The difference in the mortality between legitimate and illegitimate children is especially noticeable during the first month of life. During that period, the mortality of children born out of wedlock is on an average three times as large as that of those born in wedlock. Improper attention during pregnancy, weak delivery and poor care afterwards, are the very simple causes. Likewise do maltreatment and the infamous practice and superstition of "making angels" increase the victims. The number of still-births is twice as large with illegitimate than with legitimate children, due, probably, mainly to the efforts of some of the mothers to bring on the death of the child during pregnancy. The illegitimate children who survive revenge themselves upon society for the wrong done them, by furnishingan extraordinary large percentage of criminals of all degrees.

Yet another evil, frequently met, must also be shortly touched upon. Excessive sexual indulgence is infinitely more harmful than too little. A body, misused by excess, will go to pieces, even without venereal diseases. Impotence, barrenness, spinal affections, insanity, at leastintellectual weakness, and many other diseases, are the usual consequences.Temperanceis as necessary in sexual intercourse as in eating and drinking, and all other human wants. But temperance seems difficult to youth. Hence the large number of "young old men," in the higher walks of life especially. The number of young and oldrouesis enormous, and they require special irritants, excess having deadened and surfeited them. Many, accordingly, lapse into the unnatural practices of Greek days. The crime against nature is to-day much more general than most of us dream of: upon that subject the secret archives of many a Police Bureau could publish frightful information. But not among men only, among women also have the unnatural practices of old Greece come up again with force. Lesbian love, or Sapphism, is said to be quite general among married women in Paris; according to Taxal,[121]it is enormously in practice among the prominent ladies of that city. In Berlin, one-fourth of the prostitutes are said to practice "tribady;" but also in the circles of our leading dames there are not wanting disciples of Sappho. Still another unnatural gratification of the sexual instinct manifests itself in the violation of children, a practice that has increased greatly during the last thirty years. In France, during 1851-1875, 17,656 cases of this nature were tried. The colossal number of these crimes in France is intimately connected with the two-child system, and with the abstinence of husbands towards their wives. To the German population also we find people recommending Malthusianism, without stopping to think what the sequels will be. The so-called "liberal professions," to whom belong mainly the members of the upper classes, furnish in Germany about 5.6 per cent. of the ordinary criminals, but they furnish 13 per cent. of the criminals indicted for violation of children; and this latter percentage would be still higher were there not in those circles ample means to screen the criminals, so that, probably, the majority of cases remain undiscovered. The revelations made in the eighties by the "Pall Mall Gazette" on the violation of children in England, are still fresh in the public memory.

The moral progress of this our best of all possible worlds is recorded in the below tables for England, the "leading country in civilization." In England there were:—

A frightful increase this is of the phenomena that point to the rising physical and moral ruin of English society.

The best statistical record of venereal diseases and their increase is kept by Denmark, Copenhagen especially. Here venereal diseases, with special regard to syphilis, developed as follows:—

Among the personnel of the navy in Copenhagen, the number of venereal diseases increased 1224 per cent. during the period mentioned; in the army and for the same period, 227 per cent.[122]And how stands it in Paris? From the year 1872 to the year 1888, the number of persons treated for venereal diseases in the hospitals Du Midi, de Lourcine and de St. Louis was 118,223, of which 60,438 suffered of syphilis and 57,795 of other venereal affections. Besides these, of the number of outside persons, who applied to the clinics of the said three hospitals, there was a yearly average of 16,385 venereals.[123]

We have seen how, as a result of our social conditions, vice, excesses, wrongs and crimes of all sorts are bred. All society is kept in a state of unrest. Under such a state of things woman is the chief sufferer.

Numerous women realize this and seek redress. They demand, first of all, economic self-support and independence; they demand that woman be admitted, as well as man, to all pursuits that her physical and mental powers and faculties qualify her for; they demand, especially, admission to the occupations that are designated with the term "liberal professions." Are the efforts in these directions justified? Are they practical? Would they mend matters? These are questions that now crowd forward.

FOOTNOTES:[100]"Geschichte, Statistik und Regelung der Prostitution in Wien."[101]"Die Bestrafung und polizelliche Behaundlung der gewerbsmässigen Unzucht."[102]"Ueber Gelegenheitsmacherei und öffentliches Tanzvergnügen."[103]"Die Prostitution im 19. Jahrhundert vom sanitätspolizeilichen Standpunkt."[104]Zweiter Verwaltungsbericht des Königl. Polizei-Präsidiums von Berlin für die Jahre 1881-1890; pp. 351-359[105]"Korrespondenzblatt zur Bekämpfung der öffentlichen Sittenlosigkeit," August 15, 1893.[106]"Die gesundheitschädliche Tragweite der Prostitution," Dr. Oskar Lassar.[107]"Die Behandlung der Geschlechtskrankheiten in Krankenkassen und Heilanstalten."[108]In the English hospitals, during 1875, fully 14 per cent. of the children under treatment were suffering of inherited venereal diseases. In London, there died of these diseases 1 man out of every 190 cases of death; in all England, 1 out of every 159 cases; in the poor-houses of France, 1 out of 160.5.[109]"Was die Strasse verschlingt."[110]Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, "The Moral Education."[111]Montegazza, "L'Amour dans l'Humanite."[112]"Aus Japan nach Deutschland durch Sibirien."[113]"Zweiter Verwaltungsbericht des Kgl. Polizei-Präsidiums von Berlin vom Jahre 1881-1890."[114]In the large trades union sick-benefit associations of Berlin the number of syphilitic diseases increased from 4326 in 1881 to 9420 in 1890. Dr. A. Blaschko,ubi supra.[115]Karl Marx, "Capital," p. 461, Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1896.[116]Ubi supra.[117]"Das Kellnerinnen-Elend In Berlin," Berlin, 1893.[118]Dr. Max Taube, "Der Schutz der unehelichen Kinder," Leipsic, 1893.[119]"Die gefallenen Mädchen und die Sittenpolizei," Wilh. Issleib, Berlin, 1889.[120]In a work, "Kapital und Presse," Berlin, 1891, Dr. F. Mehring proves that a by no means indifferent actress was engaged at a well known theater at a salary of 100 marks a month, and that her outlay for wardrobe alone ran up to 1000 marks a month. The deficit was covered by a "friend."[121]Lombroso and Ferrero,ubi supra.[122]"Die venerischen Krankheiten in Dänemark," Dr. Giesing.[123]Report of the Sanitary Commission on the organization of sanitation relative to prostitution in Paris, addressed to the Municipal Council of Paris, 1890.

