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Title: Woman under socialism

Author: August Bebel

Translator: Daniel De Leon

Release Date: December 10, 2009 [EBook #30646]

Language: English

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WOMAN UNDER SOCIALISM

[Illustration: AUGUST BEBEL]


Woman Under Socialism

_By_

AUGUST BEBEL


Translated from the Original
German of the 33d Edition
_By_
DANIEL DE LEON.


1917
NEW YORK LABOR NEWS COMPANY
NEW YORK


     "The end of social development resembles the beginning of human
     existence. The original equality returns. The mother-web of
     existence starts and rounds up the cycle of human
     affairs."--Bachofen.

     "Since the advent of civilization, the outgrowth of property has
     been so immense, its forms so diversified, its uses so expanding
     and its management so intelligent in the interests of its owners,
     that it has become, on the part of the people, an unmanageable
     power. The human mind stands bewildered in the presence of its own
     creation. The time will come, nevertheless, when human intelligence
     will rise to the mastery over property, and define the relations of
     the State to the property it protects, as well as the obligations
     and the limits of the rights of its owners. The interests of
     society are paramount to individual interests, and the two must be
     brought into just and harmonious relations. A mere property career
     is not the final destiny of mankind, if progress is to be the law
     of the future as it has been of the past. The time which has passed
     away since civilization began is but a fragment of the past
     duration of man's existence; and but a fragment of the ages yet to
     come. The dissolution of society bids fair to become the
     termination of a career of which property is the end and aim;
     because such a career contains the elements of
     self-destruction."--Morgan.


Copyright 1904, by the New York Labor News Company




TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.


Bebel's work, "Die Frau und der Socialismus," rendered in this English
version with the title "Woman under Socialism," is the best-aimed shot
at the existing social system, both strategically and tactically
considered. It is wise tactics and strategy to attack an enemy on his
weakest side. The Woman Question is the weakest link in the capitalist
mail.

The workingman, we know, is a defenceless being; but it takes much
sharpening of the intellect to appreciate the fact that "he cannot speak
for himself." His sex is popularly coupled with the sense of strength.
The illusion conceals his feebleness, and deprives him of help, often of
sympathy. It is thus even with regard to the child. Proverbially weak
and needing support, the child, nevertheless, is not everywhere a victim
in the existing social order. Only in remote sense does the child of the
ruling class suffer. The invocation of the "Rights of the Child" leaves
substantially untouched the children of the rich. It is otherwise with
woman. The shot that rips up the wrongs done to her touches a nerve that
aches from end to end in the capitalist world. There is no woman,
whatever her station, but in one way or other is a sufferer, a victim in
modern society. While upon the woman of the working class the cross of
capitalist society rests heaviest in all ways, not one of her sisters in
all the upper ranks but bears some share of the burden, or, to be
plainer, of the smudge,--and what is more to the point, they are aware
of it. Accordingly, the invocation of the "Rights of Woman" not only
rouses the spirit of the heaviest sufferers under capitalist society,
and thereby adds swing to the blows of the male militants in their
efforts to overthrow the existing order, it also lames the adversary by
raising sympathizers in his own camp, and inciting sedition among his
own retinue. Bebel's exhaustive work, here put in English garb, does
this double work unerringly.

I might stop here. The ethic formula commands self-effacement to a
translator. More so than well-brought-up children, who should be "seen
and not heard," a translator should, where at all possible, be neither
seen nor heard. That, however, is not always possible. In a work of this
nature, which, to the extent of this one, projects itself into
hypotheses of the future, and even whose premises necessarily branch off
into fields that are not essentially basic to Socialism, much that is
said is, as the author himself announces in his introduction, purely the
personal opinion of the writer. With these a translator, however, much
in general and fundamental accord, may not always agree. Not agreeing,
he is in duty bound to modify the ethic formula to the extent of marking
his exception, lest the general accord, implied in the act of
translating, be construed into specific approval of objected-to passages
and views. Mindful of a translator's duties as well as rights, I have
reduced to a small number, and entered in the shape of running footnotes
to the text, the dissent I thought necessary to the passages that to me
seemed most objectionable in matters not related to the main question;
and, as to matters related to the main question, rather than enter
dissent in running footnotes, I have reserved for this place a summary
of my own private views on the family of the future.

It is an error to imagine that, in its spiral course, society ever
returns to where it started from. The spiral never returns upon its own
track. Obedient to the law of social evolution, the race often is
forced, in the course of its onward march, to drop much that is good,
but also much that is bad. The bad, it is hoped, is dropped for all
time; but the good, when picked up again, never is picked up as
originally dropped. Between the original dropping and return to its
vicinity along the tracks of the spiral, fresh elements join. These new
accretions so transmute whatever is re-picked up that it is essentially
remodeled. The "Communism," for instance, that the race is now heading
toward, is, materially, a different article from the "Communism" it once
left behind. We move in an upward spiral. No doubt moral concepts are
the reflex of material possibilities. But, for one thing, moral concepts
are in themselves a powerful force, often hard to distinguish in their
effect from material ones; and, for another, these material
possibilities unfold material facts, secrets of Nature, that go to
enrich the treasury of science, and quicken the moral sense. Of such
material facts are the discoveries in embryology and kindred branches.
They reveal the grave fact, previously reckoned with in the matter of
the breeding of domestic animals, that the act of impregnation is an act
of inoculation. This fact, absolutely material, furnishes a
post-discovered material basis for a pre-surmised moral concept,--the
"oneness of flesh" with father and mother. Thus science solidifies a
poetic-moral yearning, once held imprisoned in the benumbing shell of
theological dogma, and reflects its morality in the poetic expression of
the monogamic family. The moral, as well as the material, accretions of
the race's intellect, since it uncoiled out of early Communism, bar, to
my mind, all prospect,--I would say danger, moral and hygienic,--of
promiscuity, or of anything even remotely approaching that.

Modern society is in a state of decomposition. Institutions, long held
as of all time and for all time, are crumbling. No wonder those bodies
of society that come floating down to us with the prerogatives of
"teacher" are seen to-day rushing to opposite extremes. On the matter of
"Woman" or "The Family" the divergence among our rulers is most marked.
While both extremes cling like shipwrecked mariners to the water-logged
theory of private ownership in the means of production, the one extreme,
represented by the Roman Catholic church-machine, is seen to recede ever
further back within the shell of orthodoxy, and the other extreme,
represented by the pseudo-Darwinians, is seen to fly into ever wilder
flights of heterodoxy on the matter of "Marriage and Divorce." Agreed,
both, in keeping woman nailed to the cross of a now perverse social
system, the former seeks to assuage her agony with the benumbing balm of
resignation, the latter to relieve her torture with the blister of
libertinage.

Between these two extremes stand the gathering forces of revolution that
are taking shape in the militant Socialist Movement. Opinion among these
forces, while it cannot be said to clash, takes on a variety of
shades--as needs will happen among men, who, at one on basic principles,
on the material substructure of institutional superstructure, cannot
but yield to the allurements of speculative thought on matters as yet
hidden in the future, and below the horizon. For one, I hold there is as
little ground for rejecting monogamy, by reason of the taint that clings
to its inception, as there would be ground for rejecting co-operation,
by reason of the like taint that accompanied its rise, and also clings
to its development. For one, I hold that the smut of capitalist
conditions, that to-day clings to monogamy, is as avoidable an
"incident" in the evolutionary process as are the iniquities of
capitalism that to-day are found the accompaniment of co-operative
labor;--and the further the parallel is pursued through the many
ramifications of the subject, the closer will it be discovered to hold.
For one, I hold that the monogamous family--bruised and wounded in the
cruel rough-and-tumble of modern society, where, with few favored
exceptions of highest type, male creation is held down, physically,
mentally and morally, to the brutalizing level of the brute, forced to
grub and grub for bare existence, or, which amounts to the same, to
scheme and scheme in order to avoid being forced so to grub and
grub--will have its wounds staunched, its bruises healed, and, ennobled
by the slowly acquired moral forces of conjugal, paternal and filial
affection, bloom under Socialism into a lever of mighty power for the
moral and physical elevation of the race.

At any rate, however the genius of our descendants may shape matters on
this head, one thing is certain: Woman--the race's mothers, wives,
sisters, daughters--long sinned against through unnumbered
generations--is about to be atoned to. All the moral and intellectual
forces of the age are seen obviously converging to that point. It will
be the crowning work of Militant Socialism, like a mightier Perseus, to
strike the shackles from the chained Andromeda of modern society, Woman,
and raise her to the dignity of her sex.

DANIEL DE LEON.

New York, June 21, 1903.




INDEX


TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE                                                 iii

INTRODUCTION                                                           1

WOMAN IN THE PAST--
  Chapter I--Before Christianity                                       9
  Chapter II--Under Christianity                                      47

WOMAN IN THE PRESENT--
  Chapter I--Sexual Instinct, Wedlock, Checks and Obstructions
    to Marriage                                                       79
  Chapter II--Further Checks and Obstructions to Marriage, Numerical
    Proportion of the Sexes, Its Causes and Effects                  118
  Chapter III--Prostitution a Necessary Social Institution of
    the Capitalist World                                             146
  Chapter IV--Woman's Position as a Breadwinner, Her Intellectual
    Faculties, Darwinism and the Condition of Society                167
  Chapter V--Woman's Civic and Political Status                      216
  Chapter VI--The State and Society                                  235
  Chapter VII--The Socialization of Society                          272

WOMAN IN THE FUTURE                                                  343

INTERNATIONALITY                                                     350

POPULATION AND OVER-POPULATION                                       355

CONCLUSION                                                           372




INTRODUCTION.


We live in the age of a great social Revolution, that every day makes
further progress. A growingly powerful intellectual stir and unrest is
noticeable in all the layers of society; and the movement pushes towards
deep-reaching changes. All feel that the ground they stand on shakes. A
number of questions have risen; they occupy the attention of ever
widening circles; and discussion runs high on their solution. One of the
most important of these, one that pushes itself ever more to the fore,
is the so-called "Woman Question."

The question concerns the position that woman should occupy in our
social organism; how she may unfold her powers and faculties in all
directions, to the end that she become a complete and useful member of
human society, enjoying equal rights with all. From our view-point, this
question coincides with that other:--what shape and organization human
society must assume to the end that, in the place of oppression,
exploitation, want and misery in manifold forms, there shall be physical
and social health on the part of the individual and of society. To us,
accordingly, the Woman Question is only one of the aspects of the
general Social Question, which is now filling all heads, which is
setting all minds in motion and which, consequently, can find its final
solution only in the abolition of the existing social contradictions,
and of the evils which flow from them.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to treat the so-called Woman Question
separately. On the one hand the question, What was the former position
of woman, what is it to-day, and what will it be in the future?
concerns, in Europe at least, the larger section of society, seeing that
here the female sex constitutes the larger part of the population. On
the other hand, the prevailing notions, regarding the development that
woman has undergone in the course of centuries, correspond so little
with the facts, that light upon the subject becomes a necessity for the
understanding of the present and of the future. Indeed, a good part of
the prejudices with which the ever-growing movement is looked upon in
various circles--and not least in the circle of woman herself--rests
upon lack of knowledge and lack of understanding. Many are heard
claiming there is no Woman Question, because the position that woman
formerly occupied, occupies to-day and will in the future continue to
occupy, is determined by her "natural calling," which destines her for
wife and mother, and limits her to the sphere of the home. Accordingly,
whatever lies beyond her four walls, or is not closely and obviously
connected with her household duties, concerns her not.

On the Woman Question, the same as on the general Social Question, in
which the position of the working class in society plays the chief role,
opposing parties stand arrayed against each other. One party, that which
would leave everything as it is, have their answer ready at hand; they
imagine the matter is settled with referring woman to her "natural
calling." They forget that, to-day, for reasons later to be developed,
millions of women are wholly unable to fill that "natural calling," so
much insisted upon in their behalf, of householders, breeders and nurses
of children; and that, with other millions, the "calling" has suffered
extensive shipwreck--wedlock, to them, having turned into a yoke and
into slavery, compelling them to drag along their lives in misery and
want. Of course, this fact concerns those "wise men" as little as that
other fact, that unnumbered millions of women, engaged in the several
pursuits of life, are compelled, often in unnatural ways, and far beyond
the measure of their strength, to wear themselves out in order to eke
out a meager existence. At this unpleasant fact those "wise men" stuff
their ears, and they shut their eyes with as much violence as they do
before the misery of the working class, consoling themselves and others
with "it has ever been, and will ever remain so." That woman has the
right to share the conquests of civilization achieved in our days; to
utilize these to the easing and improving of her condition; and to
develop her mental and physical faculties, and turn them to advantage as
well as man,--they will none of that. Are they told that woman must also
be economically, in order to be physically and intellectually free, to
the end that she no longer depend upon the "good-will" and the "mercy"
of the other sex?--forthwith their patience is at end; their anger is
kindled; and there follows a torrent of violent charges against the
"craziness of the times," and the "insane emancipational efforts."

These are the Philistines of male and female sex, incapable of finding
their way out of the narrow circle of their prejudices. It is the breed
of the owls, to be found everywhere when day is breaking, and they cry
out in affright when a ray of light falls upon their comfortable
darkness.

Another element among the adversaries of the movement cannot shut its
eyes before the glaring facts. This element admits that there was hardly
a time when a larger number of women found themselves in so
unsatisfactory a condition as to-day, relatively to the degree of
general civilization; and they admit that it is therefore necessary to
inquire how the condition of woman can be improved, in so far as she
remains dependent upon herself. To this portion of our adversaries, the
Social Question seems solved for those women who have entered the haven
of matrimony.

In keeping with their views, this element demands that, to unmarried
woman, at least, all fields of work, for which her strength and
faculties are adequate, shall be opened, to the end that she may enter
the competitive field for work with man. A small set goes even further,
and demands that competition for work be not limited to the field of the
lower occupations, but should also extend higher, to the professions, to
the field of art and science. This set demands the admission of woman to
all the higher institutions of learning, namely, the universities, which
in many countries are still closed to her. Their admission is advocated
to the classes of several branches of study, to the medical profession,
to the civil service (the Post Office, telegraph and railroad offices),
for which they consider women peculiarly adapted;, and they point to the
practical results that have been attained, especially in the United
States, through the employment of woman. The one and the other also make
the demand that political rights be conferred upon woman. Woman, they
admit, is human and a member of the State, as well as man: legislation,
until now in the exclusive control of man, proves that he exploited the
privilege to his own exclusive benefit, and kept woman in every respect
under guardianship, a thing to be henceforth prevented.

It is noteworthy that the efforts here roughly sketched, do not reach
beyond the frame-work of the existing social order. The question never
is put whether, these objects being attained, any real and thoroughgoing
improvement in the condition of woman will have been achieved. Standing
on the ground of bourgeois, that is, of the capitalist social order, the
full social equality of man and woman is considered the solution of the
question. These folks are not aware, or they slide over the fact that,
in so far as the unrestricted admission of woman to the industrial
occupations is concerned, the object has already been actually attained,
and it meets with the strongest support on the part of the ruling class,
who as will be shown further on, find therein their own interest. Under
existing conditions, the admission of women to all industrial
occupations can have for its only effect that the competitive struggle
of the working people become ever sharper, and rage ever mere fiercely.
Hence the inevitable result,--the lowering of incomes for female and
male labor, whether this income be in the form of wage or salary.

That this solution cannot be the right one is clear. The full civic
equality of woman is, however, not merely the ultimate object of the
men, who, planted upon the existing social order, favor the efforts in
behalf of woman. It is also recognized by the female bourgeois, active
in the Woman Movement. These, together with the males of their mental
stamp, stand, accordingly, with their demands in contrast to the larger
portion of the men, who oppose them, partly out of old-fogy narrowness,
partly also--in so far as the admission of woman to the higher studies
and the better-paid public positions is concerned--out of mean
selfishness, out of fear of competition. A difference in principle,
however, a class difference, such as there is between the working and
the capitalist class, does not exist between these two sets of male and
female citizens.

Let the by no means impossible case be imagined that the representatives
of the movement for the civic rights of woman carry through all their
demands for placing woman upon an equal footing with man. What then?
Neither the slavery, which modern marriage amounts to for numberless
women, nor prostitution, nor the material dependence of the large
majority of married women upon their marital lords, would thereby be
removed. For the large majority of women it is, indeed, immaterial
whether a thousand, or ten thousand, members of their own sex, belonging
to the more favored strata of society, land in the higher branches of
learning, the practice of medicine, a scientific career, or some
government office. Nothing is thereby changed in the total condition of
the sex.

The mass of the female sex suffers in two respects: On the one side
woman suffers from economic and social dependence upon man. True enough,
this dependence may be alleviated by formally placing her upon an
equality before the law, and in point of rights; but the dependence is
not removed. On the other side, woman suffers from the economic
dependence that woman in general, the working-woman in particular, finds
herself in, along with the workingman.

Evidently, all women, without difference of social standing, have an
interest--as the sex that in the course of social development has been
oppressed, and ruled, and defiled by man--in removing such a state of
things, and must exert themselves to change it, in so far as it can be
changed by changes in the laws and institutions within the frame-work of
the present social order. But the enormous majority of women are
furthermore interested in the most lively manner in that the existing
State and social order be radically transformed, to the end that both
wage-slavery, under which the working-women deeply pine, and sex
slavery, which is intimately connected with our property and industrial
systems, be wiped out.

The larger portion by far of the women in society, engaged in the
movement for the emancipation of woman, do not see the necessity for
such a radical change. Influenced by their privileged social standing,
they see in the more far-reaching working-women's movement dangers, not
infrequently abhorrent aims, which they feel constrained to ignore,
eventually even to resist. The class-antagonism, that in the general
social movement rages between the capitalist and the working class, and
which, with the ripening of conditions, grows sharper and more
pronounced, turns up likewise on the surface of the Woman's Movement;
and it finds its corresponding expression in the aims and tactics of
those engaged in it.

All the same, the hostile sisters have, to a far greater extent than the
male population--split up as the latter is in the class struggle--a
number of points of contact, on which they can, although marching
separately, strike jointly. This happens on all the fields, on which the
question is the equality of woman with man, within modern society. This
embraces the participation of woman in all the fields of human activity,
for which her strength and faculties are fit; and also her full civil
and political equality with man. These are very important, and as will
be shown further on, very extensive fields. Besides all this the working
woman has also a special interest in doing battle hand in hand with the
male portion of the working class, for all the means and institutions
that may protect the working woman from physical and moral degeneration,
and which promise to secure to her the vitality and fitness necessary
for motherhood and for the education of children. Furthermore, as
already indicated, it is the part of the working-woman to make common
cause with the male members of her class and of her lot in the struggle
for a radical transformation of society, looking to the establishment of
such conditions as may make possible the real economic and spiritual
independence of both sexes, by means of social institutions that afford
to all a full share in the enjoyment of all the conquests of
civilization made by mankind.

The goal, accordingly, is not merely the realization of the equal rights
of woman with man within present society, as is aimed at by the
bourgeois woman emancipationists. It lies beyond,--the removal of all
impediments that make man dependent upon man; and, consequently, one sex
upon the other. Accordingly, this solution of the Woman Question
coincides completely with the solution of the Social Question. It
follows that he who aims at the solution of the Woman Question to its
full extent, is necessarily bound to go hand in hand with those who have
inscribed upon their banner the solution of the Social Question as a
question of civilization for the whole human race. These are the
Socialists, that is, the Social Democracy.

Of all existing parties in Germany, the Social Democratic Party is the
only one which has placed in its programme the full equality of woman,
her emancipation from all dependence and oppression. And the party has
done so, not for agitational reasons, but out of necessity, out of
principle. _There can be no emancipation of humanity without the social
independence and equality of the sexes._

Up to this point all Socialists are likely to agree with the
presentation made of fundamental principles. But the same cannot be said
on the subject of the manner in which we portray the ultimate aims to
ourselves; how the measures and special institutions shall be shaped
which will establish the aimed-at independence and equality of all
members of the sexes, consequently that of man and woman also.

The moment the field of the known is abandoned, and one launches out
into pictures of future forms, a wide field is opened for speculation.
Differences of opinion start over that which is probable or not
probable. That which in that direction is set forth in this book can,
accordingly, be taken only as the personal opinion of the author
himself; possible attacks must be directed against him only; only he is
responsible.

Attacks that are objective, and are honestly meant, will be welcome to
us. Attacks that violate truth in the presentation of the contents of
this book, or that rest upon false premises we shall ignore. For the
rest, in the following pages all conclusions, even the extremest, will
be drawn, which, the facts being verified, the results attained may
warrant. Freedom from prejudice is the first condition for the
recognition of truth. Only the unrestricted utterance of that which is,
and must be, leads to the goal.




PART I

WOMAN IN THE PAST




CHAPTER I.

BEFORE CHRISTIANITY.


Woman and the workingman have, since old, had this in
common--_oppression_. The forms of oppression have suffered changes in
the course of time, and in various countries. But the oppression always
remained. Many a time and oft, in the course of the ages, did the
oppressed become conscious of their oppression; and such conscious
knowledge of their condition did bring on changes and reliefs.
Nevertheless, a knowledge, that grasped the actual feature of the
oppression by grasping its causes, is, with woman as with the
workingman, the fruit of our own days. The actual feature of society,
and of the laws that lie at the bottom of its development, had first to
be known, before a general movement could take place for the removal of
conditions, recognized as oppressive and unjust. The breadth and
intensity of such a movement depends, however, upon the measure of the
understanding prevalent among the suffering social layers and circles,
and upon the measure of freedom of motion that they enjoy. In both
respects, woman stands, through custom and education, as well as the
freedom allowed her by law, behind the workingman. To this, another
circumstance is added. Conditions, lasting through a long series of
generations, finally grow into custom; heredity and education then cause
such conditions to appear on both sides as "natural." Hence it comes
that, even to-day, woman in particular, accepts her subordinate position
as a matter of course. It is no easy matter to make her understand that
that position is unworthy, and that it is her duty to endeavor to become
a member of society, equal-righted with, and in every sense a peer of
man.

However much in common woman may be shown to have with the workingman,
she leads him in one thing:--_Woman was the first human being to come
into bondage: she was a slave before the male slave existed._

All social dependence and oppression has its roots in the _economic
dependence_ of the oppressed upon the oppressor. In this condition woman
finds herself, from an early day down to our own. The history of the
development of human society proves the fact everywhere.

The knowledge of the history of this development is, however,
comparatively new. As little as the myth of the Creation of the
World--as taught us by the Bible--can be upheld in sight of the
investigations of geographers and, scientists, grounded as these
investigations are upon unquestionable and innumerable facts, just so
untenable has its myth proved concerning the creation and evolution of
man. True enough, as yet the veil is far from being lifted from all the
sub-departments of this historical development of mankind; over many, on
which already light has been shed, differences of opinion still exist
among the investigators on the meaning and connection of this or that
fact; nevertheless, on the whole, there is agreement and clearness. It
is established that man did not, like the first human couple of the
Bible, make his first appearance on earth in an advanced stage of
civilization. He reached that plane only in the course of endlessly long
lapses of time, after he had gradually freed himself from purely animal
conditions, and had experienced long terms of development, in the course
of which his social as well as his sexual relations--the relations
between man and woman--had undergone a great variety of changes.

The favorite phrase--a phrase that the ignorant or impostors daily smite
our ears with on the subject of the relations between man and woman, and
between the poor and the rich--"it always has been so," and the
conclusion drawn therefrom--"it will always be so," _is in every sense
of the word false, superficial and trumped-up_.

For the purposes of this work a cursory presentation of the relations
between the sexes, since primitive society, is of special importance. It
is so because it can thereby be proved that, seeing that these relations
have materially changed in the previous course of human development, and
that the changes have taken place in even step with the existing systems
of production, on the one hand, and of the distribution of the product
of labor, on the other, it is natural and goes without saying that,
along with further changes and revolutions in the system of production
and distribution, _the relations between the sexes are bound to change
again_. Nothing is "eternal," either in nature or in human life; eternal
only is change and interchange.

As far back as one may go in the development of human society, the horde
is found as the first human community. True enough, Honeger mentions in
his "General History of Civilization" that even to-day in the little
explored interior of the island of Borneo, there are wild people, living
separately; and Huegel likewise maintains that, in the wild mountain
regions of India, human couples have been discovered living alone, and
who, ape-like, fled to the trees as soon as they were met; but there is
no further knowledge on the subject. If verified, these claims would
only confirm the previous superstition and hypothesis concerning the
development of the human race. The probability is that, wherever human
beings sprang up, there were, at first, single couples. Certain it is,
however, that so soon as a larger number of beings existed, descended
from a common parent stock, they held together in hordes in order that,
by their joint efforts, they might, first of all, gain their still very
primitive conditions of life and support, as well as to protect
themselves against their common enemies, wild animals. Growing numbers
and increased difficulties in securing subsistence, which originally
consisted in roots, berries and fruit, first led to the splitting up or
segmentation of the hordes, and to the search for new habitats.

This almost animal-like state, of which we have no further credible
antiquarian proofs, undoubtedly once existed, judging from all that we
have learned concerning the several grades of civilization of wild
peoples still living, or known to have lived within historic times. Man
did not, upon the call of a Creator, step ready-made into existence as a
higher product of civilization. It was otherwise. He has had to pass
through the most varied stages in an endlessly long and slow process of
development. Only via ebbing and flowing periods of civilization, and in
constant differentiation with his fellows in all parts of the world, and
in all zones, did he gradually climb up to his present height.

Indeed, while in one section of the earth's surface great peoples and
nations belong to the most advanced stages of civilization, other
peoples are found in different sections standing on the greatest variety
of gradations in development. They thus present to us a picture of our
own past history; and they point to the road which mankind traversed in
the course of its development. If but certain common and generally
accepted data are established, that may serve everywhere as sign-posts
to guide investigation, a mass of facts will follow, throwing a wholly
new light upon the relations of man in the past and the present. A
number of social phenomena--unintelligible to us to-day, and attacked by
superficial judges as nonsensical, not infrequently even as
"immoral"--will become clear and natural. A material lifting of the
veil, formerly spread over the history of the development of our race,
has been effected through the investigations made, since Bachofen, by a
considerable number of scientists, like Tylor, MacLennan, Lubbock and
others. Prominently among the men who joined these was Morgan, with his
fundamental work, that Frederick Engels further substantiated and
supplemented with a series of historical facts, economic and political
in their nature, and that, more recently, has been partly confirmed and
partly rectified by Cunow.[1]

By means of these expositions--especially as clearly and lucidly
presented by Frederick Engels, in his support of Morgan's excellent and
fundamental work,--a mass of light is shed upon hitherto unintelligible,
partly seemingly contradictory phenomena in the life of the races and
tribes of both high and low degree of culture. Only now do we gain an
insight into the structure that human society raised in the course of
time. According thereto, our former views of marriage, the family, the
community, the State, rested upon notions that were wholly false; so
false that they turn out to be no better than a fancy-picture, wholly
devoid of foundation in fact.

All that is said and proved about marriage, the family, the community
and the State holds good especially with regard to woman, who, in the
various periods of development did likewise fill a place, that differs
materially from the "eternal," imputed to her.

Morgan, whom Engels agrees with in this, divides the history of mankind
into three main epochs:--savagery, barbarism and civilization. Each of
the two first ones he again divides into an under, a middle and an upper
period, each distinguishing itself from the other by certain innovations
and improvements, predicated in each instance upon the control over
subsistence. Morgan, accordingly, exactly in the sense of the
materialist conception of history, as established by Karl Marx and
Frederick Engels,--perceives the leading characteristics in the
development of society to be the changes that, in given epochs, the
conditions of life are molded into; and he perceives the changes to be
due to the progress made in the process of production, that is to say,
in the procurement of subsistence. Summed up in a few words, the lower
period of savagery constitutes the infancy of the human race, during
which the race, partly living in trees, is mainly nourished by fruits
and roots, and during which articulate language takes its inception. The
middle period of savagery commences with the acquisition of a fish
subsistence, and the use of fire. The construction of weapons begins; at
first the club and spear, fashioned out of wood and stone. Thereby also
begins the chase, and probably also war with contiguous hordes for the
sources of food, for domiciles and hunting grounds. At this stage
appears also cannibalism, still practiced to-day by some tribes and
peoples of Africa, Australia and Polynesia. The upper period of savagery
is characterized by the perfection of weapons to the point of the bow
and arrow; finger weaving, the making of baskets out of filaments of
bark, the fashioning of sharpened stone tools have here their start, and
thereby begins also the preparation of wood for the building of boats
and huts. The form of life has accordingly, become many-sided. The
existing tools and implements, needed for the control of a plentiful
food supply, make possible the subsistance of larger communities.

The lower period of barbarism Morgan starts with the invention of the
art of pottery. The taming and domestication of animals, and, along with
that, the production of meat and milk, and the preparation of hides,
horns and hair for various purposes of use, have here their start. Hand
in hand therewith begins the cultivation of plants,--in the West of
maize, in the East of almost all known cereals, maize excepted. The
middle period of barbarism shows us, in the East, the ever more
extensive domestication of animals; in the West, the cultivation of
maize and plants by irrigation. Here also begins the use of adobe-bricks
and of stone for house-building. The domestication of animals promotes
the rearing of herds, and leads to the pastoral life. The necessity of
larger quantities of food for men and beasts leads to field agriculture.
Along therewith, the people begin to be localized; food increases in
quantity and diversity, and gradually cannibalism disappears.

The upper period of barbarism begins finally with the smelting of iron
ore, and the discovery of the phonetic alphabet. The iron plow-share is
invented, making possible agriculture on a larger scale; the iron axe
and spade are brought into requisition, making easy the clearing of the
forests. With the preparation of iron, a number of fields are opened to
activity, imparting to life a new form. Iron utensils help the building
of houses, vessels and weapons; with the preparation of metals arises
skilled handwork, a more perfect knowledge of weapons, and the building
of walled cities. Architecture, as an art, then rises; mythology, poetry
and history find support and expansion in the discovery of the phonetic
alphabet.

The Orient and the countries bordering on the Mediterranean,
particularly Egypt, Greece and Italy, are those in which the last
sketched stage of life principally unfolded; and it laid the foundation
for the social transformation that in the course of time exercised a
determining influence on the social development of Europe and of the
whole earth.

As a matter of course, the social development of the human race through
the periods of savagery and barbarism had also its peculiar sexual and
social relations, differing materially from those of later days.

Bachofen and Morgan have traced these relations by means of thorough
investigations. Bachofen, by studying closely all ancient and modern
writings, so as to arrive at the nature of phenomena that appear
singular to us in mythology, folk-lore and historic tradition, and that,
nevertheless, seem to be re-echoed in incidents and events of later
days, occasionally even of our own. Morgan, by spending decades of his
life among the Iroquois Indians, located in the State of New York, and
thereby making observations, through which he gained new and unexpected
insight into the system of life, the family and the relationships of the
said Indian tribe, and, based upon which, observations made elsewhere,
first received their correct interpretation and explanation.

Both of them, Bachofen and Morgan, discovered, each along his own line
of research, the latter, however, far more clearly than the former, that
the relations of the sexes during primitive times of human development
were substantially different from the relations existing in historic
days, and among the modern civilized peoples. Especially did Morgan
discover--thanks to his many years' sojourn among the Iroquois of North
America, and grounded upon comparative studies, which he was moved to by
that which he there observed,--that all the existing races, that are
still materially backward, possess systems of family and consanguinity
that are totally different from ours, but must be similar to those once
prevalent among all races during the previous stages of civilization.

Morgan found, at the time that he lived among the Iroquois, that among
them there existed a system of monogamy, easily dissolvable by both
parties, and which he designated as the "pairing family." He also found
that the terms for the degrees of consanguinity--father, mother, son,
daughter, brother, sister--although, according to our conception, there
can be no doubt as to their application, were there, nevertheless,
applied in quite different sense. The Iroquois calls not only his own
children "sons" and "daughters," but also the children of all his
brothers; and their children call him "father." Conversely, the female
Iroquois calls not only her own children "sons" and "daughters," but all
those of her sisters, and likewise do their children call her "mother."
On the other hand, she calls the children of her brothers "nephews" and
"nieces," and these call her "aunt." The children of brothers call one
another "brothers" and "sisters;" likewise the children of sisters.
Finally, the children of a woman and those of her brother call one
another "cousins." Accordingly, the singular spectacle is seen of the
terms of relationship going, not as in our sense, by the degree of
consanguinity, but by the sex of the relative.

This system of relationship is in full force, not only among all the
American Indians, as well as among the aborigines of India, the tribes
of Dekan and the Gaura tribes of Hindostan, but, according to the
investigations that have taken place since Bachofen, similar conditions
must have existed everywhere in primitive times, as they still exist
to-day among many peoples of Upper and Further Asia, Africa and
Australia. When, in connection with these investigations and established
facts, the investigation will be everywhere taken up on the sex and
family relations of wild and barbarous nations still living, then will
the fact transpire that, what Bachofen still confusedly found among
numerous peoples of antiquity, and rather surmised than otherwise; what
Morgan found among the Iroquois; what Cunow found among the
Austral-Negros, are but social and sexual formations, that constitute
the _groundwork of human development for all the peoples of the earth_.

The investigations of Morgan bring, moreover, other interesting facts to
light. Although the "pairing family" of the Iroquois starts in
insolvable contradiction with the terms of consanguinity in use among
them, it turns out that, as late as the first half of the 19th Century,
there existed on the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) a family-form that
actually tallied with that which, among the Iroquois, existed in name
only. But the system of consanguinity, in force in Hawaii, failed, in
turn, to tally with the family-form actually in existence there. It
referred to an older family-form, one still more primitive, but no
longer extant. There, all the children of brothers and sisters, without
exception, were "brothers" and "sisters." Accordingly, they were not
considered the common children of their mothers and of the sisters of
these, or of their fathers and of the brothers of these, but of all the
brothers and sisters of their parents, without distinction. The Hawaiian
system of consanguinity corresponded, accordingly, with a stage of
development that was lower than the family-form still actually in
existence. Hence transpires the curious fact that, in Hawaii, as with
the Indians of North America, two distinct systems of consanguinity are,
or rather, at a time, were in vogue, which no longer tallied with actual
conditions, but were both overtaken by a higher state. On this head
Morgan says: "The family represents an active principle. It is never
stationary, but advances from a lower to a higher form as society
advances from a lower to a higher condition, and finally passes out of
one form into another of higher grade. Systems of consanguinity, on the
contrary, are passive; recording the progress made by the family at long
intervals apart, and only changing radically when the family has
radically changed."

The theory,--even to-day generally considered conclusive, and which is
stubbornly upheld as irrefutable by the representatives of the _status
quo_--to the effect that the existing family-form has existed since time
immemorial, and, lest the whole social fabric be put in jeopardy, must
continue to exist forever, turned out, accordingly, after these
discoveries of the investigators, to be wholly false and untenable. The
form, under which the relations of the sexes appear and the situation of
the family is raised, depends rather upon the social conditions, upon
the manner in which man controls his subsistence. The form changes with
the changed degree of culture at each given period.

The study of primitive history leaves now no room for doubt that, at the
lowest grades of human development, the relation of the sexes is totally
different from that of latter times, and that a state of things resulted
therefrom, which, looked at with modern eyes, appears as monstrous, and
as a sink of immorality. Nevertheless, as each social stage of human
development has its own conditions of production, so likewise has each
its own code of morals, which is but the _reflection of the social
condition_. That is moral which is usage; and that, in turn, is usage
which corresponds with the innermost being, i. e., the needs of a given
period.

Morgan reaches the conclusion that, at the lower period of savagery,
there was sexual intercourse between the several grades or generations,
every woman belonging to every man, and every man to every woman,--in
other words, promiscuity. All men live in polygamy and all women in
polyandry. There is a general community of women and of men, but also a
community of children, Strábo reports (sixty-six years before our
reckoning) that, among the Arabians, brothers cohabited with sisters and
with their own mother. On any route other than that of incest, the
increase of population is nowhere possible, if, as alleged in the Bible
also, descent from one couple is granted. The Bible itself contradicts
itself on this delicate point. It is stated there that Cain, after he
had murdered his brother Abel, took a wife of another people. Whence
came that other people? The theory of promiscuity in primitive times,
that is to say, that the horde was endogamous, that sexual intercourse
was indiscriminate, is furthermore supported by the Hindoo myth,
according to which Brahma married his own daughter Saravasti. The same
myth turns up again among the Egyptians and the northern Edda. The
Egyptian god Ammon was the spouse of his own mother, and boasted of it.
Odin, according to the Edda, was the mate of his own daughter Frigga.[2]
Morgan proceeds from the principle that, from the state of promiscuity,
soon a higher form of sexual intercourse took shape. He designates this
the consanguine family. Here the groups, that stand in sexual relation,
are separated by grades or generations, so that grandfathers and
grandmothers, within an age group, are husbands and wives. Their
children, likewise, constitute a group of common couples; likewise the
children of these, so soon as they have reached the requisite age.
Accordingly, in contrast with the sex relations of the rawest period, in
which promiscuity of sexes exists without distinction of age, now one
generation is excluded from sexual intercourse with another. Sexual
intercourse, however, exists between brothers and sisters, male and
female cousins of the first, second and third remove. All of these
together are brothers and sisters, but towards one another, they are all
husbands and wives. This family-form corresponds with the system of
consanguinity that still existed in Hawaii during the first part of the
19th Century, in name only, but no longer in fact. On the other hand,
according to the American Indian system of consanguinity, a brother and
sister can never be the father and mother of the same child--a thing,
however, permissible in the Hawaiian family system. Probably the
consanguine family was the state that, at the time of Herodotus, existed
among the Massagetae, on the subject of which he reports: "Each man
received a wife, but all were allowed to use her." And he continues: "At
any time a man desires a woman, he hangs his quiver in front of his
wagon, and cohabits, unconcerned, with her.... He at the same time
sticks his staff into the ground, a symbol of his own act....
Cohabitation is exercised in public."[3] Similar conditions Bachofen
shows have existed among the Lycians, Etruscans, Cretans, Athenians,
Lesbians and Egyptians.

According to Morgan, the consanguine family is supervened by a third and
higher form of family relationship, which he designates as the Punaluan
family. _Punalua_, "dear friend," "intimate companion."

Cunow, in his above named book, takes exception to Morgan's views that
the consanguine family, which rests on the organization of marriage
classes by generations, preceded the punaluan family as an original
organization. Cunow does not see in the consanguine family the most
primitive of all social forms, until now discovered. He sees in it
merely a middle form, that takes its origin in the generation groups; a
transition stage toward the pure gentile organization, on which, as a
graft, the division in age classes, belonging to the consanguine family
system, still continues for a time in altered form, along with the
division in totem-groups.[4] Cunow explains further: The division in
classes--every individual, man or woman, carries the name of his or her
class and generation group totem--does not serve to exclude sexual
intercourse between collateral, but to prevent cohabitation between
relatives in the ascending and descending line, between parents and
children, aunts and nephews, uncles and nieces. Terms such as "aunt,"
"uncle," etc., he designates as grade-names.

Cunow furnishes the proofs for the correctness of the views in which he
differs from Morgan on some points. But, however he may differ from
Morgan in single instances, he emphatically defends him against the
attacks of Westermann and others. He says:

"Although here and there a hypothesis of Morgan may have proved itself
false, and some others may be allowed only a qualified approval, that
merit none can gainsay him that he has been the first to establish the
identity of the North American totem-group with the gentile organization
of the Romans; and, secondly, to demonstrate that our modern systems of
consanguinity and family-forms are the result of a long process of
development. In a measure he has thereby first made recent
investigations possible; he has first built the foundation on which we
may build further." In the introduction also to his book he says
expressly that his own work is partly a supplement to Morgan's book on
primitive man.

The Westermanns, the Starckes, the Zieglers--the latter of whom, in his
book, criticized in the introduction to the twenty-fifth edition of this
work, refers mainly to the first named, in order to attack our
statements with theirs--will have to submit, with good grace or bad, to
the fact that the rise and development of the family has not taken the
course that fits in with their bourgeois prejudices. The refutation
that, in the last part of his work, Cunow bestows upon Westermann and
Starcke, Ziegler's authorities, are calculated to enlighten their most
fanatic followers upon the value of their caviling criticisms of, and
arguments against, Morgan.

According to Morgan, the punaluan family has its start with the
exclusion of consanguineous brothers and sisters, on the mother's side.
Where a woman has several husbands, the evidence of paternity is
impossible. Paternity becomes a fiction. Even to-day, under the rule of
strict monogamous marriage, paternity, as Goethe, in his
"Apprenticeship," lets Frederick say, "rests only upon faith." If with
monogamy, paternity is often doubtful, it is impossible of proof in
polygamy: only descent from the mother is certain and unquestionable.
Accordingly, descent from the mother afforded the only criterion. As all
deep-reaching transformations in the social relations of primitive man
are accomplished only slowly, the change of the so-called consanguine
into the punaluan family must unquestionably have engaged vast periods
of time, and been broken through by many relapses, still noticeable in
much later days. The proximate external inducement for the development
of the punaluan family was, possibly, the necessity of splitting up the
strongly swollen membership of the family, to the end that new grounds
could be occupied for cattle ranges and agriculture. Probably, also,
with the reaching of a higher grade of civilization, a sense gradually
asserted itself of the harmfulness and indecorousness of sexual
intercourse between brothers and sisters, and close relatives. In favor
of this theory stands a pretty tradition, that, as related by Cunow,
Gaston found among the Dieyeries, one of the South Australian tribes, on
the rise of the "Mordu" consanguine group. He says:

"After creation, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers and other near
relatives married promiscuously among one another, until the evil
effects of such connections showed themselves clearly. A conference of
leaders was held, and it was considered in what way this could be
avoided. The outcome of the conference was a request to the Muramura
(Great Spirit); and he ordered in his answer that the tribe be divided
into several branches, and that, in order to distinguish them, they be
called by different names, after animate or inanimate objects. For
instance: after the dingo, the mouse, the emu, the rain, the
iguana-lizard, etc. The members of one and the same group could not
marry another. The son of a Dingo could not, for instance, marry the
daughter of a Dingo; each of the two could, however, enter into
connections with the Mouse, the Emu, the Rat, or any other family."

This tradition is more sensible and natural, by a good deal, than the
Christian tradition, taught by the Bible. It shows plainly the rise of
the consanguine groups. Moreover, Paul Lafargue, makes in the "Neue
Zeit" the sagacious, and, we think, felicitous point, that names, such
as Adam and Eve, are not names of individual persons, but the names of
gentes, in which, at the time, the Jews were joined. Lafargue solves by
his argument a series of otherwise obscure and contradictory passages in
the first Book of Moses. Again, M. Beer calls attention, likewise in the
"Neue Zeit," that, to this day, it is a conjugal custom among Jews that
the bride and the bridegroom's mother _may not carry the same name_,
otherwise--thus runs this belief--a misfortune will befall the family:
sickness and death will pursue them. In our opinion, this is a further
proof for the correctness of Lafargue's theory. The gentile organization
forbids marriage between persons that descend from the same gens stock.
Such a common descent must be considered to exist, according to gentile
principles, between the bride, that carries the name of "Eve," and the
bridegroom's mother of the same name. Modern Jews, of course, have no
longer the remotest suspicion of the real connection between their
prejudice and their old gentile constitution, which forbade such
marriages of relatives. The old gentile order had for its object to
avoid the degenerating consequences of in-breeding. Although this
gentile constitution has for thousands of years been destroyed among the
Jews, tradition, as we see, has continued to live in superstition.

Quite possible, the experience, made at an early day with the breeding
of animals, revealed the harmfulness of in-breeding. How far this
experience went transpires from the manner in which, according to the
first Book of Moses, chap. 30, verse 32 and sequel, Jacob understood how
to outwit his father-in-law Laban, by knowing how to encompass the birth
of eanlings that were streaked and pied, and which, according to Laban's
promises, were to be Jacob's. The old Israelites had, accordingly, long
before Darwin, studied Darwinism.

Once upon the subject of the conditions existing among the old Jews, a
few other facts are in order, clearly proving that, among them, descent
in the female line was actually in force of old. True enough, on the
subject of woman, I Moses, 3, 16, runs this wise: "And thy desire shall
be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee;" and the verse also
undergoes the variation: "the woman shall leave father and mother, and
cleave to her husband." In point of fact, however, I Moses, 2, 24, has
it this way: "_Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and
shall cleave unto his wife_, and they shall be one flesh." The same
language recurs in Matthew 19, 15; Mark 10, 7, and in the Epistle to the
Ephesians 5, 31. The command sprang, accordingly, from the system of
descent in the female line, and the exegetists, at a loss what to do
with it, allowed it to appear in a light that is utterly false.

Descent in female line appears clearly also in IV Moses, 32, 41. It is
there said that Jair had a father, who was of the tribe of Judah, but
his mother was of the tribe of Manasseh, and Jair is expressly called
the son of Manasseh, and he inherited in that tribe. Another instance of
descent in the female line among the Jews is met in Nehemiah 7, 63.
There the children of a priest, who took to wife one of the daughters of
Barzillai--a Jewish clan--are called children of Barzillai; they are,
accordingly, not called after the father, who, moreover, as a priest
occupied a privileged position, but after the mother. For the rest,
already in the days of the Old Testament, accordingly, in historic
times, the father-right prevailed among the Jews, and the clan and tribe
organization rested on descent in the male line. Accordingly, the
daughters were shut off as heirs, as may be seen in I Moses 31, 14-15,
where even Leah and Rachel, the daughters of Laban, complain: "Is there
yet any portion or inheritance for us in our father's house? Are we not
counted of him strangers? for he has sold us, and hath quite devoured
also our money."

As happened with all peoples where descent in male replaced descent in
female line, woman among the Jews stood wholly bereft of rights. Wedlock
was marriage by purchase. On woman the obligation was laid of the
strictest chastity; on the other hand, man was not bound by the same
ordinance; he, moreover, was privileged to possess several wives. Did
the husband, after the bridal night, believe to have found that his wife
had, before marriage, lost her maidenhood, not only had he the right to
cast her off, she was stoned to death. The same punishment fell upon the
adultress; upon the husband, however, only in case he committed adultery
with a married Jewish woman. According to V Moses 24, 1-4, the husband
had also the right to cast off his newly-married wife, if she found no
favor in his eyes, even if only out of dislike. He was then to write her
a bill of divorcement, give it in her hand, and let her out of the
house. An expression of the low position that woman took later among the
Jews is furthermore found in the circumstances that, even to this day,
woman attends divine service in the synagogue, in a space strictly
separated from the men, and they are not included in the prayers.[5]

The relations of the sexes in the punaluan family consisted, according
to Morgan, in one or more sisters, belonging to one family group,
marrying jointly one or more brothers of another group. The consanguine
sisters, or the first, second and more remote cousins were wives in
common with their husbands in common, who could not be their brothers.
These consanguine brothers, or cousins of several degrees, were the
husbands in common of their wives in common, who could not be their
sisters. With the stopping of in-breeding, the new family-form
undoubtedly contributed towards the rapid and vigorous development of
the tribes, and imparted to the tribes, that had turned to this form of
family connection, an advantage over those that still retained the old
form of connections.

In general, the physical and intellectual differences between man and
woman were vastly less in primitive days than in our society. Among all
the peoples, living in the state of savagery or barbarism, the
differences in the weight and size of the brain are slighter than among
the peoples in civilization. Likewise, in strength of body and agility,
the women among these peoples are but little behind the men. This is
attested not only by the testimony of the ancient writers on the peoples
who clung to the mother-right. Further testimony is furnished by the
armies of women among the Ashantees and of the King of Dahomey in West
Africa, who distinguished themselves by special bravery and ferocity.
Likewise does the opinion of Tacitus on the women of the old Germans,
and Caesar's accounts of the women of the Iberians and Scots confirm the
fact. Columbus had to sustain a fight before Santa Cruz with an Indian
skiff in which the women fought as bravely as the men; and we find this
theory further confirmed in the passages from Havelock Ellis's work,
"Man and Woman," which Dr. Hope B. Adams-Walther deals upon in Nos. 39
and 40 of the "Neue Zeit." He says:

"About the Andombis of the Congo, Johnson relates that the women work
hard as carriers and in other occupations. All the same, they lead a
perfectly happy life. They are often stronger and more handsomely built
than the men; not a few of them have positively magnificent figures.
Parke styles the Manynema of the same neighborhood 'fine animals,' and
he finds the women very stately. They carry burdens as heavy as the men
and with equal ease. A North American Indian chief said to Hearne:
'Women are created for labor; a woman can carry or drag as much as two
men.' Schellong, who published a painstaking study on the Papuans of New
Guinea in the Ethnologic Journal, issued in 1891, is of the opinion that
the women are more strongly built than the men. In the interior of
Australia, women are sometimes beaten by men out of jealousy; but it
happens not infrequently that it is the man, who, on such occasions,
receives the stronger dose. In Cuba the women fought shoulder to
shoulder with the men. Among some tribes in India, as well as the
Pueblos of North and the Patagonians of South America, the women are as
tall as the men. Even among the Arabians and Druses the difference in
size is slight; and yet nearer home, among the Russians, the sexes are
more alike than is the case among the western Europeans. Accordingly, in
all parts of the earth there are instances of equal or approximately
equal physical development."

The family relations that flow from the Punaluan family were these: The
children of my mother's sisters are her children, and the children of my
father's brothers are his children, and all together are my brothers and
sisters. Conversely, the children of my mother's brothers are her
nephews and nieces, and the children of my father's sisters are his
nephews and nieces, and they, all together, are my cousins. Again, the
husbands of my mother's sisters are her husbands also, and the wives of
my father's brothers are also his wives; but my father's sisters and my
mother's brothers are excluded from family relationship, and their
children are my cousins.[6]

Along with arising civilization, sexual intercourse is proscribed
between brothers and sisters, and the proscription gradually extends to
the remotest collateral relatives on the mother's side. A new group of
consanguinity arises, the gens, which, in its first form, is made up of
a series of consanguine and more remote sisters, together with their
children and their consanguine and more remote brothers on their
mother's side. The gens has a common female ancestor, from whom the
female successors descend in generations. The husbands of these women
are not of the consanguine group, the gens, of their wives; they are of
the gens of their sisters. Conversely, the children of these men belong
to the family group of their, the children's mother, descent being in
the female line. The mother is the head of the family; and thus arises
the "mother-right," which for a long time constitutes the basis of the
family and of inheritance. In keeping therewith--so long as descent was
recognized in the female line--woman had a seat and voice in the
councils of the gens; they voted in the election of the sachems and of
the military chiefs, and deposed them.

About the Lycians, who abided by the mother-right, Herodotus says;
"Their customs are partly Cretan, partly Carian. They have, however, a
custom that distinguishes them from all other nations in the world. Ask
a Lycian who he is, and he answers by giving you his own name, the name
of his mother, and so on in the female line. Aye, if a free-born woman
marries a slave, her children are citizens, but if a free man marries a
stranger, or takes a concubine, even if he be the highest person in the
State, his children forfeit all citizen rights."

In those days, "matrimonium" and not "patrimonium," "mater familias"
and not "pater familias" were the terms used; and the native land is
called the "dear motherland." As with the previous family-forms, so did
the gens rest upon the community of property, and had a communistic
system of household. The woman is the real guide and leader of this
family community; hence she enjoys a high degree of respect, in the
house as well as in the affairs of the family community concerning the
tribe. She is judge and adjuster of disputes, and frequently performs
the ceremonies of religion as priestess. The frequent appearance of
Queens and Princesses in antiquity, their controlling influence, even
there where their sons reigned, for instance, in the history of old
Egypt, are results of the mother-right. Mythology, at that epoch,
assumes predominantly female characters: Astarte, Ceres, Demeter,
Latona, Isis, Frigga, Freia, Gerdha, etc. Woman is considered
inviolable; matricide is the blackest of all crimes: it summons all men
to retribution. The blood-feud is the common concern of all the men of
the tribe; each is obliged to avenge the wrong done to a member of the
family community by the members of another tribe. In defence of the
women the men are spurred to highest valor. Thus did the effects of the
mother-right, gyneocracy, manifest themselves in all the relations of
life among the peoples of antiquity--among the Babylonians, the
Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, before the time of the Heroes;
among the peoples of Italy, before the founding of Rome; among the
Scythians, the Gauls, the Iberians and Cantabrians, the Germans of
Tacitus, etc. Woman, at that time, takes in the family and in public
life a position such as she has never since taken. Along these lines,
says Tacitus in his "Germania": "They (the Germans) even suppose
somewhat of sanctity and prescience to be inherent in the female sex;
and, therefore, neither despise their counsels, nor disregard their
responses;" and Diodorus, who lived at the time of Caesar, feels highly
indignant over the position of women in Egypt, having learned that
there, not the sons, but the daughters, supported their aging parents.
He contemptuously shrugs his shoulders at the poltroons of the Nile, who
relinquish household and public rights to the members of the weaker sex,
and allow them privileges that must sound unheard-of to a Greek or a
Roman.

Under the gyneocracy, a state of comparative peace prevailed in general.
The horizon was narrow and small, life primitive. The different tribes
separated themselves from one another, as best they could, and respected
their mutual boundaries. Was, however, one tribe attacked by another,
then the men were obliged to rush to its defence, and in this they were
supported by the women in the most vigorous fashion. According to
Herodotus, the women joined in battle among the Scythians: as he claims,
the maid could not marry before she had slain an enemy. What _role_
women played in battle among the Germans, Iberians, Scots, etc., has
already been stated. But in the gens also did they, under given
circumstances, command a strong regiment:--woe to the man who was either
too lazy or too unskilled to contribute his share to the common support.
He was shown the door, and, either he returned to his own gens, where it
was with difficulty he was again received with friendliness, or he
joined another gens that was more tolerant toward him.[7]

That conjugal life still bears this character in the interior of Africa,
Livingstone learned to his great surprise, as he narrates in his
"Missionary Travels and Researches in Southern Africa," London, 1857. On
the Zambesi he ran across the Valonda--a handsome, vigorous negro tribe,
devoted to agriculture--where he found confirmed the informations
received from the Portuguese, and which at first seemed incredible to
him, with regard to the privileged position enjoyed by women. They sit
in council; the young man who marries must move from his own, to the
village of his wife: he thereby pledges himself to furnish the mother of
his wife for life with kindling wood: if he divorces, the children
remain the property of the mother. On the other hand, the wife must see
to the sustenance of the husband. Although, occasionally, slight
disagreements break out between man and wife, Livingstone found that the
men did not retaliate, but he discovered that the men, who offended
their wives, were punished in the most sensitive manner--through their
stomachs. The husband, he says, comes home to eat, but one woman sends
him off to another, and he gets nothing. Tired and hungry he climbs a
tree in the most populous part of the village, and announces in woeful
tones: "Hear! Hear! I thought I had married women, but they are witches
to me! I am a bachelor; I have not a single wife! Is that right towards
a man like me?" If a woman gives physical expression to her anger at a
man, she is sentenced to carry him on her back from the court of the
chieftain to her own house. While she is carrying him home, the other
men scoff at and jeer her; the women, on the contrary, encourage her
with all their might, calling out to her: "Treat him as he deserves; do
it again!"

Similar conditions still exist in the German colony of Cameroon in West
Africa. A German ship's doctor, who studied the country and its people
by personal observation, writes us thus:

"With a large number of tribes, inheritance is based on maternity.
Paternity is immaterial. Brothers and sisters are only the children of
one mother. A man does not bequeath his property to his children, but to
the children of his sister, that is to say, to his nephews and nieces,
as his nearest demonstrable blood relatives. A chief of the Way people
explained to me in horrible English: "My sister and I are certainly
blood relatives, consequently her son is my heir; when I die, he will
be the king of my town." "And your father?" I inquired. "I don't know
what that means, 'my father,'" answered he. Upon my putting to him the
question whether he had no children, rolling on the ground with
laughter, he answered that, with them, men have no children, only women.

"I can assure you," our informant goes on to write, "that even the heir
of King Bell in Cameroon _is the King's nephew, and not one of his
sons_. The so-called children of King Bell, several of whom are now
going through training in German cities, are merely children of his
wives, _whose fathers are unknown_; one of them I might, possibly, claim
for myself."

What say the adversaries of the theory of descent in the female line to
this sketch drawn from the immediate present? Our informant is a man
with eyes open, who probed things to the very bottom. How many of those
who live among these semi-savage races, do as much? Hence the wild
accounts about the "immorality" of the natives.

Furthermore, there come to our notice the memorials of the Imperial
Government, submitted to the Reichstag on the German colonies (Session
of 1894-95). In the memorial on the Southwestern territory of Africa
there occurs this passage, p. 239: "Without their advice--the oldest and
wealthiest--he (chief of the tribe in principal village) can not render
the slightest decision, and not the men only, _but quite often the women
also_, even the servants, _express their opinion_."

In the report of the Marshall Islands, p. 254 of the memorial, it runs
thus: "The ruling power over all the islands of the Marshall group never
rested in the hands of a single chieftain.... _Seeing, however, that no
female member of this class (the Irody) is alive, and only the mother
conveys nobility and rank to the child, the Irodies dies out with their
chieftain._" The expression used, and the descriptions made, by
reporters betray what an utter blank are to them the conditions that
they refer to: they can not find their bearings among them.

With an increasing population, there arise a number of sisters, which,
in turn, produce daughter gentes. Over and against these, the mother
gens appears as phratry. A number of phratries constitute a tribe. This
social organization is so firm that it still constituted the foundation
for the military organization in the old States, after the old gentile
constitution had fallen to pieces. The tribe splits up into several
tribes, all of which have the same constitution, and in each of which
the old gentes are reproduced. However, seeing that the gentile
constitution forbids the intermarriage of brothers and sisters, and of
relatives on the mother's side to the furthest degree, it undermines its
own foundation. Due to the evermore complicated relations of the
separate gentes with one another--a condition of things that the social
and economic progress promotes--the inhibition of marriage between the
several gentes, that descend from the mother's side, becomes in the
long run impracticable: it breaks down of itself, or is burst asunder.
So long as the production of the means of subsistence was still at the
lowest stages, and satisfied only simple wants, the activity of man and
woman was essentially the same. Along with an increasing division of
labor, there came about, not merely a division of functions, but also a
division of occupations. Fishing, the hunt, cattle-raising,--demanded
separate knowledge; and, to a still higher degree, the construction of
tools and utensils, which became mainly the property of the men. Field
agriculture expanded materially the circle of activities, and it created
a supply of subsistence that satisfied the highest demands of the time.
Man, whose activity stood in the foreground in the course of this
development, became the real lord and owner of these sources of wealth,
which, in turn, furnished the basis for commerce; and this created new
relations, and social changes.

Not only did ever fresh causes of friction and conflicts arise for the
possession of the best lands, due to the increase of population, and the
need of wider domains for cattle-raising and agriculture, but, along
with such increase of population, there arose the need of labor power to
cultivate the ground. The more numerous these powers, all the greater
was the wealth in products and herds. These struggles led, first, to the
rape of women, later to the enslaving of conquered men. The women became
laborers and objects of pleasure for the conqueror; their males became
slaves. Two elements were thereby simultaneously introduced into the old
gentile constitution. The two and the gentile constitution could not, in
the long run, get along together.

Furthermore, hand in hand with the increasing differentiation of
occupations, owing to the growing need of tools, utensils, weapons,
etc., handicraft rises into existence. It follows its own course of
development and separates itself from agriculture. As a consequence, a
distinct population, one that plies the trades, is called into life; and
it splits off from the agricultural population with entirely different
interests.

According to the mother-right, i. e., so long as descent followed only
in female line, the custom was that the gentile relatives inherited from
the deceased gentile fellow-members on the mother's side. The property
remained in the gens. The children of the deceased father did not belong
to his gens, but to that of the mother: accordingly, they did not
inherit from the father; at his death his property fell back to his own
gens. Under the new conditions, where the father was the
property-holder, i. e., the owner of herds and slaves, of weapons and
utensils, and where he had become a handicraftsman, or merchant, his
property, so long as he was still considered of the gens of his mother,
fell after his death, not to his own children, but to his brothers and
sisters, and to the children of his sisters, or to the successors of
his sisters. His own children went away empty-handed. The pressure to
change such a state of things was, accordingly, powerful;--and it was
changed. Thereupon a condition arose that was not yet monogamy, but that
approximated it; there arose the "pairing family." A certain man lived
with a certain woman, and the children, born of that relation, were that
couple's own children. These pairing families increased in the measure
in which the marriage inhibitions, that flowed from the gentile
constitution, hampered marriage, and in which the above mentioned
economic grounds rendered desirable this new form of family life.
Personal property accorded ill with the old condition of things, which
rested upon the community of goods. Both _rank_ and _occupation_ now
decidedly favored the necessity for the choice of a domicile. The
production of merchandise begot commerce with neighboring and foreign
nations; and that necessitated money. It was man who led and controlled
this development. His private interests had, accordingly, no longer any
real points of contact with the old gentile organization, whose
interests often stood in opposition to his own. Accordingly, the
importance of the gentile organization sank ever more. The gens finally
became little more than the center of the religious functions for the
family, its economic significance was gone. The complete dissolution of
gentile organization became only a question of time.

With the dissolution of the old gentile organization, the influence and
position of woman sank rapidly. The mother-right vanished; the
father-right stepped into its shoes. Man now became a private
property-holder: he had an interest in children, whom he could look upon
as legitimate, and whom he made the heirs of his property: hence _he
forced upon woman the command of abstinence from intercourse with other
men_.

At the same time man assumed the right of taking unto himself, beside
his own wife, or several of them, as many concubines as his condition
allowed; and the children of these concubines were likewise treated as
legitimate. On this head we find two valuable illustrations in the
Bible. In I Book of Moses, chapter 16, verses 1 and 2, we read: "Now
Sarai, Abram's wife, bare him no children: and she had a hand-maid, an
Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now,
the Lord has restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my
maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened
to the voice of Sarai." The second remarkable illustration is found in I
Book of Moses 30, 1 and sequel: "And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob
no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me
children, or else I die. And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel;
and he said, Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit
of the womb? and she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and
she shall bear upon my knees that I may also have children by her. And
she gave him Bilhah her handmaid to wife: and Jacob went in unto her."

Jacob, accordingly, had not only the daughters of Laban, two sisters,
simultaneously for wives, they also helped him to their maids, all of
which, according to the usage of the times, was wholly free from taint
of impropriety. The two principal wives he had bought, as is well known,
by serving Laban seven years for each. The purchase of a wife was at the
time common among the Jews, but, along with the purchase of wives, whom
they were compelled to take from among their own people, they practiced
on an extensive scale the rape of women from among the peoples that they
conquered. The Benjaminites raped the daughters of Silos.[8] In such
wars, it was originally customary that all the men who fell into the
hands of the vanquisher were killed. The captured woman became a slave,
a concubine. Nevertheless, she could be raised to the dignity of a
legitimate wife so soon as she had fulfilled certain conditions of the
Jews: she had to cut her hair and nails; to lay off the dress she was
captured in, and exchange it for another that was given her; thereupon
she had to mourn a whole month for her father and mother: she was, in a
manner to be dead to her own people, become estranged from them: then
could she climb into the conjugal bed. The largest number of wives had
King Solomon, as is known. According to Kings 1, 11, not less than 700
wives and 300 concubines are ascribed to him.

With the rule of the father-right and descent in the male line in the
Jewish gentile organization, the daughters were excluded from
inheritance. Later this was, however, changed, at least when a father
left no sons. This appears from IV Book of Moses 27, 2-8, where it is
reported that, as Zelaphehad died without sons, and his daughter
complained bitterly that she was to be excluded from her father's
inheritance, which was to fall back to the tribe of Joseph, Moses
decided that, in that case, the daughters should inherit. But seeing
that she contemplated marrying, according to custom, in another tribe,
the tribe of Joseph complained that thereby the inheritance would be
lost to it. Thereupon Moses decided further (4, 36) that heiresses,
though free in the choice of a husband, were bound to marry in the tribe
of their own father. For the sake of property, the old ordinance was
overthrown. Similarly, in Athens, did Solon decree that an heiress had
to marry her nearest male agnate, even though both belonged to the same
gens, and, according to former law, such a marriage was forbidden. Solon
ordered also that a property-holder was not compelled as thitherto, to
leave his property to his own gens in case he died childless; but that
he could by testament constitute any one else his heir. From all this it
is obvious:--man does not rule property, property rules him, and becomes
his master.

With the rule of private property, the subjection of woman to man, her
bondage was sealed. Then came the time of disregard, even of contempt
for woman.

_The reign of the mother-right implied communism; equality for all; the
rise of the father-right implied the reign of private property, and,
with it, the oppression and enslavement of woman._

It is difficult to trace in detail the manner in which the change was
achieved. A knowledge of the events is lacking. Neither did this _first
great revolution_ in the lap of mankind come into force simultaneously
among the ancient nations; nor yet is it probable that it was
accomplished everywhere in the same manner. Among the peoples of old
Greece, it was Athens where the new order of things first prevailed.

Frederick Engels is of the opinion that this great revolution was
accomplished peacefully, and that, after all the conditions for the new
rights were at hand, it only required a simple vote in the gens in order
to rear the father in the place of the mother-right. Bachofen, on the
contrary, grounding his opinion upon more or less reliable information
from the old writers, holds that the women offered strong resistance to
this social transformation. He, for instance, sees in the legends of the
Amazonian Kingdoms, which re-appear under manifold variations in the old
history of Asia and the Orient, and also have turned up in South America
and in China, proofs for the struggle and resistance which the women
offered to the new order. We leave that as it may be.

With the rule of man, women lost their position in the community; they
were excluded from the councils and from all leading influence. Man
exacts conjugal fidelity from her, but claims exemption for himself. If
she violates that, she is guilty of the most serious deception that can
afflict the new citizen; she thereby introduces into his house
stranger's children as heirs of his property. Hence, among all ancient
nations, the breach of conjugal fidelity on the part of woman is
punished with death or slavery.

Notwithstanding women were thus removed from their position as leaders,
the customs connected with the old system of morals continued for
centuries to sway the public mind, although the meaning of the surviving
customs was gradually lost to the people. It is only in modern times
that pains are being taken to inquire into the original meaning of these
old customs. In Greece, for instance, it remained a religious practice
that Greek women prayed only to goddesses for advice, help and favors.
Likewise, the yearly recurring celebration of the Thesmophoria owed its
origin to the days of mother-right. Even in later days, the women of
Greece celebrated this festival for five days in honor of Demeter; and
no man was allowed to be present. It was similarly in old Rome with a
festival in honor of Ceres. Both Demeter and Ceres were considered
goddesses of fertility. In Germany also such festivals, once customary
in the heathen days of Frigga, were held, deep into the Middle Ages,
Frigga being considered the goddess of fertility among the old Germans.
According to the narratives, women gave a free reign to their
frolicsomeness on the occasions of these festivals. Also here men were
excluded from participation in the festival.

In Athens, where, as already stated, the mother-right made earliest room
for the father-right, but, as it seems, under strong opposition from the
women, the transition is portrayed touchingly and in all the fullness of
its tragic import, in the "Eumenides" of Aeschylus. The story is this:
Agamemnon, King of Mycene, and husband of Clytemnestra, sacrifices his
daughter, Iphigenia, upon the command of the oracle on his expedition
against Troy. The mother, indignant at the sacrifice of her daughter,
takes, during her husband's absence, Aegysthos for her consort. Upon
Agamemnon's return to Mycene, after an absence of many years, he is
murdered by Aegysthos with the connivance of Clytemnestra. Orestes, the
son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, avenges the murder of his father, at
the instigation of Apollo and Athene, by slaying his mother and
Aegysthos. The Erinnyes, as representatives of the old law, pursue
Orestes on account of the murder of his mother. Apollo and Athene, the
latter of whom, according to mythology, is motherless--she leaped
full-armed out of the head of Jupiter--represent the new law, and defend
Orestes. The issue is carried to the Areopagus, before which the
following dialogue ensues. The two hostile principles come here into
dramatic vividness of expression:


    Erinnyes--The prophet bade thee be a matricide?

    Orestes--And to this hour I am well content withal.

    Erinnyes--Thoul't change that tune, when judgment seizes thee.

    Orestes--My father from his tomb will take my part; I fear not.

    Erinnyes--Ay, rely on dead men's aid,
    When guilty of matricide!

    Orestes--She, that is slain,
    Was doubly tainted.

    Erinnyes--How? Inform the court.

    Orestes--She slew her wedded lord, and slew my sire.

    Erinnyes--Death gave her quittance, then. But thou yet livest.

    Orestes--And while she lived, why did you not pursue her?

    Erinnyes--No tie of blood bound her to whom she slew.

    Orestes--But I was tied by blood-affinity
    To her who bare me?

    Erinnyes--Else, thou accursed one,
    How nourished she thy life within her womb?
    Wouldst thou renounce the holiest bond of all?


The Erinnyes, it will be noticed, recognize no rights on the part of
the father and the husband; to them there exists only the right of the
mother. That Clytemnestra slew her husband is indifferent to them; on
the other hand, they demand punishment for the matricide, committed by
Orestes: in killing his mother he had committed the worst crime
imaginable under the old gentile order. Apollo, on the contrary, stands
on the opposite principle. Commissioned by Zeus to avenge the murder of
his father, he had led Orestes to the murder of his own mother. Apollo
now defends Orestes' action before the judges, saying:


    That scruple likewise I can satisfy.
    She who is called the mother of the child
    Is not its parent, but the nurse of seed
    Implanted in begetting. He that sows
    Is author of the shoot, which she, if Heaven
    Prevent not, keeps as in a garden-ground.
    In proof whereof, to show that fatherhood
    May be without the mother, I appeal
    To Pallas, daughter of Olympian Zeus,
    In present witness here. Behold a plant,
    Not moulded in the darkness of the womb,
    Yet nobler than all scions of Heaven's stock.


According to Apollo, the act of begetting confers the superior right;
whereas, according to the views in force until then, the mother, who
gives to the child her blood and its life, was esteemed the sole
possessor of the child, while the man, the father of her child, was
regarded a stranger. Hence the Erinnyes reply to the strange notions of
Apollo:


                         Thou didst lead astray
    Those primal goddesses with draughts of wine,
    O'erturning ordinance.
    Young, thou wouldst override our ancient right.


The judges, thereupon, make ready for the sentence. One half stand by
the old, one half by the new right; a tie is threatened; thereupon
Athene seizes the ballot from the altar and dropping it in the urn,
says:


    To me it falls to give my judgment last.
    Here openly I give it for Orestes.
    No mother bore me. To the masculine side
    For all save marriage my whole heart is given,--
    In all and everything the father's child.
    So little care I for a woman's death,
    That slew her lord, the guardian of her home.
    Now though the votes be even, Orestes wins.


The new right won. Marriage with the father as head, had overpowered the
gyneocracy.

Another legend represents the downfall of the mother-right in Athens
this way: "Under the reign of Kekrops, a double miracle happened. There
broke forth simultaneously out of the earth an oil-tree, and at another
place water. The frightened king sent to Delphi to interrogate the
Oracle upon the meaning of these happenings. The answer was: 'The
oil-tree stands for Minerva, the water for Neptune; it is now with the
citizens after which of the two deities they wish to name their city.'
Kekrops called together the assembly of the people in which men and
women enjoyed the right of suffrage. The men voted for Neptune, the
women for Minerva; and as the women had a majority of one, Minerva won.
Thereupon Neptune was angered and he caused the sea to wash over the
territory of the Athenians. In order to soothe the wrath of the god, the
Athenians placed a threefold punishment upon their women:--_they were to
forfeit the suffrage, children were no longer to carry their mother's
name, and they themselves were no longer to be called Athenian
women_."[9]

As in Athens, the transition from the mother to the father-right was
everywhere achieved so soon as a certain height was reached in social
development. Woman is crowded into the house; she is isolated; she is
assigned special quarters--the gynekonitis--, in which she lives; she is
even excluded from intercourse with the male visitors of the house.
That, in fact, was the principal object of her isolation.

This change finds its expression as early as the Odyssey. Telemachus
forbids Penelope's, his mother's, presence among the suitors. He, the
son, orders his mother:


    But come now, go to thy bower, and deal with such things as ye can;
    With the sock and the loom be busy, and thine handmaids order and
             teach,
    That they speed the work and the wearing; but for men is the word
             and the speech;
    For all, but for me the chiefest, for here am I the might and the
             power.


Such was the doctrine already common in Greece at that time. It went
even further. Woman, even if a widow, stands so completely under the
rule of the nearest male relative, that she no longer has even the
choice of a husband. The suitors, tired of long waiting, due to the
cunning of Penelope, address themselves to Telemachus through the mouth
of Antinous, saying:


    But for thee, do we the suitors this answer to thee show,
    That thou in thy soul may'st know it, and that all the folk may know,
    _Send thou thy mother away, and bid her a wedding to gain_
    _With whomso her father willeth, of whomso her heart may be fain_.


It is at an end with the freedom of woman. If she leaves the house, she
must veil herself not to awaken the desires of another man. In the
Orient, where, due to the warm climate, sexual passion is strongest,
this method of seclusion is carried even to-day to extreme lengths.
Athens becomes in this a pattern for the ancient nations. Woman shares,
indeed, her husband's bed, but not his table; she does not address him
by name, but "Sir;" she is his maid-servant; she was allowed to appear
nowhere openly; on the street she was ever veiled and clad with greatest
simplicity. If she committed adultery, she paid for the trespass,
according to the laws of Solon, with her life, or with her freedom. The
husband could sell her for a slave.

The position of the Greek woman at the time when Greece was rushing to
the zenith of her development comes into plastic expression in the
"Medea" of Euripedes. She complains:


    Ay, of all living and of all reasoning things
    Are women the most miserable race:
    Who first needs buy a husband at great price,
    To take him then for owner of our lives:
    For this ill is more keen than common ills.
    And of essays most perilous is this,
    Whether one good or evil do we take.
    For evil-famed to women is divorce,
    Nor can one spurn a husband. She, so brought
    Beneath new rule and wont, had surely need
    To be a prophetess, unless at home
    She learned the likeliest prospect with her spouse.
    And if, we having aptly searched out this,
    A husband house with us not savagely
    Drawing in the yoke, ours is an envied life;
    But if not, most to be desired is death.
    And if a man grow sick to herd indoors,
    He, going forth, stays his heart's weariness,
    Turning him to some friend or natural peer;
    But we perforce to one sole being look.
    But, say they, we, while they fight with the spear,
    Lead in our homes a life undangerous:
    Judging amiss; for I would liefer thrice
    Bear brunt of arms than once bring forth a child.


Wholly otherwise stood matters for the men. Although with an eye to the
begetting of legitimate heirs for his property, he imposed upon woman
strict abstinence from other men, he was, nevertheless, not inclined to
lay a corresponding abstinence upon himself.

Hetairism sprang up. Women distinguished for their beauty and intellect,
and who, as a rule, were aliens, preferred a free life in intimate
intercourse with men, to the slavery of marriage. Nothing objectionable
was seen in that. The names and fame of these hetairae, who held
intimate intercourse with the leading men of Greece, and participated in
their learned discourses, as well as in their revels, has come down to
our own days; whereas the names of the legitimate wives are mostly
forgotten and lost. Thus the handsome Aspasia was the intimate friend of
the celebrated Pericles, who later made her his legitimate wife; the
name of Phryne became in later days the generic designation of those
women that were to be had for money. Phryne held intimate relations with
Hyperides, and she stood for Praxiteles, one of the first sculptors of
Greece, as the model for his Aphrodite. Danae was the sweetheart of
Epicurus, Archeanassa that of Plato. Other celebrated hetairae, whose
names have reached our days, were Lais of Corinth, Gnathanea, etc. There
is no celebrated Greek, who had no intercourse with hetairae. It
belonged to the style of life of distinguished Greeks. Demosthenes, the
great orator, described in his oration against Neara, the sexual life of
the rich men of Athens in these words: "_We marry a woman in order to
obtain legitimate children, and to have a faithful warder in the house;
we keep concubines for our service and daily care; and hetairae for the
enjoyment of love._" The wife was, accordingly, only an apparatus for
the production of children; a faithful dog, that watched the house. The
master of the house, on the contrary, lived according to his _bon
plaisir_, as he willed.

In order to satisfy the demand for venal women, particularly with
younger males, there arose that which was unknown under the rule of the
mother-right,--_prostitution_. Prostitution distinguishes itself from
the free sexual intercourse that customs and social institutions
rendered a matter of course under primitive conditions, and,
accordingly, freed from objectionableness, in that the woman sells her
body, either to one man or to several, for material benefit.
Prostitution, therefore, exists so soon as woman makes a trade of her
charms. Solon, who formulated the new law for Athens, and is,
consequently, esteemed the founder of the new legal status, was also the
founder of the public houses for women, the "deikterion,"--official
houses of prostitution--, and the price to all the customers was the
same. According to Philemon it amounted to one obolus, about four cents
of our money. Like the temples with the Greeks and Romans, and the
Christian churches in Middle Ages, the deikterion was inviolable: it
stood under the protection of the Government. Until about a hundred and
fifty years before our reckoning, the Temple of Jerusalem also was the
usual place of gathering for the _filles de joie_.

For the benefit that Solon bestowed upon the Athenian male population,
in founding the deikterion, he was praised in song by one of his
contemporaries in these words: "Hail to you, Solon! You bought public
women for the benefit of the city, for the benefit of the morality of a
city that is full of vigorous young men, who, in the absence of your
wise institution, would give themselves over to the disturbing annoyance
of the better women." We shall see that, at the close of the nineteenth
century, justification is sought for the regulation of houses of
prostitution by Government, and for the necessity of prostitution
itself, upon the identical grounds. Thus, actions, committed by men,
were recognized by legislation as a natural right, while, committed by
women, were held to be shameful, and a serious crime. As is well known,
even to-day not few are the men who prefer the company of a pretty
female sinner to that of their own wives, and who not infrequently
belong to the "Props of the State," the "Pillars of Order," and are
"guardians of the sanctity of marriage and the family."

True enough, it seems, that the Greek women often revenged themselves
upon their marital-lords for the yoke placed upon them. If prostitution
is the supplement of monogamy, on the one side, adultery among women and
the cuckoldry of men is its supplement, on the other. Among the Greek
dramatic poets, Euripides is the woman-hater: he loved to make women the
object of attacks in his dramas. What all he twitted them with appears
best from the speech that a Greek woman flings at him in the
"Thesmophoria" of Aristophanes. She says among other things:


    With what slanderous dirt does not he (Euripides) besmirch us?
    When does the slanderer's tongue hold its peace? In short:
    Wherever there is an audience, tragedies or choruses,
    There we are called corner-loafers, anglers for men,
    Fond of the wine-cup, treasonable arch-gossips,
    Not a good hair is left us; we are the plague of men.
    Therefore, soon as our husbands return to us home from the
        benches,[10]
    Eyes of suspicion upon us they cast, and look about
    Whether a place of concealment conceal not a rival.
    Whereupon, none of the things, at first by us done,
    Now is allowed us: Such stuff against us
    Does he in the men's heads stick, that, if a woman
    Is weaving a garland, she is held to be in love; or when,
    While hustling the household to keep, something drops,
    Forthwith the husband inquires: "Whom are those fragments meant for?
    Plainly, they are meant for the guest from Corinthos."


We can understand that this ready-tongued Greek woman should serve the
assailer of her sex in such manner; nevertheless, Euripides could not
very well have made these accusations, nor could he have found credence
with the men, if they knew not but too well that the accusations were
justified. To judge by the concluding sentences of this address, the
custom--met later in Germany and many other countries--had not yet been
naturalized in Greece, that the host placed his own wife or daughter at
the disposal of his guest for the night. Murner writes on this custom,
prevalent in Holland as late as the fifteenth century, in these words:
"It is the custom in the Netherlands, when the host has a dear guest,
that he lets his wife sleep with him on faith."[11]

The increasing struggles between the classes in the several states of
Greece, and the sad state of many of the smaller communities, gave
occasion for Plato to inquire into the best constitution and the best
institutions for the State. In his "Republic," set up by him as ideal,
he demands, at least for the first class of his citizens, the watchers,
the complete equality of woman. Women are to participate in the
exercises of arms, the same as the men, and are to fill the same duties
as these, only they are to attend to the lighter ones, "owing to the
weakness of the sex." He maintains that the natural inclinations are
equally distributed among the two sexes, only that woman is in all
matters weaker than man. Furthermore, the women are to be common to the
men, and vice versa; likewise are the children to be common, "so that
neither the father may know his child, nor the child his father."[12]

Aristotle, in his "Politics," is satisfied with less. Woman should have
a free hand in the selection of her husband, but she is to be
subordinate to him; nevertheless, she should have the right "to give
good advice." Thucydides expresses an opinion that meets with the
applause of all modern Philistines. He says: "That wife deserves the
highest praise of whom, outside of her home, neither good nor bad is
heard."

With such views, respect for woman was bound to sink to a low level;
fear of over-population even led to the avoidance of intimate
intercourse with her. Unnatural means of satisfying sexual desires were
resorted to. The Greek states were cities with small territories, unable
to supply the usual sustenance to a population in excess of a given
number. Hence the fear of over-population caused Aristotle to recommend
to the men abstinence from their wives, and pederasty, instead. Before
him, Socrates had praised pederasty as the sign of a higher culture. In
the end, the most promising men of Greece became adherents of this
unnatural passion. Regard for women sank all the deeper. There were now
houses for male prostitutes, as there were for female. In such a social
atmosphere, it was natural for Thucydides to utter the saying that woman
was worse than the storm-lashed ocean's wave, than the fire's glow, than
the cascade of the wild mountain torrent. "If it is a God that invented
woman, wherever, he may be, let him know, that he is the unhallowed
cause of the greatest evil."[13]

The male population of Greece having become addicted to pederasty, the
female population fell into the opposite extreme: it took to the love of
members of its own sex. This happened especially with the women of the
island of Lesbos, whence this aberration was, and still continues to be
named, "Lesbian love," for it has not yet died out: it survives among
us. The poetess Sappho, "the Lesbian nightingale," who lived about six
hundred years before our reckoning, is considered the leading
representative of this form of love. Her passion is glowingly expressed
in her hymn to Aphrodite, whom she implores:


    "Glittering-throned, undying Aphrodite,
    Wile-weaving daughter of high Zeus, I pray thee,
    Tame not my soul with heavy woe, dread mistress,
    Nay, nor with anguish."


A still more passionate sensuousness is attested in her hymn to the
handsome Atthis.

While in Athens, along with the rest of Greece, the father-right ruled,
Sparta, the rival for supremacy with Athens, still continued under the
mother-right, a condition that had become wholly foreign to most Greeks.
The story runs that one day a Greek asked a Spartan what punishment was
meted out in Sparta to the adulterer. He answered: "Stranger, among us
there are no adulterers." "But if there should be any?" "For
punishment," the Spartan replied, sarcastically, "he must donate an ox,
so large as to be able to reach over Taygetus with his head, and drink
out of Eurotas." Upon the startled question, put by the stranger, "How
can an ox be so large?" the Spartan answered laughing: "How is it
possible that there could be an adulterer in Sparta?" At the same time
the self-consciousness of the Spartan woman appears in the proud answer
given a stranger by the wife of Leonidas. On his saying to her: "You
female Lacedaemonians are the only women who rule over your men," she
answered: "So are we the only women who bring men into the world."

The free condition of women under the mother-right promoted her beauty,
raised her pride, her dignity and her self-reliance. The judgment of all
ancient writers is to the effect that, during the period of the
gyneocracy, these qualities were highly developed among women. The
constrained condition that later supervened, necessarily had its evil
effect upon them. The difference appears even in the garb of the two
periods. The garb of the Doric woman hung loose from her shoulders; it
left the arms free, and thighs exposed: it is the garb of Diana, who is
represented as free and bold in our museums. The Ionian garb, on the
contrary, concealed the body and hampered its motion. The garb of woman
to-day is, far more than usually realized, a sign of her dependence and
helplessness. The style of woman's dress amongst most peoples, down to
our own days, renders her awkward, forces on her a sense of weakness,
and makes her timid; and this, finally, finds its expression in her
attitude and character. The custom among the Spartans of letting the
girls go naked until marriageable age--a custom that the climate
allowed--contributed considerably, in the opinion of an ancient writer,
to impart to them a taste for simplicity and for attention to decency.
Nor was there in the custom, according to the views of those days, aught
offensive to decorum, or inciting to lust. Furthermore, the girls
participated in all the bodily exercises, just as the boys, and thus
there was reared a vigorous, proud, self-conscious race, a race that was
conscious of its own merit, as proved by the answer of Leonidas' wife to
the stranger.

In intimate connection with the mother-right, after it had ceased to be
a ruling social principle, stood certain customs, which modern writers,
ignorant of their meaning, designate as "prostitution." In Babylon, it
was a religious duty with the maid, who had reached puberty, to appear
once in the temple of Mylitta in order to offer her maidenhood as a
sacrifice, by surrendering herself to some man. Similarly happened in
the Serapeum of Memphis; in Armenia, in honor of the goddess Anaitis; in
Cyprus; in Tyrus and Sidon, in honor of Astarte or Aphrodite. The
festivals of Isis among the Egyptians served similar customs. This
sacrifice of virginity was demanded in order to atone with the goddess
for the exclusive surrender of woman to one man in marriage:--"Not that
she may wilt in the arms of a single man is woman arrayed by nature with
all the charms at its command."[14] The continued favor of the goddess
had to be purchased by the sacrifice of virginity to a stranger. It was
likewise in line with the old idea that the Lybian maids earned their
dower by prostituting their bodies. In accord with the mother-right,
these women were sexually free during their unmarried status; and the
men saw so little objection in these pickings, that those were taken by
them for wives who had been most in demand. It was thus also among the
Thracians, in the days of Herodotus: "They do not watch the maidens, but
leave them full freedom to associate with whom they please. The women,
however, they watch strictly. They buy them from their parents for large
sums." Celebrated were the Hierodulae of the temple of Aphrodite at
Corinth, where always more than one thousand maidens were gathered, and
constituted a chief point of attraction for the men of Greece. Of the
daughter of King Cheops of Egypt, the legend relates that she had a
pyramid built out of the proceeds of prostitution of her charms.

Conditions, similar to these, prevail down to now, on the Mariana, the
Philippine and the Polynesian islands; according to Waitz, also among
several African tribes. Another custom, prevalent till late on the
Balearic islands, and indicative of the right of all men to a woman, was
that, on the wedding night, the male kin had access to the bride in
order of seniority. The bridegroom came last; he then took her as wife
into his own possession. This custom has been changed among other people
so that the priest or the tribal chiefs (kings) exercise the privilege
over the bride, as representatives of the men of the tribe. On Malabar,
the Caimars hire patamars (priests) to deflower their wives.... The
chief priest (Namburi) is in duty bound to render this service to the
king (Zamorin) at his wedding, and the king rewards him with fifty gold
pieces.[15] In Further India, and on several islands of the great ocean,
it is sometimes the priests and sometimes the tribal chiefs who
undertake the function.[16] The same happens in Senegambia, where the
tribal chief exercises, as a duty of his office, the deflowering of
maids, and receives therefor a present. Again, with other peoples, the
custom was, and continues here and yonder, that the deflowering of a
maid, sometimes even of a child only a few months old, is done by means
of images of deities, fashioned expressly for this purpose. It may also
be accepted as certain that the "jus primae noctis" (the right of the
first night), prevalent in Germany and all Europe until late in the
Middle Ages, owes its origin to the same tradition, as Frederick Engels
observes. The landlord, who, as master of his dependents and serfs,
looked upon himself as their chief, exercised the right of the head of
the tribe, a right that he considered had passed over to himself as the
arbiter of their lives and existence.

Echoes of the mother-right are further detected in the singular custom
among some South American tribes, that, instead of the lying-in woman,
the man goes to bed, there acts like a woman in labor, and is tended by
the wife. The custom implies that the father recognizes the new born
child as his own. By imitating the pains of child-birth, the man fills
the fiction that the birth is also his work; that he, therefore, has a
right to the child, who, according to the former custom, belonged to the
mother and the mother's gens, respectively. The custom is said to have
also maintained itself among the Basques, who must be looked upon as a
people of primitive usages and customs. Likewise is the custom said to
prevail among several mountain tribes in China. It prevailed until not
long since in Corsica.

In Greece likewise did woman become an article of purchase. So soon as
she stepped into the house of her marital lord, she ceased to exist for
her family. This was symbolically expressed by burning before the door
the handsomely decked wagon which took her to the house of her husband.
Among the Ostiaks of Siberia, to this day, the father sells his
daughter: he chaffers with the representative of the bridegroom about
the price to be paid. Likewise among several African tribes, the same as
in the days of Jacob, the custom is that a man who courts a maid, enters
in the service of his future mother-in-law. Even with us, marriage by
purchase has not died out: it prevails in bourgeois society worse than
ever. Marriage for money, almost everywhere customary among the ruling
classes, is nothing other than marriage by purchase. Indeed, the
marriage gift, which in all civilized countries the bridegroom makes to
the bride, is but a symbol of the purchase of the wife as property.

Along with marriage by purchase, there was the custom of marriage by
rape. The rape of women was a customary practice, not alone among the
ancient Jews, but everywhere in antiquity. It is met with among almost
all nations. The best known historic instance is the rape of the Sabine
women by the Romans. The rape of women was an easy remedy where women
ran short, as, according to the legend, happened to the early Romans; or
where polygamy was the custom, as everywhere in the Orient. There it
assumed large proportions during the supremacy of the Arabs, from the
seventh to the twelfth century.

Symbolically, the rape of woman still occurs, for instance among the
Araucans of South Chile. While the friends of the bridegroom are
negotiating with the father of the bride, the bridegroom steals with his
horse into the neighborhood of the house, and seeks to capture the
bride. So soon as he catches her, he throws her upon his horse, and
makes off with her to the woods. The men, women and children thereupon
raise a great hue and cry, and seek to prevent the escape. But when the
bridegroom has reached the thick of the woods, the marriage is
considered consummated. This holds good also when the abduction takes
place against the will of the parents. Similar customs prevail among the
peoples of Australia.

Among ourselves, the custom of "wedding trips" still reminds us of the
former rape of the wife: the bride is carried off from her domestic
flock. On the other hand, the exchange of rings is a reminiscence of the
subjection and enchainment of the woman to the man. The custom
originated in Rome. The bride received an iron ring from her husband as
a sign of her bondage to him. Later the ring was made of gold; much
later the exchange of rings was introduced, as a sign of mutual union.

The old family ties of the gens had, accordingly, lost their foundation
through the development of the conditions of production, and through
the rule of private property. Upon the abolition of the gens, grounded
on mother-right, the gens, grounded on the father-right first took its
place, although not for long, and with materially weakened functions.
Its task was mainly to attend to the common religious affairs and to the
ceremonial of funerals: to safeguard the mutual obligation of protection
and of help against violence: to enforce the right, and, in certain
cases, the duty of marrying in the gens, in cases when rich heiresses or
female orphans were concerned. The gens, furthermore, administered the
still existing common property. But the segmentation of handicraft from
agriculture; the ever wider expansion of commerce; the founding of
cities, rendered necessary by both of these; the conquest of booty and
prisoners of war, the latter of which directly affected the
household,--all of these tore to shreds the conditions and bonds of eld.
Handicraft had gradually subdivided itself into a larger number of
separate trades--weaving, pottery, iron-forging, the preparation of
arms, house and shipbuilding, etc. Accordingly, it pushed toward another
organization. The ever further introduction of slavery, the admittance
of strangers into the community,--these were all so many new and
additional elements that rendered the old constitution of society ever
more impossible.

Along with private property and the personal right of inheritance, class
distinctions and class contrasts came into existence. Rich
property-owners drew together against those who owned less, or nothing.
The former sought to get into their own hands the public offices of the
new commonwealth, and to make them hereditary. Money, now become
necessary, created thitherto unknown forms of indebtedness. Wars against
enemies from without, and conflicting interests within, as well as the
various interests and relations which agriculture, handicraft and
commerce mutually produced rendered necessary complicated rules of
right, they demanded special organs to guard the orderly movement of the
social machinery, and to settle disputes. The same held good for the
relations of master and slave, creditor and debtor. A power,
accordingly, became necessary to supervise, lead, regulate and harmonize
all these relations, with authority to protect, and, when needed, to
punish. _Thus rose the State, the product, accordingly of the
conflicting interests that sprang up in the new social order._ Its
administration naturally fell into the hands of those who had the
liveliest interest in its establishment, and who, in virtue of their
social power, possessed the greatest influence,--the rich. Aristocracy
of property and democracy confronted each other, accordingly, even there
where externally complete equality of political rights existed.

Under the mother-right, there was no written law. The relations were
simple, and custom was held sacred. Under the new, and much more
complicated order, written law was one of the most important
requirements; and special organs became necessary to administer it. In
the measure that the legal relations and legal conditions gained in
intricacy, a special class of people gathered shape, who made the study
of the law their special vocation, and who finally had a special
interest in rendering the law ever more complicated. Then arose the men
learned in the laws, the jurists, who, due to the importance of the
statutory law to the whole of society, rose to influential social rank.
The new system of rights found in the course of time its classic
expression in the Roman State, whence the influence that Roman law
exercises down to the present.

The institution of the State is, accordingly, the necessary result of a
social order, that, standing upon the higher plane of the subdivision of
labor, is broken up into a large number of occupations, animated by
different, frequently conflicting, interests, and hence has the
oppression of the weaker for a consequence. This fact was recognized
even by an Arabian tribe, the Nabateans, who, according to Diodorus,
established the regulation not to sow, not to plant, to drink no wine,
and to build no houses, but to live in tents, because if those things
were done, _they could be easily compelled to obey by a superior power_
(the power of the State). Likewise among the Rachebites, the descendants
of the father-in-law of Moses, there existed similar prescriptions.[17]
Aye, the whole Mosaic system of laws is aimed at _preventing the Jews
from moving out of an agricultural state, because otherwise, so the
legislators feared, their democratic-communistic society would go
under_. Hence the selection of the "Promised Land" in a region bounded,
on one side, by a not very accessible mountain range, the Lebanon; on
the other side, South and East, by but slightly fertile stretches of
land, partly by deserts;--a region, accordingly, that rendered isolation
possible. Hence came the keeping of the Jews away from the sea, which
favored commerce, colonization and the accumulation of wealth; hence the
rigid laws concerning seclusion from other peoples, the severe
regulations against foreign marriages, the poor laws, the agrarian laws,
the jubileum,--all of them provisions calculated to prevent the
accumulation of great wealth by the individual. The Jewish people were
to be kept in permanent disability ever to become the builders of a real
State. Hence it happens that the tribal organization, which rested upon
the gentile order, remained in force with them till its complete
dissolution, and continues to affect them even now.

It seems that the Latin tribes, which took a hand in the founding of
Rome, had long passed beyond the stage of the mother-right. Hence Rome
was built from the start as a State. The women that they needed they
captured, as the legend tells us, from the tribe of the Sabines, and
they called themselves after their Sabine wives,--Quirites. Even in
later years, the Roman citizens were addressed in the Forum as Quirites.
"Populus Romanus" stood for the free population of Rome in general; but
"Populus Romanus quiritium" expressed the ancestry and quality of the
Roman citizen. The Roman gens was of father-right stamp. The children
inherited as consanguineous heirs; if there were no children, the
relatives of the male line inherited; were none of these in existence,
then the property reverted to the gens. By marriage, woman lost her
right to inherit her father's property and that of his brothers. She had
stepped out of her gens: neither she nor her children could inherit from
her father or his brothers: otherwise the inheritance would be lost to
the paternal gens. The division in gentes, phratries and tribes
constituted in Rome for centuries the foundation of the military
organization, and also of the exercise of the rights of citizenship. But
with the decay of the paternal gentes and the decline of their
significance, conditions shaped themselves more favorably for woman. She
could not only inherit, but had the right to administer her own fortune.
She was, accordingly, far more favorably situated than her Greek sister.
The freer position that, despite all legal impediments, she gradually
knew how to conquer, caused the elder Cato, born 234 before our
reckoning, to complain: "If, after the example of his ancestors, every
head of a family kept his wife in proper subjection, we would not have
so much public bother with the whole sex."[18]

So long as the father lived, he held in Rome the guardianship over his
daughter, even if she were married, unless he appointed another guardian
himself. When the father died, the nearest male of kin, even though
declared unqualified as an agnate, came in as guardian. The guardian had
the right at any time to transfer the guardianship to any third person
that he pleased. Accordingly, before the law, the Roman woman had no
will of her own.

The nuptial forms were various, and in the course of centuries underwent
manifold alterations. The most solemn nuptials were celebrated before
the High Priest, in the presence of at least ten witnesses. At the
occasion, the bridal pair, in token of their union, partook together
from a cake made of flour, salt and water. As will be noticed, a
ceremony is here celebrated, that bears great resemblance to the
breaking of the sacramental wafer at the Christian communion. A second
form of nuptials consisted in possession. The marriage was considered
accomplished if, with the consent of her father or guardian, a woman
lived with the chosen man a whole year under one roof. A third form of
nuptials was a sort of mutual purchase, both sides exchanging coins, and
the promise to be man and wife. Already at the time of Cicero[19] free
divorce for both sides was generally established; it was even debated
whether the announcement of the divorce was necessary. The "lex Julia de
adulteriis," however, prescribed that the divorce was to be solemnly
proclaimed. This decree was made for the reason that women, who
committed adultery, and were summoned to answer the charge, often
claimed to have been divorced. Justinian, the Christian[20] forbade free
divorce, unless both sides desired to retire to a monastery. His
successor, Justinian II, however, found himself obliged to allow it
again.

With the growing power and rising wealth of Rome, mad-brained vices and
excesses took the place of the former severity of manners. Rome became
the center from which debauchery, riotous luxury and sensuous
refinements radiated over the whole of the then civilized world. The
excesses took--especially during the time of the Emperors, and, to a
great extent, through the Emperors themselves--forms that only insanity
could suggest. Men and women vied with one another in vice. The number
of houses of prostitution became ever larger, and, hand in hand with
these, the "Greek love" (pederasty) spread itself ever more among the
male population. At times, the number of young men in Rome who
prostituted themselves was larger than that of the female prostitutes.

"The hetairae appeared, surrounded by their admirers, in great pomp on
the streets, promenades, the circus and theatres, often carried by
negroes upon litters, where, holding a mirror in their hands, and
sparkling with ornaments and precious stones, they lay outstretched,
nude, fan-carrying slaves standing by them, and surrounded by a swarm of
boys, eunuchs and flute-players; grotesque dwarfs closed the
procession."

These excesses assumed such proportions in the Roman Empire that they
became a danger to the Empire itself. The example of the men was
followed by the women. There were women, Seneca reports, who counted the
years, not as was the usage, after the consuls, but after the number of
their husbands. Adultery was general; and, in order that the women might
escape the severe punishments prescribed for the offense, they, and
among them the leading dames of Rome, caused themselves to be entered in
the registers of the Aediles as prostitutes.