[100]"Geschichte, Statistik und Regelung der Prostitution in Wien."

[101]"Die Bestrafung und polizelliche Behaundlung der gewerbsmässigen Unzucht."

[102]"Ueber Gelegenheitsmacherei und öffentliches Tanzvergnügen."

[103]"Die Prostitution im 19. Jahrhundert vom sanitätspolizeilichen Standpunkt."

[104]Zweiter Verwaltungsbericht des Königl. Polizei-Präsidiums von Berlin für die Jahre 1881-1890; pp. 351-359

[105]"Korrespondenzblatt zur Bekämpfung der öffentlichen Sittenlosigkeit," August 15, 1893.

[106]"Die gesundheitschädliche Tragweite der Prostitution," Dr. Oskar Lassar.

[107]"Die Behandlung der Geschlechtskrankheiten in Krankenkassen und Heilanstalten."

[108]In the English hospitals, during 1875, fully 14 per cent. of the children under treatment were suffering of inherited venereal diseases. In London, there died of these diseases 1 man out of every 190 cases of death; in all England, 1 out of every 159 cases; in the poor-houses of France, 1 out of 160.5.

[109]"Was die Strasse verschlingt."

[110]Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, "The Moral Education."

[111]Montegazza, "L'Amour dans l'Humanite."

[112]"Aus Japan nach Deutschland durch Sibirien."

[113]"Zweiter Verwaltungsbericht des Kgl. Polizei-Präsidiums von Berlin vom Jahre 1881-1890."

[114]In the large trades union sick-benefit associations of Berlin the number of syphilitic diseases increased from 4326 in 1881 to 9420 in 1890. Dr. A. Blaschko,ubi supra.

[115]Karl Marx, "Capital," p. 461, Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1896.

[116]Ubi supra.

[117]"Das Kellnerinnen-Elend In Berlin," Berlin, 1893.

[118]Dr. Max Taube, "Der Schutz der unehelichen Kinder," Leipsic, 1893.

[119]"Die gefallenen Mädchen und die Sittenpolizei," Wilh. Issleib, Berlin, 1889.

[120]In a work, "Kapital und Presse," Berlin, 1891, Dr. F. Mehring proves that a by no means indifferent actress was engaged at a well known theater at a salary of 100 marks a month, and that her outlay for wardrobe alone ran up to 1000 marks a month. The deficit was covered by a "friend."

[121]Lombroso and Ferrero,ubi supra.

[122]"Die venerischen Krankheiten in Dänemark," Dr. Giesing.

[123]Report of the Sanitary Commission on the organization of sanitation relative to prostitution in Paris, addressed to the Municipal Council of Paris, 1890.

The endeavor of woman to secure economic self-support and personal independence has, to a certain degree, been recognized as legitimate by bourgeois society, the same as the endeavor of the workingman after greater freedom of motion. The principal reason for such acquiescence lies in the class interests of the bourgeoisie itself. The bourgeoisie, or capitalist class, requires the free and unrestricted purveyance of male and female labor-power for the fullest development of production. In even tempo with the perfection of machinery, and technique; with the subdivision of labor into single acts requiring ever less technical experience and strength; with the sharpening of the competitive warfare between industry and industry, and between whole regions—country against country, continent against continent—the labor-power of woman comes into ever greater demand.

The special causes, from which flows this ever increasing enlistment of woman in ever increasing numbers, have been detailed abovein extenso. Woman is increasingly employedalong with man, or in his place, because her material demands are less than those of man. A circumstance predicated upon her very nature as a sexual being, forces woman to proffer herself cheaper. More frequently, on an average, than man, woman is subject to physical derangements, that cause an interruption of work, and that, in view of the combination and organization of labor, in force to-day in large production, easily interfere with the steady course of production. Pregnancy and lying-in prolong such pauses. The employer turns the circumstance to advantage, andrecoups himself doubly for the inconveniences, that these disturbances put him to,with the payment of much lower wages.