Hand in hand with these excesses, civil wars and the latifundia system,
celibacy and childlessness increased in such measure that the number of
Roman citizens and of patricians ran down considerably. Hence in the
year 16 B. C., Augustus issued the so-called Julian Law,[21] which
offered prizes for the birth of children, and imposed penalties for
celibacy upon the Roman citizens and patricians. He who had children
had precedence in rank over the childless and unmarried. Bachelors could
accept no inheritance, except from their own nearest kin. The childless
could only inherit one-half; the rest fell to the State. Women, who
could be taxed with adultery, had to surrender one-half of their dower
to the abused husband. Thereupon there were men who married out of
speculation on the adultery of their wives. This caused Plutarch to
observe: "The Romans marry, not to obtain heirs, but to inherit."

Still later the Julian Law was made severer. Tiberius decreed that no
woman, whose grandfather, father or husband had been or still was a
Roman Knight, could prostitute herself for money. Married women, who
caused themselves to be entered in the registers of prostitutes, were
condemned to banishment from Italy as adulteresses. Of course, there
were no such punishments for the men. Moreover, as Juvenal reports, even
the murder of husbands by poison was a frequent occurrence in the Rome
of his day--the first half of the first century before Christ.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Bachofen's book appeared in 1861 under the title, "Das Mutterrecht"
(Mother-right) "Eine Untersuchung ueber die Gynaekokratie der Alten Welt
nach ihrer religioesen und rechtlichen Natur," Stuttgart, Krais &
Hoffmann. Morgan's fundamental work, "Ancient Society," appeared in a
German translation in 1891, J. H. W. Dietz, Stuttgart. From the same
publisher there appeared in German: "The Origin of the Family, of
Private Property and the State, in support of Lewis H. Morgan's
Investigations," by Frederick Engels. Fourth enlarged edition, 1892.
Also "Die Verwandtschafts-Organisationen der Australneger. Ein Beitrag
zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der Familie," by Heinrich Cunow, 1894.

[The perspective into which the Pleiades of distinguished names are
thrown in the text just above is apt to convey an incorrect impression,
and the impression is not materially corrected in the subsequent
references to them. Neither Bachofen, nor yet Tylor, McLennan or Lubbock
contributed to the principles that now are canons in ethnology. They
were not even path-finders, valuable though their works are.

Bachofen collected, in his work entitled "Das Mutterrecht," the
gleanings of vast and tireless researches among the writings of the
ancients, with an eye to female authority. Subsequently, and helping
themselves more particularly to the more recent contributions to
archeology, that partly dealt with living aborigines, Tylor, McLennan
and Lubbock produced respectively, "Early History of Mankind;"
"Primitive Marriage;" and "Pre-Historic Times" and "Origin of
Civilization." These works, though partly theoretic, yet are mainly
descriptive. By an effort of genius--like the wood-pecker, whose
instinct tells it the desired worm is beneath the bark and who pecks at
and round about it--all these men, Bachofen foremost, scented sense in
the seeming nonsense of ancient traditions, or surmised significance in
the more recently ascertained customs of living aborigines. But again,
like the wood-pecker, that has struck a bark too thick for its bill,
these men could not solve the problem they were at. They lacked the
information to pick, and they had not, nor were they so situated as to
furnish themselves with, the key to open the lock. Morgan furnished the
key.

Lewis Henry Morgan, born In Aurora, N. Y., November 21, 1818, and
equipped with vast scholarship and archeological information, took up
his residence among the Iroquois Indians, by whom, the Hawk gens of the
Seneca tribe, he was eventually adopted. The fruit of his observations
there and among other Indian tribes that he visited even west of the
Mississippi, together with simultaneous information sent him by the
American missionaries in the Sandwich Islands, was a series of
epoch-making works, "The League of the Iroquois," "Systems of
Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family," and "Ancient Society,"
which appeared in 1877. A last and not least valuable work was his
"Houses and Houselife of the American Aborigines." A solid foundation
was now laid for the science of ethnology and anthropology. The problem
was substantially solved.

The robust scientific mind of Karl Marx promptly absorbed the
revelations made by Morgan, and he recast his own views accordingly. A
serious ethnological error had crept into his great work, "Capital," two
editions of which had been previously published in German between
1863-1873. A footnote by Frederick Engels (p. 344, Swan, Sonnenschein &
Co., English edition, 1886) testifies to the revolution Morgan's works
had wrought on the ethnological conceptions of the founder of Socialist
economics and sociology.

Subsequently, Frederick Engels, planted squarely on the principles
established by Morgan, issued a series of brilliant monographs, in
which, equipped with the key furnished by Morgan and which Engels'
extensive economic and sociologic knowledge enabled him to wield with
deftness, he explained interesting social phenomena among the ancients,
and thereby greatly enriched the literature of social science.

Finally, Heinrich Cunow, though imagining to perceive some minor flaws
in some secondary parts of Morgan's theory, placed himself in absolute
accord with the body of Morgan's real work, as stated later in the text
in a quotation from Cunow; and, following closely in Morgan's footsteps,
made and published interesting independent researches on the system of
consanguinity among the Austral-Negros.--THE TRANSLATOR.]

[2] In his book against us, Ziegler ridicules the idea of attributing to
myths any significance whatever in the history of civilization. In that
notion stands betrayed the superficial nature of so-called scientists.
They do not recognize what they do not see. A deep significance lies at
the bottom of myths. They have grown out of the people's soul; out of
olden morals and customs that have gradually disappeared, and now
continue to live only in the myth. When we strike facts that explain a
myth we are in possession of solid ground for its interpretation.

[3] Bachofen: "Das Mutterrecht."

[4] Totem-group means generation-group. Each grade or generation has its
own totem-animal. For instance: Opossum, emu, wolf, bear, etc., after
which the group is named. The totem-animal frequently enjoys great
honor. It is held sacred with the respective group, and its members may
neither kill the animal, nor eat its flesh. The totem-animal has a
similar significance to the patron saint of the guild in the Middle
Ages.

[5] In the oldest ward of the city of Prague, there is a small synagogue
that comes down from the sixth century of our reckoning, and is said to
be the oldest synagogue in Germany. If the visitor steps down about
seven steps into the half-dark space, he discovers in the opposite wall
several target-like openings that lead into a completely dark room. To
the question, where these openings lead to our leader answered: "To the
woman's compartment, whence they witness the service." The modern
synagogues are much more cheerfully arranged, but the separation of the
women from the men is preserved.

[6] Frederick Engels, "The Origin of the Family."

[7] Frederick Engels, _ubi supra_.

[8] Book of Judges, 20, 21 and sequel.

[9] Bachofen: "Das Mutterrecht."

[10] Of the theater, to which women had no access.

[11] Johann Scherr, "Deutsche Kultur-und Sittengeschichte:" Leipsic,
1887. Otto Wigand. As is known, Suderman deals with the same subject in
his play, "Die Ehre."

[12] Plato, "The Republic," Book V.

[13] Leon Bichter, "La Femme Libre."

[14] Bachofen. "Das Mutterrecht."

[15] K. Kautsky, "Die Entstehung der Ehe und der Familie," Kosmos, 1883.

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

[17] Joh. David Michaelis, "Mosaisches Recht," Reutlingen, 1793.

[18] Karl Heinzen, "Ueber die Rechte und Stellung der Frauen."

[19] Born 106 before our reckoning.

[20] He lived from 527 to 565 of our reckoning.

[21] Augustus, the son of Caesar by adoption, was of the Julian gens,
hence the title "Julian" law.




CHAPTER II.

UNDER CHRISTIANITY.


The opposite of polygamy,--as we have learned to know it among Oriental
peoples, and as it still exists among them, but owing to the number of
available women and the cost of their support, can be indulged in only
by the privileged and the rich--is polyandry. The latter exists mainly
among the highland people of Thibet, among the Garras on the
Hindoo-Chinese frontier, among the Baigas in Godwana, the Nairs in the
southern extremity of India; it is said to be found also among the
Eskimos and Aleutians. Heredity is determined in the only way
possible,--after the mother: the children belong to her. The husbands of
a woman are usually brothers. When the elder brother marries, the other
brothers likewise become the husbands of the woman; the woman, however,
preserves the right to take other men besides. Conversely, the men also
are said to have the right of taking a second, third, fourth, or more
wives. To what circumstances polyandry owes its origin is not yet clear.
Seeing that the polyandrous nations, without exception, live either on
high mountain regions, or in the cold zone, polyandry probably owes its
existence to a phenomenon that Tarnowsky comments on.[22] He learned
from reliable travelers that a long sojourn at high elevations lowers
the sensuous pleasures, and weakens erection, both of which return with
new vigor by re-descension to lower altitudes. This lowering of the
sexual powers, Tarnowsky is of the opinion, might partly account for the
comparative slight increase of population on highland regions; and he is
of the opinion that, when the debility is transmitted, it may become a
source of degeneration that operates upon the perversity of the sexual
sense.

We may also add that a protracted domicile, together with the habits of
life contracted on very high or cold regions, may have for a further
result that polyandry lays no excessive demands upon a woman. The women
themselves are correspondingly affected in their nature. That they are
so is rendered probable by the circumstance that, among the Eskimo
girls, menstruation sets in only with the nineteenth year, whereas in
the warm zones it sets in as early as the tenth or eleventh, and in the
temperate latitudes between the fourteenth and the sixteenth year. In
view of the fact that warm climates, as universally recognized, exercise
a strongly stimulating influence upon the sexual instinct,--whence
polygamy finds its widest diffusion in warm countries--it is quite
likely that cold regions--to which high mountains and plateaus belong,
and where the thinner air may also contribute its share--may exercise
materially a restringent effect upon the sexual instinct. It must,
moreover, be noted that experience shows conception occurs rarer with
women who cohabit with several men. The increase of population is,
accordingly, slight under polyandry; and it fits in with the difficulty
of securing subsistence, encountered in cold lands and mountain
regions;--whereby additional proof is furnished that also, in this, to
us so seemingly strange phenomenon of polyandry, production has its
determining influence upon the relations of the sexes. Finally, it is to
be ascertained whether among these peoples, who live on high mountains
or in cold zones, the killing of girl babies is not a frequent practice,
as is oft reported of the Mongolian tribes, on the highlands of China.

Exactly the reverse of the custom among the Romans during the Empire, of
allowing celibacy and childlessness to gain the upper hand, was the
custom prevalent among the Jews. True enough, the Jewish woman had no
right to choose; her father fixed upon the husband she was to wed; but
marriage was a duty, that they religiously followed. The Talmud advises:
"When your daughter is of marriageable age, give his freedom to one of
your slaves and engage her to him." In the same sense the Jews followed
strictly the command of their God: "Increase and multiply." Due to this,
and despite all persecutions and oppression, they have diligently
increased their numbers. The Jew is the sworn enemy of Malthusianism.

Already Tacitus says of them: "Among themselves there is a stubborn
holding together, and ready open-handedness; but, for all others,
hostile hatred. Never do they eat, never do they sleep with foes; and,
although greatly inclined to sensuousness, they abstain from procreation
with foreign women. Nevertheless they strive to increase their people.
Infanticide is held a sin with them; and the souls of those who die in
battle or by execution they consider immortal. Hence the love of
procreation beside their contempt of death." Tacitus hated and abhorred
the Jews, because, in contempt of the religion of their fathers, they
heaped up wealth and treasures. He called them the "worst set of
people," an "ugly race."[23]

Under the over-lordship of the Romans, the Jews drew ever closer
together. Under the long period of sufferings, which, from that time on,
they had to endure, almost throughout the whole of the Christian Middle
Ages, grew that intimate family life that is to-day considered a sort of
pattern by the modern bourgeois _regime_. On the other side, Roman
society underwent the process of disintegration and dissolution, which
led the Empire to its destruction. Upon the excesses, bordering on
insanity, followed the other extreme,--the most rigid abstinence. As
excess, in former days, now asceticism assumed religious forms. A
dream-land-fanaticism made propaganda for it. The unbounded gluttony and
luxury of the ruling classes stood in glaring contrast with the want and
misery of the millions upon millions that conquering Rome dragged, from
all the then known countries of the world, into Italy and slavery. Among
these were also numberless women, who, separated from their domestic
hearths, from their parents or their husbands, and torn from their
children, felt their misery most keenly, and yearned for deliverance. A
large number of Roman women, disgusted at that which happened all around
them, found themselves in similar frame of mind; any change in their
condition seemed to them a relief. A deep longing for a change, for
deliverance, took possession of extensive social layers;--and the
deliverer seemed to approach. The conquest of Jerusalem and of the
Jewish kingdom by the Romans had for its consequence the destruction of
all national independence, and begot among the ascetic sects of that
country, dreamers, who announced the birth of a new kingdom, that was to
bring freedom and happiness to all.

Christ came, and Christianity arose. It embodied the opposition to the
bestial materialism that reigned among the great and the rich of the
Roman Empire; it represented the revolt against the contempt for and
oppression of the masses. But originating in Judaism, which knew woman
only as a being bereft of all rights, and biased by the Biblical
conception which saw in her the source of all evil, Christianity
preached contempt for woman. It also preached abstinence, the
mortification of the flesh, then so sinful, and it pointed with its
ambiguous phrases to a prospective kingdom, which some interpreted as of
heaven, others as of earth, and which was to bring freedom and justice
to all. With these doctrines it found fertile ground in the submerged
bottom of the Roman Empire. Woman, hoping, along with all the miserable,
for freedom and deliverance from her condition, joined readily and
zealously. Down to our own days, never yet was a great and important
movement achieved in the world without women also having been
conspicuously active as combatants and martyrs. Those who praise
Christianity as a great achievement of civilization should not forget
that it was woman in particular to whom Christianity owes a great part
of its success. Her proselyting zeal played a weighty _role_ in the
Roman Empire, as well as among the barbarous peoples of the Middle Ages.
The mightiest were by her converted to Christianity. It was Clotilde,
for instance, who moved Clovis, the King of the Franks, to accept
Christianity; it was, again, Bertha, Queen of Kent, and Gisela, Queen of
Hungary, who introduced Christianity in their countries. To the
influence of the women is due the conversion of many of the great. But
Christianity requited woman ill. Its tenets breathe the same contempt
for woman that is breathed in all the religions of the East. It orders
her to be the obedient servant of her husband, and the vow of obedience
she must, to this day, make to him at the altar.

Let us hear the Bible and Christianity speak of woman and marriage. The
ten commandments are addressed only to the men; in the tenth commandment
woman is bracketed with servants and domestic animals. Man is warned not
to covet his neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maid-servant,
nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is his. Woman, accordingly,
appears as an object, as a piece of property, that the man may not
hanker after, if in another's possession. Jesus, who belonged to a
sect--the sect which imposed upon itself strict asceticism and even
self-emasculation[24]--being asked by his disciples whether it is good
to marry, answers: "All men cannot receive this saying, save they to
whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from
their mother's womb; and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs
of men; and there be eunuchs, _which have made themselves eunuchs for
the kingdom of heaven's sake_."[25] Emasculation is, according hereto,
an act hallowed by God, and the renunciation of love and marriage a good
deed.

Paul, who, in a higher degree than even Jesus himself, may be called the
founder of the Christian religion; Paul, who first impressed an
international character upon this creed, and tore it away from the
narrow sectarianism of the Jews, writes to the Corinthians: "Now
concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: "It is good for a man
not to touch a woman;" "he that giveth her in marriage doeth well; but
he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better."[26] "Walk in the
Spirit and fulfil not the lust of the flesh, for the flesh lusteth
against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh;" "they that are
Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts."" He
followed his own precepts, and did not marry. This hatred of the flesh
_is the hatred of woman, but also the fear of woman_, who--see the scene
in Paradise--is represented as the seducer of man. In this spirit did
the Apostles and the Fathers of the Church preach; in this spirit did
the Church work throughout the whole of the Middle Ages, when it reared
its cloisters, and introduced celibacy among the priesthood;--and to
this day it works in the same spirit.

According to Christianity, woman is the _unclean being_; the seducer,
who introduced sin into the world and ruined man. Hence Apostles, and
Fathers of the Church alike, have ever looked upon marriage as a
necessary evil,--the same as is said to-day of prostitution. Tertulian
exclaims: "Woman, thou should ever walk in mourning and rags, thy eyes
full of tears, present the aspect of repentance to induce forgetfulness
of your having ruined the human race. Woman, thou art the Gate of Hell!"
Hieronymus says: "Marriage always is a vice; all that we can do is to
excuse and cleanse it," hence it was made a sacrament of the Church.
Origen declares: "Marriage is something unholy and unclean, a means for
sensuality," and, in order to resist the temptation, he emasculated
himself. Tertulian declares: "Celibacy is preferable, even if the human
race goes to ground." Augustine teaches: "The celibates will shine in
heaven like brilliant stars, while their parents (who brought them
forth) are like dark stars." Eusebius and Hieronymus agree that the
Biblical command, "Increase and multiply," no longer fits the times, and
does not concern the Christians. Hundreds of other quotations from the
most influential Fathers of the Church could be cited, all of which tend
in the same direction. By means of their continuous teaching and
preaching, they have spread those unnatural views touching sexual
matters, and the intercourse of the sexes, _the latter of which,
nevertheless, remains a commandment of nature, and obedience to which is
one of the most important duties in the mission of life_. Modern society
is still severely ailing from these teachings, and it is recovering but
slowly.

Peter calls out emphatically to women: "Ye wives, be in subjection to
your own husbands."[27] Paul writes to the Ephesians: "The husband is
the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church;"[28] and
in Corinthians: "Man is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the
glory of the man."[29] According to which every sot of a man may hold
himself better than the most distinguished woman;--indeed, it is so in
practice to-day. Also against the higher education of women does Paul
raise his weighty voice: "Let the woman learn in silence with all
_subjection_. _But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority
over the man, out to be in silence_;"[30] and again: "Let your women
_keep silence_ in the churches; _for it is not permitted unto them to
speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience_, as also saith the
law. And if they will learn anything, _let them ask their husbands at
home; for it is a shame for women to speak in the church_."[31]

Such doctrines are not peculiar to Christianity only. Christianity being
a mixture of Judaism and Greek philosophy, and seeing that these, in
turn, have their roots in the older civilization of the Egyptians,
Babylonians, and Hindoos, the subordinate position that Christianity
assigned to woman was one common in antiquity. In the Hindoo laws of
Manu it is said regarding woman: "The source of dishonor is woman; the
source of strife is woman; the source of earthly existence is woman;
therefore avoid woman." Beside this degradation of woman, fear of her
ever and anon reappears naively. Manu further sets forth: "Woman is by
nature ever inclined to tempt man; hence a man should not sit in a
secluded place even with his nearest female relative." Woman,
accordingly, is, according to the Hindoo as well as the Old Testament
and Christian view, everywhere the tempter. All masterhood implies the
degradation of the mastered. The subordinate position of woman
continues, to this day, even more in force in the backward civilization
of the East than among the nations that enjoy a so-called Christian
view-point. That which, in the so-called Christian world, gradually
improved the situation of woman was, not Christianity, but _the advanced
culture of the West struggling against the Christian doctrine_.

Christianity is guiltless of woman's present improved position to what
it was at the start of the era. Only reluctantly, and forced thereto,
did Christianity become untrue to its true spirit with regard to woman.
Those who rave about "the mission of Christianity to emancipate
mankind," differ from us in this, as in other respects. They claim that
Christianity freed woman from her previous low position, and they ground
themselves upon the worship of Mary, the "mother of God,"--a cult,
however, that sprang up only later in Christendom, but which they point
to as a sign of regard for the whole sex. The Roman Catholic Church,
which celebrates this cult, should be the last to lay claim to such a
doctrine. The Saints and Fathers of the Church, cited above, and whose
utterances could be easily multiplied--and they are the leading Church
authorities--express themselves separately and collectively hostile to
woman and to marriage. The Council of Macon, which, in the sixteenth
century, discussed the question whether woman had a soul, and which
decided with a majority of but one vote, that she had, likewise argues
against the theory of such a friendly posture towards woman. The
introduction of celibacy by Gregory VII[32]--although resorted to first
of all and mainly with the end in view of holding in the unmarried
priesthood a power that could not be alienated from the service of the
Church through any family interests--was, nevertheless, possible only
with such fundamental doctrines as the Church held touching the
sinfulness of the lusts of the flesh; and it goes to confirm our theory.

Neither did the Reformers, especially Calvin and the Scotch ministers,
with their wrath at the "lusts of the flesh," entertain any doubt
touching the hostile posture of Christianity towards woman.[33]

By the introduction of the cult of Mary, the Roman Catholic Church
shrewdly placed the worship of Mary in the place of that of the heathen
goddesses, in vogue among _all_ the people over whom Christianity was
then extending itself. _Mary_ took the place of the Cybele, the Mylitta,
the Aphrodite, the Venus, the Ceres, etc., of the southern races; of the
Freia, the Frigga, etc., of the Germanian tribes. She was a mere
spiritually-Christian idealization.

The primeval, physically robust, though rude yet uncorrupted races,
that, during the first centuries of our reckoning, crowded down from the
North and East like a gigantic ocean wave, and swamped the worn-out
universal Empire of Rome, where Christianity had gradually been
superimposing itself as master, resisted with all their might the
ascetic doctrines of the Christian preachers. With good grace or bad,
the latter were forced to reckon with these robust natures. With
astonishment did the Romans perceive that the customs of those peoples
were quite different from their own. Tacitus rendered to this fact the
tribute of his acknowledgment, which, with regard to the Germans, he
expressed in these words: "The matrimonial bond is, nevertheless, strict
and severe among them; nor is there anything in their manners more
commendable than this. Almost singly among the barbarians, they content
themselves with one wife. Adultery is extremely rare among so numerous a
people. Its punishment is instant, and at the pleasure of the husband.
He cuts off the hair of the offender, strips her, and in the presence of
her relations expels her from his house, and pursues her with stripes
through the whole village. Nor is any indulgence shown to a prostitute.
Neither beauty, youth, nor riches can procure her a husband; for none
there looks on vice with a smile, or calls mutual seduction the way of
the world. The youths partake late of the pleasures of love, and hence
pass the age of puberty unexhausted; nor are the virgins hurried into
marriage; the same maturity, the same full growth is required; the sexes
unite equally matched, and robust; and the children inherit the vigor of
their parents."

With the object in view of holding up a pattern to the Romans, Tacitus
painted the conjugal conditions of the old Germans with rather too rosy
a hue. No doubt, the adulteress was severely punished among them; but
the same did not hold good with regard to the adulterer. At the time of
Tacitus, the gens was still in bloom among the Germans. He, to whom,
living under the advanced Roman conditions, the old gentile
constitution, together with its principles, was bound to seem strange
and incomprehensible, narrates with astonishment that, with the Germans,
the mother's brother, considered his nephew as an own son; aye, some
looked upon the bond of consanguinity between the uncle on the mother's
side and his nephew as more sacred and closer than that between father
and son. So that, when hostages were demanded, the sister's son was
considered a better guarantee than an own son. Engels adds hereto: "If
an own son was given by the members of such a gens as a pledge for a
treaty, and he fell a sacrifice through his own father's violation of
the treaty, the latter had to settle accounts for himself. If, however,
it was a sister's son who was sacrificed, then the old gentile right was
violated. The nearest gentile relative, held before all others to
safeguard the boy or lad, had caused his death; he either had no right
to offer him as a pledge, or he was bound to observe the treaty."[34]

For the rest, as Engels shows, the mother-right had already yielded to
the father-right among the Germans, at the time of Tacitus. The children
inherited from their father; in the absence of these, then the brothers
and the uncle of the father on the mother's side. The admission of the
mother's brother as an heir, although descent from the father determined
the line of inheritance, is explained with the theory that the old right
had only recently died away. It was only reminiscences of the old right
that furnished the conditions, which enabled Tacitus to find a, to the
Romans, incomprehensible regard for the female sex among the Germans. He
also found that their courage was pricked to the utmost by the women.
The thought that their women might fall into captivity or slavery was
the most horrible that the old German could conceive of; it spurred him
to utmost resistance. But the women also were animated by the spirit
that possessed the men. When Marius refused the captured women of the
Teutons to dedicate themselves as priestesses to Vesta (the goddess of
maidenly chastity) they committed suicide.

In the time of Tacitus, the Germans already acquired settled
habitations. Yearly the division of land by lots took place. Besides
that, there was common property in the woods, water and pasture grounds.
Their lives were yet simple; their wealth principally cattle; their
dress consisted of coarse woolen mantles, or skins of animals. Neither
women nor chiefs wore under-clothing. The working of metals was in
practice only among those tribes located too far away for the
introduction of Roman products of industry. Justice was administered in
minor affairs by the council of elders; on more important matters, by
the assembly of the people. The chiefs were elected, generally out of
the same family, but the transition of the father-right favored the
heredity of office, and led finally to the establishment of a hereditary
nobility, from which later sprang the kingdom. As in Greece and Rome,
the German gens went to pieces with the rise of private property and the
development of industries and trade, and through the commingling with
members of strange tribes and peoples. The place of the gens was taken
by the community, the mark, the democratic organization of free
peasants, the latter of which, in the course of many centuries,
constituted a firm bulwark in the struggles against the nobility, the
Church and the Princes,--a bulwark that broke down by little and little,
but that did not wholly crumble even after the feudal State had come to
power, and the one-time free peasants were in droves reduced to the
condition of serfs and dependents.

The confederation of marks was represented by the heads of the families.
Married women, daughters, daughters-in-law were excluded from council
and administration. The time when women were conspicuous in the conduct
of the affairs of the tribe--a circumstance that likewise astonished
Tacitus in the highest degree, and which he reports in terms of
contempt--were gone. The Salic law abolished in the fifth century of our
reckoning the succession of the female sex to hereditary domains.

Soon as he married, every member of a mark was entitled to a share in
the common lands. As a rule, grand-parents, parents and children lived
under one roof, in communal household. Hence, with a view of being
allotted a further share, under-aged or unripe sons were not
infrequently married by their father to some marriageable maiden; the
father then filled the duties of husband, in the stead of his son.[35]
Young married couples received a cart-load of beechwood, and timber for
a block-house. If a daughter was born to the couple, they received one
load of wood; if a son, two loads.[36] The female sex was considered
worth only one-half.

_Marriage was simple. A religious formality was unknown. Mutual
declarations sufficed. As soon as a couple mounted the nuptial bed, the
marriage was consummated._ The custom that marriage needs an act of the
Church for its validity, came in only in the ninth century. Only in the
sixteenth century, on decree of the Council of Trent, was marriage
declared a sacrament of the Roman Catholic Church.

With the rise of feudalism, the condition of a large number of the
members of the free communities declined. The victorious army-commanders
utilized their power to appropriate large territories unto themselves;
they considered themselves masters of the common property, which they
distributed among their devoted retinue--slaves, serfs, freedmen,
generally of foreign descent,--for a term of years, or with the right of
inheritance. They thus furnished themselves with a court and military
nobility, in all things devoted to their will. The establishment of the
large Empire of the Franks finally put an end to the last vestiges of
the old gentile constitution. In the place of the former councils of
chiefs, now stood the lieutenants of the army and of the newly formed
nobility.

Gradually, the mass of the freemen, members of the once free
communities, lapsed into exhaustion and poverty, due to the continuous
wars of conquest and the strifes among the great, whose burdens they had
to bear. They could no longer meet the obligation of furnishing the army
requisitions. In lieu thereof, Princes and high nobility secured
servants, while the peasants placed themselves and their property under
the protection of some temporal or spiritual lord--the Church had
managed, within but few centuries, to become a great power--wherefor
they paid rent and tribute. Thus the thitherto free peasant's estate was
transformed into hired property; and this, with time, was burdened with
ever more obligations. Once landed in this state of dependence, it was
not long before the peasant lost his personal freedom also. In this way
dependence and serfdom spread ever more.

The landlord possessed the almost absolute right of disposal over his
serfs and dependents. He had the right, as soon as a male reached his
eighteenth year, or the female her fourteenth, to compel their marriage.
He could assign a woman to a man, and a man to a woman. He enjoyed the
same right over widows and widowers. In his attribute of lord over his
subjects, he also considered the sexual use of his female serfs and
dependents to be at his own disposal,--a power that finds its expression
in the "jus primae noctis" (the right of the first night). This right
also belonged to his representative, the stewart, unless, upon the
payment of a tribute, the exercise of the right was renounced. The very
names of the tribute betray its nature.[37]

It is extensively disputed that this "right of the first night" ever
existed. The "right of the first night" is quite a thorn in the side of
certain folks, for the reason that the right was still exercised at an
age, that they love to hold up as a model,--a genuine model of morality
and piety. It has been pointed out how this "right of the first night"
was the rudiment of a custom, that hung together with the age of the
mother-right, when all the women were the wives of all the men of a
class. With the disappearance of the old family organization, the custom
survived in the surrender of the bride, on the wedding night, to the men
of her own community. But, in the course of time, the right is ever more
restricted, and finally falls to the chief of the tribe, or to the
priest, as a religious act, to be exercised by them alone. The feudal
lord assumes the right as a consequence of his power over the person who
belongs to the land, and which is his property; and he exercises the
right if he wills, or relinquishes it in lieu of a tribute in products
or money. How real was the "right of the first night" appears from Jacob
Grimm's "Weisthumer."[38]

Sugenheim[39] says the "jus primae noctis," as a right appertaining to
the landlords, originates in that his consent to marriage was necessary.
Out of this right there arose in Bearn the usage that all the first-born
of marriages, in which the "jus primae noctis" was exercised, were of
free rank. Later, the right was generally redeemable by a tribute.
According to Sugenheim, those who held most stubbornly to the right were
the Bishops of Amiens; it lasted with them till the beginning of the
fifteenth century. In Scotland the right was declared redeemable by King
Malcolm III, towards the end of the eleventh century; in Germany,
however, it continued in force much longer. According to the archives of
a Swabian cloister, Adelberg, for the year 1496, the serfs, located at
Boertlingen, had to redeem the right by the bridegroom's giving a cake
of salt, and the bride paying one pound seven shillings, or with a pan,
"in which she can sit with her buttocks." In other places the
bridegrooms had to deliver to the landlord for ransom as much cheese or
butter "as their buttocks were thick and heavy." In still other places
they had to give a handsome cordovan tarbouret "that they could just
fill."[40] According to the accounts given by the Bavarian Judge of the
Supreme Court of Appeals, Welsch, the obligation to redeem the "jus
primae noctis" existed in Bavaria as late as the eighteenth
century.[41] Furthermore, Engels reports that, among the Welsh and the
Scots, the "right of the first night" prevailed throughout the whole of
the Middle Ages, with the difference only that, due to the continuance
of the gentile organization, it was not the landlord, or his
representative, but the chief of the clan, as the last representative of
the one-time husbands in common, who exercised the right, in so far as
it was not redeemed.

There is, accordingly, no doubt whatever that the so-called "right of
the first night" existed, not only during the whole of the Middle Ages,
but continued even down to modern days, and played its _role_ under the
code of feudalism. In Poland, the noblemen arrogated the right to
deflower any maid they pleased, and a hundred lashes were given him who
complained. That the sacrifice of maidenly honor seems even to-day a
matter of course to landlords and their officials in the country,
transpires, not only in Germany, oftener than one imagines, but it is a
frequent occurrence all over the East and South of Europe, as is
asserted by experts in countries and the peoples.

In the days of feudalism, marriage was a matter of interest to the
landlord. The children that sprang therefrom entered into the same
relation of subjection to him as their parents; the labor-power at his
disposal increased in numbers, his income rose. Hence _spiritual_ and
_temporal_ landlords favored marriage among their vassals. The matter
lay otherwise, particularly for the Church, if, by the prevention of
marriage, the prospect existed of bringing land into the possession of
the Church by testamentary bequests. This, however, occurred only with
the lower ranks of freemen, whose condition, due to the circumstances
already mentioned, became ever more precarious, and who, listening to
religious suggestions and superstition, relinquished their property to
the Church in order to find protection and peace behind the walls of a
cloister. Others, again, placed themselves under the protection of the
Church, in consideration of the payment of duties, and the rendering of
services. Frequently their descendants fell on this route a prey to the
very fate which their ancestors had sought to escape. They either
gradually became Church dependents, or were turned into novices for the
cloisters.

The towns, which, since the eleventh century were springing up, then had
at that time a lively interest in promoting the increase of population;
settlement in them and marriage were made as easy as possible. The towns
became especially asylums for countrymen, fleeing from unbearable
oppression, and for fugitive serfs and dependents. Later, however,
matters changed. So soon as the towns had acquired power, and contained
a well-organized body of the trades, hostility arose against new
immigrants, mostly propertyless peasants, who wanted to settle as
handicraftsmen. Inconvenient competitors were scented in these. The
barriers raised against immigration were multiplied. High settlement
fees, expensive examinations, limitations of a trade to a certain number
of masters and apprentices,--all this condemned thousands to pauperism,
to a life of celibacy, and to vagabondage. When, in the course of the
sixteenth century, and for reasons to be mentioned later, the
flower-time of the towns was passing away, and their decline had set in,
the narrow horizon of the time caused the impediments to settlement and
independence to increase still more. Other circumstances also
contributed their demoralizing effect.

The tyranny of the landlords increased so mightily from decade to decade
that many of the vassals preferred to exchange their sorrowful life for
the trade of the tramp or the highwayman,--an occupation that was
greatly aided by the thick woods and the poor condition of the roads.
Or, invited by the many violent disturbances of the time, they became
soldiers, who sold themselves where the price was highest, or the booty
seemed most promising. An extensive male and female slum-proletariat
came into existence, and became a plague to the land. The Church
contributed faithfully to the general depravity. Already, in the
celibatic state of the priesthood there was a main-spring for the
fostering of sexual excesses; these were still further promoted through
the continuous intercourse kept up with Italy and Rome.

Rome was not merely the capital of Christendom, as the residence of the
Papacy. True to its antecedents during the heathen days of the Empire,
Rome had become the new Babel, the European High School of immorality;
and the Papal court was its principal seat. With its downfall, the Roman
Empire had bequeathed all its vices to Christian Europe. These vices
were particularly nursed in Italy, whence, materially aided by the
intercourse of the priesthood with Rome, they crowded into Germany. The
uncommonly large number of priests, to a great extent vigorous men,
whose sexual wants were intensified by a lazy and luxurious life, and
who, through compulsory celibacy, were left to illegitimate or unnatural
means of gratification, carried immorality into all circles of society.
This priesthood became a sort of pest-like danger to the morals of the
female sex in the towns and villages. Monasteries and nunneries--and
their number was legion--were not infrequently distinguishable from
public houses only in that the life led in them was more unbridled and
lascivious, and in that numerous crimes, especially infanticide, could
be more easily concealed, seeing that in the cloisters only they
exercised the administration of justice who led in the wrong-doing.
Often did peasants seek to safeguard wife and daughter from priestly
seduction by accepting none as a spiritual shepherd who did not bind
himself to keep a concubine;--a circumstance that led a Bishop of
Constance to impose a "concubine tax" upon the priests of his diocese.
Such a condition of things explains the historically attested fact, that
during the Middle Ages--pictured to us by silly romanticists as so pious
and moral--not less than 1500 strolling women turned up in 1414, at the
Council of Constance.

But these conditions came in by no means with the decline of the Middle
Ages. They began early, and gave continuous occasion for complaints and
decrees. In 802 Charles the Great issued one of these, which ran this
wise: "The cloisters of nuns shall be strictly watched; the nuns may not
roam about; they shall be kept with great diligence; neither shall they
live in strife and quarrel with one another; they shall in no wise be
disobedient to their Superiors or Abbesses, or cross the will of these.
Wherever they are placed under the rules of a cloister they are to
observe them throughout. Not whoring, not drunkenness, not covetousness
shall they be the ministrants of, but in all ways lead just and sober
lives. Neither shall any man enter their cloisters, except to attend
mass, and he shall immediately depart." A regulation of the year 869
provided: "If priests keep several women, or shed the blood of
Christians or heathens, or break the canonical law, they shall be
deprived of their priesthood, because they are worse than laymen." The
fact that the possession of several women was forbidden in those days
only to the priests, indicates that marriage with several wives was no
rare occurrence in the ninth century. In fact, there were no laws
forbidding it.

Aye, and even later, at the time of the Minnesaenger, during the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, the possession of several wives was considered
in order.[42]

The position of woman was aggravated still more by the circumstance
that, along with all the impediments which gradually made marriage and
settlement harder, their number materially exceeded that of the men. As
special reasons herefor are to be considered the numerous wars and
feuds, together with the perilousness of commercial voyages of those
days. Furthermore, mortality among men was higher, as the result of
habitual excesses and drunkenness. The predisposition to sickness and
death that flowed from such habits of life, manifested itself strongly
in the numerous pest-like diseases that raged during the Middle Ages. In
the interval between 1326 to 1400, there were thirty-two; from 1400 to
1500, forty-one; and from 1500 to 1600, thirty years of pestilence.[43]

Swarms of women roamed along the highways as jugglers, singers and
players in the company of strolling students and clericals; they flooded
the fairs and markets; they were to be found wherever large crowds
gathered, or festivals were celebrated. In the regiments of
foot-soldiers they constituted separate divisions, with their own
sergeants. There, and quite in keeping with the guild character of the
age, they were assigned to different duties, according to looks and age;
and, under severe penalties, were not allowed to prostitute themselves
to any man outside of their own branch. In the camps, they had to fetch
hay, straw and wood; fill up trenches and ponds; and attend to the
cleaning of the place along with the baggage lads. In sieges, they had
to fill up the ditches with brushwood, lumber and faggots in order to
help the storming of the place. They assisted in placing the field
pieces in position; and when these stuck in the bottomless roads, they
had to give a hand in pulling them out again.[44]

In order to counteract somewhat the misery of this crowd of helpless
women, so-called "Bettinen houses" were instituted in many cities, and
placed under municipal supervision. Sheltered in these establishments,
the women were held to the observance of a decent life. But neither
these establishments, nor the numerous nunneries, were able to receive
all that applied for succor.

The difficulties in the way of marriage; the tours undertaken by
Princes, and by temporal and spiritual magnates, who with their retinues
of knights and bondmen, visited the cities; even the male youth of the
cities themselves, the married men not excluded, who, buoyant with life
and unaffected by scruples, sought change in pleasures;--all this
produced as early as in the Middle Ages the demand for prostitution. As
every trade was in those days organized and regulated, and could not
exist without a guild, it so was with prostitution also. In all large
cities there were "houses of women"--municipal, prince or Church
regalities--the net profits of which flowed into the corresponding
treasuries. The women in these houses had a "head-mistress," elected by
themselves, who was to keep discipline and order, and whose special
duty it was to diligently watch that non-guild competitors, the
"interlopers," did not injure the legitimate trade. When caught, these
were condignly punished. The inmates of one of these houses for women,
located in Nuerenberg, complained with the Magistrate, that "other
inn-keepers also kept women, who walked the streets at night, and took
in married and other men, and that these plied (the trade) to such an
extent, and so much more brazenly, than they did themselves in the
municipal (guild) girls-house, that it was a pity and a shame to see
such things happen in this worthy city."[45] These "houses for women"
enjoyed special protection; disturbances of the peace in their
neighborhood were fined twice as heavily. The female guild members also
had the right to take their place in the processions and festivals, at
which, as is known, the guilds always assisted. Not infrequently were
they also drawn in as guests at the tables of Princes and Municipal
Councilmen. The "houses of women" were considered serviceable for the
"protection of marriage and of the honor of the maidens,"--the identical
reasoning with which State brothels were justified in Athens, and even
to-day prostitution is excused. All the same, there were not wanting
violent persecutions of the _filles de joie_, proceeding from the
identical male circles who supported them with their custom and their
money. The Emperor Charlemagne decreed that prostitutes shall be dragged
naked to the market place and there whipped; and yet, he himself, "the
Most Christian King and Emperor," had not less than six wives at a time;
and neither were his daughters, who followed their father's example, by
any means paragons of virtue. They prepared for him in the course of
their lives many an unpleasant hour, and brought him home several
illegitimate children. Alkuin, the friend and adviser of Charlemagne,
warned his pupils against "the crowned doves, who flew at night over the
palatinate," and he meant thereby the daughters of the Emperor.

The identical communities, that officially organized the brothel system,
that took it under their protection, and that granted all manner of
privileges to the "priestesses of Venus," had the hardest and most cruel
punishment in reserve for the poor and forsaken Magdalen. The female
infanticide, who, driven by desperation, killed the fruit of her womb,
was, as a rule, sentenced to suffer the most cruel death penalty; nobody
bothered about the unconscionable seducer himself. Perchance he even sat
on the Judge's bench, which decreed the sentence of death upon the poor
victim. The same happens to-day.[46] Likewise was adultery by the wife
punished most severely; she was certain of the pillory, at least; but
over the adultery of the husband the mantle of Christian charity was
thrown.

In Wuerzburg, during the Middle Ages, the keeper of women swore before
the Magistrate: "To be true and good to the city, and to procure women."
Similarly in Nuerenberg, Ulm, Leipsic, Cologne, Frankfurt and elsewhere.
In Ulm, where the "houses of women" were abolished in 1537, the guilds
moved in 1551 that they be restored "in order to avoid worse disorders."
Distinguished foreigners were provided with _filles de joie_ at the
expense of the city. When King Ladislaus entered Vienna in 1452, the
Magistrate sent to meet him a deputation of public girls, who, clad only
in light gauze, revealed the handsomest shapes. At his entry into
Brugges, the Emperor Charles V was likewise greeted by a deputation of
naked girls. Such occurrences met not with objection in those days.

Imaginative romancers, together with calculating people, have endeavored
to represent the Middle Ages as particularly "moral," and animated with
a veritable worship for woman. The period of the Minnesangers--from the
twelfth to the fourteenth century--contributed in giving a color to the
pretence. The knightly "Minnedienst" (service of love) which the French,
Italian and German knights first became acquainted with among the
Moriscos of Spain, is cited as evidence concerning the high degree of
respect in which woman was held at that time. But there are several
things to be kept in mind. In the first place, the knights constituted
but a trifling percentage of the population, and, proportionately, the
knights' women of the women in general; in the second place, only a very
small portion of the knights exercised the so-called "Minnedienst;"
thirdly, the true nature of this service is grossly misunderstood, or
has been intentionally misrepresented. The age in which the
"Minnedienst" flourished was at the same time the age of the grossest
right-of-the-fist in Germany,--an age when all bonds of order were
dissolved; and the knights indulged themselves without restraint in
waylaying of travelers, robbery and incendiarism. Such days of brutal
force are not the days in which mild and poetic sentiments are likely to
prevail to any perceptible extent. The contrary is true. This period
contributed to destroy whatever regard possibly existed for the female
sex. The knights, both of country and town, consisted mainly of rough,
dissolute fellows, whose principal passion, besides feuds and guzzling,
was the unbridled gratification of sexual cravings. The chronicles of
the time do not tire of telling about the deeds of rapine and violence,
that the nobility was guilty of, particularly in the country, but in the
cities also, where, appearing in patrician _role_, the nobility held in
its hands the city regiment, down to the thirteenth, and partly even in
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Nor did the wronged have any
means of redress; in the city, the squires (yunker) controlled the
judges' bench; in the country, the landlord, invested with criminal
jurisdiction, was the knight, the Abbot or the Bishop. Accordingly, it
is a violent exaggeration that, amid such morals and customs, the
nobility and rulers had a particular respect for their wives and
daughters, and carried them on their hands as a sort of higher beings,
let alone that they cultivated such respect for the wives and daughters
of the townsmen and peasants, for whom both the temporal and the
spiritual masters entertained and proclaimed contempt only.

A very small minority of knights consisted of sincere worshippers of
female beauty, but their worship was by no means Platonic; it pursued
quite material ends. And these material ends were pursued by those also
with whom Christian mysticism, coupled with natural sensuousness, made a
unique combination. Even that harlequin among the worshippers of "lovely
women," Ulrich von Lichtenstein, of laughable memory, remained Platonic
only so long as he had to. At bottom the "Minnedienst" was the
apotheosis of the best beloved--at the expense of the own wife; _a sort
of hetairism, carried over into Middle Age Christianity_, as it existed
in Greece at the time of Pericles. In point of fact, during the Middle
Ages, the mutual seduction of one another's wives was a "Minnedienst"
strongly in vogue among the knights, just the same as, in certain
circles of our own bourgeoisie, similar performances are now repeated.
That much for the romanticism of the Middle Ages and their regard for
women.

There can be no doubt that, in the open recognition of the pleasures of
the senses, there lay in that age the acknowledgment that the natural
impulses, implanted in every healthy and ripe human being, are entitled
to be satisfied. In so far there lay in the demonstration a victory of
vigorous nature over the asceticism of Christianity. On the other hand,
it must be noted that the recognition and satisfaction fell to the share
of only one sex, while the other sex, on the contrary, was treated as if
it could not and should not have the same impulses; the slightest
transgression of the laws of morality prescribed by man, was severely
punished. The narrow and limited horizon, within which moved the citizen
of the Middle Ages, caused him to adopt narrow and limited measures also
with respect to the position of woman. And, as a consequence of
continued oppression and peculiar education, woman herself has so
completely adapted herself to her master's habits and system of thought,
that she finds her condition natural and proper.

Do we not know that there have been millions of slaves who found
slavery natural, and never would have freed themselves, had their
liberators not risen from the midst of the class of the slave-holders?
Did not Prussian peasants, when, as a result of the Stein laws, they
were to be freed from serfdom, petition to be left as they were,
"because who was to take care of them when they fell sick?" And is it
not similarly with the modern Labor Movement? How many workingmen do not
allow themselves to be influenced and led without a will of their own?

The oppressed needs the stimulator and firer, because he lacks the
independence and faculty for initiative. It was so with the modern
proletarian movement; it is so also in the struggle for the emancipation
of woman, which is intimately connected with that of the proletariat.
Even in the instance of the comparatively favorably situated bourgeois
of old, noble and clerical advocates broke the way open for him to
conduct his battle for freedom.

However numerous the shortcomings of the Middle Ages, there was then a
healthy sensualism, that sprang from a rugged and happy native
disposition among the people, and that Christianity was unable to
suppress. The hypocritical prudery and bashfulness; the secret
lustfulness, prevalent to-day, that hesitates and balks at calling
things by their right name, and to speak about natural things in a
natural way;--all that was foreign to the Middle Ages. Neither was that
age familiar with the piquant double sense, in which, out of defective
naturalness and out of a prudery that has become morality, things that
may not be clearly uttered, are veiled, and are thereby rendered all the
more harmful; such a language incites but does not satisfy; it suggests
but does not speak out. Our social conversation, our novels and our
theatres are full of these piquant equivoques,--and their effect is
visible. This spiritualism, which is not the spiritualism of the
transcendental philosopher, but that of the _roue_, and that hides
itself behind the spiritualism of religion, has great power to-day.

The healthy sensualism of the Middle Ages found in Luther its classic
interpreter. We have here to do, not so much with the religious
reformer, as with Luther the man. On the human side, Luther's robust
primeval nature stepped forward unadulterated; it compelled him to
express his appetite for love and enjoyment forcibly and without
reserve. His position, as former Roman Catholic clergyman, had opened
his eyes. By personal practice, so to speak, had he learned the
unnaturalness of the life led by the monks and nuns. Hence the warmth
with which he warred against clerical and monastic celibacy. His words
hold good to this day, for all those who believe they may sin against
nature, and imagine they can reconcile with their conceptions of
morality and propriety, governmental and social institutions that
prevent millions from fulfilling their natural mission. Luther says:
"Woman, except as high and rare grace, can dispense with man as little
as she can with food, sleep, water and other natural wants. Conversely,
also, neither can man dispense with woman. The reason is this: It is as
deeply implanted in nature to beget children as to eat and drink.
Therefore did God furnish the body with members, veins, discharges and
all that is needed therefor. He who will resist this, and prevent its
going as Nature wills, what else does he but endeavor to resist Nature's
being Nature, that fire burn, water wet, that man eat, drink or sleep?"
And in his sermon on married life he says: "As little as it is in my
power that I be not a man, just so little is it in your power to be
without a man. For it is not a matter of free will or deliberation, but
a necessary, natural matter that all that is male must have a wife, and
what is female must have a husband." Luther did not speak in this
energetic manner in behalf of married life and the necessity of sexual
intercourse only; he also turns against the idea that marriage and
Church have anything in common. In this he stood squarely on the ground
of the olden days, which considered marriage an act of free will on the
part of those who engaged in it, and that did not concern the Church. On
this head he said: "Know, therefore, that marriage is an outside affair,
as any other earthly act. The same as I am free to eat, drink, sleep,
walk, ride, deal, speak and trade with a heathen, a Jew, a Turk or a
heretic, _likewise am I free to enter into and remain in wedlock with
one of them. Turn your back upon the fool laws that forbid such a
thing_.... A heathen is a man and woman, created by God in perfect form,
as well as St. Peter and St. Paul and St. Luke; be then silent for a
loose and false Christian that you are." Luther, like other Reformers,
pronounced himself against all limitation of marriage, and he was for
also allowing the re-union of divorced couples, against which the Church
was up in arms. He said: "As to the manner in which marriage and divorce
are to be conducted among us, I claim that it should be made the
business of the jurists, and placed under the jurisdiction of earthly
concerns, because marriage is but an earthly and outside matter." It was
in keeping with this view that, not until the close of the seventeenth
century, was marriage by the Church made obligatory under Protestantism.
Until then so-called "conscience marriage" held good, i. e., the simple
mutual obligation to consider each other man and wife, and to mean to
live in wedlock. Such a marriage was considered by German law to be
legally entered into. Luther even went so far that he conceded to the
unsatisfied party--even if that be the woman--the right to seek
satisfaction outside of the marriage bonds "in order to satisfy nature,
which cannot be crossed."[47] This conception of marriage is the same
that prevailed in antiquity, and that came up later during the French
Revolution. Luther here set up maxims that will arouse the strongest
indignation of a large portion of our "respectable men and women," who,
in their religious zeal, are so fond of appealing to him. In his
treatise "On Married Life,"[48] he says: "If an impotent man falls to
the lot of a hearty woman, and she still cannot openly take another, and
does not wish to marry again, she shall say unto her husband: 'Lo, dear
husband, thou shalt not be wronged by me. Thou hast deceived me and my
young body, and hast therefore brought my honor and salvation into
danger. There is no glory to God between us two. Grant me to cohabit
secretly with thy brother or nearest friend, and thou shalt have the
name, _so that thy property come not to strange heirs; and allow thyself
to be, in turn, willingly deceived by me, as thou did deceive me without
thy will_." The husband, Luther goes on to show, is in duty bound to
grant the request. "If he declines, then has she the right to run away
from him to another, and to woo elsewhere. Conversely, if a woman
declines to exercise the conjugal duty, her husband has the right to
cohabit with another, only he should tell her so beforehand."[49] It
will be seen that these are wonderfully radical, and, in the eyes of our
days, so rich in hypocritical prudery, even downright "immoral" views,
that the great Reformer develops. Luther, however, expressed only that
which, at the time, was the popular view.[50]

The passages quoted from the writings and addresses of Luther on
marriage, are of special importance for the reason that these views are
in strong contradiction with those that prevail to-day in the Church. In
the struggle that it latterly has had to conduct with the clerical
fraternity, the Social Democracy can appeal with full right to Luther,
who takes on the question of marriage a stand free from all prejudice.

Luther and all the Reformers went even further in the marriage question,
true enough, only for opportunist reasons, and out of complaisance
towards the Princes whose strong support and permanent friendship they
sought to secure and keep to the Reformation. The friendly Duke of
Hessen, Philip I, had, besides his legitimate wife, a sweetheart,
willing to yield to his wishes, but only under the condition that he
marry her. It was a thorny problem. A divorce from the wife, in the
absence of convincing reasons, would give great scandal; on the other
hand, a marriage with two women at a time was an unheard of thing with a
Christian Prince of modern days; it would give rise to no less a
scandal. All this notwithstanding, Philip, in his passion, decided in
favor of the latter step. The point was now to establish that the act
did no violence to the Bible, and to secure the approval of the
Reformers, especially of Luther and Melanchthon. The negotiations, set
on foot by the Duke, began first with Butzer, who declared himself in
favor of the plan, and promised to win over Luther and Melanchthon.
Butzer justified his opinion with the argument: To possess several wives
at once was not against the evangelium. St. Paul, who said much upon the
subject of who was not to inherit the kingdom of God, made no mention of
those who had two wives. St. Paul, on the contrary, said "that a Bishop
was to have but one wife, the same with his servants; hence, if it had
been compulsory that every man have but one wife he would have so
ordered, and forbidden a plurality of wives." Luther and Melanchthon
joined this reasoning, and gave their assent to double marriages, after
the Duke's wife herself had consented to the marriage with the second
wife under the condition "that he was to fulfil his marital duties
towards her more than ever before."[51] The question of the
justification of bigamy had before then--at the time when the issue was
the consenting to the double marriage of Henry VIII of England--caused
many a headache to Luther, as appears from a letter to the Chancellor of
Saxony, Brink, dated January, 1524. Luther wrote to him that, _in point
of principle, he could not reject bigamy_ because it ran not counter to
Holy Writ;[52] but that he held it scandalous when the same happened
among Christians, "who should leave alone even things that are
permissible." After the wedding of the Duke, which actually took place
in March, 1540, and in answer to a letter of acknowledgment from him,
Luther wrote (April 10): "That your Grace is happy on the score of our
opinion, _which we fain would see kept secret; else, even the rude
peasants_ (in imitation of the Duke's example) might finally produce as
strong, if not stronger, reasons, whereby we might then have much
trouble on our hands."

Upon Melanchthon, the consent to the double marriage of the Duke must
have been less hard. Before that, he had written to Henry VIII "every
Prince has the right to introduce polygamy in his domains." But the
double marriage of the Duke made such a great and unpleasant sensation,
that, in 1541, he circulated a treatise in which polygamy is defended as
no transgression against Holy Writ.[53] People were not then living in
the ninth or twelfth century, when polygamy was tolerated without
shocking society. Social conditions had very materially changed in the
meantime; in a great measure the mark had had to yield to the power of
the nobility and the clergy; it had even extensively disappeared, and
was further uprooted after the unhappy issue of the Peasant Wars.
Private property had become the general foundation of society. Beside
the rural population, that cultivated the soil, a strong, self-conscious
handicraft element had arisen, and was dominated by the interests of its
own station. Commerce had assumed large dimensions, and had produced a
merchant class, which, what with the splendor of its outward position
and its wealth, awoke the envy and hostility of a nobility that was
sinking ever deeper into poverty and licentiousness. The burghers'
system of private property had triumphed everywhere, as was evidenced by
the then universal introduction of the Roman law; the contrasts between
the classes were palpable, and everywhere did they bump against one
another. Monogamy became, under such conditions, the natural basis for
the sexual relations; a step such as taken by the Duke of Hessen now did
violence to the ruling morals and customs, which, after all, are but the
form of expression of the economic conditions that happen at the time to
prevail. On the other hand, society came to terms with prostitution, as
a necessary accompaniment of monogamy, and an institution supplemental
thereto;--and tolerated it.

In recognizing the gratification of the sexual impulses as a law of
Nature, Luther but uttered what the whole male population thought, and
openly claimed for itself. He, however, also contributed--through the
Reformation, which carried through the abolition of celibacy among the
clergy, and the removal of the cloisters from Protestant
territories--that to hundreds of thousands the opportunity was offered
to do justice to nature's impulses under legitimate forms. True
again,--due to the existing order of property, and to the legislation
that flowed therefrom,--hundreds of thousands of others continued to
remain excluded. The Reformation was the first protest of the
large-propertied bourgeois or capitalist class, then rising into being,
against the restrictions imposed by feudalism in Church, State and
society. It strove after freedom from the narrow bonds of the guild, the
court and the judiciary; it strove after the centralization of the
State, after the abolition of the numerous seats of idlers, the
monasteries; and it demanded their use for practical production. The
movement aimed at the abolition of the feudal form of property and
production; it aimed at placing in its stead the free property of the
capitalist, i. e., in the stead of the existing system of mutual
protection in small and disconnected circles, there was to be unchained
the free individual struggle of individual efforts in the competition
for property.

On the religious field, Luther was the representative of these bourgeois
aspirations. When he took a stand for the freedom of marriage, the
question could not be simply about civic marriage, which was realized in
Germany only in our own age through the civil laws and the legislation
therewith connected,--freedom to move, freedom of pursuit, and freedom
of domicile. In how far the position of woman was thereby improved will
be shown later. Meanwhile things had not matured so far at the time of
the Reformation. If, through the regulations of the Reformation many
were afforded the possibility to marry, the severe persecutions that
followed later hampered the freedom of sexual intercourse. The Roman
Catholic clergy having in its time displayed a certain degree of
tolerance, and even laxity, towards sexual excesses, now the Protestant
clergy, once itself was provided for, raged all the more violently
against the practice. War was declared upon the public "houses of
women;" they were closed as "Holes of Satan;" the prostitutes were
persecuted as "daughters of the devil;" and every woman who slipped was
placed on the pillory as a specimen of all sinfulness.

Out of the once hearty small property-holding bourgeois of the Middle
Ages, who lived and let live, now became a bigoted, straight-laced,
dark-browed maw-worm, who "saved-up," to the end that his large
property-holding bourgeois successor might live all the more lustily in
the nineteenth century, and might be able to dissipate all the more. The
respectable citizen, with his stiff necktie, his narrow horizon and his
severe code of morals, was the prototype of society. The legitimate
wife, who had not been particularly edified by the sensuality of the
Middle Ages, tolerated in Roman Catholic days, was quite at one with the
Puritanical spirit of Protestantism. But other circumstances supervened,
that, affecting, as they did, unfavorably the general condition of
things in Germany, joined in exercising in general an unfavorable
influence upon the position of woman.

The revolution--effected in production, money and trade, particularly as
regarded Germany,--due to the discovery of America and the sea-route to
the East Indies, produced, first of all, a great reaction on the social
domain. Germany ceased to be the center of European traffic and
commerce. Spain, Portugal, Holland, England, took successively the
leadership, the latter keeping it until our own days. German industry
and German commerce began to decline. At the same time, the religious
Reformation had destroyed the political unity of the nation. The
Reformation became the cloak under which the German principalities
sought to emancipate themselves from the Imperial power. In their turn,
the Princes brought the power of the nobility under their own control,
and, in order to reach this end all the more easily, favored the cities,
not a few of which, in sight of the ever more troubled times, placed
themselves, of their own free will, under the rule of the Princes. The
final effect was that the bourgeois or capitalist class, alarmed at the
financial decline of its trade, raised ever higher barriers to protect
itself against unpleasant competition. The ossification of conditions
gained ground; and with it the impoverishment of the masses.

Later, the Reformation had for a consequence the calling forth of the
religious wars and persecutions--always, of course, as cloaks for the
political and economic purposes of the Princes--that, with short
interruptions, raged throughout Germany for over a century, and ended
with the country's complete exhaustion, at the close of the Thirty
Years' War in 1648. Germany had become an immense field of corpses and
ruins; whole territories and provinces lay waste; hundreds of cities,
thousands of villages had been partially or wholly burnt down; many of
them have since disappeared forever from the face of the earth. In other
places the population had sunk to a third, a fourth, a fifth, even to an
eighth and tenth part. Such was the case, for instance, with cities like
Neurenberg, and with the whole of Franconia. And now, at the hour of
extreme need, and with the end in view of providing the depopulated
cities and villages as quickly as possible with an increased number of
people, the drastic measure was resorted to of "raising the law," and
_allowing a man two wives_. The wars had carried off the men; of women
there was an excess. On February 14, 1650, the Congress of Franconia,
held in Nuerenberg, adopted the resolution that "men under sixty years
of age shall not be admitted to the monasteries;" furthermore, it
ordered "the priests and curates, if not ordained, and the canons of
religious establishments, shall marry;" "moreover every male shall be
allowed to marry two wives; and all and each males are earnestly
reminded, and shall be often warned, _from the pulpit_ also, to so
comport themselves in this matter; and care shall be taken that he shall
fully and with becoming discretion diligently endeavor, so that, as a
married man, to whom is granted that he take two wives, he not only take
proper care of both wives, but avoid all misunderstanding among them."
At that time, we see, matters that are to-day kept under strictest
secrecy, were often discussed as of course from the pulpit itself.

But not commerce alone was at a standstill. Traffic and industry had
been extensively ruined during this protracted period; they could
recover only by little and little. A large part of the population had
become wild and demoralized, disused to all orderly occupations. During
the wars, it was the robbing, plundering, despoiling and murdering
armies of mercenaries, which crossed Germany from one end to the other,
that burned and knocked down friend and foe alike; after the wars, it
was countless robbers, beggars and swarms of vagabonds that threw the
population into fear and terror, and impeded and destroyed commerce and
traffic. For the female sex, in particular, a period of deep suffering
had broken. Contempt for woman had made great progress during the times
of license. The general lack of work weighed heaviest on their
shoulders; by the thousands did these women, like the male vagabonds,
infest the roads and woods, and filled the poorhouses and prisons of the
Princes and the cities. On top of all these sufferings came the forcible
ejectment of numerous peasant families by a land-hungry nobility.

Compelled, since the Reformation, ever more to bend before the might of
the Princes, and rendered ever more dependent upon these through court
offices and military posts, the nobility now sought to recoup itself
double and threefold with the robbery of peasant estates for the injury
it had sustained at the hand of the Princes. The Reformation offered the
Princes the desired pretext to appropriate the rich Church estates,
which they swallowed in innumerable acres of land. The Elector August of
Saxony, for instance, had turned not less than three hundred clergy
estates from their original purpose, up to the close of the sixteenth
century.[54] Similarly did his brothers and cousins, the other
Protestant Princes, and, above all, the Princes of Brandenburg. The
nobility only imitated the example by bagging peasant estates, that had
lost their owners, by ejecting free as well as serf peasants from house
and home, and enriching themselves with the goods of these. To this
particular end, the miscarried peasant revolts of the sixteenth century
furnished the best pretext. After the first attempts had succeeded,
never after were reasons wanting to proceed further in equally violent
style. With the aid of all manner of chicaneries, vexations and
twistings of the law--whereto the in-the-meantime naturalized Roman law
lent a convenient handle--the peasants were bought out at the lowest
prices, or they were driven from their property in order to round up the
estates of noblemen. Whole villages, the peasant homes of as much as
half a province, were in this way wiped out. Thus--so as to give a few
illustrations--out of 12,543 peasant homestead appanages of knightly
houses, which Mecklenburg still possessed at the time of the Thirty
Years' War, there were, in 1848, only 1,213 left. In Pommerania, since
1628, not less than 12,000 peasant homesteads disappeared. The change in
peasant economy, that took place in the course of the seventeenth
century, was a further incentive for the expropriation of the peasant
homesteads, especially to turn the last rests of the commons into the
property of the nobility. The system of rotation of crops was
introduced. It provided for a rotation in cultivation within given
spaces of time. Corn lands were periodically turned into meadows. This
favored the raising of cattle, and made possible the reduction of the
number of farm-hands. The crowd of beggars and tramps grew ever larger,
and thus one decree followed close upon the heels of another to reduce,
by the application of the severest punishments, the number of beggars
and vagabonds.

In the cities matters lay no better than in the country districts.
Before then, women were active in very many trades in the capacity of
working women as well as of employers. There were, for instance, female
furriers in Frankfurt and in the cities of Sleswig; bakers, in the
cities of the middle Rhine; embroiderers of coats of arms and
beltmakers, in Cologne and Strassburg; strap-cutters, in Bremen;
clothing-cutters in Frankfurt; tanners in Nuerenberg; gold spinners and
beaters in Cologne.[55] Women were now crowded back. The abandonment of
the pompous Roman Catholic worship alone, due to the Protestantizing of
a large portion of Germany, either injured severely a number of trades,
especially the artistic ones, or destroyed them altogether; and it was
in just these trades that many working women were occupied. As,
moreover, it ever happens when a social state of things is moving to its
downfall, the wrongest methods are resorted to, and the evil is thereby
aggravated. The sad economic condition of most of the German nations
caused the decimated population to appear as _overpopulation_, and
contributed greatly towards rendering a livelihood harder to earn, and
towards prohibitions of marriage.

Not until the eighteenth century did a slow improvement of matters set
in. The absolute Princes had the liveliest interest, with the view of
raising the standard abroad of their rule, to increase the population of
their territories. They needed this, partly in order to obtain soldiers
for their wars, partly also to gain taxpayers, who were to raise the
sums needed either for the army, or for the extravagant indulgences of
the court, or for both. Following the example of Louis XIV of France,
the majority of the then extraordinarily numerous princely courts of
Germany displayed great lavishness in all manner of show and tinsel.
This was especially the case in the matter of the keeping of
mistresses, which stood in inverse ratio to the size and capabilities of
the realms and realmlets. The history of these courts during the
eighteenth century belongs to the ugliest chapters of history. Libraries
are filled with the chronicles of the scandals of that era. One
potentate sought to surpass the other in hollow pretentiousness, insane
lavishness and expensive military fooleries. Above all, the most
incredible was achieved in the way of female excesses. It is hard to
determine which of the many German courts the palm should be assigned to
for extravagance and for a life that vitiated public morals. To-day it
was this, to-morrow that court; no German State escaped the plague. The
nobility aped the Princes, and the citizens in the residence cities aped
the nobility. If the daughter of a citizen's family had the luck to
please a gentleman high at court, perchance the Serenissimus himself, in
nineteen cases out of twenty she felt highly blessed by such favor, and
her family was ready to hand her over for a mistress to the nobleman or
the Prince. The same was the case with most of the noble families if one
of their daughters found favor with the Prince. Characterlessness and
shamelessness ruled over wide circles. As bad as the worst stood matters
in the two German capitals, Vienna and Berlin. In the Capua of Germany,
Vienna, true enough, the strict Maria Theresa reigned through a large
portion of the century, but she was impotent against the doings of a
rich nobility, steeped in sensuous pleasures, and of the citizen circles
that emulated the nobility. With the Chastity Commissions that she
established, and in the aid of which an extensive spy-system was
organized, she partly provoked bitterness, and partly made herself
laughable. The success was zero. In frivolous Vienna, sayings like these
made the rounds during the second half of the eighteenth century: "You
must love your neighbor like yourself, that is to say, you must love
your neighbor's wife as much as your own;" or "If the wife goes to the
right, the husband may go to the left: if she takes an attendant, he
takes a lady friend." In how frivolous a vein marriage and adultery were
then taken, transpires from a letter of the poet Ew. Chr. von Kleist,
addressed in 1751 to his friend Gleim. Among other things he there says:
"You are already informed on the adventure of the Mark-Graf Heinrich. He
sent his wife to his country seat and intends to divorce her because he
found the Prince of Holstein in bed with her.... The Mark-Graf might
have done better had he kept quiet about the affair, instead of now
causing half Berlin and all the world to talk about him. Moreover, _such
a natural thing should not be taken so ill_, all the more when, like the
Mark-Graf, one is not so waterproof himself. Mutual repulsion, we all
know, is unavoidable in married life: all husbands and wives are
perforce unfaithful, due to _their illusions concerning other estimable
persons. How can that be punished that one is forced to?_" On Berlin
conditions, the English Ambassador, Lord Malmsbury, wrote in 1772:
"Total corruption of morals pervades both sexes of all classes, whereto
must be added the indigence, caused, partly through the taxes imposed by
the present King, partly through the love of luxury that they took from
his grandfather. The men lead a life of excesses with limited means,
while the women are harpies, wholly bereft of shame. They yield
themselves to him who pays best. Tenderness and true love are things
unknown to them."[56]

Things were at their worst in Berlin under Frederick II, who reigned
from 1786 to 1796. He led with the worst example; and his court
chaplain, Zoellner, even lowered himself to the point of marrying the
King to the latter's mistress, Julie von Boss, as a second wife, and as
she soon thereupon died in childbed, Zoellner again consented to marry
the King to the Duchess Sophie of Doenhoff as a second wife by the side
of the Queen.

More soldiers and more taxpayers was the leading desire of the Princes.
Louis XIV, after whose death France was entirely impoverished in money
and men, set up pensions for parents who had ten children, and the
pension was raised when they reached twelve children. His General, the
Marshal of Saxony, even made to him the proposition to _allow marriages
only for the term of five years_. Fifty years later, in 1741, Frederick
the Great wrote, "I look upon men as a herd of deer in the zoological
garden of a great lord, their only duty is to populate and fill the
park."[57]

Later, he extensively depopulated his "deer park" with his wars, and
then took pains to "populate" it again with foreign immigration.

The German multiplicity of States, that was in fullest bloom in the
eighteenth century, presented a piebald map of the most different social
conditions and legislative codes. While in the minority of the States
efforts were made to improve the economic situation by promoting new
industries, by making settlement easier and by changing the marriage
laws in the direction of facilitating wedlock, the majority of the
States and statelets remained true to their backward views, and
intensified the unfavorable conditions of marriage and settlement for
both men and women. Seeing, however, that human nature will not allow
itself to be suppressed, all impediments and vexations notwithstanding,
concubinage sprang up in large quantity, and the number of illegitimate
children was at no time as large as in these days when the "paternal
regiment" of the absolute Princes reigned in "Christian simplicity."

The married woman of citizen rank lived in strict seclusion. The number
of her tasks and occupations was so large that, as a conscientious
housewife, she had to be at her post early and late in order to fulfil
her duties, and even that was possible to her only with the aid of her
daughters. Not only were there to be filled those daily household duties
which to-day, too, the small middle class housewife has to attend to,
but a number of others also, which the housewife of to-day is freed from
through modern development. She had to spin, weave, bleach and sew the
linen and clothes, prepare soap and candles, brew beer,--in short, she
was the veriest Cinderella: her only recreation was Sunday's church.
Marriage was contracted only within the same social circles; the
strongest and most ludicrous spirit of caste dominated all relations,
and tolerated no transgression. The daughters were brought up in the
same spirit; they were held under strict home seclusion; their mental
education did not go beyond the bounds of the narrowest home relations.
On top of this, an empty and hollow formality, meant as a substitute for
education and culture, turned existence, that of woman in particular,
into a veritable treadmill. Thus the spirit of the Reformation
degenerated into the worst pedantry, that sought to smother the natural
desires of man, together with his pleasures in life under a confused
mass of rules and usages that affected to be "worthy," but that benumbed
the soul.

Gradually, however, an economic change took place, that first seized
Western Europe and then reached into Germany also. The discovery of
America, the doubling of the Cape of Good Hope, the opening of the sea
route of the East Indies, the further discoveries that hinged on these,
and finally, the circumnavigation of the earth, revolutionized the life
and views of the most advanced nations of Europe. The unthought-of rapid
expansion of the world's commerce, called to life through the opening of
ever newer markets for European industry and products, revolutionized
the old system of handicraft. Manufacture arose, and thence flowed large
production. Germany--so long held back in her material development by
her religious wars and her political disintegration, which religious
differences promoted,--was finally dragged into the stream of the
general progress. In several quarters, large production developed under
the form of manufacture: flax and wool-spinning and weaving, the
manufacture of cloth, mining, the manufacture of iron, glass and
porcelain, transportation, etc. Fresh labor power, female included, came
into demand. But this newly rising form of industry met with the most
violent opposition on the part of the craftsmen, ossified in the guild
and medieval corporation system, who furiously fought every change in
the method of production, and saw therein a mortal enemy. The French
Revolution supervened. While casting aside the older order in France,
the Revolution also carried into Germany a fresh current of air, which
the old order could not for long resist. The French invasion hastened
the downfall,--this side of the Rhine also--of the old, worn-out
system. Whatever attempt was made, during the period of re-action after
1815, to turn back the wheels of time, the New had grown too strong, it
finally remained victorious.

The rise of machinery, the application of the natural sciences to the
process of production, the new roads of commerce and traffic burst
asunder the last vestiges of the old system. The guild privileges, the
personal restrictions, the mark and jurisdictional rights, together with
all that thereby hung, walked into the lumber room. The strongly
increased need of labor-power did not rest content with the men, it
demanded woman also as a cheaper article. The conditions that had become
untenable, had to fall; and they fell. The time thereto,--long
wished-for by the newly risen class, the bourgeoisie or capitalist
class--arrived the moment Germany gained her political unity. The
capitalist class demanded imperiously the unhampered development of all
the social forces; it demanded this for the benefit of its own
capitalist interests, that, at that time, and, to a certain degree, were
also the interests of the large majority. Thus came about the liberty of
trade, the liberty of emigration, the removal of the barriers to
marriage,--in short, that whole system of legislation that designates
itself "liberal." The old-time reactionists expected from these measures
the smash-up of morality. The late Adolph Ketteler of Mainz moaned,
already in 1865, accordingly, before the new social legislation had
become general, "that the tearing down of the existing barriers to
matrimony meant the dissolution of wedlock, it being now possible for
the married to run away from each other at will." A pretty admission
that the moral bonds of modern marriage are so weak, that only
_compulsion_ can be relied on to hold the couple together.

The circumstance, on the one hand, that the now naturally more numerous
marriages effected a rapid increase of population, and, on the other,
that the gigantically developing industry of the new era brought on many
ills, never known of before, caused the spectre of "overpopulation" to
rise anew. Conservative and liberal economists pull since then the same
string. We shall show what this fear of so-called overpopulation means;
we shall trace the feared phenomenon back to its legitimate source.
Among those who suffer of the overpopulation fear, and who demand the
restriction of freedom to marry, especially for workingmen, belong
particularly Prof. Ad. Wagner. According to him, workingmen marry too
early, in comparison with the middle class. He, along with others of
this opinion, forget that the male members of the higher class, marry
later only in order to wed "according to their station in life," a thing
they can not do before they have obtained a certain position. For this
abstinence, the males of the higher classes indemnify themselves with
prostitution. Accordingly, it is to prostitution that the working class
are referred, the moment marriage is made difficult for, or, under
certain circumstances, is wholly forbidden to, them. But, then, let
none wonder at the results, and let him not raise an outcry at the
"decline of morality," if the women also, who have the same desires as
the men, seek to satisfy in illegitimate relations the promptings of the
strongest impulse of nature. Moreover, the views of Wagner are at
fisticuffs with the interests of the capitalist class, which, oddly
enough, shares his views: it needs many "hands," so as to own cheap
labor-power that may fit it out for competition in the world's market.
With such petty notions and measures, born of a near-sighted
philistinism, the gigantic growing ills of the day are not to be healed.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] Tarnowsky. "Die krankhaften Erscheinungen des Geschlechtsinnes."
Berlin, August Hirschwald.

[23] Tacitus, "Histories," Book I.

[24] Montegazza "L'Amour dans l'Humanite."

[25] Matthew, ch. 19; 11 and 12.

[26] I. Corinthians, ch. 7; 1 and 38.

[27] Peter I., ch. 3; 1.

[28] Paul: Ephesians, ch. 5; 23.

[29] Paul: I. Corinthians, ch. 11; 7.

[30] I. Timothy, ch. 2; 11 and 12.

[31] I. Corinthians, ch. 14; 34 and 35.

[32] This was a move that the parish priests of the diocese of Mainz,
among others, complained against, expressing themselves this wise: "You
Bishops and Abbots possess great wealth, a kingly table, and rich
hunting equipages; we, poor, plain priests have for our comfort only a
wife. Abstinence may be a handsome virtue, but, in point of fact, it is
hard and difficult."--Yves-Guyot: "Les Theories Sociales du
Christianisme."

[33] Buckle, in his "History of Civilization in England," furnishes a
large number of illustrations on this head.

[34] Engels' "Der Ursprung der Familie."

[35] The same thing happened under the rule of the muir in Russia. See
Lavelaye: "Original Property."

[36] "Eyn iglich gefurster man, der ein kindbette hat, ist sin kint eyn
dochter, so mag eer eyn wagen vol bornholzes von urholz verkaufen of den
samstag. Ist iz eyn sone, so mag he iz tun of den dinstag und of den
samstag von ligenden holz oder von urholz und sal der frauwen davon
kaufen, win und schon brod dyeweile sie kintes june lit,"--G. L. v.
Maurer; "Geschichte der Markenverfassung in Deutschland."

[37] "Bettmund," "Jungfernzins," "Hemdschilling," "Schuerzenzins,"
"Bunzengroschen."

[38] "Aber sprechend die Holflüt, weller hie zu der helgen see kumbt,
der sol einen meyer (Gutsverwalter) laden und ouch sin frowen, da sol
der meyer lien dem brütigan ein haffen, da er wol mag ein schaff in
geseyden, ouch sol der meyer bringen ein fuder holtz an das hochtzit,
ouch sol ein meyer und sin frow bringen ein viertenteyl eines
schwynsbachen, und so die hochtzit vergat, so sol der brütigan den meyer
by sim wib lassen ligen die ersten nacht, oder er sol sy lösen mit 5
schilling 4 pfenning."--I., p. 43.

[39] "History of the Abolition of Serfdom in Europe to the Middle of the
19th Century." St. Petersburg, 1861.

[40] Memminger, Staelin and others. "Beschreibung der Wuertembergischen
Aemter." Hormayr. "Die Bayern im Morgenlande." Also Sugenheim.

[41] "Ueber Stetigung und Abloesung der baeuerlichen Grundlasten mit
besonderer Ruecksicht auf Bayern, Wuertemberg, Baden, Hessen, Preussen
und Oesterreich." Landshut, 1848.

[42] A poem of Albrecht von Johansdorf, in the collection of
"Minnesang-Fruehling" (Collection of Lachman and Moritz Haupt; Leipsic,
1857; S. Hirtel), has this passage:


    "waere ez niht unstaete
    der Zwein wiben wolte sin fur eigen jehen,
    bei diu tougenliche? sprechet, herre, wurre ez iht?
    (man sol ez den man erlouben und den vrouwen nicht.)"


The openness, with which two distinct rights, according to sex, are here
considered a matter of course, corresponds with views that are found in
force even to this day.

[43] Dr. Karl Buecher, "Die Frauenfrage im Mittelalter," Tuebingen.

[44] Dr. Karl Buecher.

[45] Joh. Scherr, "Geschichte der Deutschen Frauenwelt," Leipsic, 1879.

[46] Leon Richter reports in "La Femme Libre" the case of a servant girl
in Paris who was convicted of infanticide _by the father of the child
himself_, a respected and religious lawyer, who sat on the jury. Aye,
worse: _the lawyer in question was himself the murderer, and the mother
was entirely guiltless, as, after her conviction, she herself declared
in court_.

[47] Dr. Karl Hagen, "Deutschlands Literarische und Religioese
Verhaeltnisse im Reformationszeitalter." Frankfurt-on-the-Main, 1868.

[48] II., 146, Jena, 1522.

[49] Dr. Karl Hagen.

[50] Jacob Grimm informs us ("Deutsche Rechtsalterthuemer. Weisthum aus
dem Amte Blankenburg"):


     "Daer ein Man were, der sinen echten wive ver frowelik recht niet
     gedoin konde, der sall si sachtelik op sinen ruggen setten und
     draegen sie over negen erstnine und setten sie sachtelik neder
     sonder stoeten, slaen und werpen und sonder enig quaed woerd of
     oevel sehen, und roipen dae sine naebur aen, dat sie inne sines
     wives lives noet helpen weren, und of sine naebur dat niet doen
     wolden of kunden, so sall be si senden up die neiste kermisse
     daerbl gelegen und dat sie sik süverlik toe make und verzere und
     hangen ör einen buidel wail mit golde bestikt up die side, dat sie
     selft wat gewerven kunde: kumpt sie dannoch wider ungeholpen, so
     help ör dar der duifel."


As appears from Grimm, the German peasant of the Middle Ages looked in
marriage, first of all, for _heirs_. If he was unable himself to beget
these, he then, as a practical man, left the pleasure, without special
scruples, to some one else. The main thing was to gain his object. We
repeat it: Man does not rule property, property rules him.

[51] Johann Janssen, "Geschichte des Deutschen Volkes," 1525-1555,
Freiburg.

[52] Which is perfectly correct, and also explainable, seeing that the
Bible appeared at a time when polygamy extended far and wide among the
peoples of the Orient and the Occident. In the sixteenth century,
however, it was in strong contradiction with the standard of morality.

[53] Johann Janssen.

[54] Johann Janssen. Vol. III.

[55] Dr. Karl Buecher, "Die Frauenfrage im Mittelalter."

[56] Johann Scherr: "Geschichte der Deutschen Frauenwelt."

[57] Karl Kautsky, "Ueber den Einfluss der Volksvermehrung auf den
Fortschritt der Gesellschaft." Vienna, 1880.




PART II

WOMAN IN THE PRESENT




CHAPTER I.

SEXUAL INSTINCTS, WEDLOCK, CHECKS AND OBSTRUCTIONS TO MARRIAGE.


Plato thanked the gods for eight favors bestowed upon him. As the first,
he took it that they had granted him to be born a freeman, and not a
slave; the second was that he was created a man, and not a woman. A
similar thought finds utterance in the morning prayer of the Jews. They
pray: "Blessed be Thou, our God and Lord of Hosts, _who hast not created
me a woman_;" the Jewish women, on the other hand, pray at the
corresponding place: "_who hast created me after thy will_." The
contrast in the position of the sexes can find no more forcible
expression than it does in the saying of Plato, and in the different
wording of the prayer among the Jews. The male is the real being, the
master of the female. With the views of Plato and the Jews, the larger
part of men agree, and many a woman also wishes that she had been born a
man and not a woman. In this view lies reflected the condition of the
female sex.

Wholly irrespective of the question whether woman is oppressed as a
female proletarian, as sex she is oppressed in the modern world of
private property. A number of checks and obstructions, unknown to man,
exist for her, and hem her in at every step. Much that is allowed to man
is forbidden to her; a number of social rights and privileges, enjoyed
by the former, are, if exercised by her, a blot or a crime. She suffers
both as a social and a sex entity, and it is hard to say in which of the
two respects she suffers more.

Of all the natural impulses human beings are instinct with, along with
that of eating and drinking, the sexual impulse is the strongest. The
impulse to procreate the species is the most powerful expression of the
"Will to Live." It is implanted most strongly in every normally
developed human being. Upon maturity, its satisfaction is an actual
necessity for man's physical and mental health. Luther was perfectly
right when he said: "He who would resist the promptings of Nature, and
prevent their going as Nature wills and must, _what else does he but
endeavor to resist Nature's being Nature, that fire burn, water wet,
that man eat, drink or sleep_?" These are words that should be graven in
granite over the doors of our churches, in which the "sinful flesh" is
so diligently preached against. More strikingly no physician or
physiologist can describe the necessity for the satisfaction of the
craving for love on the part of a healthy being,--a craving that finds
its expression in sexual intercourse.

It is a commandment of the human being to itself--a commandment that it
must obey if it wishes to develop normally and in health--that it
neglect the exercise of no member of its body, deny gratification to no
natural impulse. Each member must fill the function, that it is intended
for by Nature, on penalty of atrophy and disease. The laws of the
physical development of man must be studied and observed, the same as
those of mental development. The mental activity of the human being is
the expression of the physiologic composition of its organs. The
complete health of the former is intimately connected with the health of
the latter. A disturbance of the one inevitably has a disturbing effect
upon the other. Nor do the so-called animal desires take lower rank than
the so-called mental ones. One set and the other are effects of the
identical combined organism: the influence of the two upon each other is
mutual and continuous. This holds good for man as for woman.

It follows that, the knowledge of the properties of the sexual organs is
just as needful as that of the organs which generate mental activity;
and that man should bestow upon the cultivation of both an equal share
of care. He should realize that organs and impulses, found implanted in
every human being, and that constitute a very essential part of his
nature, aye, that, at certain periods of his life control him
absolutely, must not be objects of secrecy, of false shame and utter
ignorance. It follows, furthermore, that a knowledge of the physiology
and anatomy of the sexual organs, together with their functions, should
be as general among men and women as any other branch of knowledge.
Equipped with an accurate knowledge of our physical make-up, we would
look upon many a condition in life with eyes different from those we now
do. The question of removing existing evils would then, of itself, force
itself upon those before whom society, to-day, passes by in silence and
solemn bashfulness, notwithstanding these evils command attention within
the precincts of every family. In all other matters, knowledge is held a
virtue, the worthiest and most beautiful aim of human endeavor--only not
knowledge in such matters that are in closest relation with the essence
and health of our own _Ego_, as well as the basis of all social
development.

Kant says: "Man and woman only jointly constitute the complete being:
one sex supplements the other." Schopenhauer declares: "The sexual
impulse is the fullest utterance of the will to live, hence it is the
concentration of all will-power;" again: "The affirmative declaration of
the will in favor of life is concentrated in the act of generation, and
that is its most decisive expression." In accord therewith says
Mainlaender: "The center of gravity of human life lies in the sexual
instinct: it alone secures life to the individual, which is that which
above all else it wants.... To nothing else does man devote greater
earnestness than to the work of procreation, and for the care of none
other does he compress and concentrate the intensity of his will so
demonstratively as for the act of procreation." Finally, and before all
of these, Buddha said: "The sexual instinct is sharper than the hook
wild elephants are tamed with; it is hotter than flames; it is like an
arrow, shot into the spirit of man."[58]

Such being the intensity of the sexual impulse, it is no wonder that
sexual abstinence at the age of maturity affects the nervous system and
the whole organism of man, with one sex as well as the other, in such a
manner that it often leads to serious disturbances and manias; under
certain conditions even to insanity and death. True enough, the sexual
instinct does not assert itself with equal violence in all natures, and
much can be done towards curbing it by education and self-control,
especially by avoiding the excitation resulting upon certain
conversations and reading. It is thought that, in general, the impulse
manifests itself lighter with women than with men, and that the
irritation is less potent with the former. It is even claimed that, with
woman, there is a certain repugnance for the sexual act. The minority is
small of those with whom physiologic and psychologic dispositions and
conditions engender such a difference. "The union of the sexes is one of
the great laws of living Nature; man and woman are subject to it the
same as all other creatures, and can not transgress it, especially at a
ripe age, without their organism suffering more or less in
consequence."[59] Debay quotes among the diseases, caused by the
inactivity of the sexual organs, satyriasis, nymphomania and hysteria;
and he adds that celibacy exercises upon the intellectual powers,
especially with woman, a highly injurious effect. On the subject of the
harmfulness of sexual abstinence by woman, Busch says:[60] "Abstinence
has in all ages been considered particularly harmful to woman; indeed it
is a fact that excess, as well as abstinence, affects the female
organism equally harmfully, and the effects show themselves more
pronouncedly and intensively than with the male organism."

It may, accordingly, be said that man--be the being male or female--is
complete in the measure in which, both as to organic and spiritual
culture, the impulses and manifestations of life utter themselves in the
sexes, and in the measure that they assume character and expression.
Each sex of itself reached its highest development. "With civilized
man," says Klenke in his work "Woman as Wife," "the compulsion of
procreation is placed under the direction of the moral principle, and
that is guided by reason." This is true. Nevertheless, it were an
impossible task, even with the highest degree of freedom, wholly to
silence the imperative command for the preservation of the species,--a
command that Nature planted in the normal, organic expression of the
both sexes. Where healthy individuals, male or female, have failed in
their life-time to honor this duty towards Nature, _it is not with them
an instance of the free exercise of the will_, even when so given out,
or when, in self-deception, it is believed to be such. _It is the result
of social obstacles, together with the consequences which follow in
their wake; they restricted the right of Nature_; they allowed the
organs to wilt; allowed the stamp of decay and of sexual vexation--both
in point of appearance and of character--to be placed upon the whole
organism; and, finally, brought on--through nervous distempers--diseased
inclinations and conditions both of body and of mind. The man becomes
feminine, the woman masculine in shape and character. The sexual
contrast not having reached realization in the plan of Nature, each
human being _remained one-sided, never reached its supplement, never
touched the acme of its existence_. In her work, "The Moral Education of
the Young in Relation to Sex," Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell says: "The sexual
impulse exists as an indispensable condition of life, and as the basis
of society. It is the greatest force in human nature. Often undeveloped,
not even an object of thought, but none the less the _central fire of
life_, this inevitable instinct is the natural protector against any
possibility of extinction."

Science agrees, accordingly, with the opinion of the philosophers, and
with Luther's healthy common sense. It follows that every human being
has, not merely the right, but also the duty to satisfy the instincts,
that are intimately connected with its inmost being, that, in fact,
imply existence itself. Hindered therein, rendered impossible to him
through social institutions or prejudices, the consequence is that man
is checked in the development of his being, is left to a stunted life
and retrogression. What the consequences thereof are, our physicians,
hospitals, insane asylums and prisons can tell,--to say nothing of the
thousands of tortured family lives. In a book that appeared in Leipsic,
the author is of the opinion: "The sexual impulse is neither moral nor
immoral; it is merely natural, like hunger and thirst: Nature knows
nothing of morals;"[61] nevertheless bourgeois society is far from a
general acceptance of this maxim.

The opinion finds wide acceptance among physicians and physiologists
that even a defectively equipped marriage is better than celibacy.
Experience agrees therewith. In Bavaria there were, in 1858, not less
than 4,899 lunatics, 2,576 (53 per cent.) of them men, 2,323 (47 per
cent.) women. The men were, accordingly, more strongly represented than
the women. Of the whole number, however, the _unmarried_ of both sexes
ran up to 81 per cent., the married only to 17 per cent., while of 2 per
cent. the conjugal status was unknown. As a mitigation of the shocking
disproportion between the unmarried and the married, the circumstance
may be taken into consideration that a not small number of the unmarried
were insane from early childhood. In Hanover, in the year 1856, there
was one lunatic to every 457 unmarried, 564 widowed, 1,316 married
people. Most strikingly is the effect of unsatisfied sexual relations
shown in the number of suicides among men and women. In general, the
number of suicides is in all countries considerably higher among men
than among women. To every 1,000 female suicides there were in:[62]


    England from 1872-76  2,861 men
    Sweden    "  1870-74  3,310  "
    France    "  1871-76  3,695  "
    Italy     "  1872-77  4,000  "
    Prussia   "  1871-78  4,239  "
    Austria   "  1873-78  4,586  "


But between the ages of 21 and 30, the figures for _female suicides is
in all European countries higher than for males_, due, as Oettingen
assumes, to sexual causes. In Prussia the percentages of suicides
between the ages of 21 to 30 were on an average:


     Years.    Males.   Females.
    1869-72     15.8      21.4
    1873-78     15.7      21.5


In Saxony there were to every 1,000 suicides between the ages of 21 to
30 these averages:


    Years.     Males.   Females.
    1854       14.95     18.64
    1868       14.71     18.79


For widowed and divorced people also the percentage of suicides is
larger than the average. In Saxony there are seven times as many
suicides among divorced males, and three times as many among divorced
females, as the average of suicides for males and females respectively.
Again, suicide is more frequent among divorced and widowed men and women
when they are childless. Of 491 widowed suicides in Prussia (119 males
and 372 females) 353 were childless.

Taking into further consideration that, among the unmarried women, who
are driven to suicide between the ages of 21 and 30, many a one is to be
found, who takes her life by reason of being betrayed, or because she
can not bear the consequences of a "slip," the fact remains that sexual
reasons play a decided _role_ in suicide at this age. Among female
suicides, the figure is large also for those between the ages of 16 to
20, and the fact is probably likewise traceable to unsatisfied sexual
instinct, disappointment in love, secret pregnancy, or betrayal. On the
subject of the women of our days as sexual beings, Professor V.
Krafft-Ebing expresses himself: "A not-to-be-underrated source of
insanity with woman lies in her social position. Woman, by nature more
prone than man to sexual needs, at least in the ideal sense of the term,
knows no honorable means of gratifying the need other than marriage. At
the same time marriage offers her the only support. Through unnumbered
generations her character has been built in this direction. Already the
little girl plays mother with her doll. Modern life, with its demands
upon culture, offers ever slighter prospects of gratification through
marriage. This holds especially with the upper classes, among whom
marriage is contracted later and more rarely. While man--as the
stronger, and thanks to his greater intellectual and physical powers,
together with his social position--supplies himself easily with sexual
gratification, or, taken up with some occupation, that engages all his
energies, easily finds an equivalent, these paths are closed to single
women. This leads, in the first place, consciously or unconsciously, to
dissatisfaction with herself and the world, to morbid brooding. For a
while, perhaps, relief is sought in religion; but in vain. Out of
religious enthusiasm, there spring with or without masturbation, a host
of nervous diseases, among which hysteria and insanity are not rare.
Only thus is the fact explainable that insanity among single women
occurs with greatest frequency between the ages of 25 and 35, that is to
say, the time when the bloom of youth, and, along therewith, hope
vanishes; while with men, insanity occurs generally between the ages of
35 and 50, the season of the strongest efforts in the struggle for
existence.

"It certainly is no accident that, hand in hand with increasing
celibacy, the question of the emancipation of woman has come ever more
on the order of the day. I would have the question looked upon as a
danger signal, set up by the social position of woman in modern
society--a position that grows ever more unbearable, due to increasing
celibacy; I would have it looked upon as the danger signal of a
justified demand, made upon modern society, to furnish woman some
equivalent for that to which she is assigned by Nature, and which modern
social conditions partly deny her."[63]

And Dr. H. Plotz, in his work, "Woman in Nature and Ethnography,"[64]
says in the course of his explanation of the results of ungratified
sexual instincts upon unmarried women: "It is in the highest degree
noteworthy, not for the physician only, but also for the anthropologist,
that there is an effective and never-failing means to check this process
of decay (with old maids), but even to cause the lost bloom to return,
if not in all its former splendor yet in a not insignificant
degree,--_pity only that our social conditions allow, or make its
application possible only in rare instances_. The means consist in
regular and systematic sexual intercourse. The sight is not infrequent
with girls, who lost their bloom, or were not far from the withering
point, yet, the opportunity to marry having been offered them, that,
shortly after marriage, their shape began to round up again, the roses
to return to their cheeks, and their eyes to recover their one-time
brightness. _Marriage is, accordingly, the true fountain of youth for
the female sex._ Thus Nature has her firm laws, that implacably demand
their dues. No 'vita praeter naturam,' no unnatural life, no attempt at
accommodation to incompatible conditions of life, passes without leaving
noticeable traces of degeneration, upon the animal, as well as upon the
human organism."

As to the effect that marriage and celibacy exercise upon the mind, the
following figures furnish testimony. In 1882, there were in Prussia, per
10,000 inhabitants of the same conjugal status, 33.2 unmarried male and
29.3 female lunatics, while the percentage of the married ones was 9.5
for men, and 9.5 for females, and of the widowed, 32.1 males, and 25.6
females. Social conditions can not be considered healthy, that hinder a
normal satisfaction of the natural instincts, and lead to evils like
those just mentioned.

The question then rises: Has modern society met the demands for a
natural life, especially as concerns the female sex? If the question is
answered in the negative, this other rises: Can modern society meet the
demands? If both questions must be answered in the negative, then this
third arises: How can these demands be met?

"Marriage and the family are the foundation of the State; consequently,
he who attacks marriage and the family attacks society and the State,
and undermines both"--thus cry the defenders of the present order.
Unquestionably, monogamous marriage, which flows from the bourgeois
system of production and property, is one of the most important
cornerstones of bourgeois or capitalist society; whether, however, such
marriage is in accord with natural wants and with a healthy development
of human society, is another question. We shall prove that the marriage,
founded upon bourgeois property relations, is more or less a marriage by
compulsion, which leads numerous ills in its train, and which fails in
its purpose quite extensively, if not altogether. We shall show,
furthermore, that it is a social institution, beyond the reach of
millions, and is by no means that marriage based upon love, which alone
corresponds with the natural purpose, as its praise-singers maintain.

With regard to modern marriage, John Stuart Mill exclaims: "_Marriage is
the only form of slavery that the law recognizes._" In the opinion of
Kant, man and woman constitute only jointly the full being. Upon the
normal union of the sexes rests the healthy development of the human
race. The natural gratification of the sexual instinct is a necessity
for the thorough physical and mental development of both man and woman.
But man is no animal. Mere physical satisfaction does not suffice for
the full gratification of his energetic and vehement instinct. He
requires also spiritual affinity and oneness with the being that he
couples with. Is that not the case, then the blending of the sexes is a
purely mechanical act: such a marriage is immoral. It does not answer
the higher human demands. Only in the mutual attachment of two beings of
opposite sexes can be conceived the spiritual ennobling of relations
that rest upon purely physical laws. Civilized man demands that the
mutual attraction continue beyond the accomplishment of the sexual act,
and _that it prolong its purifying influence upon the home that flows
from the mutual union_.[65] The fact that these demands can not be made
upon numberless marriages in modern society is what led Barnhagen von
Ense to say: "That which we saw with our own eyes, both with regard to
contracted marriages and marriages yet to be contracted, was not
calculated to give us a good opinion of such unions. On the contrary,
the whole institution, which was to have only love and respect for its
foundation, and which in all these instances (in Berlin) we saw founded
on everything but that, seemed to us mean and contemptible, and we
loudly joined in the saying of Frederick Schlegel which we read in the
fragments of the 'Atheneum': Almost all marriages are concubinages,
left-handed unions, or rather provisional attempts and distant
resemblances at and of a true marriage, whose real feature consists,
according to all spiritual and temporal laws, in that two persons become
one."[66] Which is completely in the sense of Kant.

The duty towards and pleasure in posterity make permanent the love
relations of two persons, when such really exists. A couple that wishes
to enter into matrimonial relations must, therefore, be first clear
whether the physical and moral qualities of the two are fit for such a
union. The answer should be arrived at uninfluenced; and that can happen
only, first, _by keeping away all other interests_, that have nothing to
do with the real object of the union,--the gratification of the natural
instinct, and the transmission of one's being in the propagation of the
race; secondly, by a certain degree of insight that curbs blind passion.
Seeing, however, as we shall show, that _both conditions are, in
innumerable cases, absent in modern society, it follows that modern
marriage is frequently far from fulfilling its true purpose; hence that
it is not just to represent it, as is done, in the light of an ideal
institution_.

How large the number is of the marriages, contracted with views wholly
different from these, can, naturally, not be statistically given. The
parties concerned are interested in having their marriage appear to the
world different from what it is in fact. There is on this field a state
of hypocrisy peculiar to no earlier social period. And the State, the
political representative of this society, has no interest, for the sake
of curiosity, in initiating inquiries, the result of which would be to
place in dubious light the social system that is its very foundation.
The maxims, which the State observes with respect to the marrying of
large divisions of its own officials and servants, _do not suffer the
principle to be applied that, ostensibly, is the basis of marriage_.

Marriage--and herewith the bourgeois idealists also agree--should be a
union that two persons enter into only out of mutual love, in order to
accomplish their natural mission. This motive is, however, only rarely
present in all its purity. With the large majority of women, matrimony
is looked upon as a species of institution for support, which they must
enter into at any price. Conversely, a large portion of the men look
upon marriage from a purely business standpoint, and from material
view-points all the advantages and disadvantages are accurately
calculated. Even with those marriages, in which low egotistical motives
did not turn the scales, raw reality brings along so much that disturbs
and dissolves, that only in rare instances are the expectations verified
which, in their youthful enthusiasm and ardor, the couple had looked
forward to.