Moreover—as may be judged from the quotation on page 90, taken from Marx's "Capital"—the work of married women has a particular fascination for the employer. The married woman is, as working-woman, much more "attentive and docile" than her unmarried sister. Thought of her children drives her to the utmost exertion of her powers, in order to earn the needed livelihood; accordingly, she submits to many an imposition that the unmarried woman does not. In general, the working-woman ventures only exceptionally to join her fellow-toilers in securing better conditions of work. That raises her value in the eyes of theemployer; not infrequently she is even a trump card in his hands against refractory workingmen. Moreover, she is endowed with great patience, greater dexterity of fingers, a better developed artistic sense, the latter of which renders her fitter than man for many branches of work.

These female "virtues" are fully appreciated by the virtuous capitalist, and thus, along with the development of industry, woman finds from year to year an ever wider field for her application—but, and this is the determining factor,without tangible improvement to her social condition. If woman labor is employed, it generally sets male labor free. The displaced male labor, however, wishes to live; it proffers itself for lower wages; and the proffer, in turn, re-acts depressingly upon the wages of the working-woman. The reduction of wages thus turns into an endless screw, that, due to the constant revolutions in the technique of the labor-process, is set rotating all the more swiftly, seeing that the said technical revolutions, through the savings of labor-power, set also female labor free,—all of which again increases the supply of hands. New industries somewhat counteract the constant supply of relatively superfluous labor-power, but are not strong enough to establish lasting improvement. Every rise of wages above a certain measure causes the employer to look to further improvements in his plant, calculated to substitute will-less, automatic mechanical devices for human hands and human brain. At the start of capitalist production, hardly any but male labor confronted male labor in the labor-market; now sex is played against sex, and, further along the line, age against age. Woman displaces man, and, in her turn, woman is displaced by younger folks and child-labor. Such is the "Moral Order" in modern industry.

The endeavor, on the part of employers, to extend the hours of work, with the end in view of pumping more surplus values out of their employes, is made easier to them, thanks to the slighter power of resistance possessed by women. Hence the phenomenon that, in the textile industries, for instance, in which women frequently constitute far more than one-half of the total labor employed, the hours of work are everywhere longest. Accustomed from home to the idea that her work is "never done," woman allows the increased demands to be placed upon her without resistance. In other branches, as in the millinery trade, the manufacture of flowers, etc., wages and hours of work deteriorate through the taking home of extra tasks, at which the women sit till midnight, and even later, without realizing that they thereby only compete against themselves, and, as a result, earn in a sixteen-hour workday what they would have made in a regular ten-hour day.[124]In what measure female labor hasincreased in the leading industrial countries may appear from the below sets of tables. We shall start with the leading industrial country of Europe,—England. The last census furnishes this picture:

Accordingly, within twenty years, the number of males employed increased 613,068, or 7.9 per cent.; the number of females, however, by 692,950, or 20.9 per cent. It is especially to be observed in this table that, in 1881, a year of crisis, the number of males employed fell off by 486,540, and the number of females increased by 80,638. The increase of female at the cost of male persons employed is thus emphatically brought to light. But within the increasing number of female employes itself a change is going on:younger forces are displacing the older. It transpired that in England, during the years 1881-1891, female labor-power of the age 10 to 45 had increased, while that above 45 had decreased.

Industries in which female exceeded considerably the number of male labor, were mainly the following:

Again the wages of women are, in almost all branches, considerably lower than the wages of menfor the same hours. In the year 1883, the wages in England were for men and women as follows, per week:—

Similar differences in wages for men and women are found in the Post Office service, in school teaching, etc. Only in the cotton industry in Lancashire did both sexes earn equal wages for equal hours of work in the tending of power looms.

In the United States, according to the census of 1890, there were 2,652,157 women, of the age of ten years and over engaged in productive occupations:—594,510 in agriculture, 631,988 in manufacture, 59,364 in trade and transportation, and 1,366,235 in personal service, of whom 938,910 were servants. Besides that, there were 46,800 female farmers and planters, 5,135 Government employes, 155,000 school teachers, 13,182 teachers of music, 2,061 artists.[125]In the city of New York, 10,961 working-women participated in strikes during the year 1890, a sign that working-women in the United States, like their European fellow-female wage slaves, understand the class distinctions that exist between Capital and Labor. In what measure women are displacing the men in a number of industries in the United States also, is indicated by the following item from the "Levest. Journ." in 1893:

"One of thefeaturesof the factory towns of Maine is a class of men that may be termed 'housekeepers.' In almost every town, where much factory work is done, these men are to be found in large numbers. Whoever calls shortly before noon will find them, with aprons tied in front, washing dishes. At other hours of the day they can be seen scrubbing, making the beds, washing the children, tidying up the place, or cooking. Whether any of them attend to the sewing and mending of the familywe are not quite sure. These men attend to the household for the simple reason thattheir wives can earn more in the factory than they, and it means a saving of money if the wife goes to work."[126]

The closing sentence should read: "Because the women work for wages that the men can no longer work for, and the employer therefore prefers women,"—which happens in Germany also. The towns here described are the so-called "she-towns," already more fully referred to.