And quite naturally. If wedlock is to offer the spouses a contented
connubial life, it demands, together with mutual love and respect, _the
assurance of material existence, the supply of that measure of the
necessaries of life and comfort which the two consider requisite for
themselves and their children_. The weight of cares, the hard struggle
for existence--these are the first nails in the coffin of conjugal
content and happiness. The cares become heavier the more fruitful the
marriage proves itself, i. e., _in the measure in which the marriage
fulfils its purpose_. The peasant, for instance, is pleased at every
calf that his cow brings him; he counts with delight the number of
young that his sow litters; and he communicates the event with pleasure
to his neighbors. But the same peasant looks gloomy when his wife
presents him with an increase to his own brood--and large this may never
be--which he believes to be able to bring up without too much worry. His
gloom is all the thicker if the new-born child is a _girl_.

We shall now show how, everywhere, marriages and births are completely
controlled by the economic conditions. This is most classically
exemplified in France. There, the allotment system prevails generally in
the country districts. Land, broken up beyond a certain limit, ceases to
nourish a family. The unlimited division of land, legally permissible,
the French peasant counteracts by his rarely giving life to more than
two children,--hence the celebrated and notorious "two child system,"
that has grown into a social institution in France, and that, to the
alarm of her statesmen, keeps the population stationary, in some
provinces even registering considerable retrogression. The number of
births is steadily on the decline in France; but not in France only,
also in most of the civilized lands. Therein is found expressed a
development in our social conditions, that should give the ruling
classes cause to ponder. In 1881 there were 937,057 children born in
France; in 1890, however, only 838,059; accordingly, the births in 1890
fell 98,998 behind the year 1881. Characteristic, however, is the
circumstance that the number of _illegitimate_ births in France was
70,079 for the year 1881; that, during the period between 1881 and 1890,
the number reached high-water mark in 1884, with 75,754; and that the
number was still 71,086 strong in 1890. Accordingly, the whole of the
decline of births fell exclusively upon the legitimate births. This
decline in births, and, we may add, in marriages also, is, as will be
shown, a characteristic feature, noticeable throughout the century. To
every 10,000 French population, there were births in the years:


    1801   333
    1821   307
    1831   303
    1841   282
    1851   270
    1856   261
    1868   269
    1886   230
    1890   219


This amounts to a decline of births in 1890, as against 1801, of 114 to
every 10,000 inhabitants. It is imaginable that such figures cause
serious headaches to the French statesmen and politicians. But France
does not stand alone in this. For a long time Germany has been
presenting a similar phenomenon. In Germany, to every 10,000 population
there were births in the years:


    1869   406
    1876   403
    1880   390
    1883   358
    1887   369.4
    1890   357.6


Accordingly, Germany too reveals, in the space of only 21 years, a
decline of 49 births to every 10,000 inhabitants. Similarly with the
other States of Europe. To every 10,000 population there were live
births:


                       From        From
      States.       1865-1867.  1886-1888. Decrease. Increase.
    Ireland            262         231        31       ..
    Scotland           353         313        40       ..
    England and Wales  353         314        39       ..
    Holland            388         344        44       ..
    Belgium            320         293        27       ..
    Switzerland        320         278        42       ..
    Austria            374         380        ..        6
    Hungary            399         445        ..       46
    Italy              378         371         7       ..
    Sweden             320         297        23       ..
    Norway             344         308        36       ..


The decline in births is, accordingly, pretty general, only that, of all
European States, it is strongest in France. Between 1886 and 1888,
France had, to every 1,000 inhabitants, an average of 23.9 births,
England 32.9, Prussia 41.27, and Russia 48.8.

These facts show that the birth of a human being, the "image of God," as
religious people express it, ranks generally much cheaper than new-born
domestic animals. What this fact does reveal is the _unworthy_ condition
that we find ourselves in,--and it is mainly the female sex which
suffers thereunder. In many respects, modern views distinguish
themselves but little from those of barbarous nations. Among the latter,
new-born babes were frequently killed, and such a fate fell to the lot
of girls mainly; many a half-wild race does so to this day. We no longer
kill the girls; we are too civilized for that; but they are only too
often treated like pariahs by society and the family. The stronger man
crowds them everywhere back in the struggle for existence; and if,
driven by the love for life, they still take up the battle, they are
visited with hatred by the stronger sex, as unwelcome competitors. It is
especially the men in the higher ranks of society who are bitterest
against female competition, and oppose it most fiercely. That workingmen
demand the exclusion of female labor on principle happens but rarely. A
motion to that effect being made in 1877, at a French Labor Convention,
the large majority declared against it. Since then, it is just with the
class-conscious workingmen of all countries, that the principle, that
working-women are beings with equal rights with themselves makes immense
progress. This was shown especially by the resolutions of the
International Labor Congress of Paris in 1889. The class-conscious
workingman knows that the modern economic development forces woman to
set herself up as a competitor with man; but he also knows that, to
prohibit female labor, would be as senseless an act as the prohibition
of the use of machinery. Hence he strives to enlighten woman on her
position in society, and _to educate her into a fellow combatant in the
struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat from capitalism_. True
enough,--due to the ever more widespread employment of female labor in
agriculture, industry, commerce and the trades--the family life of the
workingman is destroyed, and the degenerating effects of the double yoke
of work for a living, and of household duties, makes rapid progress in
the female sex. Hence the endeavor to keep women by legislative
enactments, from occupations that are especially injurious to the female
organism, and by means of protective laws to safeguard her as a mother
and rearer of children. On the other hand, the struggle for existence
forces women to turn in ever larger numbers to industrial occupations.
It is _married woman_, more particularly, who is called upon to increase
the meager earnings of her husband with her work,--and she is
particularly welcome to the employer.[67]

Modern society is without doubt more cultured than any previous one, and
woman stands correspondingly higher. Nevertheless, the views concerning
the relations of the two sexes have remained at bottom the same.
Professor L. von Stein published a book,[68]--a work, be it said in
passing, that corresponds ill with its title--in which he gives a
poetically colored picture of modern marriage, as it supposedly is. Even
in this picture the subaltern position of woman towards the "lion" man
is made manifest. Stein says among other things: "Man deserves a being
that not only loves, but also understands him. He deserves a person with
whom not only the heart beats for him, but whose hand may also smooth
his forehead, and whose presence radiates peace, rest, order, a quiet
command over herself and the thousand and one things upon which he daily
reverts: he wants someone who spreads over all these things that
indescribable aroma of womanhood, one who is the life-giving warmth to
the life of the house."

In this song of praise of woman lies concealed her own degradation, and
along therewith, the low egotism of man. The professor depicts woman as
a vaporous being, that, nevertheless, shall be equipped with the
necessary knowledge of practical arithmetic; know how to keep the
balance between "must" and "can" in the household; and, for the rest,
float zephyr-fashion, like sweet spring-tide, about the master of the
house, the sovereign lion, in order to spy every wish from his eyes, and
with her little soft hand unwrinkle the forehead, that he, "the master
of the house," perchance himself crumpled, while brooding over his own
stupidity. In short, the professor pictures a woman and a marriage such
as, out of a hundred, hardly one is to be found, or, for that matter,
can exist. Of the many thousand unhappy marriages; of the large number
of women who never get so far as to wed; and also of the millions, who,
like beasts of burden beside their husbands, have to drudge and wear
themselves out from early morn till late to earn a bit of bread for the
current day,--of all of these the learned gentleman knows nothing. With
all these wretched beings, hard, raw reality wipes off the poetic
coloring more easily than does the hand the colored dust of the wings of
a butterfly. One look, cast by the professor at those unnumbered female
sufferers, would have seriously disturbed his poetically colored
picture, and spoiled his concept. The women, whom he sees, make up but a
trifling minority, and that these stand upon the plane of our times is
to be doubted.

An oft-quoted sentence runs: "The best gauge of the culture of a people
is the position which woman occupies." We grant that; but it will be
shown that our so much vaunted culture has little to brag about. In his
work, "The Subjection of Woman,"--the title is typical of the opinion
that the author holds regarding the modern position of woman--John
Stuart Mill says: "The lives of men have become more domestic, growing
civilization lays them under more obligations towards women." This is
only partly true. In so far as honorable conjugal relations may exist
between husband and wife, Mill's statement is true; but it is doubtful
whether the statement applies to even a strong minority. Every sensible
man will consider it an advantage to himself if woman step forward into
life out of the narrow circle of domestic activities, and become
familiar with the currents of the times. The "chains" he thereby lays
upon himself do not press him. On the other hand, the question arises
whether modern life does not introduce into married life factors, that,
to a higher degree than formerly, act destructively upon marriage.

Monogamous marriage became, from the start, an object of material
speculation. The man who marries endeavors to wed property, along with a
wife, and this was one of the principal reasons why daughters, after
being at first excluded from the right to inherit, when descent in the
male line prevailed, soon again reacquired the right. But never in
earlier days was marriage so cynically, in open market, so to speak, an
object of speculation; a money transaction, as it is to-day. To-day
trading in marriage is frequently conducted among the property
classes--among the propertyless the practice has no sense--with such
shamelessness, that the oft-repeated phrase concerning the "sanctity" of
marriage is the merest mockery. This phenomenon, as everything else, has
its ample foundation. At no previous period was it, as it is to-day,
hard for the large majority of people to raise themselves into a
condition of well-being, corresponding to the then general conceptions;
nor was at any time the justified striving for an existence worthy of
human beings so general as it is to-day. He who does not reach the goal,
feels his failure all the more keenly, just because all believe to have
an equal right to enjoyment. _Formally_, there are _no_ rank or class
distinctions. Each wishes to obtain that which, according to his
station, he considers a goal worth striving for, in order to come at
fruition. But many are called and few are chosen. In order that one may
live comfortably in capitalist society, twenty others must pine; and in
order that one may wallow in all manner of enjoyment, hundreds, if not
thousands, of others must renounce the happiness of life. But each
wishes to be of that minority of favored ones, and seizes every means,
that promise to take him to the desired goal, provided he does not
compromise himself too deeply. One of the most convenient means, and,
withal, nearest at hand, to reach the privileged social station, is the
_money-marriage_. The desire, on the one hand, to obtain as much money
as possible, and, on the other, the aspiration after rank, titles and
honor thus find their mutual satisfaction in the so-called upper classes
of society. There, marriage is generally considered a business
transaction; it is a purely conventional bond, which both parties
respect externally, while, for the rest, each often acts according to
his or her own inclination. Marriage for political reasons, practiced in
the higher classes, need here to be mentioned only for the sake of
completeness. With these marriages also, as a rule, the privilege has
tacitly existed--of course, again, for the husband to a much higher
degree than for the wife--that the parties keep themselves scathless,
_outside of the bonds of wedlock_, according as their whims may point,
or their needs dictate. There have been periods in history when it was
part of the _bon ton_ with a Prince to keep mistresses: it was one of
the princely attributes. Thus, according to Scherr, did Frederick
William I. of Prussia (1713-1740), otherwise with a reputation for
steadiness, keep up, at least for the sake of appearances, relations
with a General's wife. On the other hand, it is a matter of public
notoriety that, for instance, August the Strong, King of Poland and
Saxony, gave life to 300 illegitimate children; and Victor Emanuel of
Italy, the _re galantuomo_, left behind 32 illegitimate children. There
is still extant a romantically located little German residence city, in
which are at least a dozen charming villas, that the corresponding
"father of his country" had built as places of recreation for his
resigned mistresses. On this head thick books could be written: as is
well known, there is an extensive library on these piquant matters.

The inside history of most of the German princely courts and noble
families is to the informed an almost uninterrupted _chronique
scandaleuse_, and not infrequently has it been stained with crimes of
blackest dye. In sight of these facts, it certainly is imperative upon
the sycophantic painters of history, not only to leave untouched the
question of the "legitimacy" of the several successive "fathers and
mothers of their country," but also to take pains to represent them as
patterns of all virtues, as faithful husbands and good mothers. Not yet
has the breed of the augurs died out; they still live, as did their
Roman prototypes, on the ignorance of the masses.

In every large town, there are certain places and days when the higher
classes meet, mainly for the purpose of match-making. These gatherings
are, accordingly, quite fitly termed "marriage exchanges." Just as on
the exchanges, speculation and chaffer play here the leading _role_, nor
are deception and swindle left out. Officers, loaded with debts, but who
can hold out an old title of nobility; _roues_, broken down with
debauchery, who seek to restore their ruined health in the haven of
wedlock, and need a nurse; manufacturers, merchants, bankers, who face
bankruptcy, not infrequently the penitentiary also, and wish to be
saved; finally, all those who are after money and wealth, or a larger
quantity thereof, government office-holders among them, with prospects
of promotion, but meanwhile in financial straits;--all turn up as
customers at these exchanges, and ply the matrimonial trade. Quite
often, at such transactions, it is all one whether the prospective wife
be young or old, handsome or ugly, straight or bent, educated or
ignorant, religious or frivolous, Christian or Jew. Was it not a saying
of a celebrated statesman: "The marriage of a Christian stallion with a
Jewish mare is to be highly recommended"?[69] The figure,
characteristically borrowed from the horse-fair, meets, as experience
teaches, with loud applause from the higher circles of our society.
Money makes up for all defects, and outweighs all vices. The German
penal code punishes[70] the coupler with long terms of imprisonment;
when, however, parents, guardians and relatives couple their children,
wards or kin to a hated man or woman only for the sake of money, of
profit, of rank, in short, for the sake of external benefits, there is
no District Attorney ready to take charge, and yet a crime has been
committed. There are numerous well organized matrimonial bureaus, with
male and female panders of all degrees, out for prey, in search of the
male and female candidates for the "holy bonds of matrimony." Such
business is especially profitable when the "work" is done for the
members of the upper classes. In 1878 there was a criminal trial in
Vienna of a female pander on the charge of poisoning, and ended with her
being sentenced to fifteen years in the penitentiary. At the trial it
was established that the French Ambassador in Vienna, Count Bonneville,
had paid the pander 12,000 florins for procuring his own wife. Other
members of the high aristocracy were likewise highly compromised through
the trial. Evidently, certain Government officials had left the woman to
pursue her dark and criminal practices for many years. The "why" thereof
is surely no secret. Similar stories are told from the capital of the
German Empire. During recent years, it is the daughters and heirs of the
rich American capitalist class, who, on their side, aspire after rank
and honors, not to be had in their own American home, that have become a
special subject of matrimonial trading for the needy noblemen of Europe.
Upon these particular practices characteristic light is thrown by a
series of articles that appeared in the fall of 1889 in a portion of the
German press. According thereto, a _chevalier d'industry_ nobleman,
domiciled in California, had recommended himself as a matrimonial agent
in German and Austrian papers. The offers that he received amply betray
the conception concerning the sanctity of marriage and its "ethical"
side prevalent in the corresponding circles. Two Prussian officers of
the Guards, both, as they say themselves, belonging to the oldest
nobility of Prussia, declared that they were ready to enter into
negotiations for marriage because, as they frankly confessed, they owed
together 60,000 marks. In their letter to the pander they say literally:
"It is understood that we shall pay no money in advance. You will
receive your remuneration after the wedding trip. Recommend us only to
ladies against whose families no objections can be raised. It is also
very desirable to be introduced to ladies of attractive appearance. If
demanded, we shall furnish, for discreet use, our own pictures to your
agent, after he shall have given us the details, and shown us the
pictures, etc. We consider the whole affair strictly confidential and as
a matter of honor (?), and, of course, demand the same from you. We
expect a speedy answer through your agent in this place, if you have
one. Berlin, Friedrichstrasse 107, December 15, 1889. Baron v. M----,
Arthur v. W----."

An Austrian nobleman also, Karl Freiherr v. M---- of Goeding in Moravia,
seized the opportunity to angle for a rich American bride, and to this
end sent to the swindle-bureau the following letter:

"According to a notice in the papers of this place, you are acquainted
with American ladies who wish to marry. In this connection I place
myself at your service, but must inform you that I have no fortune
whatever. I am of very old noble stock (Baron), 34 years old, single,
was a cavalry officer and am at present engaged in building railroads. I
should be pleased to inspect one or more pictures, which, upon my word
of honor, I shall return. Should you require my picture, I shall forward
same to you. I also request you to give me fuller information. Expecting
a speedy answer in this matter, I remain, very respectfully, your Karl
Freiherr v. M----, Goeding, Moravia, Austria, November 29, 1889."

A young German nobleman, Hans v. H----, wrote from London that he was 5
feet 10 tall, of an old noble family, and employed in the diplomatic
service. He made the confession that his fortune had been greatly
reduced through unsuccessful betting at the horse races, and hence found
himself obliged to be on the lookout for a rich bride, so as to be able
to cover his deficit. He was, furthermore, ready to undertake a trip to
the United States forthwith.

The _chevalier d'industry_ in question claimed that, besides several
counts, barons, etc., three Princes and sixteen dukes had reported to
him as candidates for marriage. But not noblemen only, bourgeois also
longed for rich American women. An architect, Max W---- of Leipsic,
demanded a bride who should possess not only money, but beauty and
culture also. From Kehl on the Rhine, a young mill-owner, Robert D----,
wrote that he would be satisfied with a bride who had but 400,000 marks,
and he promised in advance to make her happy.

But why look so far, when at hand the quarry is rich! A very
patriotic-conservative Leipsic paper, which plumes itself very
particularly upon its Christianity, contained in the spring of 1894 an
advertisement, that ran thus: "A cavalry officer of the Guards, of
large, handsome build, noble, 27 years of age, desires a financial
marriage. Please address, Count v. W. I., Post Office General Delivery,
Dresden." In comparison with the fellow who makes so cynical an offer,
the street-walker, who, out of bitter necessity, plies her trade, is a
paragon of decency and virtue. Similar advertisements are found almost
every day in the papers of _all_ political parties--_except the Social
Democratic_. A Social Democratic editor or manager, who would accept
such or similar advertisements for his paper, would be expelled from his
party as dishonorable. The capitalist press is not troubled at such
advertisements: they bring in money: and it is of the mind of the
Emperor Vespasian,--_non olet_, it does not smell. Yet all that does not
hinder that same press from going rabid mad at "the marriage-undermining
tendencies of Socialism." Never yet was there an age more hypocritical
than the one we are living in. With the view to demonstrate the fact
once more, the above instances were cited.

Bureaus of information for marriage,--that's what the advertisement
pages of most of the newspapers of our day are. Whosoever, be it male
or female, finds near at hand nothing desirable, entrusts his or her
heart's wants to the pious-conservative or moral-liberal press, that, in
consideration of cash and without coaxing, sees to it that the kindred
souls meet. With illustrations, taken on any one day from a number of
large newspapers, whole pages, could be filled. Off and on the
interesting fact also crops out that even clergymen are sought for
husbands, and, _vice versa_, clergymen angle for wives, with the aid of
advertisements. Occasionally, the suitors also offer to overlook a
_slip_, provided the looked-for woman be rich. In short, the moral
turpitude of certain social circles of our society can be pilloried no
better than by this sort of courtship.

State and Church play in such "holy matrimony" a by no means handsome
_role_. Whether the civil magistrate or clergyman, on whom may devolve
the duty to celebrate the marriage, be convinced that the bridal couple
before him has been brought together by the vilest of practices; whether
it be manifest that, neither in point of age nor that of bodily or
mental qualities, the two are compatible with each other; whether, for
instance, the bride be twenty and the bridegroom seventy years old, or
the reverse; whether the bride be young, handsome and joyful, and the
bridegroom old, ridden with disease and crabbed;--whatever the case, it
concerns not the representative of the State or the Church; it is not
for them to look into that. The marriage bond is "blessed,"--as a rule,
blessed with all the greater solemnity in proportion to the size of the
fee for the "holy office."

When, later, such a marriage proves a most unfortunate one--as foreseen
by everybody, by the ill-starred victim, in most instances the woman,
herself,--and either party decides to separate, then, State and
Church,--who never first inquire whether real love and natural, moral
impulses, or only naked, obscene egotism tie the knot--now raise the
greatest difficulties. At present, moral repulsion is but rarely
recognized a sufficient ground for separation; at present, only palpable
proofs, proofs that always dishonor or lower one of the parties in
public esteem, are, as a rule, demanded; separation is not otherwise
granted. That the Roman Catholic Church does not allow divorces,--except
by special dispensation of the Pope, which is hard to obtain, and, at
best, only from board and bed--only renders all the worse the
conditions, under which all Catholic countries are suffering. Germany
has the prospect of receiving, in the not too far distant future, a
civil code that shall embrace the whole Empire. It is, therefore, a
side-light upon our times that, although even the superficial observer
must reach the conclusion that at no previous period have unhappy
marriages been so numerous as now--a natural consequence of our whole
social development--the new draft for a civil code still renders divorce
materially difficult. It is but a fresh instance of the old
experience,--a social system, in the throes of dissolution, seeks to
keep itself up by artificial means and compulsion, and to deceive itself
upon its actual state. In declining Rome, marriage and births were
sought to be promoted by premiums: in the German Empire, whose social
order stands under a constellation similar with that of the decaying
Empire of the Caesars, it is now sought to prevent the ever more
frequent desire for the dissolution of marriage by means of forcible
constraints.

Thus people remain against their will chained to each other through
life. One party becomes the slave of the other, compelled to submit out
of "conjugal duty" to that other's most intimate embraces, which,
perhaps, it abhors worse than insult or ill-treatment. Fully justified
is Montegazza's dictum:[71] "There is probably no worse torture than
that which compels a human being to put up with the caresses of a person
it does not love."

We ask, Is such a marriage--and their number is infinite--not worse than
prostitution? The prostitute has, to a certain degree, the freedom to
withdraw from her disgraceful pursuit; moreover, she enjoys the
privilege, if she does not live in a public house, to reject the
purchase of the embraces of him who, for whatever reason, may be
distasteful to her. But a sold married woman must submit to the embraces
of her husband, even though she have a hundred reasons to hate and
despise him.

When in advance, and with the knowledge of both parties, marriage is
contracted as a marriage for money or rank, then, as a rule, matters lie
more favorably. The two accommodate themselves mutually, and a _modus
vivendi_ is established. They want no scandal, and regard for their
children compels them to avoid any, although it is the children who
suffer most under a cold, loveless life on the part of their parents,
even if such a life does not develop into enmity, quarrel and
dissension. Often accommodation is reached in order to avoid material
loss. As a rule it is the husband, whose conduct is the rock against
which marriage is dashed. This appears from the actions for divorce. In
virtue of his dominant position, he can indemnify himself elsewhere when
the marriage is not pleasing to him, and he can not find satisfaction in
it. The wife is not so free to step on side-roads, partly because, as
the receiving sex, such action is, for physiologic reasons, a much more
risky one on her part; then, also, because every infraction of conjugal
fidelity is imputed a crime to her, which neither the husband nor
society pardons. Woman alone makes a "slip"--be she wife, widow or maid;
man, at worst, has acted "incorrectly." One and the same act is judged
by society with wholly different standards, according as it be committed
by a man or a woman. And, as a rule, women themselves judge a "fallen"
sister most severely and pitilessly.[72]

As a rule, only in cases of crassest infidelity or maltreatment, does
the wife decide upon divorce. She is generally in a materially dependent
position, and compelled to look upon marriage as a means of support:
moreover, as a divorced wife, she finds herself socially in no enviable
situation: unless special reasons render intercourse with her desirable,
she is considered and treated by society as a neuter, so to speak. When,
despite all this, most actions for divorce proceed from wives, the
circumstance is an evidence of the heavy moral torture that they lie
under. In France, even before the new divorce law came into effect
(1884), by far the more numerous actions for separation from bed and
board came from women. For an absolute divorce they could apply only if
the husband took his concubine into the married home, against the will
of his wife. Actions for separations from bed and board occurred:[73]


                  Average Per   Average Per Year
      Years.    Year by Wives.    by Husbands.
    1856-1861       1729              184
    1861-1866       2135              260
    1866-1871       2591              330


But not only did women institute by far the larger number of actions;
the figures show that these increased from period to period.
Furthermore, so far as reliable information before us goes, it appears
that actions for absolute divorce also proceed preponderatingly from
wives. In the Kingdom of Saxony, during the period of 1860-1868, there
were instituted, all told, 8,402 actions for divorce; of these, 3,537
(42 per cent.) were by men, 4,865 (58 per cent.) by wives.

In the period from 1871 to 1878, there were actions for divorce in
Saxony[74]:


    Year.  By Husbands.  By Wives.
    1871       475          574
    1872       576          698
    1873       553          673
    1874       643          697
    1875       717          752
    1876       722          839
    1877       746          951
    1878       754          994
             -----        -----
     Total   5,186        6,178


The fact that divorce, as a rule, hurts women more, did not restrain
them in Saxony either from instituting most of the actions. The total
actions for divorce increased, however, in Saxony, as in France, much
faster than population. In Switzerland, during the year 1892, there were
granted 1,036 applications for divorce. Of these, wives had instituted
493, husbands 229, and both parties 314.

Statistics teach us, however, not alone that wives institute the larger
number of actions for divorce; they also teach us that the number of
divorces is in rapid increase. In France, divorce has been regulated
anew by law since 1884. Since then, divorces have greatly increased from
year to year. The number of divorces, and years they fell in, were as
follows:


    1884   1,657
    1885   2,477
    1886   2,950
    1887   3,636
    1888   4,708
    1889   4,786
    1890   5,457


In Vienna there were, from 1870 to 1871, 148 divorces; they increased
from year to year; from 1878 to 1879 they ran up to 319 cases.[75] But
in Vienna, being a preponderatingly Catholic city, divorce is hard to
obtain. That notwithstanding, about the year 1885 a Vienna Judge made
the remark: "Complaints on the ground of broken marriage vows are as
frequent as complaints for broken window-panes." In England and Wales
there was, in 1867, 1 divorce to every 1,378 marriages, but in 1877
there was 1 to every 652 marriages; and in 1886, 1 to as few as 527. In
the United States the number of divorces for 1867 was 9,937, and for
1886 as many as 25,535. The total number of divorces in the United
States between 1867 and 1886 was 328,716, and the fault fell in 216,176
cases upon the husband, in 112,540 upon the wife.

Relatively speaking, the largest number of divorces occurs in the United
States. The proportion between marriages and divorces during the period
of 1867 to 1886 stood for those States in which an accurate record is
kept:


                                              Marriages
                                            to Every One
      States.        Marriages.   Divorces.   Divorce.
    Connecticut       96,737       8,542       11.32
    Columbia          24,065       1,105       21.77
    Massachusetts    308,195       9,853       31.28
    Ohio             544,362      26,367       20.65
    Rhode Island      49,593       4,462       11.10
    Vermont           54,913       3,238       19.95


In the other States of the Union, from which less accurate returns are
at hand, the proportion seems to be the same. The reasons why in the
United States divorces are more frequent than in any other country, may
be sought in the circumstance, first, that divorce is there more easily
obtained than elsewhere; secondly, that _women occupy in the United
States a far freer position than in any other country, hence are less
inclined to allow themselves to be tyrannised by their marital
lords_.[76]

In Germany there was, by judicial decision, 1 dissolution of marriage--


    In the Years  To Population.   To Marriages.
    1881-1885          8,410           1,430
         1886          7,585           1,283
         1887          7,261           1,237
         1888          6,966           1,179
         1889          7,155           1,211


According to Dr. S. Wernicke, there were to every 1,000 marriages,
divorces in:


      Years.     Belgium.   Sweden.   France.
    1841-1845       0.7       4.2       2.7
    1846-1850       0.9       4.4       2.8
    1851-1855       1.0       4.4       4.0
    1856-1860       1.4       4.3       4.9
    1861-1865       1.6       4.8       6.0
    1866-1870       1.9       5.0       7.6
    1871-1875       2.8       5.8       6.5
    1876-1880       4.2       7.1       9.0


It would be an error to attempt to arrive at any conclusion touching the
different conditions of morality, by deductions from the large
discrepancy between the figures for the different countries cited above.
No one will dare assert that the population of Sweden has more
inclination or cause for divorce than that of Belgium. First of all must
the legislation on the subject be kept in mind, which in one country
makes divorce difficult, in another easier, more so in some, less in
others. Only in the second instance does the condition of morality come
into consideration, i. e., the average reasons that, now the husbands,
then the wives, consider determining factors in applying for separation.
But all these figures combine in establishing that divorces increase
much faster than population; and that they _increase_ while marriages
_decline_. About this, more later.

On the question how the actions for divorce distribute themselves among
the several strata of society, there is only one computation at our
disposal, from Saxony, but which is from the year 1851.[77] At that
time, to each 100,000 marriages, there were actions for divorce from the
stratum of


    Domestic servants        289 or 1 application to 346 marriages
    Day laborers             324 or 1 application to 309 marriages
    Government employes      337 or 1 application to 289 marriages
    Craftsmen and merchants  354 or 1 application to 283 marriages
    Artists and scientists   485 or 1 application to 206 marriages


Accordingly, the actions for divorce were at that period in Saxony 50
per cent. more frequent in the _higher_ than in the _lower_ social
strata.

The increasing number of divorces signifies that, in general, the
marriage relations are becoming ever more unfavorable, and that the
factors multiply which destroy marriage. On the other hand, they also
furnish evidence that an ever larger number of spouses, women in
particular, decide to shake off the unbearable oppressing yoke.

But the evils of matrimony increase, and the corruption of marriage
gains ground in the same measure as the struggle for existence waxes
sharper, and marriage becomes ever more a money-match, or be it,
marriage by purchase. The increasing difficulty, moreover, of supporting
a family determines many to renounce marriage altogether; and thus the
saying that woman's activity should be limited to the house, and that
she should fill her calling as housewife and mother, becomes ever more
_a senseless phrase_. On the other hand, the conditions can not choose
but favor the gratification of sexual intercourse outside of wedlock.
Hence the number of prostitutes increases, while the number of marriages
decreases. Besides that, the number increases of those who suffer from
unnatural gratification of the sexual instinct.

Among the property classes, not infrequently the wife sinks, just as in
old Greece, to the level of a mere apparatus for the procreation of
legitimate offspring, of warder of the house, or of nurse to a husband,
wrecked by debauchery. The husbands keep for their pleasure and physical
desires hetairae--styled among us courtesans or mistresses--who live in
elegant abodes, in the handsomest quarters of the city. Others, whose
means do not allow them to keep mistresses, disport themselves, after
marriage as before, with Phrynes, for whom their hearts beat stronger
than for their own wives. With the Phrynes they amuse themselves; and
quite a number of the husbands among the "property and cultured
classes" is so corrupt that it considers these entertainments in
order.[78]

In the upper and middle classes of society, the money matches and
matches for social position are the mainspring of the evils of married
life; but, over and above that, marriage is made rank by the lives these
classes lead. This holds good particularly with regard to the women, who
frequently give themselves over to idleness or to corrupting pursuits.
Their intellectual food often consists in the reading of equivocal
romances and obscene literature, in seeing and hearing frivolous
theatrical performances, and the fruition of sensuous music; in
exhilarating nervous stimulants; in conversations on the pettiest
subjects, or scandals about the dear fellow mortals. Along therewith,
they rush from one enjoyment into another, from one banquet to another,
and hasten in summer to the baths and summer retreats to recover from
the excesses of the winter, and to find fresh subjects for talk. The
_chronique scandaleuse_ recruits itself from this style of life: people
seduce and are seduced.

In the lower classes money-matches are unknown, as a rule, although they
occasionally do play a role. No one can wholly withdraw himself from the
influence of the society he lives in,--and the existing social
conditions exercise a particularly depressing influence upon the
circumstances of the lower classes. As a rule, the workingman weds out
of inclination, but there is no lack of causes to disturb his marriage.
A rich blessing of children brings on cares and troubles; but too often
want sets in. Sickness and death are frequent guests in the workingman's
family. Lack of work drives misery to its height. Many a circumstance
pares off the worker's earnings, or temporarily robs him wholly of it.
Commercial and industrial crises throw him out of work; the introduction
of new machinery, or methods of work, casts him as superfluous on the
sidewalk; wars, unfavorable tariffs and commercial treaties, the
introduction of the new indirect taxes, disciplinary acts on the part of
the employer in punishment for the exercise of his convictions, etc.,
destroy his existence, or seriously injure it. Now one thing, then
another happens, whereby, sometimes for a shorter, sometimes for a
longer period, he becomes an unemployed, i. e., a starving being.
Uncertainty is the badge of his existence. When such blows of fortune
happen, they at first produce dissatisfaction and bitterness, and in the
home life this mood finds its first expression when daily, every hour,
demands are made by wife and children for the most pressing needs, needs
that the husband can not satisfy. Out of despair, he visits the saloon,
and seeks comfort in bad liquor. The last penny is spent. Quarrel and
dissension break out. The ruin of both marriage and the family is
accomplished.

Let us take up another picture. Both--husband and wife--go to work. The
little ones are left to themselves, or to the care of older brothers and
sisters, themselves in need of care and education. At noon, the
so-called lunch is swallowed down in hot haste,--supposing that the
parents have at all time to rush home, which, in thousands of cases is
impossible, owing to the shortness of the hour of recess, and the
distance of the shop from the home. Tired out and unstrung, both return
home in the evening. Instead of a friendly, cheerful home, they find a
narrow, unhealthy habitation, often lacking in light and air, generally
also in the most necessary comforts. The increasing tenement plague,
together with the horrible improprieties that flow therefrom, is one of
the darkest sides of our social order, and leads to numerous evils,
vices and crimes. Yet the plague increases from year to year in all
cities and industrial regions, and it draws within the vortex of its
evils ever new strata of society: small producers, public employes,
teachers, small traders, etc. The workingman's wife, who reaches home in
the evening tired and harassed, has now again her hands full. She must
bestir herself at breakneck speed in order but to get ready the most
necessary things in the household. The crying and noisy children are
hurried off to bed; the wife sits up, and sews, and patches deep into
the night. The so-much-needed mental intercourse and encouragement are
absent. The husband is often uneducated and knows little, the wife still
less; the little they have to say to each other is soon got through
with. The husband goes to the saloon, and seeks there the entertainment
that he lacks at home; he drinks; however little that be that he spends,
for his means it is too much. At times he falls a prey to gambling,
which, in the upper circles of society also, claims many victims, and he
loses more than he spends in drink. The wife, in the meantime, sits at
home and grumbles; she must work like a dray-horse; for her there is no
rest or recreation; the husband avails himself of the freedom that
accident gives him, of having been born a man. Thus disharmony arises.
If, however, the wife is less true to duty, she seeks in the evening,
after she has returned home tired, the rest she is entitled to; but then
the household goes back, and misery is twice as great. Indeed, we live
"in the best world possible."

Through these and similar circumstances, marriage is shattered ever
more among the working class also. Even favorable seasons of work exert
their destructive influence: they compel him to work Sundays and
overtime: they take from him the hours he still had left for his family.
In many instances he has to travel hours to reach the shop; to utilize
the noon recess for going home is an impossibility; he is up in the
morning at the very earliest, when the children are still sound asleep,
and returns home late, when they are again in the same condition.
Thousands, especially those engaged in the building trades in the
cities, remain away from home all week, owing to the vastness of the
distance, and return only on Saturdays to their family. And yet it is
expected of family life that it thrive under such circumstances.
Moreover, female labor is ever on the increase, especially in the
textile industry, whose thousands of steam weaving and spinning looms
are served by cheap woman and children's hands. Here the relations of
sex and age have been reversed. Wife and child go into the mill, the now
breadless husband sits at home and attends to household duties. In the
United States, that, due to its rapid large-capitalist development,
produces all the evils of European industrial States in much larger
dimensions, a characteristic name has been invented for the state of
things brought on by such conditions. Industrial places that employ
women mainly, while the husbands sit at home, are called "she-towns."

The admission of women to all the manual trades is to-day conceded on
all hands. Capitalist society, ever on the hunt for profit and gain, has
long since recognized what an excellent subject for exploitation is
woman--more docile and submissive, and less exacting woman--in
comparison with man. Hence the number of trades and occupations, in
which women are finding employment increases yearly. The extension and
improvement of machinery, the simplification of the process of
production through the ever minuter subdivision of labor, the intenser
competition of capitalists among themselves, together with the
competitive battle in the world's market among rival industrial
countries,--all these continue to favor the ever further application of
female labor. It is a phenomenon noticeable in all industrial countries
alike. But in the same measure that the number of working-women
increases, competition among the workingmen is thereby intensified. One
branch of industry after another, one branch of work after the other, is
being taken by working-women, who are ever more displacing the men.
Numerous passages in the reports of factory inspectors, as well as in
the statistical figures on the occupation of working-women, go to
confirm the fact.

The condition of the women is worst in the industrial branches in which
they preponderate, for instance, the clothing and underwear industry,
those branches, in general, in which work can be done at home. The
inquiry into the condition of the working-women in the underwear and
confectionery industries, ordered in 1886 by the Bundesrath, has
revealed the fact that the wages of these working-women are often so
miserable that they are compelled to prostitute their bodies for a
side-source of income. A large number of the prostitutes are recruited
from the strata of ill-paid working-women.

Our "Christian" Government, whose Christianity, as a rule, is looked for
in vain there where it should be applied, and is found where the same is
superfluous and harmful,--this Christian Government acts exactly like
the Christian capitalists, a fact that does not astonish him who knows
that the Christian Government is but the agent of our Christian
capitalists. The Government only with difficulty decides in favor of
laws to limit woman-labor to a normal measure, or to wholly forbid
child-labor;--on the same principle that that Government denies many of
its own employes both the requisite Sunday rest and normal hours of
work, and in that way materially disturbs their family life. Post
Office, railroad, penitentiary and other Government employes often must
perform their functions far beyond the time limit, and their salaries
stand in inverse ratio to their work. That, however, is, to-day, the
normal condition of things, still considered quite in order by the
majority.

Seeing, furthermore, that rent, in comparison to the wages and earnings
of the workingmen, the lower Government employes and the small men
included, is much too high, these must exert themselves to the utmost.
Lodgers are taken into these homes, only males in some, females in
others, often both. The young and the old live together in narrow
quarters, without separating the sexes, and are crowded together even
during the most private acts. How the sense of shame, or morality fares
thereby, horrifying facts proclaim. The increasing brutalization of the
youth, so extensively discussed, is due mainly to the conditions
prevalent in our industrial system, with which the wretchedness of the
home is closely connected. And, as to the children, what must be upon
them the effect of industrial labor! The very worst imaginable, both
physically and morally.

The ever increasing industrial occupation of married women also is
accompanied with fatal results. Especially is this the case in
connection with pregnancy and child-birth, as also during the early life
of the child when it depends upon the nourishment of the mother. A
number of ailments arise during pregnancy that affect destructively both
the fruit and the organism of the woman, and cause premature and
still-born births, upon all of which more later. After the child is
born, the mother is compelled to return as quickly as possible to the
factory, lest her place be taken by a competitor. The inevitable
results to the little ones are: neglected care, improper or total lack
of nourishment. They are drugged with opiates to keep them quiet. The
further results are: a vast mortality, or stunted development; in short,
the degeneration of the race. The children often grow up without having
enjoyed true motherly and fatherly love, or having on their part, felt
filial affection. Thus is the proletariat born, thus does it live and
die. And the "Christian" Government, this "Christian" society wonders
that rudeness, immorality and crime cumulate.

When, in the early sixties of last century, due to the American Civil
War for the emancipation of the negroes, many thousands of workingmen in
the English cotton industries were out of work, physicians made the
remarkable discovery that, despite great want among the population,
mortality among children had _declined_. The cause was simple. The
children now enjoyed the mother's nourishment and better care than they
had ever had during the best seasons of work. The same fact was attested
by physicians during the crisis of the seventies in the United States,
especially in New York and Massachusetts. The general lack of employment
compelled the women to rest from labor, and left them time for the care
of their children. Similar observations were also made by Dr. v.
Recherberg during the inquiry into the condition of the weavers of the
region of Zittau in Saxony, as shown by him in a work that he wrote
during the summer of 1890.

In the home-industries, which romantic economists love to represent as
idyllic, conditions are no better. Here the wife is chained to her
husband, at work early and late into the night, and the children are
from an early age hitched on. Crowded into the narrowest space
imaginable, husband, wife and family, boys and girls, live together,
along with the waste of materials, amidst the most disagreeable dusts
and odors, and without the necessary cleanliness. The bedrooms are of a
piece with the sitting and working rooms: generally dark holes and
without ventilation, they would be sufficiently unsanitary if they
housed but a part of the people huddled into them. In short, the
conditions of these places are such as to cause the skin to creep of
anyone accustomed to a life worthy of a human being.

The ever harder struggle for existence often also compels women and men
to commit actions and tolerate indignities that, under other
circumstances, would fill them with disgust. In 1877 it was
authentically established in Munich that, among the prostitutes,
registered by and under the surveillance of the police, there were not
less than 203 wives of workingmen and artisans. And how many are not the
married women, who, out of distress, prostitute themselves without
submitting to a police control that deeply lacerates the sense of shame
and dignity!

But we have wandered somewhat from our subject. It was shown that the
number of actions for divorce is on the increase in all countries of
civilization, and that the majority of these actions proceed from wives.
This steadily rising figure of actions for divorce is a sign of _the
decay of bourgeois marriage, which is answering its purpose ever less_.
But a still much worse sign of its decay is the circumstance that,
simultaneously, the number of marriages is in almost all these countries
steadily on the decline. Experience tells that high prices for corn in
one single year have an unfavorable effect both upon the number of
marriages and that of births. Long industrial crises, and increasing
deterioration of the general economic condition must, accordingly, have
a lasting evil effect. This is confirmed by the statistics of marriages
for almost all countries in civilization.

In France, marriages between 1881-1890 cast the following picture on the
canvas. Marriages were contracted in--


    1881  282,079     1886  283,208
    1882  281,060     1887  277,060
    1883  284,519     1888  276,848
    1884  289,555     1889  272,934
    1885  283,170     1890  269,332


There is, accordingly, a considerable decrease of marriages.

In the German Empire, the number of marriages was highest after the
close of the war between Germany and France, during which they had stood
still. In 1872 there were 423,900 marriages contracted, but in 1876 they
numbered only 366,912, and during the worst year of the crisis, the year
1879, they dropped to 335,113. They have since risen again slowly, and
numbered in


    1882  350,457     1889  389,339
    1886  372,326     1892  398,775


Although in the year 1892 the population of Germany was larger by
8,000,000 heads than in 1872, the number of marriages was not even as
large as in 1874 when it amounted to 400,282. In the period between
1871-1880, there were, to an average of 1,000 inhabitants in Germany,
8.6 marriages; in the period between 1881-1888, only 7.8.

In Prussia, to the average 10,000 inhabitants, there married--


    Between 1831-35   1,849
    Between 1866-70   1,605
    Between 1871-75   1,896
    Between 1881-85   1,529
    And in 1888       1,624


A similar, partly even more unfavorable picture than in Germany, is
furnished by the statistical tables for other European countries.

Out of every 10,000 persons, there married--


    Year    Holland Switzerland Austria France Italy Belgium England
    1873      171       152       188     178   159    156     176
    1874      168       166       181     167   153    152     170
    1875      167       179       171     164   168    145     167
    1876      165       162       165     158   163    142     166
    1877      162       157       150     150   154    149     157
    1878      155       147       152     151   142    135     152
    1879      153       138       155     152   150    136     144
    1880      150       137       152     149   140    141     149
    1881      146       136       160     150   162    142     151
    1882      143       135       164     149   157    140     155
    1883      142       136       157     150   161    136     154
    1884      144       136       157     153   164    136     151
    1885      139       138       152     149   158    136     144
    1886      139       137       155     149   158    134     141
              ---       ---       ---     ---   ---    ---     ---
    Average   153       147       161     155   156    141     156

    Year     Scotland Ireland Denmark Norway Sweden Hungary
    1873        155      96     162     145    146    226
    1874        152      92     164     153    145    214
    1875        148      91     170     157    140    218
    1876        150      99     171     154    141    198
    1877        144      93     161     151    137    182
    1878        134      95     148     146    129    187
    1879        128      87     147     135    126    205
    1880        132      78     152     133    126    182
    1881        139      85     156     128    124    198
    1882        140      86     154     134    127    203
    1883        140      85     154     132    128    205
    1884        135      91     156     137    131    201
    1885        129      86     151     133    133    ...
    1886        124      84     142     131    ...    ...
                ---      --     ---     ---    ---    ---
    Average     139      89     156     141    133    202


These figures are interesting in more respects than one. In the first
place, they prove that, in all the countries named, the number of
marriages _declines_. Like Germany, all these countries show the highest
frequency of marriage in the beginning of 1872, and then follows a drop
in most of them. Hungary comes out best; Ireland, on the contrary,
worst, showing the smallest figures of all. The ejectment of the Irish
population from their lands, and the ever greater concentration of the
same in the hands of the large landlords, express themselves clearly in
the figures given.[79]

Industrial conditions have a marked effect upon the number of marriages.
As the former has, on an average, become ever more unfavorable since the
middle of the seventies, the decline in marriages is not astonishing.
But not the industrial conditions only, also the manner in which the
property relations develop affects marriages in a high degree, as just
seen in Ireland. The Year-Book of Schmoller for 1885, section 1, gives
information on the statistics of population of the Kingdom of
Wuertemberg, from which it appears strikingly that with the increase of
large age _declines_, while the number of _unmarried_ men between the
ages of 40 and 50 _rises_:


                                                     Percentage of Males.
                              Percentage of Landed    Married   Unmarried
                                Property by           of the    of the
                                 Hectares.            Age of    Age of
      Districts.        Up to 5.  5-20.  Over 20.     25-30.    40-50.
    Upper Neurenburg      79.6    20.4     0.0         63.6       4.4
    East of Stuttgart     78.9    17.7     3.4         51.3       8.1
    South of Stuttgart    67.6    24.8     7.6         48.6       8.7
    North of Stuttgart    56.5    34.8     8.8         50.0      10.0
    Schwarzwald           50.2    42.2     7.6         48.6      10.1
    Upper Neckar          43.6    40.3    16.1         44.3      10.8
    Eastward              39.5    47.6    12.8         48.7      10.0
    Northeast, except
      north of Hall       22.2    50.1    27.7         38.8      10.6
    Swabian Alb           20.3    40.8    38.3         38.8       7.5
    North Upper Swabia    19.7    48.0    32.3         32.5       9.7
    From Hall eastward    15.5    50.0    34.5         32.5      13.8
    Bodensee district     14.2    61.4    24.4         23.5      26.4
    Middle and South
      Upper Swabia        12.6    41.1    46.3         30.0      19.1


There can be no doubt: small landed property favors marriages: it makes
a living possible for a larger number of families, although the living
be modest. Large landed property, on the contrary, works directly
against marriage, and promotes celibacy. All the figures here quoted
prove, accordingly, that, not _morals_, but purely _material_ causes are
the determining factor. _The number of marriages, like the moral
conditions of a commonwealth, depends upon its material foundations._

The fear of want, the mental worry lest the children be not educated up
to their station,--these are further causes that drive the wives, in
particular, of all ranks to actions that are out of keeping with nature,
and still more so with the criminal code. Under this head belong the
various means for the prevention of pregnancy, or, when, despite all
care, this does set in, then the removal of the unripe
fruit--_abortion_. It were an error to claim that these measures are
resorted to only by heedless, unconscionable women. Often, rather, it is
conscientious women, who wish to limit the number of children, in order
to escape the dilemma of either having to deny themselves their
husbands, or of driving them to paths that they are naturally inclined
to. It often is such women who prefer to undergo the dangers of
abortion. Besides these, there are other women, especially in the higher
walks of life, who, in order to conceal a "slip," or out of aversion
for the inconveniences of pregnancy, of child-birth and of nursing,
perhaps, out of fear of sooner losing their charms, and then forfeiting
their standing with either husband or male friends, incur such criminal
acts, and, for hard cash, find ready medical and midwife support.

To conclude from diverse indications, artificial abortion is coming ever
more into practice; nor is the practice new. Artificial abortion was in
frequent use among the ancient peoples, and is, to this day, from the
most civilized down to the barbarous. According to Jules Roget,[80] the
women of Rome took recourse to abortion for several reasons: They either
sought to destroy the evidence of illicit relations--a reason that even
to-day is often at its bottom; or they wished to be able to indulge
their excesses without interruption. There were also other reasons: they
wished to avoid the changes that pregnancy and child-birth work upon
woman's physique. Among the Romans, a woman was old from twenty-five
years to thirty. Accordingly, she sought to avoid all that might impair
her charms. In the Middle Ages, abortion was punishable with severe
bodily chastisement, often even with death; the free woman, guilty
thereof, became a serf. At present, abortion is especially in use in the
United States. In all large cities of the Union, there are institutions
in which girls and women are prematurely delivered: many American papers
contain the advertisements of such places: abortion is talked of there
almost as freely as of a regular birth. In Germany and Europe, opinion
on the subject is different: the German criminal code, for instance,
makes the act of both the principal and the accessory a penitentiary
offense.[81]

Abortion is, in many cases, accompanied by the most serious results. The
operation is dangerous; death not infrequently occurs; often the result
is a permanent impairment of health. "The troubles of troublesome
pregnancy and child-birth are infinitely less than the sufferings
consequent upon artificial abortion."[82] Barrenness is one of its most
common consequences. All that, notwithstanding, abortion is practiced
also in Germany, ever more frequently, and for the reasons given.
Between 1882-1888, the number of cases in Berlin, of which the criminal
courts took cognizance, rose 155 per cent. The _chronique scandaleuse_
of the last years dealt frequently with cases of abortion, that caused
great sensation, due to the circumstance that reputable physicians and
women, prominent in society, played a _role_ in them. Furthermore, to
judge from the rising number of announcements in our newspapers, the
institutions and places increase in which married and unmarried women of
the property class are offered an opportunity to await the results of a
"slip" in perfect secrecy.