In France, there were, in 1893, not less than 15,958 women engaged in the railroad service (in the offices and as ticket agents); in the provincial Post Office there were 5,383 women employed; as telegraphers and telephonists, 9,805; and in the State Savings Banks 425. Altogether the number of women in France engaged in gainful occupations, inclusive of agriculture and personal service, was, in 1893, in round figures 4,415,000. Of 3,858 decisions, rendered by the trades courts of Paris, not less than 1,674 concerned women.

To what extent female labor was applied in the industries of Switzerland as early as 1886, is told by the following figures of the "Bund":

Altogether, there were then in the textile industries, 103,452 women engaged, besides 52,838 men; and the "Bund" expressly declares that there is hardly an occupation in Switzerland in which women are not found.

In Germany, according to the census of occupations of 1882, of the 7,340,789 persons engaged in gainful occupations, 1,506,743 were women; or 20.6 per cent. The proportions were, among others, these:—

To these must be added 2,248,909 women engaged in agriculture, 1,282,400 female servants, also school teachers, artists, Government office-holders, etc.

According to the census of occupations for 1875-1882, the following was the result. There were employed in industrial occupations in the German Empire:—

According to these figures, not only did female labor increase by 35 per cent. during the period of 1875-1882, while male labor increased onlyby 6.4 per cent., but the great increase of female labor, especially in small industries, tells the tale thatonly by dint of a strong application of female labor, with its correspondingly low wages, can small production keep itself afloat, for a while.

In 1882, there were to every 1,000 persons engaged in industry 176 women; in commerce and transportation, 190; in agriculture, 312.

In 1892, the number of women, employed in the factories of Germany, were of the following ages:

In the Kingdom of Saxony, notedly the most industrial portion of Germany, the number of working-women employed in the factories was:—

As a result of the new factory regulations, which limited the hours of female labor, between the ages of 14 to 16, to 10 a day, and wholly forbade factory work to children of school age, the number of working-women between the ages of 14 to 16 sank to 6,763, and of girls between the ages of 12 to 14, sank by 6,334. The strongest increase in the number of working-women, as far as we are informed, took place in the tobacco industry of Baden. According to the reports of the Baden Factory Inspector, Dr. Woerishoffer, the number of persons engaged in the said industry and their subdivisions by sexes; was as follows:

This increase in the number of female tobacco workers, denotes the sharpening competitive struggle, that has developed during the last ten years in the German tobacco as well as many other industries, and which compels the ever intenser engagement of the cheaper labor of woman.

And, as in the rest of Germany, so likewise in Baden the industrial development in general shows a larger increase of female than of male workers. Within a year, it recorded the following changes:—

Of the working-women over 16 years of age, 28.27 were married. In the large ammunition factory at Spandau, there were, in 1893, 3,000 women out of a total of 3,700 employes.

As in England, in Germany also, female labor is paid worse than male. According to the report of the Leipsic Chamber of Commerce for the year 1888, the weekly wage for equal hours were:—

In an investigation of the wages earned by the factory hands of Mannheim in 1893, Dr. Woerishoffer divided the weekly earnings into three classes: one, the lowest, in which the wages reached 15 marks; one from 15 to 24; and the last and highest in which wages exceeded 24 marks. According to this subdivision, wages in Mannheim presented the following picture:—

The working-women earned mostly veritable starvation wages. They received per week:—

In the Thüringer Wald district, in 1891, the workingmen engaged in the slate works received 2.10 marks a day; the women 0.70. In the spinning establishments, the men received 2 marks, the women from 0.90 to 1 mark.

Worst of all are the earnings in the tenement industry, for men as well as for women, but for the women it is still more miserable than for the men. In this branch, hours of work are unlimited; when the season is on, they transcend imagination. Furthermore, it is here that the sweating system is generally in vogue,i. e., work given out by middlemen (contractors) who, in recompense for their irksome labor of superintendence, keep to themselves a large part of the wages paid by the principal. Under this system, women are also expected to submit to indignities of other nature.

How miserably female labor is paid in the tenement industries, the following figures on Berlin conditions may indicate. Men's colored shirts, paid for in 1889 with from 2 marks to 2.50, the employer got in 1893 for 1 mark 50 pfennig. A seamstress of average skill must work from early till late if she means to make from 6 to 8 of these shirts. Her earnings for the week are 4 or 5 marks. An apron-maker earns from 2 marks 50 pfennig to 5 marks a week; a necktie-maker, 5 to 6 marks; a skilled blouse-maker, 6 marks; a very skilled female operator on boys' clothing, 8 to 9 marks; an expert jacket-maker, 5 to 6 marks. A very swift seamstress on men's shirts may, in the good season, and working from 5 in the morning to 10 at night, make as much as 12 marks. Millinery workers, who can copy patterns independently, make 30 marks a month. Quick trimmers, with years of experience, earn from 50 to 60 marks a month during the season. The season usually lasts five months. An umbrella-maker, working twelve hours a day, makes 6 to 7 marks. Such starvation wages force the working-women into prostitution: even with the very plainest wants, no working-women can live in Berlin on less than 8 or 9 marks a week.

According to a statistical report on wages, ordered by the Chamber of Commerce of Reichenberg for its own district, 91 per cent. of all the working-women came under the wage category of from 2 to 5 guilders a week. Upon the enforcement in Austria of the law on sick insurance, the authorities discovered that in 116 districts (21.6 per cent. of all) the working-women earned at most 30 kreuzer a day, 90 guilders a year; and in 428 districts (78.4 per cent. of the total) from 30 to 50 kreuzer, or from 90 to 150 guilders a year. The young working-women, under 16 years of age, earned in 173 districts (30.9 per cent.) 20 kreuzer a day at the most, or at the most 60 guilders a year; and in 387 districts (69.1 per cent.) from 20 to 30 kreuzer, or from 60 to 90 guilders a year.

Similar differences between the wages of male and female labor exist in all countries on earth. According to the report on Russian industry at the Chicago Exposition in 1893, a workingman made in cotton weaving 66 marks a month, a working-woman 18; a male cotton spinner 66 marks, a female 14. In the lace industry men earned up to 130 marks, women 26; in cloth manufacture, with the power loom, a working man made 90 marks, a working-woman 26 a month.

These facts show that woman is increasingly torn from family life by modern developments. Marriage and the family, in the bourgeois sense, are undermined by this development, and dissolved. From the view point afforded by this fact also, it is an absurdity to direct women to a domestic life. That can be done only by such people, who thoughtlessly walk the path of life; who fail to see the facts that shape themselves all around, or do not wish to see them, because they have an interest in plying the trade of optimism. Facts furnish a very different picture from that presented by such gentlemen.

In a large number of industries women are employed exclusively; in a larger number they constitute the majority; and in most of the others women are more or less numerously found. Their number steadily increases, and they crowd into ever newer occupations, that they had not previously engaged in. Finally, the working-woman is not merely paid worse than the working man; where she does as much as a man, her hours are, on an average, longer.

The German factory ordinances of the year 1891 fixed a maximum of eleven hours for adult working-women. The same is, however, broken through by a mass of exceptions that the authorities are allowed to make. Nightwork also is forbidden for working-women in factories, but here also the Government can make exceptions in favor of factories where work is continuous, or for special seasons; in sugar refineries, for instance. German legislation has not yet been able to rise to the heightof really effective measures for the protection of working-women; consequently, these are exploited by inhumanly long hours, and physically wrecked in the small factories, especially in the tenement house industry. Their exploitation is made all the easier to the employer through the circumstance that, until now, a small minority excepted, the women have not realized that, the same as the men, they must organize in their trades, and, there where also men are employed, they must organize jointly with them, in order to conquer for themselves better conditions of work. The ever stronger influx of women in industrial pursuits affects, however, not those occupations only that their correspondingly weaker physique especially fits them for, but it affects also all occupations in which the modern system of exploitation believes it can, with their aid, knock off larger profits. Under this latter head belong both the physically exhausting and the most disagreeable and dangerous occupations. Thus the fantastic pretence of seeing in woman only a tender, finely-strung being, such as poets and writers of fiction love to depict for the delectation of men, a being, that, if it exists at all exists only as an exception, is again reduced to its true value.

Facts are obstinate things, and it is only they that concern us. They alone preserve us from false conclusions, and sentimental twaddle. These facts teach us that to-day we find women engaged in the following occupations, among others:—in cotton, linen and woolen weaving; in cloth and flannel making; in mechanical spinning, calico printing and dyeing; in steel pen and pin making; in the preparation of sugar, chocolate and cocoa; in manufacturing paper and bronzes; in making glass and porcelain and in glass painting; in the manufacture of faience, majolica and earthen ware; in making ink and preparing paints; making twine and paper bags; in preparing hops and manure and chemical disinfectants; in spinning and weaving silk and ribbons; in making soap, candles and rubber goods; in wadding and mat making; in carpet weaving; portfolio and cardboard making; in making lace and trimmings, and embroidering; making wall-paper, shoes and leather goods; in refining oil and lard and preparing chemicals of all sorts; in making jewelry and galvanoplastic goods; in the preparation of rags and refuse and bast; in wood carving, xylography and stone coloring; in straw hat making and cleaning; in making crockery, cigars and tobacco products; in making lime and gelatine fabrics; in making shoes; in furriery; in hat making; in making toys; in the flax, shoddy and hair industries; in watchmaking and housepainting; in the making of spring beds, pencils and wafers; in making looking-glasses, matches and gunpowder preparations; in dipping phosphorus match-sticks and preparing arsenic; in the tinning of iron; in the delicacy trade; in book printing and composition; in the preparation of precious stones; in lithography,photography, chromo-lithography and metachromotype, and also in the founding of types; in tile making, iron founding and in the preparation of metals generally; in the construction of houses and railroads; in electrical works; in book-binding, wood-carving and joining; in the making of footwear and clothing; file making; the making of knives and brass goods; in manufacturing combs, buttons, gold thread and gas implements; in the making of tanned goods and trunks; in making starch and chicory preparations; in metallurgy, wood-planing, umbrella making and fish manufacturing; the preservation of fruit, vegetables and meat; in the making of china buttons and fur goods; in mining above ground—in Belgium also underground after the women are 21 years old; in the natural oil and wax production; in slate making and stone breaking; in marble and granite polishing; in making cement; the transportation of barges and canal boats. Also in the wide field of horticulture, agriculture and cattle-breeding, and all that is therewith connected. Lastly, in the various industries in which they have long been considered to have the right of way: in the making of linen and woman's clothing, in the several branches of fashion, also as saleswomen, and more recently as clerks, teachers, kindergarten trainers, writers, artists of all sorts. Thousands upon thousands of women of the middle class are being utilized as slaves in the shops and in the markets, and are thereby withdrawn from all domestic functions, the training of children in particular. Finally, there is one occupation to be mentioned, in which young, especially pretty, girls are ever more in demand, to the great injury of their physical and moral development: it is the occupation in public resorts of all sorts as bar-maids, singers, dancers, etc., to attract men in quest of pleasure. This is a field in which impropriety runs riot, and the holders of white slaves lead the wildest orgies.