The dread of a large increase of children--due to the smallness of
means, and the cost of bringing up--has, among all classes and even
peoples, developed the use of preventatives into a system, that here and
yonder has grown into a public calamity. It is a generally known fact
that, in all strata of French society, the "two-child system" is in
force. In few countries of civilization are marriages relatively as
numerous as in France, and in no country is the average number of
children so small, and the increase of population so slow. The French
capitalist, like the small-holder and allotment peasant, pursues the
system; the French workingman follows suit. In many sections of Germany
the special situation of the peasants seems to have led to similar
conditions. We know a charming region in Southwest Germany, where, in
the garden of every peasant, there stands the so-called "Sevenbaum,"
whose properties are applied to abortive purposes. In another district
of the same country the regular two-child system prevails among the
peasants: they do not wish to divide the places. Moreover, striking is
the measure in which literature, that treats with and recommends the
means of "facultative sterility," increases in Germany both in volume
and demand,--of course, always under the colors of science, and in
allusion to the alleged threatening danger of over-population.

Along with abortion and the artificial prevention of conception, crime
plays its _role_. In France, the murder of children and their exposure
is perceptibly on the increase, both promoted by the provision of the
French civil code that forbids all inquiry after the paternity of the
child. Section 340 of the _Code Civil_ decrees: "_La recherche de la
paternite est interdite_;" on the other hand, Section 314 provides: "_La
recherche de la maternite est admise_." To inquire after the paternity
of a child is forbidden, but is allowed after its maternity,--a law that
glaringly brings out the injustice contemplated towards the seduced
woman. The men of France are free to seduce as many women and girls as
they are able to; they are free from all responsibility; they owe no
support to the child. These provisions were instituted under the pretext
that the female sex should be frightened against seducing the men. As
you see, everywhere it is the weak man, this limb of the stronger sex,
who is seduced, but never seduces. The result of Section 340 of the
_Code Civil_ was Section 312, which provides: "_L'enfant conçu pendant
le marriage a pour pere le mari._"[83] Inquiry after the paternity being
forbidden, it is logical that the husband, crowned with horns, rest
content with having the child, that his wife received from another,
considered his own. Inconsistency, at any rate, can not be charged to
the French capitalist class. All attempts to amend Section 340 have so
far failed. Lately, February, 1895, the Socialist deputies in the French
Chamber of Deputies presented a bill intended to put an end to the
disfranchised position of the seduced or betrayed woman. Whether the
attempt will be crowned with success is doubtful.

On the other hand, the French capitalist class--sensible of the cruelty
it committed in so framing the law as to make it impossible for the
deceived woman to turn for support to the father of her child--sought to
make up for its sins by establishing foundling asylums. According to our
famous "morals," there is no paternal feeling towards the illegitimate
child; that exists only for "legitimate heirs." Through the foundlings'
asylums the mother also is taken from the new-born child. According to
the French fiction, foundlings are orphans. In this way, the French
capitalist class has its illegitimate children brought up, _at the
expense of the State_, as "children of the fatherland." A charming
arrangement. In Germany, things bid fair to be switched on the French
track. The provisions in the bill for a civil code for the German Empire
contain maxims on the legal status of illegitimate children, strongly in
contrast with the humane law still in force.

According to the bill, a dishonored girl--even if blameless, or seduced
with the promise of subsequent marriage, or induced to consent to
coition through some criminal act--has no claim against the seducer
except as indemnity for the costs of delivery, and for support during
the first six weeks after the birth of the child, and then only within
the bounds of what is strictly necessary. Only in some of the cases of
the worst crimes against morality, can a slight money indemnity be
granted to the seduced girl, at the discretion of the court, and without
the necessity of proving actual damages. The illegitimate child has no
claim upon the seducer of his mother, except for the merest necessaries
of life, and then only until its fourteenth year. All claims of the
child on its father are, however, barred if, within pregnancy, any other
man cohabit with its mother. The plaintiff child has, moreover, to prove
that its mother has not accepted the embraces of any other man.

Menger, the expositions in whose treatise[84] we here follow, justly
raises against the bill the serious charge that it only accrues to the
advantage of the well-to-do, immoral men, seducers of ignorant girls,
often girls who sin through poverty, but leaves these fallen girls,
together with their wholly guiltless children, entirely unprotected,
aye, pushes them only deeper into misery and crime. Menger cites, in
this connection, the provisions of the Prussian law. According thereto,
an unmarried woman or widow of good character, who is made pregnant, is
to be indemnified by the man according to his means. The indemnity
shall, however, not exceed one-fourth of his property. An illegitimate
child has a claim upon its father for support and education, regardless
of whether his mother is a person of good character: the expenditure,
however, shall be no higher than the education of a legitimate child
would cost to people of the peasant or of ordinary citizen walks of
life. If the illicit intercourse occurred under promise of future
marriage, then, according to the further provisions of Prussian law, the
Judge is duly to award the woman, pronounced innocent and a wife, the
name, standing and rank of the man, together with all the rights of a
divorced woman. The illegitimate child has, in such cases, all the
rights of children born in wedlock. We may await with curiosity to see
whether the provisions of this bill, so hostile to woman, will acquire
the force of a civil code of law in Germany. But retrogression is the
key-note in our legislation.

Between the years of 1830-1880, there were 8,563 cases of infanticide
before the French court of assizes, the figures rising from 471 in 1831,
to 980 in 1880. During the same period, 1,032 cases of abortion were
tried, 41 in 1831, and in 1880 over 100. Of course, only a small part of
the abortions came to the knowledge of the criminal court; as a rule,
only when followed by serious illness or death. In the cases of
infanticide, the country population contributed 75 per cent., in the
cases of abortion the cities 65 per cent. In the city, the women have
more means at command to prevent normal birth; hence, the many cases of
abortion and the small number of infanticides. It is the reverse in the
country.

Such is the composition of the picture presented by modern society in
respect to its most intimate relations. The picture differs wide from
that that poets and poetically doused phantasists love to paint it. Our
picture, however, has this advantage,--it is true. And yet the picture
still calls for several strokes of the brush to bring out its character
in full.

In general, there can be no difference of opinion touching the present
and average mental inferiority of the female sex to the male. True
enough, Balzac, by no means a woman-lover, claims: "The woman, who has
received a male education, possesses in fact the most brilliant and
fruitful qualities for the building of her own happiness and that of her
husband;" and Goethe, who knew well both the men and women of his times,
expresses himself in Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (confessions of a
pure soul): "Learned women were ridiculed, and also the educated ones
were disliked, probably because it was considered impolite to put so
many ignorant men to shame." We agree with both. Nevertheless, the fact
is no wise altered that, in general, women stand intellectually behind
the men. This difference is compulsory, because _woman is that which
man, as her master, has made her_. The education of woman, more so than
that of the working class, has been neglected since time immemorial; nor
are latter-day improvements adequate. We live in days when the
aspiration after exchange of thought grows in all circles, in the family
also; and there the neglected education of woman is felt as a serious
fault, and it avenges itself upon the husband.

The object of the education of man--at least it is so claimed, although
due to the mistaken methods, the object is often missed, perchance,
also, is not meant to be reached--aims at the development of the
intellect, the sharpening of the powers of thought, the broadening of
the field of practical knowledge, and the invigoration of the
will-power, in short, at the cultivation of the functions of the mind.
With woman, on the contrary, education, so far as at all attended to in
a higher degree, is mainly aimed at the intensification of her feelings,
at formality and polite culture--music, belles-letters, art, poetry--all
of which only screw her nervous sensitiveness and phantasy up to a
higher pitch. This is a mistaken and unhealthy policy. In it the fact
transpires that the powers, which determine the measure of woman's
education, are guided only by their ingrained prejudices regarding the
nature of the female character, and also by the cramped position of
woman. The object must not be to develop still further the sentimental
and imaginative side of woman, which would only tend to heighten her
natural inclination to nervousness; neither should her education be
limited to etiquette and polite literature. The object, with regard to
her as to man, should be to develop their intellectual activity and
acquaint them with the phenomena of practical life. It would be of
greatest benefit to both sexes if, in lieu of a superfluity of
sentiment, that often becomes positively uncanny, woman possessed a good
share of sharpened wit and power for exact reasoning; if, in lieu of
excessive nervous excitation and timidity, she possessed firmness of
character and physical courage; in lieu of conventional, literary
refinement, in so far as she at all has any, she had a knowledge of the
world, of men and of the powers of Nature.

Generally speaking, what is termed the feeling and spirituality of woman
has hitherto been nurtured without stint, while her intellectual
development has, on the contrary, been grossly neglected and kept
under. As a consequence, she suffers of hypertrophy of feeling and
spirituality, hence is prone to superstition and miracles,--a more than
grateful soil for religious and other charlataneries, a pliant tool for
all reaction. Blockish men often complain when she is thus affected, but
they bring no relief, because often they are themselves steeped up to
the ears in prejudices.

By reason of woman's being almost generally as here sketched, she looks
upon the world differently from man. Hence, again, a strong source of
contrariety between the two sexes.

Participation in public life is to-day one of the most essential duties
of a man; that many men do not yet understand this does not alter the
fact. Nevertheless, the number of those is ever increasing who realize
that public institutions stand in intimate connection with the private
lot of the individual; that his success or failure, together with that
of his family, depend infinitely more upon the condition of public
affairs than upon his own personal qualities and actions. The fact is
beginning to receive recognition that the greatest efforts of the
individual are powerless against evils that lie in the very condition of
things, and that determine his state. On the other hand, the struggle
for existence now requires much greater efforts than before. Demands are
now made upon man that engage ever more his time and strength. The
ignorant, indifferent wife stands dumb before him, and feels herself
neglected. It may be even said that, the mental difference between man
and woman is to-day greater than formerly, when the opportunities for
both were slight and limited, and lay more within the reach of her
restricted intellect. Furthermore, the handling of public affairs
occupies to-day a large number of men to a degree before unknown; this
widens their horizon; but it also withdraws them ever more from the
mental sphere of their homes. The wife deems herself set back, and thus
another source of friction is started. Only rarely does the husband know
how to pacify his wife and convince her. When he does that, he has
escaped a dangerous rock. As a rule the husband is of the opinion that
what he wants does not concern his wife, she does not understand it. He
takes no pains to enlighten her. "You don't understand such matters," is
his stereotyped answer, the moment the wife complains that she is
neglected. Lack of information on the part of wives is promoted by lack
of sense on the part of most husbands. More favorable relations between
husband and wife spring up in the rank of the working class in the
measure that both realize they are tugging at the same rope, and that
there is but one means towards satisfactory conditions for themselves
and their family,--the radical reformation of society that shall make
human beings of them all. In the measure that such insight gains ground
among the wives of the proletariat, then, despite want and misery,
their married life is _idealized_: both now have a common aim, after
which they strive; and they have an inexhaustible source of mutual
encouragement in the mutual interchange of views, whereto their joint
battle leads them. The number of proletarian women who reach this
insight is every year larger. Herein lies a movement, that is in process
of development, and that is fraught with decisive significance for the
future of mankind.

In other social strata, the differences in education and views--easily
overlooked at the beginning of married life, when passion still
predominates--are felt ever more with ripening years. Sexual passion
cools off, and its substitution with harmony of thought is all the more
needful. But, leaving aside whether the husband has any idea of civic
duties and attends to the same, he, at any rate, thanks to his
occupation and constant intercourse with the outer world, comes into
continuous touch with different elements and opinions, on all sorts of
occasions, and thus floats into an intellectual atmosphere that broadens
his horizon. As a rule, and in contrast with his wife, he finds himself
in a state of intellectual molting, while she, on the contrary, due to
her household duties, which engage her early and late, is robbed of
leisure for further education, and, accordingly, becomes mentally
stunted and soured.

The domestic wretchedness in which the majority of wives live to-day, is
correctly depicted by the bourgeois-minded Gerhard von Amyntor in his
"Marginal Notes to the Book of Life."[85] In the chapter entitled
"Deadly Gnat-bites" he says among other things:

"Not the shocking events, that none remain unvisited by, and that bring,
here the death of a husband, yonder the moral downfall of a beloved
child; that lie, here in a long and serious illness, yonder in the
wrecking of a warmly nursed plan;--not these undermine her (the
housewife's) freshness and strength. It is the small, daily-recurring
marrow and bone-gnawing cares.... How many millions of brave little
house-mothers cook and scour away their vigor of life, their very cheeks
and roguish dimples, in attending to domestic cares until they become
crumpled, dried and broke-up mummies. The ever-recurring question, what
shall be cooked to-day? the ever-recurring necessity of sweeping, and
beating, and brushing, and dusting is the continuously falling drop that
slowly, but surely, wears away mind and body. The kitchen-hearth is the
place where the saddest balances are drawn up between income and
expense, where the most depressing observations are forced upon the mind
on the rising dearness of the necessaries of life, and on the ever
increasing difficulty to earn the needed cash. On the flaming altar,
where the soup kettle bubbles, youth and mental ease, beauty and good
humor are sacrificed; and who recognizes in the old care-bent cook, the
one-time blooming, overbearing, coy-coquette bride in the array of her
myrtle crown? Already in antiquity the hearth was sacred, near it were
placed the Lares and patron deities. Let us also hold sacred the hearth
at which the dutiful German bourgeois house-wife dies a slow death, in
order to keep the house comfortable, the table covered and the family in
health." Such is the consolation offered in bourgeois society to the
wife, who, under the present order of society, is miserably going to
pieces.

Those women, who, thanks to their social condition, find themselves in a
freer state, have, as a rule, a one-sided, superficial education, that,
combined with inherited female characteristics, manifests itself with
force. They generally have a taste for mere superficialities; they think
only about gew-gaws and dress; and thus they seek their mission in the
satisfaction of a spoiled taste, and the indulgence of passions that
demand their pay with usury. In their children and the education of
these they have hardly any interest: they give them too much trouble and
annoyance, hence are left to the nurses and servants, and are later
passed on to the boarding-schools. At any rate their principal task is
to raise their daughters as show-dolls, and their sons as pupils for the
_jeunesse dore_ (gilded youth) out of which dudedom recruits its
ranks--that despicable class of men that may be fairly put upon a level
with procurers. This _jeunesse dore_ furnishes the chief contingent to
the seducers of the daughters of the working class. They look upon
idleness and squandering as a profession.

FOOTNOTES:

[58] Mainlaender, "Philosophie der Erlösung," Frankfort-on-the-Main,
1886, E. Koenitzer.

[59] D. A. Debay, "Hygiene et Physiologue du Marriage," Paris, 1884.
Quoted in "Im Freien Reich" by Ioma v. Troll-Borostyani, Zurich, 1884.

[60] "Das Geschlechtsleben des Weibes, in physiologischer,
pathologischer und therapeutischer Hinsicht dargestellt."

[61] "Die Prostitution vor dem Gesetz," by Veritas. Leipsic, 1893.

[62] V. Oettingen, "Moralstatistik." Erlangen, 1882.

[63] "Lehrbuch der Psychiatrie," Vol. I, Stuttgart, 1883.

[64] Vol. II. Leipsic, 1887.

[65] "The moods and feelings in and which husband and wife approach each
other, exercise, without a doubt, a definite influence upon the result
of the sexual act, and transmit certain characteristics to the fruit."
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, "The Moral Education of the Young In Relation
to Sex." See also Goethe's "Elective Affinities," where he sketches
clearly the influence exerted by the feelings of two beings who approach
each other for intimate intercourse.

[66] "Denkwuerdigkeiten," Vol. I, p. 239, Leipsic, F. A. Brockhaus.

[67] "Mr. E., a manufacturer ... informed me that he employed females
exclusively, at his power-looms ... gives a decided preference to
married females, especially those who have families at home dependent on
them for support; they are attentive, docile, more so than unmarried
females, and are compelled to use their utmost exertions to procure the
necessities of life. Thus are the virtues, the peculiar virtues of the
female character to be perverted to her injury--thus all that is most
dutiful and tender in her nature is made a means of her bondage and
suffering." Speech of Lord Ashley, March 15, 1884, on the Ten Hour
Factory Bill. Marx's "Capital."

[68] "Die Frau auf dem Gebiete der Nationaloekonomie."

[69] See "Fuerst Bismarck und seine Leute," Von Busch.

[70] Sections 180 and 181.

[71] "The Physiology of Love."

[72] Alexander Dumas says rightly, In "Monsieur Alfonse:" "Man has built
two sorts of morals; one for himself, one for his wife; one that permits
him love with all women, and one that, as indemnity for the liberty she
has forfeited forever, permits her love with one man only."

[73] L. Bridel, "La Puissance Maritale," Lausanne. 1879.

[74] v. Oettingen, "Moralstatistik," Erlangen, 1882.

[75] v. Oettingen, "Moralstatistik."

[76] [According to the census of 1900, there were in the United States
198,914 divorced persons: males 84,237, females 114,677. The percentage
of divorced to married persons was 0.7. The census warns, however, that
"divorced persons are apt to be reported as single, and so the census
returns in this respect should not be accepted as a correct measure of
the prevalence of divorce throughout the country."--THE TRANSLATOR.]

[77] v. Oettingen, "Moralstatistik."

[78] In his work frequently cited by us, "Die Frauenfrage im
Mittelalter," Buecher laments the decay of marriage and of family life;
he condemns the increasing female labor in industry, and demands a
"return" to the "real domain of woman," where she alone produces
"values" in the house and the family. The endeavors of the modern
friends of woman appear to him as "dilettanteism" and he hopes finally
"that the movement may be switched on the right track," but he is
obviously unable to point to a successful road. Neither is that possible
from the bourgeois standpoint. The marriage conditions, like the
condition of woman in general, have not been brought about arbitrarily.
They are the natural product of our social development. But the social
development of peoples does not cut capers, nor does it perpetrate any
such false reasonings in a circle; it takes its course obedient to
imminent laws. It is the mission of the student of civilization to
discover these laws, and, planted upon them, to show the way for the
removal of existing evils.

[79] "Neue Zeit," Jahrgang 1888, p. 239.

[80] "Etudes Medicales sur l'Ancienne Rome," Paris, 1859.

[81] The above account of the United States, concerning the contrast
between it and Europe, is incorrect. At the time in the nation's history
when material conditions were easy, theoretically, the thought of
abortion, let alone its execution, could not spring up; and it did not.
All the reports of that time, not forgetting Washington Irving's
humorous account of the custom of "bundling," confirm the fact. Births
were numerous, families large.

Subsequently, when conditions became less easy, and in the measure that
the country entered increasingly into the sphere of the material
hardships implied in advancing capitalism, theoretically, again, the
thought of abortion, and, along with it, the deed, must be expected to
have sprung up; and so they did. But the same development that carried
the country into the material sphere of capitalism, also, and at the
same time, carried its people into the sphere of capitalist affectation
of morality and measuredness of language; in short, of hypocrisy. The
being, that will commit the crimes of a higher civilization with the
plain-spokenness of the barbarian, is a monstrosity. Capitalist United
States is abreast of, and moves in even step with, capitalist Europe,
not in the practice only of crime, but in the Pharisees of its
condemnation and the severity of its punishment also.--THE TRANSLATOR.

[82] "Geschichte und Gefahren der Fruchtabtreibung," Dr. Ed. Reich,
Leipsic, 1893.

[83] "The child conceived during marriage has the husband for father."

[84] "Das buergerliche Recht und die besitzlosen Klassen," Tuebingen,
1890.

[85] Sam. Lucas, Elberfeld.




CHAPTER II.

FURTHER CHECKS AND OBSTRUCTIONS TO MARRIAGE--NUMERICAL PROPORTION OF THE
SEXES--ITS CAUSES AND EFFECTS.


Cast in the mold of the conditions above described, many a feature of
woman's character took shape, and they reached ever fuller development
from generation to generation. On these features men love to dwell with
predilection, but they forget that they are themselves the cause
thereof, and have promoted with their conduct the defects they now make
merry about, or censure. Among these widely censured female qualities,
belong her dreaded readiness of tongue, and passion for gossip; her
inclination to endless talk over trifles and unimportant things; her
mental bent for purely external matters, such as dress, and her desire
to please, together with a resulting proneness to all the follies of
fashion; lastly, her easily arousable envy and jealousy of the other
members of her sex.

These qualities, though in different degrees, manifest themselves
generally in the female sex from early childhood. They are qualities
that are born under the pressure of social conditions, and are further
developed by heredity, example and education. A being irrationally
brought up, can not bring up others rationally.

In order to be clear on the causes and development of good or bad
qualities, whether with the sexes or with whole peoples, the same
methods must be pursued that modern natural science applies in order to
ascertain the formation and development of life according to genus and
species, and to determine their qualities. They are the laws that flow
from the material conditions for life, laws that life demands, that
adapt themselves to it, and finally became its nature.

Man forms no exception to that which holds good in Nature for all
animate creation. Man does not stand outside of Nature: looked at
physiologically, he is the most highly developed animal,--a fact,
however, that some would deny. Thousands of years ago, although wholly
ignorant of modern science, the ancients had on many matters affecting
man, more rational views than the moderns; above all, they gave
practical application to the views founded on experience. We praise with
enthusiastic admiration the beauty and strength of the men and women of
Greece; but the fact is overlooked that, not the happy climate, nor the
bewitching nature of a territory that stretched along the bay-indented
sea, but the physical culture and maxims of education, consistently
enforced by the State, thus affected both the being and the development
of the population. These measures were calculated to combine beauty,
strength and suppleness of body with wit and elasticity of mind, both of
which were transmitted to the descendants. True enough, even then, in
comparison with man, woman was neglected in point of mental, but not of
corporal culture.[86] In Sparta, that went furthest in the corporal
culture of the two sexes, boys and girls went naked until the age of
puberty, and participated in common in the exercises of the body, in
games and in wrestling. The naked exposure of the human body, together
with the natural treatment of natural things, had the advantage that
sensuous excitement--to-day artificially cultivated by the separation of
the sexes from early childhood--was then prevented. The corporal make-up
of one sex, together with its distinctive organs, was no secret to the
other. There, no play of equivocal words could arise. Nature was Nature.
The one sex rejoiced at the beauty of the other. Mankind will have to
return to Nature and to the natural intercourse of the sexes; it must
cast off the now-ruling and unhealthy spiritual notions concerning man;
it must do that by setting up methods of education that fit in with our
own state of culture, and that may bring on the physical and mental
regeneration of the race.

Among us, and especially on the subject of female education, seriously
erroneous conceptions are still prevalent. That woman also should have
strength, courage and resolution, is considered heretical, "unwomanly,"
although none would dare deny that, equipped with such qualities, woman
could protect herself against many ills and inconveniences. Conversely,
woman is cramped in her physical, exactly as in her intellectual
development. The irrationalness of her dress plays an important _role_
herein. It not only, unconscionably hampers her in her physique, it
directly ruins her;--and yet, but few physicians dare take a stand
against the abuse, accurately informed though they are on the
injuriousness of her dress. The fear of displeasing the patient often
causes them to hold their tongues, if they do not even flatter her
insane notions. Modern dress hinders woman in the free use of her limbs,
it injures her physical growth, and awakens in her a sense of impotence
and weakness. Moreover, modern dress is a positive danger to her own and
the health of those who surround her: in the house and on the street,
woman is a walking raiser of dust. And likewise is the development of
woman hampered by the strict separation of the sexes, both in social
intercourse and at school--a method of education wholly in keeping with
the spiritual ideas that Christianity has deeply implanted in us on all
matters that regard the nature of man.

The woman who does not reach the development of her faculties, who is
crippled in her powers, who is held imprisoned in the narrowest circle
of thought, and who comes into contact with hardly any but her own
female relatives,--such a woman can not possibly raise herself above the
routine of daily life and habits. Her intellectual horizon revolves only
around the happenings in her own immediate surroundings, family affairs
and what thereby hangs. Extensive conversations on utter trifles, the
bent for gossip, are promoted with all might; of course her latent
intellectual qualities strain after activity and exercise;--whereupon
the husband, often involved thereby in trouble, and driven to
desperation, utters imprecations upon qualities that he, the "chief of
creation," has mainly upon his own conscience.

With woman--whose face all our social and sexual relations turn toward
marriage with every fibre of her being--marriage and matrimonial matters
constitute, quite naturally, a leading portion of her conversation and
aspirations. Moreover, to the physically weaker woman, subjected as she
is to man by custom and laws, the tongue is her principal weapon against
him, and, as a matter of course, she makes use thereof. Similarly with
regard to her severely censured passion for dress and desire to please,
which reach their frightful acme in the insanities of fashion, and often
throw fathers and husbands into great straits and embarrassments. The
explanation lies at hand. To man, woman is, first of all, an object of
enjoyment. Economically and socially unfree, she is bound to see in
marriage her means of support; accordingly, she depends upon man and
becomes a piece of property to him. As a rule, her position is rendered
still more unfavorable through the general excess of women over men,--a
subject that will be treated more closely. The disparity intensifies the
competition of women among themselves; and it is sharpened still more
because, for a great variety of reasons, a number of men do not marry at
all. Woman is, accordingly, forced to enter into competition for a
husband with the members of her own sex, by means of the most favorable
external presentation of her person possible.

Let the long duration, through many generations, of these evils be taken
into account. The wonder will cease that these manifestations, sprung
from equally lasting causes, have reached their present extreme form.
Furthermore, perhaps in no age was the competition of women for husbands
as sharp as it is in this, due partly to reasons already given, and
partly to others yet to be discussed. Finally, the difficulties of
obtaining a competent livelihood, as well as the demands made by
society, combine, more than ever before, to turn woman's face towards
matrimony as an "institute for support."

Men gladly accept such a state of things: they are its beneficiaries. It
flatters their pride, their vanity, their interest to play the _role_ of
the stronger and the master; and, like all other rulers, they are, in
their _role_ of masters, difficult to reach by reason. It is, therefore,
all the more in the interest of woman to warm towards the establishment
of conditions that shall free her from so unworthy a position. Women
should expect as little help from the men as workingmen do from the
capitalist class.

Observe the characteristics, developed in the struggle for the coveted
place, on other fields, on the industrial field, for instance, so soon
as the capitalists face each other. What despicable, even scampish,
means of warfare are not resorted to! What hatred, envy and passion for
calumny are not awakened!--observe that, and the explanation stands out
why similar features turn up in the competition of women for a husband.
Hence it happens that women, on the average, do not get along among
themselves as well as men; that even the best female friends lightly
fall out, if the question is their standing in a man's eye, or
pleasingness of appearance. Hence also the observation that wherever
women meet, be they ever such utter strangers, they usually look at one
another as enemies. With one look they make the mutual discovery of
ill-matched colors, or wrongly-pinned bows, or any other similar
cardinal sin. In the look that they greet each other with, the judgment
can be readily read that each has passed upon the other. It is as if
each wished to inform the other: "I know better than you how to dress,
and draw attention upon myself."

On the other hand, woman is by nature more impulsive than man; she
reflects less than he; she has more abnegation, is naiver, and hence is
governed by stronger passions, as revealed by the truly heroic
self-sacrifice with which she protects her child, or cares for
relatives, and nurses them in sickness. In the fury, however, this
passionateness finds its ugly expression. But the good as well as the
bad sides, with man as well as woman, are influenced, first of all, by
their social position; favored, or checked, or transfigured. The same
impulse, that, under unfavorable circumstances, appears as a blemish,
is, under favorable circumstances, a source of happiness for oneself and
others. Fourier has the credit of having brilliantly demonstrated how
the identical impulses of man produce, under different conditions,
wholly opposite results.

Running parallel with the effects of mistaken education, are the no less
serious effects of mistaken or imperfect physical culture upon the
purpose of Nature. All physicians are agreed that the preparation of
woman for her calling as mother and rearer of children leaves almost
everything to be wished. "Man exercises the soldier in the use of his
weapons, and the artisan in the handling of his tools; every office
requires special studies; even the monk has his novitiate. Woman alone
is not trained for her serious duties of mother."[87] Nine-tenths of the
maidens who marry enter matrimony with almost utter ignorance about
motherhood and the duties of wedlock. The inexcusable shyness, even on
the part of mothers, to speak with a grown-up daughter of such important
sexual duties, leaves the latter in the greatest darkness touching her
duties towards herself and her future husband. With her entrance upon
married life, woman enters a territory that is wholly strange to her.
She has drawn to herself a fancy-picture thereof--generally from novels
that are not particularly to be commended--that does not accord with
reality.[88] Her defective household knowledge, that, as things are
to-day, is inevitable, even though many a function, formerly naturally
belonging to the wife, has been removed from her, also furnishes many a
cause for friction. Some know nothing whatever of household matters:
They consider themselves too good to bother about them, and look upon
them as matters that concern the servant girl; numerous others, from the
ranks of the masses, are prevented, by the struggle for existence, from
cultivating themselves for their calling as householders: they must be
in the factory and at work early and late. It is becoming evident that,
due to the development of social conditions, the separate household
system is losing ground every day; and that it can be kept up only at
the sacrifice of money and time, neither of which the great majority is
able to expend.

Yet another cause that destroys the object of marriage to not a few men
is to be found in the physical debility of many women. Our food,
housing, methods of work and support, in short, our whole form of life,
affects us in more ways than one rather harmfully than otherwise. We can
speak with perfect right of a "nervous age." Now, then, this nervousness
goes hand in hand with physical degeneration. Anaemia and nervousness
are spread to an enormous degree among the female sex: They are assuming
the aspect of a social calamity, that, if it continue a few generations
longer, as at present, and we fail to place our social organization on a
normal footing, is urging the race towards its destruction.[89]

With an eye to its sexual mission, the female organism requires
particular care,--good food, and, at certain periods, the requisite
rest. Both of these are lacking to the great majority of the female sex,
at least in the cities and industrial neighborhoods, nor are they to be
had under modern industrial conditions. Moreover, woman has so
habituated herself to privation that, for instance, numberless women
hold it a conjugal duty to keep the tid-bits for the man, and satisfy
themselves with insufficient nourishment. Likewise are boys frequently
given the preference over girls in matters of food. The opinion is
general that woman can accommodate herself, not with less food only, but
also with food of poorer quality. Hence the sad picture that our female
youth, in particular, presents to the eyes of the expert. A large
portion of our young women are bodily weak, anaemic, hypernervous. The
consequences are difficulties in menstruation, and disease of the organs
connected with the sexual purpose, the disease often assuming the
magnitude of incapacity to give birth and to nurse the child, even of
danger to life itself. "Should this degeneration of our women continue
to increase in the same measure as before, the time may not be far away
when it will become doubtful whether man is to be counted among the
mammals or not."[90] Instead of a healthy, joyful companion, of a
capable mother, of a wife attentive to her household duties, the husband
has on his hands a sick, nervous wife, whose house the physician never
quits, who can stand no draught, and can not bear the least noise. We
shall not expatiate further on this subject. Every reader--and as often
as in this book we speak of "reader," we mean, of course, the female as
well as the male--can himself further fill the picture: he has
illustrations enough among his own relatives and acquaintances.

Experienced physicians maintain that the larger part of married women,
in the cities especially, are in a more or less abnormal condition.
According to the degree of the evil and the character of the couple,
such unions can not choose but be unhappy, and, they give the husband
the right, in public opinion, to allow himself freedoms outside of the
marriage bed, the knowledge of which throws the wife into the most
wretched of moods. Furthermore the, at times, very different sexual
demands of one party or the other give occasion to serious friction,
without the so much wished-for separation being possible. A great
variety of considerations render that, in most cases, out of all
question.

Under this head the fact may not be suppressed that a _considerable
number of husbands are themselves responsible for certain serious
physical ailments of their wives, ailments that these are not
infrequently smitten with in marriage_. As consequences of the excesses
indulged in during bachelorship, a considerable number of men suffer of
chronic sexual diseases, which, seeing these cause them no serious
inconvenience, are taken lightly. Nevertheless, through sexual
intercourse with the wife, these diseases bring upon her disagreeable,
even fatal troubles of the womb, that set in, soon after marriage, and
often develop to the point of rendering her unable to conceive or to
give birth. The wretched woman usually has no idea of the cause of the
sickness, that depresses her spirits, embitters her life, and uproots
the purpose of marriage. She blames herself, and accepts blame for a
condition, that the other party is alone responsible for. Thus many a
blooming wife falls, barely married, a prey to chronic malady,
unaccountable to either herself or her family.

"As recent investigations have proved, this circumstance--that, as a
result of gonorrhea, the male sperm no longer contains any seed-cells,
and the man is, consequently, incapacitated for life from begetting
children--_is a comparatively frequent cause of matrimonial barrenness,
in contradiction to the old and convenient tradition of the lords of
creation, who are ever ready to shift to the shoulder of the wife the
responsibility for the absence of the blessing of children_."[91]

Accordingly, a large number of causes are operative in preventing modern
married life, in the large majority of instances, from being that which
it should be:--a union of two beings of opposite sexes, who, out of
mutual love and esteem, wish to belong to each other, and, in the
striking sentence of Kant, mean, jointly, to constitute the complete
human being. It is, therefore, a suggestion of doubtful value--made even
by learned folks, who imagine thereby to dispose of woman's endeavors
after emancipation--that she look to domestic duties, to marriage,--to
marriage, that our economic conditions are ever turning into a viler
caricature, and that answers its purpose ever less!

The advice to woman that she seek her salvation in marriage, this being
her real calling,--an advice that is thoughtlessly applauded by the
majority of men--sounds like the merest mockery, when both the advisers
and their _claqueurs_ do the opposite. Schopenhauer, the philosopher,
has of woman only the conception of the philistine. He says: "Woman is
not meant for much work. Her characteristicon is not action but
_suffering_. She pays the debt of life with the pains of travail,
anxiety for the child, _subjection to man_. The strongest utterances of
life and sentiment are denied her. Her life is meant to be quieter and
less important than man's. Woman is destined for nurse and educator of
infancy, _being herself infant-like, and an infant for life_, a sort of
intermediate stage between the child and the man, _who is the real
being_.... Girls should be trained for domesticity and _subjection....
Women are the most thorough-paced and incurable Philistines._"

In the same spirit as Schopenhauer, who, of course, is greatly quoted,
is cast Lombroso and Ferrerro's work, "Woman as a Criminal and a
Prostitute." We know no scientific work of equal size--it contains 590
pages--with such a dearth of valid evidence on the theme therein
treated. The statistical matter, from which the bold conclusions are
drawn, is mostly meager. Often a dozen instances suffice the joint
authors to draw the weightiest deductions. The matter that may be
considered the most valuable in the work is, typically enough, furnished
by a woman,--Dr. Tarnowskaja. The influence of social conditions, of
cultural development, is left almost wholly on one side. Everything is
judged exclusively from the physiologico-psychologic view-point, while a
large quantity of ethnographic items of information on various peoples
is woven into the argument, without submitting these items to closer
scrutiny. According to the authors, just as with Schopenhauer, woman is
a grown child, a liar _par excellence_, weak of judgment, fickle in
love, incapable of any deed truly heroic. They claim the inferiority of
woman to man is manifest from a large number of bodily differences.
"Love, with woman, is as a rule nothing but a secondary feature of
maternity,--all the feelings of attachment that bind woman to man arise,
not from sexual impulses, but from the instincts of subjection and
resignation, acquired through habits of conformancy." How these
"instincts" were acquired and "conformed" themselves, the joint authors
fail to inquire into. They would then have had to inquire into the
social position of woman in the course of thousands of years, and would
have been compelled to find that it is that that made her what she now
is. It is true, the joint authors describe partly the enslaved and
dependent position of woman among the several peoples and under the
several periods of civilization; but as Darwinians, with blinkers to
their eyes, they draw all that from physiologic and psychologic, not
from social and economic reasons, which affected in strongest manner the
physiologic and psychologic development of woman.

The joint authors also touch upon the vanity of woman, and set up the
opinion that, among the peoples who stand on a lower stage of
civilization, man is the vain sex, as is noticeable to-day in the New
Hebrides and Madagascar, among the peoples of the Orinoco, and on many
islands of the Polynesian archipelago, as also among a number of African
peoples of the South Sea. With peoples standing on a higher plane,
however, woman is the vain sex. But why and wherefor? To us the answer
seems plain. Among the peoples of a lower civilization, mother-right
conditions prevail generally, or have not yet been long overcome. The
_role_ that woman there plays raises her above the necessity of seeking
for the man, the man seeks her, and to this end, ornaments himself and
grows vain. With the people of a higher grade, especially with all the
nations of civilization, excepting here and there, not the man seeks the
woman, but the woman him. It happens rarely that a woman openly takes
the initiative, and offers herself to the man; so-called propriety
forbids that. In point of fact, however, the offering is done by the
manner of her appearance; by means of the beauty of dress and luxury,
that she displays; by the manner in which she ornaments herself, and
presents herself, and coquets in society. The excess of women, together
with the social necessity of looking upon matrimony as an institute for
support, or as an institution through which alone she can satisfy her
sexual impulse and gain a standing in society, forces such conduct upon
her. Here also, we notice again, it is purely economic and social causes
that call forth, one time with man, another with woman, a quality that,
until now, it was customary to look upon as wholly independent of social
and economic causes. Hence the conclusion is justified, that so soon as
society shall arrive at social conditions, under which all dependence of
one sex upon another shall have ceased, and both are equally free,
_ridiculous vanity and the folly of fashion will vanish, just as so many
other vices that we consider to-day uneradicable, as supposedly inherent
in man_. Schopenhauer, as a philosopher, judges woman as one-sidedly as
most of our anthropologists and physicians, who see in her only the
sexual, never the social, being. Schopenhauer was never married. He,
accordingly, has not, on his part, contributed towards having one more
woman pay the "debt of life" that he debits woman with. And this brings
us to the other side of the medal, which is far from being the
handsomer.

Many women do not marry, simply because they cannot. Everybody knows
that usage forbids woman to offer herself. She must allow herself to be
wooed, i. e., chosen. She herself may not woo. Is there no wooer to be
had, then she enters the large army of those poor beings who have missed
the purpose of life, and, in view of the lack of safe material
foundation, generally fall a prey to want and misery, and but too often
to ridicule also. But few know what the discrepancy in numbers between
the two sexes is due to; many are ready with the hasty answer: "There
are too many girls born." Those who make the claim are wrongly
informed, as will be shown. Others, again, who admit the unnaturalness
of celibacy, conclude from the fact that women are more numerous than
men in most countries of civilization, that polygamy should be allowed.
But not only does polygamy do violence to our customs, it, moreover,
degrades woman, a circumstance that, of course, does not restrain
Schopenhauer, with his underestimation of and contempt for women, from
declaring: "For the female sex, as a whole, polygamy is a benefit."

Many men do not marry because they think they cannot support a wife, and
the children that may come, according to their station. To support _two_
wives is, however, possible to a small minority only, and among these
are many who now have two or more wives,--one legitimate and several
illegitimate. These few, privileged by wealth, are not held back by
anything from doing what they please. Even in the Orient, where polygamy
exists for thousands of years by law and custom, comparatively few men
have more than one wife. People talk of the demoralizing influence of
Turkish harem life; but the fact is overlooked that this harem life is
possible only to an insignificant fraction of the men, and then only in
the ruling class, while the majority of the men live in monogamy. In the
city of Algiers, there were, at the close of the sixties, out of 18,282
marriages, not less than 17,319 with one wife only; 888 were with two;
and only 75 with more than two. Constantinople, the capital of the
Turkish Empire, would show no materially different result. Among the
country population in the Orient, the proportion is still more
pronouncedly in favor of single marriages. In the Orient, exactly as
with us, the most important factor in the calculation are the material
conditions, and these compel most men to limit themselves to but one
wife. If, on the other hand, material conditions were equally favorable
to all men, polygamy would still not be practicable,--for want of women.
_The almost equal number of the two sexes, prevalent under normal
conditions, points everywhere to monogamy._

As proof of these statements, we cite the following tables, that Buecher
published in an essay.[92]

In these tables the distinction must be kept in mind between the
enumerated and the estimated populations. In so far as the population
was enumerated, the fact is expressly stated in the summary for the
separate main divisions of the earth. The sexes divide themselves in the
population of several divisions and countries as follows:


1. EUROPE.

                                                                Females
                                                                    for
                                                                  Every
                       Census                                     1,000
    Countries.          Year.    Males.    Females.  Population.   Men.
  Great Britain and
    Ireland             1891  18,388,756  19,499,397  37,888,153  1,060
  Denmark and Faror     1890   1,065,447   1,119,712   2,185,159  1,052
  Norway                1891     951,496   1,037,501   1,988,997  1,090
  Sweden                1890   2,317,105   2,467,570   4,784,675  1,065
  Finland               1889   1,152,111   1,186,293   2,338,404  1,030
  Russia                1886  42,499,324  42,895,885  85,395,209  1,009
  Poland                1886   3,977,406   4,279,156   8,256,562  1,076
  German Empire         1890  24,231,832  25,189,232  49,421,064  1,039
  Austria               1880  10,819,737  11,324,507  22,144,244  1,047
  Hungary               1880   7,799,276   7,939,192  15,738,468  1,019
  Liechtenstein         1886       4,897       4,696       9,593    959
  Luxemburg             1890     105,419     105,669     211,088  1,002
  Holland               1889   2,228,487   2,282,925   4,511,415  1,024
  Belgium               1890   3,062,656   3,084,385   6,147,041  1,007
  Switzerland           1888   1,427,377   1,506,680   2,934,057  1,055
  France                1886  18,900,312  19,030,447  37,930,759  1,007
  Spain and the Canary
    Islands             1887   8,608,532   8,950,776  17,559,308  1,039
  Gibraltar (Civil
    population)         1890       9,201       9,326      18,527  1,013
  Portugal              1878   2,175,829   2,374,870   4,550,699  1,091
  Italy                 1881  14,265,383  14,194,245  28,459,628    995
  Bosnia and
    Herzegovina         1885     705,025     631,066   1,336,091    895
  Servia                1890   1,110,731   1,052,028   2,162,759    947
  Bulgaria              1881   1,519,953   1,462,996   2,982,949    962
  Roumania              1860   2,276,558   2,148,403   4,424,961    944
  Greece                1889   1,133,625   1,053,583   2,187,208    929
  Malta                 1890      82,086      83,576     165,662  1,018
                             ----------- ----------- -----------  -----
      Total                  170,818,561 174,914,119 345,732,680  1,024


2. AMERICA.

                                                                Females
                                                                    for
                                                                  Every
                       Census                                     1,000
    Countries.          Year.    Males.    Females.  Population.   Men.

  Danish Greenland      1888       4,838       5,383      10,221  1,112
  British North America 1881   2,288,196   2,229,735   4,517,931    974
  United States of
    North America       1880  25,518,820  24,636,963  50,155,783    965
  Bermuda Islands       1890       7,767       8,117      15,884  1,046
  Mexico                1882   5,072,054   5,375,920  10,447,974  1,060
                              ----------  ----------  ----------  -----
  North America and
  Islands                     32,891,675  32,256,118  65,147,793    981

  Nicaragua             1883     136,249     146,591     282,845  1,076
  British Honduras      1881      14,108      13,344      27,452    946
  Cuba                  1877     850,520     671,164   1,521,684    789
  Porto Rico            1877     369,054     362,594     731,648    983
  British West Indies   1881     589,012     624,132   1,213,144  1,060
  French West Indies    1885     176,364     180,266     356,630  1,022
  Danish Possessions    1880      14,889      18,874      33,763  1,263
  Dutch Colony Curacao  1889      20,234      25,565      45,799  1,263
                             -----------  ----------  ----------  -----
  Central America and
  the West Indies              2,170,430   2,042,530   4,212,965    941

  British Guiana        1891     151,759     126,569     278,328    834
  French Guiana         1885      15,767      10,735      26,502    681
  Dutch Guiana          1889      30,187      28,764      58,951    953
  Brazil                1872   5,123,869   4,806,609   9,930,478    938
  Chili                 1885   1,258,616   1,268,353   2,526,969  1,008
  Falkland Islands      1890       1,086         703       1,789    647
                              ----------  ----------  ----------  -----
  South America total          6,581,284   6,241,733  12,823,017    949
                              ----------  ----------  ----------  -----
  Population of America       41,643,389  40,540,386  82,183,775    973


3. ASIA.

                                                                Females
                                                                    for
                                                                  Every
                        Census                                    1,000
    Countries.          Year.    Males.    Females.  Population.   Men.

  Russian Caucasia      1885   3,876,868   3,407,699   7,284,567    879
  Siberia, minus Amur
    and Sachalin        1885   2,146,411   2,002,879   4,149,290    933
  Province Uralsk       1885     263,915     263,686     527,601    999
  General Province of
    the Prairies        1885     926,246     781,626   1,707,872    844
  Province Fergana      1885     365,461     350,672     716,133    959
  Province Samarkand    1885     335,530     305,616     641,146    911
                              ----------  ----------  ----------  -----
  Russian  Possessions,
    total                      7,914,431   7,112,178  15,026,609    899

  British India
    (immediate
    possessions)        1891 112,150,120 108,313,980 220,464,100    966
  Tributary States (so
    far known)          1891  31,725,910  29,675,150  61,401,060    935
  Hong Kong             1889     138,033      56,449     194,482    409
  Ceylon                1881   1,473,515   1,290,469   2,763,984    876
  Of the French
    Possessions:
    Cambodscha            ?      392,383     422,371     814,754  1,076
    Cochinchina         1889     944,146     932,543   1,876,689    988
  Philippines (partly)  1877   2,796,174   2,762,846   5,559,020    988
  Japan                 1888  20,008,445  19,598,789  39,607,234    979
  Cyprus                1891     104,887     104,404     209,291    995
                              ----------  ----------  ----------  -----
    Total population in
      Asia                   177,648,044 170,269,179 347,917,223    958


4. AUSTRALIA AND POLYNESIA.

                                                                Females
                                                                    for
                                                                  Every
                           Census                                 1,000
    Countries.          Year.    Males.    Females.  Population.   Men.

  Australia, New Zealand
    (1890) and Tasmania 1891   2,059,594   1,772,472   3,832,066    861
  Fiji Islands          1890      67,902      57,780     125,682    851
  French Possessions
    (Tahiti, Marquesas,
     etc.)              1889      11,589      10,293      21,882    888
  Hawaii                1890      58,714      31,276      89,990    533
                              ----------  ----------  ----------  -----
  Total                        2,197,799   1,871,821   4,069,620    852


5. AFRICA.

                                                                Females
                                                                    for
                                                                  Every
                           Census                                 1,000
    Countries.          Year.    Males.    Females.  Population.   Men.

  Egypt                  1882  3,401,498   3,415,767   6,817,265  1,004
  Algeria (minus Sahara) 1886  2,014,013   1,791,671   3,805,684    889
  Senegal                1889     70,504      76,014     146,518  1,078
  Gambia                 1881      7,215       6,935      14,150    961
  Sierra Leone           1881     31,201      29,345      60,546    940
  Lagos                  1881     37,665      39,605      75,270    998
  St. Helena             1890      2,020       2,202       4,222  1,090
  Capeland               1890    766,598     759,141   1,525,739    990
  Natal                  1890    268,062     275,851     543,913  1,029
  Orange Free State:
    White                1890     40,571      37,145      77,716    915
    Black                1890     67,791      61,996     129,787    914
  Republic:
    White                1890     66,498      52,630     119,128    791
    Black                1890    115,589     144,045     259,634  1,246
  Reunion                1889     94,430      71,485     165,915    757
  Mayotte                1889      6,761       5,509      12,270    815
  St. Marie de
    Madagascar           1888      3,648       4,019       7,667  1,102
                              ----------  ----------  ----------  -----
      Total                    6,994,064   6,771,360  13,765,424[93]968


Probably the result of this presentation will be astonishing to many.
With the exception of Europe, where, on an average, there are 1,024
women to every 1,000 men, the reverse is the case everywhere else. If it
is further considered that in the foreign divisions of the earth, and
even there where actual enumeration was had, information upon the female
sex is particularly defective--a fact that must be presumed with regard
to all the countries of Mohammedan population, where the figures for the
female population are probably below the reality--it stands pat that,
apart from a few European nations, the female sex nowhere tangibly
exceeds the male. It is otherwise in Europe, the country that interests
us most. Here, with the exception of Italy and the southeast territories
of Bosnia, Herzegovina, Servia, Bulgaria, Roumania and Greece, the
female population is everywhere more strongly represented than the male.
Of the large European countries, the disproportion is slightest in
France--1,002 females to every 1,000 males; next in order is Russia,
with 1,009 females to every 1,000 males. On the other hand, Portugal,
Norway and Poland, with 1,076 females to every 1,000 males, present the
strongest disproportion. Next to these stands Great Britain,--1,060
females to every 1,000 males. Germany and Austria lie in the middle:
they have, respectively, 1,039 and 1,047 females to every 1,000 males.