Among the occupations mentioned, not a few are most dangerous. Dangerous, for instance, are the sulphuric and alkaline gases in the manufacturing and cleaning of straw hats; so is the inhalation of chlorine gases in the bleaching of vegetable materials; the danger of poisoning is imminent in the manufacture of colored paper, colored wafers and artificial flowers; in the preparation of metachromotype, poisons and chemicals; in the painting of leaden soldiers and leaden toys. The on-laying of looking-glasses with quicksilver is simply deadly to the fruit of pregnant women. If, of the live-births in Prussia, 22 per cent. on an average die during the first year, there die, according to Dr. Hirt, 65 per cent. of the live-births of female on-layers of quicksilver, 55 per cent. of those of female glass-polishers, 40 per cent. of those of female lead-makers. In 1890, out of 78 lying-in women, who had been occupied in the type foundries of the district of Wiesbaden, only 37 had a normal delivery. Furthermore, according to Dr. Hirt, the manufacture ofcolored paper and artificial flowers, the so-called powdering of Brussels lace with white lead, the preparation of decalcomania pictures, the on-laying of mirrors, the manufacture of rubber goods, in short, all occupations at which the working-women are exposed to the inhalation of carbonic acid gases, are especially dangerous from the second half of pregnancy onward. Highly dangerous is also the manufacture of phosphorus matches and work in the shoddy mills. According to the report of the Baden Trades Inspector for 1893, the yearly average of premature births with women engaged in industry rose from 1,039 in the years 1882-1886, to 1,244 in the years 1887-1891. The number of births that had to be aided by an operation averaged for the period of 1882-1886 the figures of 1,118 a year, and for the period of 1886-1891 it averaged 1,385. Facts much graver than any of these would come to light if similar investigations were held also in the more industrially developed countries and provinces of Germany. As a rule the Inspectors are satisfied with stating in their reports: "No specially injurious effects were discovered in the employment of women in the factories." How could they discover any, with their short visits and without drawing upon medical advice? That, moreover, there are great dangers to life and limb, especially in the textile industry, in the manufacture of explosives and in work with agricultural machinery, is an established fact. Even a glance at the above and quite incomplete list will tell every reader that a large number of these occupations are among the hardest and most exhausting even to men. Let people say as they please, this work or that is not suitable for woman; what boots the objection if no other and more suitable occupation is furnished her?

Among the branches of industry, or special occupations in the same, that Dr. Hirt[127]considers girls should not be at all employed in, by reason of the danger to health, especially with an eye to their sexual functions, are: The preparation of bronze colors, of velvet and glazed paper, hat making, glass grinding, lithography, flax combing, horsehair twisting, fustian pulling, iron tinning, and work in the flax and shoddy mill.

In the following trades, young girls should be occupied only when the necessary protective measures (ventilation, etc.) are properly provided for: The manufacture of paper matting, china ware, lead pencils, shot lead, etherial oils, alum, blood-lye, bromium, chinin, soda, paraffin and ultramarine (poisonous) colored paper, wafers that contain poison, metachromotypes, phosphorous matches, Schweinfurt green and artificial flowers. Also in the cutting and sorting of rags, sorting and coloring of tobacco leaf, cotton beating, wool and silk carding, cleaning of bed feathers, sorting pencil hairs, washing (sulphur) straw hats, vulcanizing and melting rubber, coloring and printing calico, paintinglead soldiers, packing snuff, wire netting, on-laying of mirrors, grinding needles and steel pens.

Truly, it is no inspiring sight to see women, and even pregnant ones, at the construction of railroads, pushing heavily laden wheelbarrows in competition with men; or to watch them as helpers, mixing mortar and cement or carrying heavy loads of stone at the construction of houses; or in the coal pits and iron works. All that is womanly is thereby rubbed off from woman, her womanliness is trodden under foot, the same as, conversely, all manly attributes are stripped from the men in hundreds of other occupations. Such are the sequels of social exploitation and of social war. Our corrupt social conditions turn things topsy-turvy.

It is, accordingly, easy to understand that, considering the extent to which female labor now prevails, and threatens to make still further inroads in all fields of productive activity, the men, highly interested in the development, look on with eyes far from friendly, and that here and there the demand is heard for the suppression of female labor and its prohibition by law. Unquestionably, with the extension of female labor, the family life of the working class goes ever more to pieces, the dissolution of marriage and the family is a natural result, and immorality, demoralization, degeneration, diseases of all natures and child mortality increase at a shocking pace. According to the statistics of population of the Kingdom of Saxony, child mortality has greatly increased in all those cities that became genuine manufacturing places during the last 25 or 30 years. During the period 1880-1885 there died in the cities of Saxony, on an average, 28.5 per cent. of the live-births during the first year of life. In the period of 1886-1890, 45.0 of the live-births died in Ernsthal during the first year of their lives, 44.5 in Stolling, 40.4 in Zschopau, 38.9 in Lichtenstein, 38.3 in Thum, 38.2 in Meerane, 37.7 in Crimmitschau, 37.2 in Burgstaedt, 37.1 in Werdau, 36.5 in Ehrenfriedersdorf, 35.8 in Chemnitz, 35.5 in Frankenberg, 35.2 in Buchholz, 35.1 in Schneeberg, 34.7 in Lunzenau, 34.6 in Hartha, 34.5 in Geithaim, etc.[128]Worse yet stood things in the majority of the large factory villages, quite a number of whom registered a mortality of 40 to 50 per cent. Yet, all this notwithstanding, the social development, productive of such sad results, is progress,—precisely such progress as the freedom to choose a trade, freedom of emigration, freedom to marry, and the removal of all other barriers, thus promoting the development of capitalism on a large scale, but thereby also giving the death-blow to the middle class and preparing its downfall.

The working class is not inclined to help the small producer, should he attempt the re-establishment of restrictions to the freedom to choosea trade and of emigration, or the restoration of the guild and corporation restrictions, contemplated with the end in view of artificially keeping dwarf-production alive for a little while longer,—more than that is beyond their power. As little is a return possible to the former state of things with regard to female labor, but that does not exclude stringent laws for the prevention of the excessive exploitation of female and child labor, and of children of school age. In this the interests of the working class coincides with the interests of the State, of humanity, in general, and of civilization. When we see the State compelled to lower the minimum requirements for military service—as happened several times during the last decades, the last time in 1893, when the army was to be further increased—and we see such lowering of the minimum requirements resorted to for the reason that, as a result of degenerating effects of our economic system, the number of young men unfit for military service becomes ever larger,—when we see that, then, forsooth, all are interested in protective measures. The ultimate aim must be to remove the ills, that progress—such as machinery, improved means of production and the whole modern system of labor—has called forth, while at the same time causing the enormous advantages, that such progress is instinct with for man, and the still greater advantages it is capable of, to accrue in full measure to all the members of society, by means of a corresponding organization of human labor.[129]

It is an absurdity and a crying wrong that the improvements and conquests of civilization—the collective product of all—accrue to the benefit of those alone who, in virtue of their material power, are able to appropriate them to themselves, while, on the other hand, thousands of diligent workingmen are assailed with fear and worry when they learn that human genius has made yet another invention able to multiply many fold the product of manual labor, and thereby opening to them the prospect of being thrown as useless and superfluous upon the sidewalks. Thus, that which should be greeted with universal joy becomes an object of hostility, that in former years occasioned the storming of many a factory and the demolition of many a new machine. A similar hostile feeling exists to-day between man and woman as workers. This feeling also is unnatural. The point, consequently, is to seek to establish a social condition in which thefull equality of all without distinction of sex shall be the norm of conduct.

The feat is feasible—the moment all the means of production become the property of society; when collective labor, by the application of all technical and scientific advantages and aids in the process of production, reaches the highest degree of fertility; and when the obligation lies upon all, capable of work, to furnish a certain measure of labor to society, necessary for the satisfaction of social wants, in exchange whereof society guarantees to each and all the means requisite for the development of his faculties and for the enjoyment of life.

Woman shall be like man, a productive and useful member of society, equal-righted with him. Precisely like man, she shall be placed in position to fully develop all her physical and mental faculties, to fulfil her duties, and to exercise her rights. A free being and the peer of man, she is safe against degradation.

We shall point out how modern developments in society run out into such a state of things, and that it is these very crass and monstrous ills in modern development that compel the establishment of the New Order.

Although the development of the position of woman, as above characterized, is palpable, is tangible to the sight of all who have eyes to see, the twaddle about the "natural calling" of woman is heard daily, assigning her to domestic duties and the family. The phrase is heard loudest there where woman endeavors to penetrate into the sphere of the so-called higher professions, as for instance, the higher departments of instruction and of the civil service, the medical or legal careers, and the pursuit of the natural sciences. The most laughable and absurd objections are fetched up, and are defended with the air of "learning." Gentlemen, who pass for learned, appeal, in this as in so many other things, to science in order to defend the most absurd and untenable propositions. Their chief trump card is that woman is inferior to man in mental powers and that it is folly to believe she could achieve aught of importance in the intellectual field.

These objections, raised by the "learned," fit so well with the general prejudices entertained by men on the calling and faculties of woman that, whoever makes use of them can count upon the applause of the majority.

New ideas will ever meet with stubborn opposition so long as general culture and knowledge continue at so low an ebb as at present, especially if it lies in the interest of the ruling classes to confine culture and knowledge as much as possible to their own ranks. Hence new ideas will at the start win over but a small minority, and this will be scoffed at, maligned and persecuted. But if these new ideas are good and sound,if they are born as the necessary consequence of existing conditions, then will they spread, and the one-time minority finally becomes a majority. So has it been with all new ideas in the course of history: the idea of establishing the complete emancipation of woman presents the same experience.

Were not one time the believers in Christianity a small minority? Did not the Protestant Reformers and modern bourgeoisdom once face overpowering adversaries? And yet they triumphed. Was the Social Democracy crippled because gagged and pinioned by exclusion laws, so that it could not budge? Never was its triumph more assured than when it was thought to have been killed. The Social Democracy overcame the exclusion laws; it will overcome quite other obstacles besides.