In the German Empire, the excess of the female over the male population,
according to the census of December 1, 1890, was 957,400, against
988,376, according to the census of December 1, 1885. A principal cause
of this disproportion is emigration, inasmuch as by far more men
emigrate than women. This is clearly brought out by the opposite pole of
Germany, the North American Union, which has about as large a deficit in
women as Germany has a surplus. The United States is the principal
country for European emigration, and this is mainly made up of males. A
second cause is the larger number of accidents to men than to women in
agriculture, the trades, the industries and transportation. Furthermore,
there are more males than females temporarily abroad,--merchants,
seamen, marines, etc. All this transpires clearly from the figures on
the conjugal status. In 1890 there were 8,372,486 married men to
8,398,607 married women in Germany, i. e., 26,121 more of the latter.
Another phenomenon, that statistics establish and that weigh heavily in
the scales, is that, on an average, women reach a higher age than men:
at the more advanced ages there are more women than men. According to
the census of 1890 the relation of ages among the two sexes were these:


                                              Excess   Excess of
                        Males.    Females.   of Males.  Females.
    Below ten years   5,993,681   5,966,226   27,455        ...
    10 to 20 years    5,104,751   5,110,093      ...      5,342
    20 to 30 years    3,947,324   4,055,321      ...    107,997
    30 to 40 years    3,090,174   3,216,704      ...    126,530
    40 to 50 years    2,471,617   2,659,609      ...    187,992
    50 to 60 years    1,826,951   2,041,377      ...    214,426
    60 to 70 years    1,177,142   1,391,227      ...    214,085
    70 and up           619,192     757,081      ...    137,889
                      ---------   ---------   ------    -------
                     24,230,832  25,197,638   27,455    994,261


This table shows that, up to the tenth year, the number of boys exceeds
that of girls, due merely to the disproportion in births. Everywhere,
there are more boys born than girls. In the German Empire, for
instance,[94] there were born:--


    In the year 1872 to 100 girls 106.2 boys
    In the year 1878 to 100 girls 105.9 boys
    In the year 1884 to 100 girls 106.2 boys
    In the year 1888 to 100 girls 106.0 boys
    In the year 1891 to 100 girls 106.2 boys


But the male sex dies earlier than the female, and from early childhood
more boys die than girls. Accordingly, the table shows that, between the
ages of 10 to 20 the female sex exceeds the male.

To each 100 females, there died, males:--[95]


    In 1872   107.0    In 1884   109.2
    In 1878   110.5    In 1888   107.9
                       In 1891   107.5


The table shows, furthermore, that at the matrimonial age, proper,
between the ages of 20 and 50, the female sex exceeds the male by
422,519, and that at the age from 50 to 70 and above, it exceeds the
male by 566,400. A very strong disproportion between the sexes appears,
furthermore, among the widowed.

According to the census of 1890, there were:--


    Widowers                           774,967
    Widows                           2,154,870
                                     ---------
    Excess of widows over widowers   1,382,903


Of these widowed people, according to age, there were:--


      Age.           Males.          Females.
    40-60           222,286           842,920
    60 and over     506,319         1,158,712


The number of divorced persons was, in 1890: Males, 25,271; females,
49,601. According to age, they were distributed:--


      Age.         Males.     Females.
    40-60          13,825       24,842
    60 and over     4,917        7,244


These figures tell us that _widows and divorced women are excluded from
remarriage_, and at the fittest age for matrimony, at that; there being
of the age of 15-40, 46,362 widowers and 156,235 widows, 6,519 divorced
men and 17,515 divorced women. These figures furnish further proof of
the injury that divorce entails to married women.

In 1890, there were unmarried:--[96]


      Age.          Males.     Females.
    15-40        5,845,933    5,191,453
    40-60          375,881      503,406
    60 and over    130,154      230,966


Accordingly, among the unmarried population between the ages of 15 and
40, the male sex is stronger by 654,480 than the female. This
circumstance would seem to be favorable for the latter. But males
between the ages of 15 and 21 are, with few exceptions, not in condition
to marry. Of that age there were 3,590,622 males to 3,774,025 females.
Likewise with the males of the age of 21-25, a large number are not in a
position to start a family: we have but to keep in mind the males in the
army, students, etc. On the other side, all women of this age period are
marriageable. Taking further into consideration that for a great variety
of reasons, many men do not marry at all--the number of unmarried males
of 40 years of age and over alone amounted to 506,035, to which must be
added also the widowed and divorced males, more than two million
strong--it follows that the situation of the female sex with regard to
marriage is decidedly unfavorable. Accordingly, a large number of women
are, under present circumstances, forced to renounce the legitimate
gratification of their sexual instincts, while the males seek and find
solace in prostitution. The situation would instantaneously change for
women with the removal of the obstacles that keep to-day many hundreds
of thousands of men from setting up a married home, and from doing
justice to their natural instincts in a legitimate manner. For that the
existing social system must be upturned.

As already observed, emigration across the seas is, in great part,
responsible for the disproportion in the number of the sexes. In the
years 1872-1886, on an average, more than 10,000 males left the country
in excess of females. For a period of fifteen years, that runs up to
150,000 males, most of them in the very vigor of life. Military duties
also drive abroad many young men, and the most vigorous, at that. In
1893, according to the report officially submitted to the Reichstag on
the subject of substitutes in the army, 25,851 men were sentenced for
emigrating without leave, and 14,522 more cases were under investigation
on the same charge. Similar figures recur from year to year. The loss in
men that Germany sustains from this unlawful emigration is considerable
in the course of a century. Especially strong is emigration during the
years that follow upon great wars. That appears from the figures after
1866 and between 1871 and 1874. We sustain, moreover, severe losses in
male life from accidents. In the course of the years 1887 to 1892, the
number of persons killed in the trades, agriculture, State and municipal
undertakings, ran up to 30,568,[97] of whom only a small fraction were
women. Furthermore, another and considerable number of persons engaged
in these occupations are crippled for life by accidents, and are
disabled from starting a family; others die early and leave their
families behind in want and misery. Great loss in male life is also
connected with navigation. In the period between 1882-1891, 1,485 ships
were lost on the high seas, whereby 2,436 members of crews--with few
exceptions males--and 747 passengers perished.

Once the right appreciation of life is had, society will prevent the
large majority of accidents, particularly in navigation; and such
appreciation will touch its highest point under Socialist order. In
numberless instances human life, or the safety of limb, is sacrificed to
misplaced economy on the part of employers, who recoil before any outlay
for protection; in many others the tired condition of the workman, or
the hurry he must work in, is the cause. Human life is cheap; if one
workingman goes to pieces, three others are at hand to take his place.

On the domain of navigation especially, and aided by the difficulty of
control, many unpardonable wrongs are committed. Through the revelations
made during the seventies by Plimsoll in the British Parliament, the
fact has become notorious that many shipowners, yielding to criminal
greed, take out high insurances for vessels that are not seaworthy, and
unconscionably expose them, together with their crews, to the slightest
weather at sea,--all for the sake of the high insurance. These are the
so-called "coffin-ships," not unknown in Germany, either. The steamer
"Braunschweig," for instance, that sank in 1881 near Helgoland, and
belonged to the firm Rocholl & Co., of Bremen, proved to have been put
to sea in a wholly unseaworthy condition. The same fate befell, in 1889,
the steamer "Leda" of the same firm; hardly out at sea, she went to the
bottom. The boat was insured with the Russian Lloyd for 55,000 rubles;
the prospect of 8,500 rubles were held out to the captain, if he took
her safe to Odessa; and the captain, in turn, paid the pilot the
comparatively high wage of 180 rubles a month. The verdict of the Court
of Admiralty was that _the accident was due to the fact that the "Leda"
was unseaworthy and unfit to be taken to Odessa_. The license was
withdrawn from the captain. According to existing laws, the real guilty
parties could not be reached. No year goes by without our Court of
Admiralty having to pass upon a larger number of accidents at sea, to
the effect that the accident was due to vessels being too old, or too
heavily loaded, or in defective condition, or insufficiently equipped;
sometimes to several of these causes combined. With a good many of the
lost ships, the cause of accident can not be established: they have gone
down in midocean, and no survivor remains to tell the tale. Likewise are
the coast provisions for the saving of shipwrecked lives both defective
and insufficient; they are dependent mainly upon private charity. The
case is even more disconsolate along distant and foreign coasts. A
commonwealth that makes the promotion of the well-being of all its
highest mission will not fail to so improve navigation, and provide it
with protective measures that these accidents would be of rare
occurrence. But the modern economic system of rapine, that weighs men as
it weighs figures, to the end of whacking out the largest possible
amount of profit, not infrequently destroys a human life if thereby
there be in it but the profit of a dollar. With the change of society in
the Socialist sense, immigration, in its present shape, also would drop;
the flight from military service would cease; suicide in the Army would
be no more.

The picture drawn from our political and economic life shows that woman
also is deeply interested therein. Whether the period of military
service be shortened or not; whether the Army be increased or not;
whether the country pursues a policy of peace or one of war; whether the
treatment allotted to the soldier be worthy or unworthy of human beings;
and whether as a result thereof the number of suicides and desertions
rise or drop;--_all of these are questions that concern woman as much as
man_. Likewise with the economic and industrial conditions and in
transportation, in all of which branches the female sex, furthermore,
steps from year to year more numerously as working-women. Bad
conditions, and unfavorable circumstances injure woman as a social and
as a sexual being; favorable conditions and satisfactory circumstances
benefit her.

But there are still other momenta that go to make marriage difficult or
impossible. A considerable number of men are kept from marriage by the
State itself. People pucker up their brows at the celibacy imposed upon
Roman Catholic clergymen; but these same people have not a word of
condemnation for the much larger number of soldiers who also are
condemned thereto. The officers not only require the consent of their
superiors, they are also limited in the choice of a wife: the regulation
prescribes that she shall have property to a certain, and not
insignificant, amount. In this way the Austrian corps of officers, for
instance, obtained a social "improvement" at the cost of the female sex.
Captains rose by fully 8,000 guilders, if above thirty years of age,
while the captains under thirty years of age were thenceforth hard to be
had, in no case for a smaller dower than 30,000. "Now a 'Mrs. Captain,'"
it was thus reported in the "Koelnische Zeitung" from Vienna, "who until
now was often a subject of pity for her female colleagues in the
administrative departments, can hold her head higher by a good deal;
everybody now knows that she has wherewith to live. Despite the greatly
increased requirements of personal excellence, culture and rank, the
social status of the Austrian officer was until then rather indefinite,
partly because very prominent gentlemen stuck fast to the Emperor's coat
pocket; partly because many poor officers could not make a shift to live
without humiliation, and many families of poor officers often played a
pitiful _role_. Until then, the officer who wished to marry had, if the
thirty-year line was crossed, to qualify in joint property to the amount
of 12,000 guilders, or in a 600-guilder side income, and even at this
insignificant income, hardly enough for decency, the magistrates often
shut their eyes, and granted relief. The new marriage regulations are
savagely severe, though the heart break. The captain under thirty must
forthwith deposit 30,000 guilders; over thirty years of age, 20,000
guilders; from staff officers up to colonels, 16,000 guilders. Over and
above this, only one-fourth of the officers may marry without special
grace, while a spotless record and corresponding rank is demanded of the
bride. This all holds good for officers of the line and army surgeons.
For other military officials with the rank of officer, the new marriage
regulations are milder; but for officers of the general staff still
severer. The officer who is detailed to the captain of the general staff
may not thereafter marry; the actual captain of the staff, if below
thirty, is required to give security in 36,000 guilders, and later
24,000 more." In Germany and elsewhere, there are similar regulations.
Also the corps of under-officers is subject to hampering regulations
with regard to marriage, and require besides the consent of their
superior officers. These are very drastic proofs of the _purely
materialistic conception_ that the State has of marriage.

In general, public opinion is agreed that marriage is not advisable for
men under twenty-four or twenty-five years of age. Twenty-five is the
marriageable age for men fixed by the civil code, with an eye to the
civic independence that, as a rule, is not gained before that age. Only
with persons who are in the agreeable position of not having to first
conquer independence--with people of princely rank--does public opinion
consider it proper when occasionally the men marry at the age of
eighteen or nineteen, the girls at that of fifteen or sixteen. The
Prince is declared of age with his eighteenth year, and considered
capable to govern a vast empire and numerous people. Common mortals
acquire the right to govern their possible property only at the age of
twenty-one.

The difference of opinion as to the age when marriage is desirable shows
that public opinion judges by the social standing of the bride and
bridegroom. Its reasons have nothing to do with the human being as a
natural entity, or with its natural instincts. It happens, however, that
Nature's impulses do not yoke themselves to social conditions, nor to
the views and prejudices that spring from them. So soon as man has
reached maturity, the sexual instincts assert themselves with force;
indeed, they are the incarnation of the human being, and they demand
satisfaction from the mature being, at the peril of severe physical and
mental suffering.

The age of sexual ripeness differs according to individuals, climate and
habits of life. In the warm zone it sets in with the female sex, as a
rule, at the age of eleven to twelve years, and not infrequently are
women met with there, who, already at that age, carry offspring on their
arms; but at their twenty-fifth or thirtieth year, these have lost their
bloom. In the temperate zone, the rule with the female sex is from the
fourteenth to the sixteenth year, in some cases later. Likewise is the
age of puberty different between country and city women. With healthy,
robust country girls, who move much in the open air and work vigorously,
menstruation sets in later, on the average, than with our badly
nourished, weak, hypernervous, ethereal city young ladies. Yonder,
sexual maturity develops normally, with rare disturbances; here a normal
development is the exception: all manner of illnesses set in, often
driving the physician to desperation. How often are not physicians
compelled to declare that, along with a change of life, the most radical
cure is marriage. But how apply such a cure? Insuperable obstacles rise
against the proposition.

All this goes to show where the change must be looked for. In the first
place, the point is to make possible a totally different education, one
that takes into consideration the physical as well as the mental being;
in the second place, to establish a wholly different system of life and
of work. But both of these are, without exception, possible for all only
under _wholly different social conditions_.

Our social conditions have raised a violent contradiction between man,
as a natural and sexual being, on the one hand, and man as a social
being on the other. The contradiction has made itself felt at no period
as strongly as at this; and it produces a number of diseases into whose
nature we will go no further, but that affect mainly the female sex: in
the first place, her organism depends, in much higher degree than that
of man, upon her sexual mission, and is influenced thereby, as shown by
the regular recurrence of her periods; in the second place, most of the
obstacles to marriage lie in the way of women, preventing her from
satisfying her strongest natural impulse in a natural manner. The
contradiction between natural want and social compulsion goes against
the grain of Nature; it leads to secret vices and excesses that
undermine every organism but the strongest.

Unnatural gratification, especially with the female sex, is often most
shamelessly promoted. More or less underhandedly, certain preparations
are praised, and they are recommended especially in the advertisements
of most of the papers that penetrate into the family circle as
especially devoted to its entertainment. These puffs are addressed
mainly to the better situated portion of society, seeing the prices of
the preparations are so high that a family of small means can hardly
come by them. Side by side with these shameless advertisements are found
the puffs--meant for the eyes of both sexes--of obscene pictures,
especially of whole series of photographs, of poems and prose works of
similar stripe, aimed at sexual incitation, and that call for the action
of police and District Attorneys. But these gentlemen are too busy with
the "civilization, marriage and family-destroying" Socialist movement to
be able to devote full attention to such machinations. A part of our
works of fiction labors in the same direction. The wonder would be if
sexual excesses, artificially incited, besides, failed to manifest
themselves in unhealthy and harmful ways, and to assume the proportions
of a social disease.

The idle, voluptuous life of many women in the property classes; their
refined measures of nervous stimulants; their overfeeding with a certain
kind of artificial sensation, cultivated in certain lines on the
hothouse plan, and often considered the principal topic of conversation
and sign of culture by that portion of the female sex that suffers of
hypersensitiveness and nervous excitement;--all this incites still more
the sexual senses, and naturally leads to excesses.

Among the poor, it is certain exhausting occupations, especially of a
sedentary nature, that promotes congestion of blood in the abdominal
organs, and promotes sexual excitation. One of the most dangerous
occupations in this direction is connected with the, at present, widely
spread sewing machine. This occupation works such havoc that, with ten
or twelve hours' daily work, the strongest organism is ruined within a
few years. Excessive sexual excitement is also promoted by long hours of
work in a steady high temperature, for instance, sugar refineries,
bleacheries, cloth-pressing establishments, night work by gaslight in
overcrowded rooms, especially when both sexes work together.

A succession of further phenomena has been here unfolded, sharply
illustrative of the irrationableness and unhealthiness of modern
conditions. These are evils deeply rooted in our social state of things,
and removable neither by the moral sermonizings nor the palliatives that
religious quacks of the male and female sexes have so readily at hand.
The axe must be laid to the root of the evil. The question is to bring
about a natural system of education, together with healthy conditions of
life and work, and to do this in amplest manner, to the end that the
normal gratification of natural and healthy instincts be made possible
for all.

As to the male sex, a number of considerations are absent that are
present with the female sex. Due to his position as master, and in so
far as social barriers do not hinder him, there is on the side of man
the free choice of love. On the other hand, the character of marriage as
an institution for support, the excess of women, custom;--all these
circumstances conspire to prevent woman from manifesting her will; they
force her to wait till she is wanted. As a rule, she seizes gladly the
opportunity, soon as offered, to reach the hand to the man who redeems
her from the social ostracism and neglect, that is the lot of that poor
waif, the "old maid." Often she looks down with contempt upon those of
her sisters who have yet preserved their self-respect, and have not sold
themselves into mental prostitution to the first comer, preferring to
tread single the thorny path of life.

On the other hand, social considerations tie down the man, who desires
to reach by marriage the gratification of his life's requirements. He
must put himself the question: Can you support a wife, and the children
that may come, so that pressing cares, the destroyers of your happiness,
may be kept away? The better his marital intentions are, the more
ideally he conceives them, the more he is resolved to wed only out of
love, all the more earnestly must he put the question to himself. To
many, the affirmative answer is, under the present economic conditions,
a matter of impossibility: they prefer to remain single. With other and
less conscientious men, another set of considerations crowd upon the
mind. Thousands of men reach an independent position, one in accord with
their wants, only comparatively late. But they can keep a wife in a
style suitable to their station only if she has large wealth. True
enough, many young men have exaggerated notions on the requirements of a
so-called life "suitable to one's station." Nevertheless, they can not
be blamed--as a result of the false education above described, and of
the social habits of a large number of women,--for not guarding against
demands from that quarter that are far beyond their powers. Good women,
modest in their demands, these men often never come to know. These
women are retiring; they are not to be found there where such men have
acquired the habit of looking for a wife; while those whom they meet are
not infrequently such as seek to win a husband by means of their looks,
and are intent, by external means, by show, to deceive him regarding
their personal qualities and material conditions. The means of seduction
of all sorts are plied all the more diligently in the measure that these
ladies come on in years, when marriage becomes a matter of hot haste.
Does any of these succeed in conquering a husband, she has become so
habituated to show, jewelry, finery and expensive pleasures, that she is
not inclined to forego them in marriage. The superficial nature of her
being crops up in all directions, and therein an abyss is opened for the
husband. Hence many prefer to leave alone the flower that blooms on the
edge of the precipice, and that can be plucked only at the risk of
breaking their necks. They go their ways alone, and seek company and
pleasure under the protection of their freedom. Deception and swindle
are practices everywhere in full swing in the business life of
capitalist society: no wonder they are applied also in contracting
marriage, and that, when they succeed, both parties are drawn into
common sorrows.

According to E. Ansell, the age of marriage among the cultured and
independent males of England was, between 1840-1871, on an average 29.25
years. Since then the average has risen for many classes, by at least
one year. For the different occupations, the average age of marriage,
between 1880-1885, was as follows:--


      Occupations.                               Age.
    Miners                                       23.56
    Textile workers                              23.88
    Shoemakers and tailors                       24.42
    Skilled laborers                             24.85
    Day laborers                                 25.06
    Clerks                                       25.75
    Retailers                                    26.17
    Farmers and their sons                       28.73
    Men of culture and men of independent means  30.72


These figures give striking proof of how social conditions and standing
affect marriage.

The number of men who, for several reasons, are kept from marrying is
ever on the increase. It is especially in the so-called upper ranks and
occupations that the men often do not marry, partly because the demands
upon them are too great, partly because it is just the men of these
social strata who seek and find pleasure and company elsewhere. On the
other hand, conditions are particularly unfavorable to women in places
where many pensionaries and their families, but few young men, have
their homes. In such places, the number of women who cannot marry rises
to 20 or 30 out of every 100. The deficit of candidates for marriage
affects strongest those female strata that, through education and social
position, make greater pretensions, and yet, outside of their persons,
have nothing to offer the man who is looking for wealth. This concerns
especially the female members of those numerous families that live upon
fixed salaries, are considered socially "respectable," but are without
means. The life of the female being in this stratum of society is,
comparatively speaking, the saddest of all those of her
fellow-sufferers. It is out of these strata that is mainly recruited the
most dangerous competition for the working-women in the embroidering,
seamstress, flower-making, millinery, glove and straw hat sewing; in
short, all the branches of industry that the employer prefers to have
carried on at the homes of the working-women. These ladies work for the
lowest wages, seeing that, in many cases, the question with them is not
to earn a full livelihood, but only something over and above that, or to
earn the outlay for a better wardrobe and for luxury. Employers have a
predilection for the competition of these ladies, so as to lower the
earnings of the poor working-woman and squeeze the last drop of blood
from her veins: it drives her to exert herself to the point of
exhaustion. Also not a few wives of government employes, whose husbands
are badly paid, and can not afford them a "life suitable to their rank,"
utilize their leisure moments in this vile competition that presses so
heavily upon wide strata of the female working class.

The activity on the part of the bourgeois associations of women for the
abolition of female labor and for the admission of women to the higher
professions, at present mainly, if not exclusively, appropriated by men,
aims principally at procuring a position in life for women from the
social circles just sketched. In order to secure for their efforts
greater prospects of success, these associations have loved to place
themselves under the protectorate of higher and leading ladies. The
bourgeois females imitate herein the example of the bourgeois males, who
likewise love such protectorates, and exert themselves in directions
that can bring only _small_, never _large results_. A Sisyphus work is
thus done with as much noise as possible, to the end of deceiving
oneself and others on the score of the necessity for a radical change.
The necessity is also felt to do all that is possible in order to
suppress all doubts regarding the wisdom of the foundations of our
social and political organization, and to prescribe them as treasonable.
The conservative nature of these endeavors prevents bourgeois
associations of women from being seized with so-called destructive
tendencies. When, accordingly, at the Women's Convention of Berlin, in
1894, the opinion was expressed by a minority that the bourgeois women
should go hand and hand with the working-women, i. e., with their
Socialist citizens, a storm of indignation went up from the majority.
But the bourgeois women will not succeed in pulling themselves out of
the quagmire by their own topknots.

How large the number is of women who, by reason of the causes herein
cited, must renounce married life, is not accurately ascertainable. In
Scotland, the number of unmarried women of the age of twenty years and
over was, towards the close of the sixties, 43 per cent. of the female
population, and there were 110 women to every 100 men. In England,
outside of Wales, there lived at that time 1,407,228 more women than men
of the age of 20 to 40, and 359,966 single women of over forty years of
age. Of each 100 women 42 were unmarried.

The surplus of women that Germany owns is very unevenly distributed in
point of territories and age. According to the census of 1890, it
stood:--[98]


                          To Every 1,000 Males, Females of
                                     the Age of
      Divisions.          Under 15.  15-40. 40-60. Over 60.
    Berlin                    1,014  1,056  1,108  1,666
    Kingdom of Saxony         1,020  1,032  1,112  1,326
    Kingdom of Bavaria, on
      the right of the Rhine  1,022  1,040  1,081  1,155
    On the left of the Rhine    986  1,024  1,065  1,175
    Wurtemberg                1,021  1,076  1,135  1,158
    Baden                     1,006  1,027  1,099  1,175
    Hamburg                   1,003    967  1,042  1,522
    Province of Brandenburg     986    981  1,085  1,261
    Province of Pommern         984  1,053  1,126  1,191
    Province of Rhineland       984    990  1,010  1,087
                              -----  -----  -----  -----
      German Empire             995  1,027  1,094  1,196


Accordingly, of marriageable age proper, 15-40, the surplus of women in
the German Empire amounts to 27 women to every 1,000 men. Seeing that,
within these age periods, there are 9,429,720 male to 9,682,454 female
inhabitants, there is a total female surplus of 252,734. In the same
four age periods, the proportion of the sexes in other countries of
Europe and outside of Europe stood as follows:--[99]


                          To Every 1,000 Males, Females of
                                     the Age of
                                                   60 and
      Countries.          Under 15.  15-40. 40-60. Over.
    Belgium (1890)              992    984  1,018  1,117
    Bulgaria (1888)             950  1,068    837    947
    Denmark (1890)              978  1,080  1,073  1,179
    France (1886)               989  1,003  1,006  1,063
    England and Wales (1891)  1,006  1,075  1,096  1,227
    Scotland (1891)             973  1,073  1,165  1,389
    Ireland (1891)              966  1,036  1,109  1,068
    Italy (1881)                963  1,021  1,005    980
    Luxemburg (1891)            996    997  1,004  1,042
    Holland (1889)              990  1,022  1,035  1,154
    Austria (1890)            1,005  1,046  1,079  1,130
    Hungary (1890)            1,001  1,040    996  1,000
    Sweden (1890)               975  1,062  1,140  1,242
    Switzerland (1888)          999  1,059  1,103  1,148
    Japan (1891)                978    962    951  1,146
    Cape of Good Hope (1891)    989  1,008    939  1,019


It is seen that all countries of the same or similar economic structure
reveal the identical conditions with regard to the distribution of the
sexes according to ages. According thereto, and apart from all other
causes already mentioned, a considerable number of women have in such
countries no prospect of entering wedded life. The number of unmarried
women is even still larger, because a large number of men prefer, for
all sorts of reasons, to remain single. What say hereto those
superficial folks, who oppose the endeavor of women after a more
independent, equal-righted position in life, and who refer them to
marriage and domestic life? The blame does not lie with the women that
so many of them do not marry; and how matters stand with "conjugal
happiness" has been sufficiently depicted.

What becomes of the victims of our social conditions? The resentment of
insulted and injured Nature expresses itself in the peculiar facial
lines and characteristics whereby so-called old maids, the same as old
ascetic bachelors, stamp themselves different from other human beings in
all countries and all climates; and it gives testimony of the mighty and
harmful effect of suppressed natural love. Nymphomania with women, and
numerous kinds of hysteria, have their origin in that source; and also
discontent in married life produces attacks of hysteria, and is
responsible for barrenness.

Such, in main outlines, is our modern married life and its effects. The
conclusion is: _Modern marriage is an institution that is closely
connected with the existing social condition, and stands or falls with
it. But this marriage is in the course of dissolution and decay, exactly
as capitalist society itself_,--because, as demonstrated under the
several heads on the subject of marriage:

1. Relatively, the number of births declines, although population
increases on the whole,--showing that the condition of the family
deteriorates.

2. Actions for divorce increase in numbers, considerably more than does
population, and, in the majority of cases, the plaintiffs are women,
although, both economically and socially, they are the greatest
sufferers thereunder,--showing that the unfavorable factors, that
operate upon marriage, are on the increase, and marriage, accordingly,
is dissolving and falling to pieces.

3. Relatively, the number of marriages is on the decline, although
population increases,--showing again that marriage, in the eyes of many,
no longer answers its social and moral purposes, and is considered
worthless, or dangerous.

4. In almost all the countries of civilization there is a disproportion
between the number of the sexes, and to the disadvantage of the female
sex, and the disproportion is not caused by births--there are, on the
average, more boys born than girls,--but is due to unfavorable social
and political causes, that lie in the political and economic conditions.

_Seeing that all these unnatural conditions, harmful to woman in
particular, are grounded in the nature of capitalist society, and grow
worse as this social system continues, the same proves itself unable to
end the evil and emancipate woman. Another social order is, accordingly,
requisite thereto._

FOOTNOTES:

[86] Plato requires in his "Republic" that "the women be educated like
the men," and he demands careful selection in breeding. He, accordingly,
was thoroughly familiar with the effect of a careful selection on the
development of man. Aristotle lays it down as a maxim of education that
"First the body, then the mind must be built up," Aristotle's
"Politics." With us, when thought is at all bestowed upon the matter,
the body, the scaffolding for the intellect, is considered last.

[87] "Die Mission unseres Jahrhunderts. Eine Studie zur Frauenfrage,"
Irma v. Troll-Borostyani; Pressburg and Leipsic.

[88] In "Les Femmes Qui Tuent et les Femmes Qui Votent," Alexander
Dumas, son, narrates: "A Catholic clergyman of high standing stated in
the course of a conversation that, out of a hundred of his former female
pupils, who married, after a month at least eighty came to him and said
they were disillusioned and regretted having married." This sounds very
probable. The Voltarian French bourgeoisie reconcile it with their
conscience to allow their daughters to be educated in the cloisters.
They proceed from the premises that an ignorant woman is more easy to
lead than one who is posted. Conflicts and disappointment are
inevitable. Laboulaye gives the flat-footed advice to keep woman in
moderate ignorance, because "notre empire est detruit, si l'homme est
reconnu" (our empire is over if man is found out).

[89] According to observations made in the psychiatric clinic at Vienna,
paralysis (softening of the brain) is making by far greater progress
among women than among men. To 100 patients taken in, there were in the
years:


    1873-77: 15.7 male and 4.4 female paralytics.
    1888-92: 19.7 male and 10.0 female paralytics.


During the sixties there was, on the average, 1 female paralytic to 8
males; now there is 1 female paralytic to 3.49 males in Denmark, to 3.22
in middle and upper Italy, 2.89 in England, 2.77 in Belgium, and 2.40 in
France.--"Wiener Arbeiter Zeitung," January 31, 1895.

[90] Dr. F. B. Simon: "Die Gesundheitspflege des Weibes," Stuttgart,
1893, F. J. Dietz.

[91] Dr. F. B. Simon. Simon devotes extensive consideration to this
theme, together with that akin thereto,--why so many married women take
sick shortly after marriage without knowing why; and he holds up the
mirror to the men.

[92] Karl Buecher: "Ueber die Vertheilung der beiden Geschlechter auf
der Erde," "Allgemeines Statistisches Archiv," Tuebingen, 1892.

[93] Besides 550,430 children without specification of sex.

[94] "Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer das Deutsche Reich." Jahrgang 1893.

[95] Ibidem.

[96] "Statistik des Deutschen Reiches," 1890.

[97] "Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich," 1889-1894.

[98] "Statistik des Deutschen Reiches."

[99] "Statistik des Deutschen Reiches."




CHAPTER III.

PROSTITUTION A NECESSARY SOCIAL INSTITUTION OF THE CAPITALIST WORLD.


Marriage presents one side of the sexual life of the capitalist or
bourgeois world; prostitution presents the other. Marriage is the
obverse, prostitution the reverse of the medal. If men find no
satisfaction in wedlock, then they usually seek the same in
prostitution. Those men, who, for whatever reason, renounce married
life, also usually seek satisfaction in prostitution. To those men,
accordingly, who, whether out of their free will or out of compulsion,
live in celibacy, as well as to those whom marriage does not offer what
was expected of it, conditions are more favorable for the gratification
of the sexual impulse than to women.

Man ever has looked upon the use of prostitution as a privilege due him
of right. All the harder and severer does he keep guard and pass
sentence when a woman, who is no prostitute, commits a "slip." That
woman is instinct with the same impulses as man, aye, that at given
periods of her life (at menstruation) these impulses assert themselves
more vehemently than at others,--that does not trouble him. In virtue of
his position as master, he compels her to violently suppress her most
powerful impulses, and he conditions both her character in society and
her marriage upon her chastity. Nothing illustrates more drastically,
and also revoltingly, the dependence of woman upon man than this
radically different conception regarding the gratification of the
identical natural impulse, and the radically different measure by which
it is judged.

To man, circumstances are particularly favorable. Nature has devolved
upon woman the consequences of the act of generation: outside of the
enjoyment, man has neither trouble nor responsibility. This advantageous
position over against woman has promoted that unbridled license in
sexual indulgence wherein a considerable part of men distinguish
themselves. Seeing, however, that, as has been shown, a hundred causes
lie in the way of the legitimate gratification of the sexual instinct,
or prevent its full satisfaction, the consequence is frequent
gratification, like beasts in the woods.

_Prostitution thus becomes a social institution in the capitalist world,
the same as the police, standing armies, the Church, and
wage-mastership._

Nor is this an exaggeration. We shall prove it.

We have told how the ancient world looked upon prostitution, and
considered it necessary, aye, had it organized by the State, as well in
Greece as in Rome. What views existed on the subject during the Middle
Ages has likewise been described. Even St. Augustine, who, next to St.
Paul, must be looked upon as the most important prop of Christendom, and
who diligently preached asceticism, could not refrain from exclaiming:
"Suppress the public girls, and the violence of passion will knock
everything of a heap." The provincial Council of Milan, in 1665,
expressed itself in similar sense.

Let us hear the moderns:

Dr. F. S. Huegel says:[100] "Advancing civilization will gradually drape
prostitution in more pleasing forms, but only with the end of the world
will it be wiped off the globe." A bold assertion; yet he who is not
able to project himself beyond the capitalist form of society, he who
does not realize that society will change so as to arrive at healthy and
natural social conditions,--he must agree with Dr. Huegel.

Hence also did Dr. Wichern, the late pious Director of the Rauhen House
near Hamburg, Dr. Patton of Lyon, Dr. William Tait of Edinburg, and Dr.
Parent-Duchatelet of Paris, celebrated through his investigations of the
sexual diseases and prostitution, agree in declaring: "Prostitution is
ineradicable _because it hangs together with the social institutions_,"
and all of them demanded its regulation by the State. Also Schmoelder
writes: "Immorality as a trade has existed at all times and in all
places, and, so far as the human eye can see, _it will remain a constant
companion_ of the human race."[101] Seeing that the authorities cited
stand, without exception, upon the ground of the modern social order,
the thought occurs to none that, with the aid of another social order,
the causes of prostitution, and, consequently, prostitution itself,
might disappear; none of them seeks to fathom the causes. Indeed, upon
one and another, engaged in this question, the fact at times dawns that
the sorry social conditions, which numerous women suffer under, might be
the chief reason why so many women sell their bodies; but the thought
does not press itself through to its conclusion, to wit, that,
therefore, the necessity arises of bringing about other social
conditions. Among those who recognize that the economic conditions are
the chief cause of prostitution belong Th. Bade, who declares:[102] "The
causes of the bottomless moral depravity, out of which the prostitute
girl is born, lie in the existing social conditions.... _It is the
bourgeois dissolution of the middle classes and of their material
existence, particularly of the class of the artisans_, only a small
fraction of which carries on to-day an independent occupation as a
trade." Bade closes his observations, saying: "Want for material
existence, that has partly worn out the families of the middle class and
will yet wear them out wholly, leads also to the moral ruin of the
family, especially of the female sex." In fact, the statistical figures,
gathered by the Police Department of Berlin, between 1871-1872, on the
extraction of 2,224 enrolled prostitutes, show:


    Number.  Per Cent.   Father's Occupation.

     1,015     47.9     Artisans
       467     22.0     Millhands
       305     14.4     Small office-holders
       222     10.4     Merchants and railroad workers
        87     4.1      Farmers
        26     1.2      Military service


Of 102 the father's occupation was not ascertainable.

Specialists and experts rarely take up investigations of a deeper
nature; they accept the facts that lie before them, and judge in the
style of the "Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift," that writes in its No.
35, for the year 1863: "What else is there left to the large majority of
willing and unwilling celibates, in order to satisfy their _natural
wants_, than the forbidden fruit of the Venus Pandemos?" The paper is,
accordingly, of the opinion that, for the sake of these celibates,
prostitution is necessary, because what else, forsooth, are they to do
in order to satisfy their sexual impulse? And it closes, saying: "Seeing
that prostitution is necessary, it has the right to existence, to
protection, and to immunity from the State." And Dr. Huegel declares
himself in his work, mentioned above, in accord with this view. Man,
accordingly, to whom celibacy is a horror and a martyrdom, is the only
being considered; that there are also millions of women living in
celibacy is well known; but they have to submit. What is right for man,
is, accordingly, wrong for women; is in her case immorality and a crime.

The Leipsic Police Doctor, Dr. J. Kuehn, says:[103] "Prostitution is not
merely an evil that must be tolerated, _it is a necessary evil_, because
it protects the wives from infidelity, [which only the husbands have the
right to be guilty of] and virtue also [female virtue, of course, the
husbands have no need of the commodity] from being assailed [sic.] and,
therefore, from falling." These few words of Dr. Kuehn typify, in all
its nakedness, the crass egoism of male creation. Kuehn takes the
correct stand for a Police Doctor, who, by superintending prostitution,
sacrifices himself, to the end of saving the men from disagreeable
diseases. In the same sense with him did his successor, Dr. Eckstein,
utter himself at the twelfth convention of the German Associations of
House and City Real Estate Owners, held in Magdeburg in the summer of
1890. The honorable house-owners wished to know how they could prevent
the numerous instances of prostitutes occupying their houses, and how to
protect themselves against fines in case prostitutes are caught living
in them. Dr. Eckstein lectured them on this head to the effect that
prostitution was a "necessary evil," never absent from any people or
religion. Another interesting gentleman is Dr. Fock, who in a treatise,
entitled "Prostitution, in Its Ethical and Sanitary Respects," in the
"Deutschen Vierteljahrschrift fuer offentliche Gesundheitspflege," vol.
xx, No. 1, considers prostitution "an unenviable corollary of our
civilized arrangements." He fears an over-production of people if all
were to marry upon reaching the age of puberty; hence he considers
important to have prostitution "regulated" by the State. He considers
natural that the State supervise and regulate prostitution, and thereby
assume the care of providing for the supply of girls that are free from
syphilis. He pronounces himself in favor of the most rigid inspection of
"all women, proven to lead an abandoned life;"--also when ladies of "an
abandoned life" belong to the prominent classes? It is the old story.
That in all logic and justice also those men should be held under
surveillance who hunt up prostitutes, maintain them and make their
existence possible,--of that no one thinks. Dr. Fock also demands the
taxing of the prostitutes, and their concentration in given streets. In
other words, the Christian State is to procure for itself a revenue out
of prostitution, and, at the same time, organize and place prostitution
under its protection for the benefit of male creation. What was it that
the Emperor Vespasian said at a somewhat similar juncture? "_Non
olet!_"--it smells not.

Did we exaggerate when we said: Prostitution is to-day a necessary
social institution just as the police, standing armies, the Church and
wage-mastership?

In the German Empire, prostitution is not, like in France, organized and
superintended by the State; it is only tolerated. Official public houses
are forbidden by law, and procuring is severely punishable. But that
does not prevent that in a large number of German cities public houses
continue to exist, and are winked at by the police. This establishes an
incomprehensible state of things. The defiance of the law implied in
such a state of things dawned even upon our statesmen and they bestirred
themselves to remove the objection by legislative enactments. The German
Criminal Code makes also the lodging of a prostitute a penal offense. On
the other hand, however, the police are compelled to tolerate thousands
of women as prostitutes, and, in a measure, to privilege them in their
trade, provided they enter themselves as prostitutes on the Police
Register, and submit to the Police regulations,--for instance,
periodically recurring examinations by a physician. It follows, however,
that, if the Government licenses the prostitute, and thereby protects
the exercise of her trade, she must also have a habitation. Aye, it is
even in the interest of public health and order that they have such a
place to ply their trade in. What contradictions! On the one hand, the
Government officially acknowledges that prostitution is necessary; on
the other, it prosecutes and punishes the prostitute and the pimp. But
it is out of contradictions that bourgeois society is put together.
Moreover, the attitude of the Government is an avowal that prostitution
is a Sphinx to modern society, the riddle which society can not solve:
it considers necessary to tolerate and superintend prostitution in order
to avoid greater evils. In other words, our social system, so boastful
of its morality, its religiousness, its civilization and its culture,
feels compelled to tolerate that immorality and corruption spread
through its body like a stealthy poison. But this state of things
betrays something else, besides _the admission by the Christian State
that marriage is insufficient, and that the husband has the right to
demand illegitimate gratification of his sexual instincts_. Woman counts
with such a State in so far only as she is willing, as a sexual being,
to yield to illegitimate male desires, i. e., become a prostitute. In
keeping herewith, the supervision and control, exercised by the organs
of the State over the registered prostitutes, do not fall upon the men
also, those who seek the prostitute. Such a provision would be a matter
of course if the sanitary police control was to be of any sense, and
even of partial effect,--apart from the circumstance that a sense of
justice would demand an even-handed application of the law to both
sexes. No; "supervision and control" fall upon woman alone.

This protection by the State of man and not woman, turns upside down the
nature of things. _It looks as if men were the weaker vessel and women
the stronger; as if woman were the seducer, and poor, weak man the
seduced._ The seduction-myth between Adam and Eve in Paradise continues
to operate in our opinions and laws, and it says to Christianity: "You
are right; woman is the arch seductress, the vessel of iniquity." Men
should be ashamed of such a sorry and unworthy _role_; but this _role_
of the "weak" and the "seduced" suits them;--_the more they are
protected, all the more may they sin_.

Wherever men assemble in large numbers, they seem unable to amuse
themselves without prostitution. This was shown, among other instances
of the kind, by the occurrences at the German Schuetzenfest, held in
Berlin in the summer of 1890, which caused 2,300 women to express
themselves as follows in a petition addressed to the Mayor of the German
capital: "May it please your Honor to allow us to bring to your
knowledge the matters that have reached the provinces, through the
press and other means of communication, upon the German shooting
matches, held at Pankow from the 6th to the 13th of July of this year.
The reports of the matter, that we have seen with indignation and
horror, represent the programme of that festival with the following
announcements, among others: 'First German Herald, the Greatest
Songstress of the World;' 'A Hundred Ladies and Forty Gentlemen:'
Besides these smaller _cafes chantants_ and shooting galleries, in which
importunate women forced themselves upon the men. Also a 'free concert,'
whose gaily-clad waitresses, seductively smiling, brazenly and
shamelessly invited the gymnasium students and the fathers of families,
the youths and the grown men alike, to the 'shooting retreats.'... The
barely dressed 'lady' who invited people to the booth of 'The Secrets of
Hamburg, or a Night in St. Pauli,' should have been enough to justify
her removal by the police. And then the shocking announcement, almost
incredible of the much boasted about Imperial capital, and hardly to be
believed by plain male and female citizens in the provinces, to the
effect that the managers of the festival had consented to the
employment, without pay, of 'young women' in large numbers, as
bar-maids, instead of the waiters who applied for work.... We, German
women, have thousands of occasions, as wives, mothers and as sisters, to
send our husbands, children, daughters and brothers to Berlin in the
service of the fatherland; we, consequently, pray to your Honor in all
humbleness and in the confident expectation that, with the aid of the
overpowering influence, which, as the chief magistrate of the Imperial
capital, lies in your hand, you may institute such investigations of
those disgraceful occurrences, or adopt such other measures as to your
Honor may seem fit, to the end that a recurrence of those orgies may not
have to be apprehended at the pending Sedan festival, for instance...."
(!!)

During the session of the Reichstag, from 1892 to 1893, the united
Governments made an effort to put an end to the contradiction that
governmental practice, on the one hand, and the Criminal Code on the
other, find themselves in with regard to prostitution. They introduced a
bill that was to empower the police to designate certain habitations to
prostitutes. It was admitted that prostitution could not be suppressed,
and that, therefore, the most practical thing was to tolerate the thing
in certain localities, and to control it. The bill--upon that all minds
were agreed--would, if it became a law, have called again to life the
brothels that were officially abolished in Prussia about 1845. The bill
caused a great uproar, and it evoked a number of protests in which the
warning was raised against the State's setting itself up as the
protector of prostitution, and thereby favoring the idea that the use of
prostitution was not in violation of good morals, or that the trade of
the prostitute was such that the State could allow and approve of. The
bill, which met with the strongest opposition both on the floor of the
Reichstag and in the committee, was pigeon-holed, and dared not again
come into daylight. That, nevertheless, such a bill could at all take
shape reveals the embarrassment that society is in.

The administrative regulation of prostitution raises in the minds of men
not only the belief that the State allows the use of prostitution, but
also that such control protects them against disease. Indeed, this
belief greatly promotes indulgence and recklessness on the part of men.
Brothels do not reduce sexual diseases, they promote the same: _the men
grow more careless and less cautious_.

Experience has taught that neither the establishment of houses of
prostitution, controlled by the police, nor the supervision and medical
inspection, ordered by the police, afford the slightest guarantee
against contagion. The nature of these diseases is frequently such that
they are not to be easily or immediately detected. If there is to be any
safety, the inspection would have to be held several times a day. That,
however, is impossible in view of the number of women concerned, and
also of the costs. Where thirty or forty prostitutes must be "done" in
an hour, inspection is hardly more than a farce; moreover, one or two
inspections a week is wholly inadequate. The success of these measures
also suffers shipwreck in the circumstance that the men, who transmit
the germs of disease from one woman to another, remain free from all
official annoyance. A prostitute, just inspected and found healthy, may
be infected that same hour by a diseased man, and she transmits the
virus to other patrons, until the next inspection day, or until she has
herself become aware of the disease. The control is not only illusory:
These inspections, made at command, and conducted by male, instead of
female physicians, hurt most deeply the sense of shame; and they
contribute to its total ruination. This is a phenomenon confirmed by
many physicians. Even the official report of the Berlin Police
Department admits the fact by stating: "It may also be granted that
_registration causes the moral sense of the prostitute to sink_ still
lower."[104] Accordingly, the prostitutes try their utmost to escape
this control. A further consequence of these police measures is that
they make it extraordinarily difficult, even impossible, for the
prostitute ever again to return to a decent trade. _A woman, that has
fallen under police control, is lost to society; she generally goes down
in misery within a few years._ Accurately and exhaustively did the fifth
Congress at Geneva for Combatting Immorality utter itself against the
police regulation of prostitutes, by declaring: "The compulsory medical
inspection of prostitutes is an all the more cruel punishment to the
woman, seeing that, by destroying the remnants of shame, still possible
within even the most abandoned, such inspection drags down completely
into depravity the wretched being that is subjected thereto. The State,
that means to regulate prostitution with the police, forgets that it
owes equal protection to both sexes; it demoralizes and degrades women.
Every system for the official regulation of prostitution has police
arbitrariness for its consequence, as well as the violation of civic
guaranties that are safeguarded to every individual, even to the
greatest criminal, against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. Seeing
this violation of right is exercised to the injury of woman only, the
consequence is an inequality, shocking to nature, between her and man.
Woman is degraded to the level of a mere means, and is no longer treated
as a person. _She is placed outside of the pale of law._"

Of how little use police control is, England furnishes a striking
illustration. In the year 1866 a law was enacted on the subject for
places in which soldiers and marines were garrisoned. Now, then, while
from 1860 to 1866, without the law, the lighter cases of syphilis had
declined from 32.68 to 24.73 per cent., after a six years' enforcement
of the new law, the percentage of diseased in 1872 was still 24.26. In
other words, it was not one-half per cent. lower in 1872 than in 1866;
but the average for these six years was 1-16 per cent. higher than in
1866. In sight of this, a special Commission, appointed in 1873, to
investigate the effect of that law, arrived at the unanimous conclusion
that "the periodical inspection of the women who usually have sexual
intercourse with the _personnel_ of the army and navy, _had, at best,
not occasioned the slightest diminution in the number of cases_," and it
_recommended the suspension_ of periodical inspections.

The effects of the Act of Inspection on the women subjected thereto
were, however, quite different from those on the troops. In 1866, there
were, to every 1,000 prostitutes, 121 diseases; in 1868, after the law
had been in force two years, there were 202. The number then gradually
dropped, but, nevertheless, still exceeded in 1874 the figure for 1866
by 16 cases. Under the Act, deaths also increased frightfully among the
prostitutes. In 1865 the proportion was 9.8 to every 1,000 prostitutes,
whereas, in 1874 it had risen to 23. When, towards the close of the
sixties, the English Government made the attempt to extend the Act of
Inspection to all English cities, a storm of indignation arose from the
women. The law was considered an affront to the whole sex. The Habeas
Corpus Act,--that fundamental law, that protects the English citizen
against police usurpation--would, such was the sentiment, be suspended
for women: any brutal policeman, animated by revenge or any other base
motive, would be free to seize any decent woman on the suspicion of her
being a prostitute, whereas the licentiousness of the men would remain
unmolested, aye, would be protected and fed, by just such a law.

Although this intervention in behalf of the outcasts of their sex
readily exposed the English women to misrepresentation and degrading
remarks from the quarter of narrow-minded men, the women did not allow
themselves to be held back from energetically opposing the introduction
of the law that was an insult to their sex. In newspaper articles and
pamphlets the "pros" and "cons" were discussed by men and women; in
Parliament, the extension of the law was, first, prevented; its repeal
followed later. The German police is vested with a similar power, and
cases that have forced themselves into publicity from Berlin, Leipsic
and other cities, prove that its abuse--or be it "mistakes" in its
exercise--is easy; nevertheless, of an energetic opposition to such
regulations naught is heard. Even in middle class Norway, brothels were
forbidden in 1884; in 1888 the compulsory registration of the
prostitutes and the inspection connected therewith were abolished in the
capital, Christiania; and in January, 1893, the enactment was made
general for the whole country. Very rightly does Mrs. Guillaume-Schack
remark upon the "protective" measures adopted by the State in behalf of
the men: "To what end do we teach our sons to respect virtue and
morality if the State pronounces immorality a necessary evil; and if,
before the young man has at all reached mental maturity, the State leads
woman to him stamped by the authorities as a merchandise, as a toy for
his passion?"

Let a sexually diseased man, in his unbridled career of licentiousness,
contaminate ever so many of these poor beings--who, to the honor of
woman be it said, are mostly driven by bitter want or through seduction
to ply their disgraceful trade,--the scurvy fellow remains unmolested.
But woe to the woman who does not forthwith submit to inspection and
treatment! The garrison cities, university towns, etc., with their
congestion of vigorous, healthy men, are the chief centers of
prostitution and of its dangerous diseases, that are carried thence into
the remotest corners of the land, and everywhere spread infection. The
same holds with the sea towns. What the moral qualifications are with a
large number of our students the following utterance in a publication
for the promotion of morality may give an idea of: "_With by far the
larger number of students, the views entertained upon matters of
morality are shockingly low, aye, they are downright unclean._"[105] And
these are the circles--boastful of their "German breed," and "German
morals"--from which our administrative officers, our District Attorneys
and our Judges are in part recruited.