The claim regarding the "natural calling of woman," according whereto she should be housekeeper and nurse, is as unfounded as the claim that there will ever be kings because, since the start of history, there have been such somewhere. We know not where the first king sprang up, as little as we know where the first capitalist stepped upon the scene. This, however, we do know: Kingship has undergone material changes in the course of the centuries, and the tendency of development is to strip it ever more of its powers, until a time comes, no longer far away, when it will be found wholly superfluous. As with the kingship, so with all other social and political institutions; they are all subject to continuous changes and transformations, and to final and complete decay. We have seen, in the course of the preceding historic sketch, that the form of marriage, in force to-day, like the position of woman, was by no means such "eternally"; that, on the contrary, both were the product of a long process of development, which has by no means reached its acme, and can reach it only in the future. If 2,400 or 2,300 years ago Demosthenes could designate the "bringing forth of legitimate children and officiating as a faithful warder of the house" as the only occupation of woman, to-day we have traveled past that point. Who, to-day, would dare uphold such a position of woman as "natural" without exposing himself to the charge of belittling her? True enough, there are even to-day such sots, who share in silence the views of the old Athenian; but none dare proclaim publicly that which 2,300 years ago one of the most eminent orators dared proclaim frankly and openly asnatural. Therein lies the great advance made.

If, on the one hand, modern development, especially in industrial life, has wrecked millions of marriages, it, on the other hand, promoted favorably the development itself of marriage. Only a few decades ago, and it was a matter of course in every citizen's or peasant's house not only that woman sewed, knitted and washed—although even this has now extensively gone out of fashion—but she also baked the bread,spun, wove, bleached, brewed beer, boiled soap, made candles. To have a piece of wearing apparel made out of the house was looked upon as unutterable waste. Water-pipes, gaslight, gas and oil cooking ranges—to say nothing of the respective electric improvements—together with numberless others, were wholly unknown to the women of former times. Antiquated conditions exist even to-day, but they are the exception. The majority of women have discontinued many an occupation, formerly considered of course, the same being attended to in factory and shop better, more expeditiously and cheaper than the housewife could, whence, at least in the cities, all domestic requirements for them are wanting. Thus, in the period of a few decades, a great revolution for them has been accomplished within our family life, and we pay so little attention to the fact because we consider it a matter of course. Phenomena, that develop, so to speak, under the very eyes of man, are not noticed by him, unless they appear suddenly and disturb the even tenor of events. He bristles up, however, against new ideas that threaten to lead him out of the accustomed ruts.

The revolution thus accomplished in our domestic life, and that progresses ever further, has altered the position of woman in the family, in other directions besides. Woman has become freer, more independent. Our grandmothers, if they were honest masters' wives, would not have dared, and, indeed the thought never crossed their minds, to keep their working people and apprentices from the table, and visiting, instead, the theatres, concerts and pleasure resorts, by day at that. Which of those good old women dared think of occupying her mind with public affairs, as is now done by many women? To-day they start societies for all manner of objects, establish papers, call conventions. As working-women they assemble in trades unions, they attend the meetings and join the organizations of men, and here and there—we are speaking of Germany—they have had the right of electing boards of labor arbitration, a right that the backward majority of the Reichstag took away again from them in the year of grace one thousand eight hundred and ninety.

What sot would seek to annul the changes just described, although the fact is not to be gainsaid that, there are also dark sides to the bright sides of the picture, consequent upon our seething and decaying conditions? The bright sides, however, predominate. Women themselves, however conservative they are as a body, have no inclination to return to the old, narrow, patriarchal conditions of former times.

In the United States society still stands, true enough, on bourgeois foundations; but it is forced to wrestle neither with old European prejudices nor with institutions that have survived their day. As a consequence American society is far readier to adopt new ideas andinstitutions that promise advantage. For some time the position of woman has been looked upon from a viewpoint different than ours. There, for instance, the idea has long taken hold that it is not merely troublesome and improper, but not even profitable to the purse, for the wife to bake bread and brew beer, but that it is unnecessary for her to cook in her own kitchen. The private kitchen is supplanted by co-operative cooking, with a large central kitchen and machinery. The women attend to the work by turns, and the meals generally come out cheaper, taste better, offer a greater variety, and give much less trouble. Our army officers, who are not decried as Socialists and Communists, act on a similar plan. They establish in their casinos a co-operative kitchen; appoint a steward, who attends to the supply of victuals on a large scale; the bill of fare is arranged in common; and the food is prepared in the steam kitchen of the barracks. They live much cheaper than in a hotel, and fare at least as well. Furthermore, thousands of the rich families live the whole year, or part of the year, in boarding-houses or hotels, without in any way missing the private kitchen. On the contrary, they consider it a great convenience to be rid of it. The aversion of especially well-to-do women towards all matters connected with the kitchen does not seem to indicate that this function either belongs to the category of the "natural calling" of woman. On the contrary, the circumstance that princely and other prominent families do like the hotels, and all of them engage male cooks for the preparation of their food, would rather indicate that cooking is a male occupation.—All of which is stated for the benefit of those people who are unable to picture to themselves a woman not brandishing a kitchen ladle.

Back to Index Next