"Thy sins shall be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth
generation." This Bible sentence falls upon the dissipated and sexually
diseased man in the fullest sense of the word, unhappily also upon the
innocent woman. "Attacks of apoplexy with young men and also women,
several manifestations of spinal debility and softening of the brains,
all manner of nervous diseases, affections of the eyes, cariosity,
inflammation of the intestines, sterility and atrophy, _frequently
proceed from nothing else than chronic and neglected, and, often for
special reasons, concealed syphilis_.... As things now are, ignorance
and lightheadedness also contribute towards _turning blooming daughters
of the land into anaemic, listless creatures_, who, under the burden of
a chronic inflammation of the pelvis, _have to atone for the excesses
committed by their husbands before and after marriage_."[106] In the
same sense does Dr. Blaschke utter himself:[107] "Epidemics like cholera
and smallpox, diphtheria and typhus, whose visible effects are, by
reason of their suddenness, realized by all, although hardly equal to
syphilis in point of virulence, and, in point of diffusion, not to be
compared therewith, yet are they the terror of the population ... while
before syphilis society stands, one feels inclined to say, with
frightful indifference." The fault lies in the circumstance that it is
considered "improper" to talk openly of such things. Did not even the
German Reichstag stop short before a resolution to provide by law that
sexual diseases, as well as all others, shall be treated by Sick-Benefit
Associations?

The syphilitic virus is in its effects the most tenacious and hardest
poison to stamp out. Many years after an outbreak has been overcome, and
the patient believes every trace to be wiped out, the sequels frequently
crop up afresh in the wife or the new-born child;[108] and a swarm of
ailments among wives and children trace their causes back, respectively,
to marital and parental venereal diseases. With some who are born blind,
the misfortune is due to the father's sins, the consequences of which
transmitted themselves to the wife, and from her to the child.
Weak-minded and idiotic children may frequently ascribe their infirmity
to the same cause. Finally, what dire disaster may be achieved through
vaccination by an insignificant drop of syphilitic blood, our own days
can furnish crass illustrations of.

In the measure that men, willingly or otherwise, renounce marriage, and
seek the gratification of natural impulses through illegitimate
channels, seductive allurements increase also. The great profits yielded
by all undertakings that cater to immorality, attract numerous and
unscrupulous business men, who spare no artifice of refinement to draw
and keep customers. Account is taken of every demand, according to the
rank and position of the custom, also of its means and readiness to
bleed. If some of these "public houses" in our large cities were to blab
out their secrets, the fact would appear that their female
tenants--mostly of low extraction, without either culture or education,
often unable to write their own names, but possessed of all the mere
physical charms--stand in the most intimate relations with "leaders of
society," with men of high intelligence and culture. There would be
found among these Cabinet Ministers, high military dignitaries,
Councillors, members of Legislatures, Judges, etc., going in and out,
and side by side with representatives of the aristocracy of birth, of
finance, of commerce and of industry,--all of them, who, by day and in
society, strut about with grave and dignified mien as "representatives
and guardians of morality, of order, of marriage, and of the family,"
and who stand at the head of the Christian charity societies and of
societies for the "suppression of prostitution." Modern capitalist
society resembles a huge carnival festival, at which all seek to deceive
and fool one another. Each carries his official disguise with dignity,
in order later, unofficially and with all the less restraint, to give a
loose to his inclinations and passions. All the while, public life is
running over with "Morality," "Religion" and "Propriety." In no age was
there greater hypocrisy than in ours. The number of the augurs swells
daily.

The supply of women for purposes of lust rises even more rapidly than
the demand. Our increasingly precarious social conditions--want,
seduction, the love for an externally brilliant and apparently easy
life--furnish the female candidates from all social strata. Quite
typically does a novel of Hans Wachenhusen[109] depict the state of
things in the capital of the German Empire. The author expresses himself
on the purpose of his work in these words: "My book deals mainly with
the victims of the female sex and its steady depreciation, due to the
unnatural plight of our social and civic state, through its own fault,
through neglect of education, through the craving of luxury and the
increasing light-headed supply in the market of life. It speaks of this
sex's increasing surplus, which renders daily more hopeless the new-born
ones, more prospectless those that grow up.... I wrote much in the same
way as the District Attorney puts together the past life of a criminal,
in order to establish therefrom the measure of his guilt. Novels being
generally considered works of fiction, permissible opposites of Truth,
the following is, in that sense, no novel, but a true picture of life,
without coloring." In Berlin, things are no better and no worse than in
other large cities. Whether Greek-Orthodox St. Petersburg or Catholic
Rome, Germanic-Christian Berlin or heathen Paris, puritanic London or
gay Vienna, approach nearer to Babylon of old is hard to decide.
"Prostitution possesses its written and its unwritten laws, its
resources, its various resorts, from the poorest cottage to the most
splendid palace, its numberless grades from the lowest to the most
refined and cultivated; it has its special amusements and public places
of meeting, its police, its hospitals, its prisons and its
literature."[110] "We no longer celebrate the festival of Osiris, the
Bacchanalia and the Indian orgies of the spring month; but in Paris and
other large cities, under the black cloak of night, behind the walls of
'public' and 'private' houses, people give themselves over to orgies and
Bacchanalia that the boldest pen dare not describe."[111]

Under such conditions, the traffic in female flesh has assumed mammoth
proportions. It is conducted on a most extensive scale, and is most
admirably organized in the very midst of the seats of civilization and
culture, rarely attracting the notice of the police. A swarm of brokers,
agents, carriers, male and female, ply the trade with the same unconcern
as if they dealt in any other merchandise. Birth certificates are
forged, and bills of lading are drawn up with accurate descriptions of
the qualifications of the several "articles," and are handed over to the
carriers as directions for the purchasers. As with all merchandise, the
price depends upon the quality, and the several categories are assorted
and consigned, according to the taste and the requirements of the
customers in different places and countries. The slyest manipulations
are resorted to in order to evade the snares and escape the vigilance of
the police; not infrequently large sums are used to shut the eyes of the
guardians of the law. A number of such cases have been established,
especially in Paris.

Germany enjoys the sorry fame of being the woman market for half the
world. The innate German migratory disposition seems to animate also a
portion of the women. In larger numbers than those of any other people,
the Austrian excepted, do they furnish their contingent to the supply of
international prostitution. German women populate the harems of the
Turks, as well as the public houses of central Siberia, and as far away
as Bombay, Singapore, San Francisco and Chicago. In a book of
travels,[112] the author, W. Joest, speaks as follows on the German
trade in girls: "People so often grow warm in our moral Germany over
the slave trade that some African negro Prince may be carrying on, or
over conditions in Cuba and Brazil, but they should rather keep in mind
the beam in their own eyes: _in no country is there such a trade with
white female slaves, from no country is the export of this living
merchandise as large as it is from Germany and Austria_. The road that
these girls take can be accurately followed. From Hamburg they are
shipped to South America; Bahia and Rio de Janeiro receive their quotas;
the largest part is destined for Montevideo and Buenos Ayres, while a
small rest goes through the Straits of Magellan as far as Valparaiso.
Another stream is steered via England, or direct to North America,
where, however, it can hold its own only with difficulty against the
domestic product, and, consequently, splits up down the Mississippi as
far as New Orleans and Texas, or westward to California. Thence, the
coast is supplied as far south as Panama; while Cuba, the West Indies
and Mexico draw their supplies from New Orleans. Under the title of
"Bohemians," further droves of German girls are exported over the Alps
to Italy and thence further south to Alexandria, Suez, Bombay, Calcutta
and Singapore, aye, even to Hongkong and as far as Shanghai. The Dutch
Indies and Eastern Asia, Japan, especially, are poor markets, seeing
that Holland does not allow white girls of this kind in its colonies,
while in Japan the daughters of the soil are themselves too pretty and
cheap. American competition from San Francisco also tends to spoil the
otherwise favorable chances. Russia is provided from East Prussia,
Pomerania and Poland. The first station is usually Riga. Here the
dealers from St. Petersburg and Moscow supply themselves, and ship their
goods in large quantities to Nischni-Novgorod and beyond the Ural
Mountains to Irbit and Krestofsky, aye as far as the interior of
Siberia. I found, for instance, a German girl in Tschita who had been
traded in this way. This wonderful trade is thoroughly organized, it is
attended to by agents and commercial travelers. _If ever the Foreign
Department of the German Empire were to demand of its consuls reports on
this matter, quite interesting statistical tables could be put
together._"

This trade flourishes to this day at its fullest, as proved in the
autumn of 1893 by a Social Democratic delegate to the German Reichstag.

The number of prostitutes is hard to estimate; accurately it can not be
at all given. The police can state approximately the number of women
whose principal occupation is prostitution; but it can not do this with
regard to the much larger number of those who resort to it as a side
means of income. All the same, the figures approximately known are
frightfully high. According to v. Oettingen, the number of prostitutes
in London was, as early as the close of the sixties, estimated at
80,000. In Paris the number of registered prostitutes in 1892 was 4,700,
but fully one-third escape police control. In all Paris, there were, in
1892, about sixty brothels, with 600 to 700 prostitutes, and the number
of brothels is steadily on the decline. On the other hand, based upon an
investigation, instituted by the Municipal Council of Paris, in 1889,
the number of women who prostitute themselves is placed at the enormous
figure of 120,000. In Berlin, the number of prostitutes, registered with
the police, was:--


    1886  3,006
    1887  3,063
    1888  3,392
    1889  3,703
    1890  4,039


In 1890, there were six physicians employed, whose duty it was to devote
two hours a day to inspection.[113] Since then the number of physicians
has been increased. The prostitutes, registered with the police,
constitute, however, in Berlin also, only a very small portion of the
total. Expert sources estimate it at not less than 50,000. In the year
1890 alone, there were in 9,024 liquor saloons 2,022 bar-maids, almost
all of whom yield to prostitution. Furthermore, the, from year to year,
rising number of girls, arrested for disorderly conduct, shows that
prostitution in Berlin is steadily on the increase. The numbers of these
arrests were:--


    1881  10,878
    1884  11,157
    1887  13,358
    1890  16,605


Of the 16,605 girls, arrested in 1890, there were 9,162 carried for
sentence before the Judge. There were, accordingly, 30 of these at every
session of the court, and 128 of them were placed under the police by
judicial decree. Already in 1860, it was calculated in Hamburg that
every ninth woman was a prostitute. Since then the proportion has become
greatly worse.

In Germany, the number of prostitutes probably runs up to 180,000.
Accordingly, we here have to do with a large female army, that considers
prostitution as a means of livelihood; and the number of victims, whom
disease and death claim, is in proportion.[114]

Tait calculates for Edinburg that the average life of the prostitute is
22 to 25 years. According to him, year in and year out, _every fourth
aye, every third prostitute seeks to take her own life, and every
twelfth actually succeeds in killing herself_. A truly shocking state of
things. The majority of prostitutes are heartily tired of their way of
living; aye, that they are disgusted thereat, is an experience admitted
by all experts. But once fallen into prostitution, only to very few is
the opportunity ever offered to escape.

And yet the number of prostitutes increases in the same measure that
does that of the women engaged as female labor in the various branches
of industry and trade, and that are paid off with wages that are too
high to die, and too low to live on. Prostitution is, furthermore,
promoted by the industrial crises that have become a necessity of the
capitalist world, that commence to become chronic, and that carry want
and misery into hundreds and thousands of families. According to a
letter of the Chief Constable of Bolton, October 31, 1865, to a Factory
Inspector, the number of young prostitutes had increased more during the
English cotton famine, consequent upon the North American war for the
emancipation of the slaves, than during the previous twenty-five
years.[115] But it is not only the working-women, who, through want,
fall a prey to prostitution. Prostitution also finds its recruiting
grounds in the higher walks of life. Lombroso and Ferrero quote
Mace,[116] who says of Paris that "a governess certificate, whether of
high or low degree, is not so much a draft upon bread, _as upon suicide,
theft and prostitution_."

Parent-Duchatelet made out in his time a statistical table, according to
which, out of 5,000 prostitutes there were 1,440 who took to the
occupation out of want and misery; 1,250 were orphaned and without
support; 80 prostituted themselves in order to feed poor parents; 1,400
were concubines left by their keepers; 400 were girls whom officers and
soldiers had seduced and dragged to Paris; 280 had been deserted by
their lovers during pregnancy. These figures speak for themselves. They
need no further explanation. Mrs. Butler, the zealous champion of the
poorest and most wretched of her sex in England, says on the subject of
prostitution: "Fortuitous circumstances, the death of a father, of a
mother, lack of work, insufficient wages, misery, false promises,
snares, have led them to sin." Instructive also is the information given
by K. Schneidt[117] on the causes, that lead the Berlin bar-maids so
often into the arms of prostitution. Shockingly large is the number of
female servants that become barmaids, and that almost always means
prostitutes. The answers that Schneidt received on his schedules of
questions addressed to bar-maids, ran like this: "Because I got a child
from my master and had to earn my living;" or "Because my book was
spoiled;" or "Because with sewing shirts and the like too little is
made;" or "Because I was discharged from the factory and could get no
more work;" or "Because my father died, and there were four other little
ones." That, particularly, servant girls, after they fall a prey to
seduction by their masters, furnish a large contingent to the
prostitutes, is a known fact. On the subject of the shockingly large
number of seductions of servant girls by their masters or by the sons of
these, Dr. Max Taude expresses himself reproachfully.[118] When,
however, the upper classes furnish their quota to prostitution, it is
not want but seduction and the inclination for an easy life, for dress
and for pleasures. On that subject a certain work[119] utters itself
this wise:

"Cold with horror and dismay, many a staid citizen, many a parson,
teacher, high official, high military dignitary, etc., learns that his
daughter has secretly taken to prostitution. _Were it allowable to
mention all these daughters by name, either a social revolution would
take place on the spot, or the popular ideas concerning honor and virtue
would be seriously damaged._"

It is especially the finer prostitutes, the _haute volee_ among the
prostitutes, that are recruited from these circles. Likewise do a large
portion of actresses, whose wardrobe outlays alone stand in crass
disproportion to their salaries, depend upon such unclean sources of
revenue.[120] The same with numerous girls, engaged as sales-ladies, and
in similar capacities. There are employers dishonorable enough to
justify the low wages that they pay by referring their female employes
to the aid of "friends." For instance: In 1889 the "Sachsische Arbeiter
Zeitung" of Dresden published a notice that ran as follows: "A cultured
young lady, long time out of work on account of lung troubles, looked,
upon her recovery, for work of any sort. She was a governess. Nothing
fit offered itself quickly, and she decided to accept the first job that
came along, whatever it was. She first applied to Mr. ----. Seeing she
spoke readily several languages, she was acceptable; but the 30 marks a
month wages seemed to her too small to get along with. She stated to Mr.
----, and his answer was that most of his girls did not get even that
much, but from 15 to 20 marks at most, and they all pulled through quite
well, each having a 'good friend,' who helped along. Another gentleman,
Mr. ----, expressed himself in the same sense. Of course, the lady
accepted a place in neither of the two establishments."

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 in point 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 that _employers_, even _married_ ones, are frequently in _very
intimate relations_ with their female domestics, the consequences of
which were either cancelled with _cash_, or were removed from the eyes
of the world through a _crime_. 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 the _cultured 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 are _actually here in the
country few girls who reach the age of seventeen_ without 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. The
_jus primae noctis_ of 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 infanticide_ are 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 hanged_ by 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 the
treatment 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--


    Legitimate children:    1881.  1882.  1883.  1884.  1885.
      One month old           751    741    724    698    696
      Two to twelve months  1,027  1,172    986    953  1,083
    Illegitimate children:
      One month old         2,092  2,045  2,139  2,107  1,813
      Two to twelve months  1,387  1,386  1,437  1,437  1,353


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 furnishing _an 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 least
intellectual weakness, and many other diseases, are the usual
consequences. _Temperance_ is 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 old _roues_ is
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:--


                    Immoral Acts    Deaths from
     Year.          of Violence.     Syphilis.    Insane.
    1861               280             1,345       39,647
    1871               315             1,995       56,755
    1881               370             2,334       73,113
    1882               466             2,478       74,842
    1883               390               ...       76,765
    1884               510               ...          ...
    Increase
      since 1861    82 per cent.  84 per cent. 98 per cent.


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:--


                            Venereal    Of these,
     Year.    Population.   Diseases.   Syphilis.
    1874        196,000       5,505        836
    1879        227,000       6,299        934
    1885        290,000       9,325      1,866


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.




CHAPTER IV.

WOMAN'S POSITION AS A BREADWINNER; HER INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES; DARWINISM
AND THE CONDITION OF SOCIETY.


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 above _in extenso_.
Woman is increasingly employed _along 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, and _recoups 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
the employer; 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 has increased 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:


                Total Persons
    Year.         Employed.       Males.     Females.
    1871         11,593,466     8,270,186   3,323,280
    1881         11,187,564     7,783,646   3,403,918
    1891         12,898,484     8,883,254   4,016,230


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:


       Industries.                    Females.    Males.
    Manufacture of woman's clothing    415,961      4,470
    Cotton industry                    332,784    213,231
    Manufacture of worsted goods        69,629     40,482
    Manufacture of shirts               52,943      2,153
    Manufacture of hosiery              30,887     18,200
    Lace industry                       21,716     13,030
    Tobacco industry                    15,880     13,090
    Bookbinding                         14,249     11,487
    Manufacture of gloves                9,199      2,756
    Teachers                           144,393     50,628


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


       Industries.              Males.        Females.
    Flax and jute factories  26    Marks    10-11 Marks
    Manufacture of glass     38      "      12      "
    Printing                 32-36   "      10-12   "
    Carpet factories         29      "      15      "
    Weaving                  26      "      16      "
    Shoemaking               29      "      15      "
    Dyeing                   25-29   "      12-13   "


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 the _features_ of 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
family we are not quite sure. These men attend to the household for the
simple reason that _their 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":


        Industries.                  Males.   Females.
    Silk industry                    11,771    51,352
    Cotton industry                  18,320    23,846
    Linen and half-linen industry     5,553     5,232
    Embroidery                       15,724    21,000


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:--


                                                      Per
       Industries.                Males.  Females.   Cent.

    Commercial occupations       536,221   181,286    25.2
    Service and restaurants      172,841   141,407    45.0
    Messengers and day laborers    9,212     3,265    26.2
    Spinning                      69,272   100,459    60.0
    Weaving                      336,400   155,396    32.0
    Embroidery                    42,819    31,010    42.0
    Lace and crochet work          5,676    30,204    84.0
    Lace manufacture              13,526    17,478    56.4
    Bookbinding and paste-board
      box-making                  31,312    10,409    25.0
    Paper manufacture             37,685    20,847    35.6
    Tobacco working               64,477    48,919    43.1
    Clothes-making, etc.         279,978   440,870    61.2


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:--


               Total                  Total Persons Employed.
          Persons Employed.  In the Small Trades.  In the Large Trades.
 Year.    Males.    Females.    Males.    Females.    Males.    Females.
1875    5,463,856  1,116,095  3,453,357    705,874  2,010,499    410,221
1882    5,815,039  1,506,743  3,487,073    989,422  2,327,966    514,321
        ---------  ---------  ---------    -------  ---------    -------
Increase
 in 1882  351,183    390,648     33,716    283,548    317,966    107,100
           or 6.4      or 35       or 1    or 40.2    or 15.8    or 26.1
        per cent.  per cent.  per cent.  per cent.  per cent.  per cent.


According to these figures, not only did female labor increase by 35 per
cent. during the period of 1875-1882, while male labor increased only
by 6.4 per cent., but the great increase of female labor, especially in
small industries, tells the tale that _only 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:


                                        Number
     Age.                              Employed.
    12-14                               3,897
    14-16                              68,735
    16-21                             223,538
    Over 21                           337,499
    Besides (for Reuss younger line
        without designation of ages)    6,197
                                      -------
                                      639,866


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


      Year.        16 Years and Over.   12 to 16.
    1883                 72,716           8,477
    1892                110,555          13,333
                        -------         -------
    Increase             37,839           4,856
                   52 per cent.    57 per cent.


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:


                    Total Number
      Year.           Employed.   Males.    Females.
    1882               12,192     5,193      6,999
    1892               24,056     7,932     16,124
                       ------     -----     ------
    Increase           11,864     2,739      9,125
                                or 52.8     or 130
                              per cent.  per cent.


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:--


     Year.      Males.    Females.
    1892        79,218     35,598
    1893        84,470     38,557
                ------     ------
    Increase     5,252     2,959
                or 6.6    or 8.3
             per cent.  per cent.


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:--


                               Males.      Females.
       Industries.             Marks.       Marks.
    Lace manufacture           20   --35   7   --15
    Cloth glove manufacture    12   --30   6   --25
    Linen and jute weaving     12   --27   5   --10
    Wool-carding               15   --27   7.20--10.20
    Sugar refinery             10.50--31   7.50--10
    Leather and leather goods  12   --28   7   --18
    Chemicals                   8.50--25   7.50--10
    Rubber fabrics              9   --28   6   --17
    One factory of paper
      lanterns                 16   --22   7.50--10


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:--


                     Low.           Medium.        High.
    Both sexes  29.8 per cent.  49.8 per cent.  20.4 per cent.
    Males       20.9 per cent.  56.2 per cent.  22.9 per cent.
    Females     99.2 per cent.   0.7 per cent.   0.1 per cent.


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


                  Percentage
        Marks.   of Females.
    Under 5         4.62
       5--6         5.47
       6--8        43.96
       8--10       27.45
      10--12       12.38
      12--15        5.38
     Over 15        0.74


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 height of
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 of colored 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, painting
lead 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 choose a
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 the _full 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 as
_natural_. 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 and
institutions 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.

It is but a step to set up, beside the central kitchen, also the central
laundry and corresponding steaming arrangements for public use--as
already established in all large cities by rich private persons or
speculators, and found highly profitable. With the central kitchen may
also be connected central heating, warm water along with cold water
pipes, whereby a number of bothersome and time-consuming labors are done
away with. Large hotels, many private houses, hospitals, schools,
barracks, etc., have now these and many other such arrangements, such as
electric light and baths. The only fault to find is that only public
establishments and the well-to-do classes enjoy these advantages. Placed
within the reach of all, an enormous amount of time, trouble, labor and
material could be saved, and the standard of life and the well-being of
all raised considerably. In the summer of 1890, the papers published a
description of the progress made in the United States in the matter of
centralized heating and ventilation. It was there stated:

"The recent attempts, made especially in North America, to effect the
heating of whole blocks of houses or city wards from one place have to
record no slight success. From the constructive point of view, they have
been carried out so carefully and effectively that, in view of the
favorable results and the financial advantages which they offer, their
further extension may be confidently expected. More recently the attempt
is being made to furnish from central locations not heat alone, but also
fresh air, either warm or cool, to certain extensive but not too wide
areas of the city. These plans are found in execution in the so-called
Timby System, which, according to the central organ of the Department of
Buildings, gathered from a report of the technical attaché in
Washington, Government Architect Petri, has recently been thoroughly
explained in Washington by the 'National Heating and Ventilating
Company.' The said company originally planned to supply 50,000 people
from one place. The difficulties presented by the requisite speed of
transit and the size of the pneumatic machines, have, however, caused a
limitation to 0.8 kilometers, and in instances of specially closely
built business quarters, the building of a special central power place."

What was then only projected, has since been in great part executed.
Philistine narrowness in Germany lives to shrug its shoulders at these
and such like schemes, although in Germany also we find ourselves just
now in the midst of one of those technical revolutions, that render the
private kitchen, together with a number of other occupations, hitherto
appertaining to the household, as superfluous as handicraft has been
rendered by machinery and modern technique. In the early days of the
nineteenth century, Napoleon pronounced insane the idea of constructing
a ship that could be set in motion by steam. The idea of building a
railroad was declared silly by many folks who passed for sensible:
nobody, it was argued, could remain alive on such a conveyance: the
rapidity of motion would deprive the passengers of breath. Identical
treatment is to-day accorded to a number of new ideas. He who sixty
years ago would have made to our women the proposition of replacing the
carrying of water with water-pipes, would have been exposed to the
charge of trying to lead women and servants into idleness.

Nevertheless the great revolution in technique is in full march on all
fields; nothing can any longer hold it back; and bourgeois society,
having conjured the same into life, has the historic mission of also
carrying the revolution to perfection, and to promote on all fields the
budding of the germs for radical transformations, _which a social order,
built on new foundations, would only have to generalize on a large
scale, and make common property_.

The trend, accordingly, of our social life is not to banish woman back
to the house and the hearth, as our "domestic life" fanatics prescribe,
and after which they lust, like the Jews in the Desert after the
fleshpots of Egypt. _On the contrary, the whole trend of society is to
lead woman out of the narrow sphere of strictly domestic life to a full
participation in the public life of the people_--a designation that will
not then cover the male sex only--and in the task of _human
civilization_. Laveleye fully recognized this when he wrote:[130] "In
the measure that what we are in the habit of designating as civilization
advances, the sentiments of piety and the family bonds weaken, and they
exercise a decreasing influence upon the actions of men. This fact is so
general that a law of social development may be recognized therein." Not
only has the position of woman changed, but also the relation of son and
daughter to the family, who have gradually attained a degree of
independence unknown in former days,--a fact noticeable especially in
the United States, where the self-dependent and independent education of
the individual is carried on much further than with us. The dark sides
that to-day accompany also this form of development, are not necessarily
connected with it; they lie in the social conditions of our times.
Capitalist society evokes no beneficent phenomenon unaccompanied with a
dark side: as Fourier long ago pointed out with great perspicacity,
capitalist society is in all its progressive steps double-faced and
ambiguous.

With Laveleye, Schaeffle also detects in the changed character of the
family of our days the effect of social development. He says:[131] "It
is true that the tendency described in Chapter II, to reduce and limit
the family to its specific functions is traceable throughout history.
The family relinquishes one provisional and temporary function after the
other. In so far as it officiated only in a surrogate and gap-filling
capacity it makes way to independent institutions for law, order,
authority, divine service, education, technique, etc., as soon as these
institutions take shape."

Women are pressing even further, though as yet only in a minority, and
only a fraction of these with clear aims. They aspire to measure their
power with men, not on the industrial field alone; they aspire not only
after a freer and more independent position in the family; they also
aspire at turning their mental faculties to the higher walks of life.
The favorite objection raised against them is that they are not fit for
such pursuits, not being intended therefor by Nature. The question of
engaging in the higher professional occupations concerns at present only
a small number of women in modern society; it is, however, important in
point of principle. The large majority of men believe in all seriousness
that, mentally as well, woman must ever remain subordinate to them, and,
hence, has no right to equality. They are, accordingly, the most
determined opponents of woman's aspirations.

The self-same men, who raise no objection whatever to the employment of
woman in occupations, many of which are very exhausting, often
dangerous, threaten the impairment of her feminine physique and
violently compel her to sin against her duties as a mother,--these
self-same men would exclude her from pursuits in which these obstacles
and dangers are much slighter, and which are much better suited to her
delicate frame.

Among the learned men, who in Germany want to hear nothing of the
admission of women to the higher studies, or who will yield only a
qualified assent, and express themselves publicly on the subject are
Prof. L. Bischoff, Dr. Ludwig Hirt, Prof. H. Sybel, L. von Buerenbach,
Dr. E. Reich, and many others. Notedly has the livelier agitation,
recently set on foot, for the admission of women to the Universities,
incited a strong opposition against the plan in Germany. The opposition
is mainly directed against woman's qualifications for the study of
medicine. Among the opponents are found Pochhammer, Fehling, S. Binder,
Waldeyer, Hegar, etc. Von Buerenbach is of the opinion that both the
admission to and the fitness of woman for science can be disposed of
with the argument that, until now, no genius has arisen among woman, and
hence woman is manifestly unfit for philosophic studies. It seems the
world has had quite enough of its male philosophers: it can, without
injury to itself, well afford to dispense with female. Neither does the
objection that the female sex has never yet produced a genius seem to us
either to hold water, or to have the weight of a demonstration. Geniuses
do not drop down from the skies; they must have opportunity to form and
mature. This opportunity woman has lacked until now, as amply shown by
our short historic sketch. For thousands of years she has been
oppressed, and she has been deprived or stunted in the opportunity and
possibility to unfold her mental faculties. It is as false to reason
that the female sex is bereft of genius, by denying all spark of genius
to the tolerably large number of great women, as it would be to maintain
that there were no geniuses among the male sex other than the few who
are considered such. Every village schoolmaster knows what a mass of
aptitudes among his pupils never reach full growth, because the
possibilities for their development are absent. Aye, there is not one,
who, in his walk through life, has not become acquainted, some with
more, others with fewer persons of whom it had to be said that, had they
been able to mature under more favorable circumstances, they would have
been ornaments to society, and men of genius. Unquestionably the number
of men of talent and of genius is by far larger among the male sex than
those that, until now, have been able to reveal themselves: social
conditions did not allow the others to develop. Precisely so with the
faculties of the female sex, a sex that for centuries has been held
under, hampered and crippled, far worse than any other subject beings.
We have absolutely no measure to-day by which to gauge the fullness of
mental powers and faculties that will develop among men and women so
soon as they shall be able to unfold amid natural conditions.

It is with mankind as in the vegetable kingdom. Millions of valuable
seeds never reach development because the ground on which they fall is
unfavorable, or is taken up by weeds that rob the young and better plant
of air, light and nourishment. The same laws of Nature hold good in
human life. If a gardener or planter sought to maintain with regard to a
given plant that it could not grow, although he made no trial, perhaps
even hindered its growth by wrong treatment, such a man would be
pronounced a fool by all his intelligent neighbors. Nor would he fare
any better if he declined to cross one of his female domestic animals
with, a male of higher breed, to the end of producing a better animal.

There is no peasant in Germany to-day so ignorant as not to understand
the advantage of such treatment of his trees or animals--provided always
his means allow him to introduce the better method. Only with regard to
human beings do even men of learning deny the force of that which with
regard to all other matters, they consider an established law. And yet
every one, even without being a naturalist, can make instructive
observations in life. Whence comes it that the children of peasants
differ from city children? It comes from the difference in their
conditions of life and education.

The one-sidedness, inherent in the education for one calling, stamps man
with a peculiar character. A clergyman or a schoolmaster is generally
and easily recognized by his carriage and mien; likewise an officer,
even when in civilian dress. A shoe maker is easily told from a tailor,
a joiner from a locksmith. Twin brothers, who closely resembled each
other in youth, show in later years marked differences if their
occupations are different, if one had hard manual work, for instance, as
a smith, the other the study of philosophy for his duty. Heredity, on
one side, adaptation on the other, play in the development of man, as
well as of animals, a decisive _role_. Indeed, man is the most bending
and pliable of all creatures. A few years of changed life and occupation
often suffice to make quite a different being out of the same man.
Nowhere does rapid external change show itself more strikingly than when
a person is transferred from poor and reduced, to materially improved
circumstances. It is in his mental make-up that such a person will be
least able to deny his antecedents, but that is due to the circumstance
that, with most of such people, after they have reached a certain age,
the desire for intellectual improvement is rarely felt; neither do they
need it. Such an upstart rarely suffers under this defect. In our days,
that look to money and material means, people are far readier to bow
_before the man with a large purse, than before a man of knowledge and
great intellectual gifts, especially if he has the misfortune of being
poor and rankless_. Instances of this sort are furnished every day. The
worship of the golden calf stood in no age higher than in this,--whence
it comes that we are living "in the best possible world."

The strongest evidence of the effect exercised upon man by radically
different conditions of life is furnished in our several industrial
centers. In these centers employer and employe present externally such a
contrast as if they belonged to different races. Although accustomed to
the contrast, it struck us almost with the shock of a surprise on the
occasion of a campaign mass meeting, that we addressed in the winter of
1877 in an industrial town of the Erzgebirge region. The meeting, at
which a debate was to be held between a liberal professor and ourselves,
was so arranged that both sides were equally represented. The front part
of the hall was taken by our opponents,--almost without exception,
healthy, strong, often large figures; in the rear of the hall and in the
galleries stood workingmen and small tradesmen, nine-tenths of the
former weavers,--mostly short, thin, shallow-chested, pale-faced
figures, with whom worry and want looked out at every pore. One set
represented the full-stomached virtue and solvent morality of bourgeois
society; the other set, the working bees and beasts of burden, on the
product of whose labor the gentlemen made so fine an appearance. _Let
both be placed for one generation under equally favorable conditions,
and the contrast will vanish with most; it certainly is blotted out in
their descendants._

It is also evident that, in general, it is harder to determine the
social standing of women than of men. Women adapt themselves more
readily to new conditions; they acquire higher manners more quickly.
Their power of accommodation is greater than that of more clumsy man.

What to a plant are good soil, light and air, are to man healthy social
conditions, that allow him to unfold his powers. The well known saying:
"Man is what he eats," expresses the same thought, although somewhat
one-sidedly: The question is not merely what man eats; it embraces his
whole social posture, the social atmosphere in which he moves, that
promotes or stunts his physical and mental development, that affects,
favorably or unfavorably, his sense of feeling, of thought, and of
action. Every day we see people, situated in favorable material
conditions, going physically and morally to wreck, simply because,
beyond the narrower sphere of their own domestic or personal
surroundings, unfavorable circumstances of a social nature operate upon
them, and gain such overpowering ascendency that they switch them on
wrong tracks. The general conditions under which a man lives are even
of far greater importance than those of the home and the family. If the
conditions for social development are equal to both sexes, if to neither
there stand any obstacles in the way, and if the social state of society
is a healthy one, _then woman also will rise to a point of perfection in
her being, such as we can have no full conception of, such conditions
having hitherto been absent in the history of the development of the
race_. That which some women are in the meantime achieving, leaves no
doubt upon this head: these rise as high above the mass of their own sex
as the male geniuses do above the mass of theirs. Measured with the
scale usually applied to Princes, women have, on an average, displayed
greater talent than men in the ruling of States. As illustrations, let
Isabella and Blanche of Castile be quoted; Elizabeth of Hungary;
Catharine Sforza, the Duchess of Milan and Imola; Elizabeth of England;
Catharine of Russia; Maria Theresa, etc. Resting upon the fact that, in
all races and all parts of the world, women have ruled with marked
ability, even over the wildest and most turbulent hordes, Burbach makes
the statement that, _in all probability, women are fitter for politics
than men_.[132] For the rest, many a great man in history would shrink
considerably, were it only known What he owes to himself, and what to
others. Count Mirabeau, for instance, is described by German historians,
von Sybel among them, as one of the greatest lights of the French
Revolution: and now research has revealed the fact that this light was
indebted for the concept of almost all of his speeches to the ready help
of certain scholars, who worked for him in secret, and whom he
understood to utilize. On the other hand, apparitions like those of a
Sappho, a Diotima of the days of Socrates, a Hypatia of Alexander, a
Madame Roland, Madame de Stael, George Sand, etc., deserve the greatest
respect, and eclipse many a male star. The effect of women as mothers of
great men is also known. Woman has achieved all that was possible to her
under the, to her, as a whole, most unfavorable circumstances; all of
which justifies the best hopes for the future. As a matter of fact, only
the second half of the nineteenth century began to smooth the way for
the admission of women in large numbers to the race with men on various
fields; and quite satisfactory are the results attained.

But suppose that, on an average, women are not as capable of higher
development as men, that they cannot grow into geniuses and great
philosophers, was this a criterion for men when, at least according to
the letter of the law, they were placed on a footing of equality with
"geniuses" and "philosophers?" The identical men of learning, who deny
higher aptitudes to woman, are quite inclined to do the same to artisans
and workingmen. When the nobility appeals to its "blue" blood and to
its genealogical tree, these men of learning laugh in derision and shrug
their shoulders; but as against the man of lower rank, they consider
themselves an aristocracy, that owes what it is, not to more favorable
conditions of life, but to its own talent alone. The same men who, on
one field, are among the freest from prejudice, and who hold him lightly
who does not think as liberally as themselves, are, on another
field,--the moment the interests of their rank and class, or their
vanity and self-esteem are concerned--found narrow to the point of
stupidity, and hostile to the point of fanaticism. The men of the upper
classes look down upon the lower; and so does almost the whole sex upon
woman. The majority of men see in woman only an article of profit and
pleasure; to acknowledge her an equal runs against the grain of their
prejudices:--woman must be humble and modest; she must confine herself
exclusively to the house and leave all else to the men, the "lords of
creation," as their domain: woman must, to the utmost, bridle her own
thoughts and inclinations, and quietly accept what her Providence on
earth--father or husband--decrees. The nearer she approaches this
standard, all the more is she praised as "sensible, modest and
virtuous," even though, as the result of such constraint, she break down
under the burden of physical and moral suffering. What absurdity is it
not to speak of the "equality of all" and yet seek to keep one-half of
the human race outside of the pale!

Woman has the same right as man to unfold her faculties and to the free
exercise of the same: she is human as well as he: like him, she should
be free to dispose of herself as her own master. The accident of being
born a woman, makes no difference. To exclude woman from equality on the
ground that she was born female and not male--an accident for which man
is as little responsible as she--is as inequitable, as would be to make
rights and privileges dependent upon the accident of religion or
political bias; and as senseless as that two human beings must look upon
each other as enemies on the ground that the accident of birth makes
them of different stock and nationality. Such views are unworthy of a
truly free being. The progress of humanity lies in removing everything
that holds one being, one class, one sex, in dependence and in
subjection to another. _No inequality is justified other than that which
Nature itself establishes in the differences between one individual and
another, and for the fulfillment of the purpose of Nature. The natural
boundaries no sex can overstep: it would thereby destroy its own natural
purpose._

The adversaries of full equality for woman play as their trump card the
claim that woman has a smaller brain than man, and that in other
qualities, besides, she is behind man, hence her permanent inferiority
(subordination) is demonstrated. It is certain that man and woman are
beings of different sexes; that they are furnished with different
organs, corresponding to the sex purpose of each; and that, owing to the
functions that each sex must fill to accomplish the purpose of Nature,
there are a series of other differences in their physiologic and psychic
conditions. These are facts that none can deny and none will deny;
nevertheless, they justify no distinction in the social and political
rights of man and woman. The human race, society, consists of both
sexes; both are indispensable to its existence and progress. Even the
greatest male genius was born of a mother, to whom frequently he is
indebted for the best part of himself. By what right can woman be
refused equality with man?

Based upon information furnished us by a medical friend, we shall here
sketch with a few strokes the essential differences, that, according to
leading authorities, manifest themselves in the physical and mental
qualities of man and woman. The bodily size of man and woman stands, on
an average, in the relation of 100 to 93.2. The bones of woman are
shorter and thinner, the chest smaller, wider, deeper and flatter. Other
differences depend directly upon the sex purpose. The muscles of woman
are not as massive. The weight of the heart is 310 grains in man, 255 in
woman.

The composition of the blood in man and woman is as follows: Water, man,
77.19; woman, 79.11. Solid matter, man, 22.10; woman, 20.89. Blood
corpuscles, man, 14.10; woman, 12.79. Number of blood corpuscles in a
cubic millimeter of blood, man, 4˝ to 5 millions; woman, 4 to 4˝
millions. According to Meynert, the weight of the brain of man is from
1,018 to 1,925 grams; of woman, from 820 to 1,565; or in the relation of
100 to 90.93. LeBon and Bischoff agree that, while weight of brain
corresponds with size of body, nevertheless short people have relatively
larger brains. With woman, the smaller size of the heart, the narrower
system of blood vessels and probably also the larger quantity of blood,
has a lower degree of nourishment for its effect.[133] That, however,
the larger skulls of larger persons, coupled with the quantitative
changes occasioned by the size of the skull promote the vigor of the
several sections of the brain is a matter that _cannot be
asserted_.[134]

Of 107 mentally healthy men and 148 women of the ages of 20 to 59, the
weight of the brain per thousand was:


                                            Average
            Medulla                        Length in
     Sex.  Oblongata. Cerebellum.  Pons.  Centimeters.

    Men        790       107.5     102       166.5
    Women      787       110.0     103       156.0


The absolute and relative excess in the weight of the cerebellum of
woman has an enormous significance. With animals that run immediately
upon birth, the cerebellum is much more powerfully developed than with
animals that are born blind, are helpless, and that learn to walk with
difficulty. Accordingly, and in consequence of its connection with the
cerebrum, subcortical center and the spinal cord, the cerebellum is a
station of the muscular and of the chief nervous system, by means of
both of which qualities we keep our equilibrium. The more massive
cerebellum with woman, together with the comparative shortness and
tenderness of her bones, explains her comparative quickness and easiness
of motion, her quicker and higher co-ordination of the muscles for their
functions, and her knack of quickly sizing up a situation, and finding
her way in the midst of a confusion of associations. Woman is
furthermore aided in the latter faculty through the greater excitability
of her cerebral cortex. Meynert says:--

1. All structural anomalies associated with anaemia of the
blood--including also a small heart and narrow arteries--should be
considered as subject structural defects. Upon this depends not only the
ready exhaustibility of the cortex, but also the phenomena of
irritability, named by Meynert, localized irritable weakness.

2. The branches of blood vessels, supplying the subcortical centers from
the base, are short, thick, straight, palisade-like, while those on the
surface of the brain, supplying the cortex, run in long tortuous lines.
And it is because of that, since with the increased length of the blood
vessels the resistance to the propulsive force of the heart is
increased, that the subcortical centers, the moment fatigue supervenes,
are better supplied with blood than the cortex, they are less readily
fatigued than the more readily exhaustible cerebrum.

3. Because of this and because of the more watery character of woman's
blood and great extent of subcortical centers in woman in comparison
with cerebrum, the physical equilibrium of woman is more unstable than
of man.

4. All nerves (except the optic and olfactory, which spread out directly
in the cortex, save some of their filaments terminating in the
subcortical centers) terminate in the subcortical center; the cortex of
the cerebrum acts as a checking organ for the subcortical center; as the
cerebral cortex in woman, as already stated, is at a disadvantage not
only from the anatomical standpoint, but also in the quality of its
blood supply, woman is not only more easily fatigued, but also more
readily excitable (irritable, nervous).

These facts explain, on the one hand, what is called the superior
endowment of woman, and, on the other, her inclination to sudden changes
of opinion, as well as to hallucinations and illusions. This state of
unstable equilibrium between the _dura mater_ and the _pons_ becomes
particularly normal during menstruation, pregnancy, lying-in, and at her
climacteric. As a result of her physical organization, woman is more
inclined to melancholy than man, and likewise is the inclination to
mental derangement stronger with her; on the other hand, the male sex
excels her in the number of cases of megalomania.

Such, in substance, is the information furnished us by the authority
whom we have been quoting.

As a matter of course, in so far as the cited differences depend upon
the nature of the sex-distinctions, they can not be changed; in how far
these differences in the make-up of the blood and the brain may be
modified by a change of life (nourishment, mental and physical
gymnastics, occupation, etc.) is a matter that, for the present, lies
beyond all accurate calculation. But this seems certain: _modern woman
differs more markedly from man than primitive woman, or than the women
of backward peoples, and the circumstance is easily explained by the
social development that the last 1,000 or 1,500 years forced upon woman
among the nations of civilization_.

According to Lombroso and Ferrero, the mean capacity of the female
skull, the male skull being assumed at 1,000, is as follows:--


    Negro          984              Slav           903
    Australian     967              Gipsy          875
    Hindoo         944              Chinese        870
    Italian        921              German         838-897
    Hollander      919 (Tiedemann)  Englishman     860
    Hollander      883 (Davis)      Parisian       858


The contradictory findings for Hollanders and Germans show that the
measurements were made on very different quantitative and qualitative
materials, and, consequently, are not absolutely reliable. One thing,
however, is evident from the figures: Negro, Australian and Hindoo women
have a considerably larger brain capacity than their German, English and
Parisian sisters, and yet the latter are all more intelligent. The
comparisons established in the weight of the brain of deceased men of
note, reveal similar contradictions and peculiarities. According to
Prof. Reclam, the brain of the naturalist Cuvier weighed 1,861 grams, of
Byron 1,807, of the mathematician Dirichlet 1,520, of the celebrated
mathematician Gauss 1,492, of the philologist Hermann 1,358, of the
scientist Hausmann 1,226. The last of these had a brain below the
average weight of that of women, which, according to Bischoff, weighs
1,250 grams. But a special irony of fate wills it that the brain of
Prof. Bischoff himself, who died a few years ago in St. Petersburg,
weighed only 1,245 grams, and Bischoff it was who most obstinately
grounded his claim of woman's inferiority on the fact that woman, on the
average, had 100 grams less brain than man. The brain of Gambetta also
weighed considerably below the average female brain, it weighed only
1,180 grams, and Dante, too, is said to have had a brain below the
average weight for men. Figures of the same sort are found in Dr.
Havelock Ellis' work. According thereto, an every day person, whose
brain Bischoff weighed, had 2,222 grams; the poet Turgeniew 2,012; while
the third heaviest brain on the list belonged to an idiot of the duchy
of Hants. The brain of a common workingman, also examined by Bischoff,
weighed 1,925 grams. The heaviest woman's brains weighed 1,742 and 1,580
grams, two of which were of insane women.

The conclusion is, accordingly, justified that as little as size of body
justifies inferences as to strength of body, so little does the weight
of the brain-mass warrant inferences as to mental powers. There are very
small animals (ants, bees) that, in point of intelligence, greatly excel
much larger ones (sheep, cows), just as men of large body are often
found far behind others of smaller or unimposing stature. Accordingly,
the important factor is not merely the quantity of brain matter, but
_more especially the brain organization, and, not least of all, the
exercise and use of the brain power_.

The brain, if it is to fully develop its powers, must be diligently
exercised, the same as any other organ, and also correspondingly fed.
Where this is not done, or where the training is turned into wrong
channels, instead of the sections of the understanding being developed,
those are developed in which imagination has its seat. In such cases,
_not only is the organ stunted, but even crippled. One section is
developed at the expense of another._

No one, approximately familiar with the history of the development of
woman, will deny that, for thousands of years, woman has been and
continues to be sinned against in that direction. When Prof. Bischoff
objects that woman could have trained her brain and intelligence as well
as man did, he reveals unpardonable and unheard of ignorance on the
subject. The sketch, drawn in this work, of the position of woman in the
course of the progress of civilization, explains fully how the thousands
of years of continued male supremacy over woman are mainly responsible
for the great differences in the mental and physical development of the
two sexes.

Our naturalists should recognize that the laws of their science are
applicable to man also, and to his evolution. The laws of evolution, of
heredity, of adaptation, hold good with human beings as with all other
creatures of nature. Seeing that man is no exception in nature, the law
of evolution must be applied to him also: forthwith light is shed upon
what otherwise remains confused and dark, and, as such, becomes the fit
subject for scientific mysticism, or mystic science.

The training of the brain took its course with the different sexes
wholly in conformity with the difference in the education of the two--if
such a term as "education" is at all allowable, with regard to woman in
particular, during long stretches of the past, and the term "bringing
up" is not the correcter. Physiologists are agreed that the organs of
thought are located in the front part of the brain, and those especially
of feeling and sentiment are to be looked for in the middle of the head.
With man the front, with woman the middle of the head is more developed.
_The ideal of beauty, male and female, shaped itself accordingly._
According to the Greek ideal, which is standard to this day, _woman has
a narrow, man a high and, particularly, broad forehead_,--and this ideal
an expression of their own degradation, is so stamped on their minds,
that our women bewail a forehead that exceeds the average, as a
deformity in their appearance, and seek to improve nature by art,
drawing their hair over the sinning forehead, to make it look lower.

In a polemic in Nos. 39 and 40 of the "Sozialdemokrat" for 1890, which
appeared in London, Sophie Nadejde had two articles in which she sought
to refute the charges concerning the great inferiority of woman. She
says therein that Broca, a well known Parisian physiologist, measured
the cubic contents of 115 skulls from the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, and got an average of 1,426 cubic centimeters. The
measurements of 125 skulls from the eighteenth century gave, however, an
average of 1,462 cubic centimeters. According to this, the conclusion
would be that, in the course of a few centuries, the brain had grown
considerably. A measurement by Broca of skulls from the Stone Age
resulted, however, in an average of 1,606 cubic centimeters for the
skulls of men, and 1,581 for the skulls of women,--accordingly, both
considerably larger than those of the eleventh, twelfth and eighteenth
centuries. Mrs. Nadejde concluded therefrom that Herbert Spencer was
right when he claimed in his physiology that brain weight depended upon
the amount of motion and the variety of motions.

The lady furthermore emphasized the point that it depends a deal less on
the brain-mass than on the proportion in the two sexes of the
brain-weight to the weight of the body. Proceeding from these premises,
it appeared that _the female brain was heavier than the male_. The
argument on this head, Mrs. Nadejde presents in these words:

"Let us compare the average weights of the bodies, and let us take, as
the difference between man and woman only 8 kilograms, although many
naturalists, among them Gay, whom Delaunay quotes, takes 11 kilograms.
According to the average weights of 9,157 American soldiers: 64.4
kilograms (average weight of the male body): 56 kilograms (average
weight of the female body) = 1,141 or 1.14, i. e., the average weight of
woman being taken as 100, that of man is represented by 114. According
to the average weights of 12,740 Bavarians: 65.5 kilograms (average for
males): 57.5 (average for females) = 1,139 or 1.14 as above. Assuming
the average weight of woman as 100, that of man is found to be 114.
According to the average weights of 617 Englishmen, 68.8 (average for
males): 60.8 (average for females) = 1,131, or 1.13; the average weight
of woman being assumed as 100, that of man is found to be 113.[135]

"Accordingly, it appears that, under otherwise equal conditions, women
have Ľ per cent. of brain-mass in excess of men. That is to say, for
every 100 grams of female brain-mass, men should have 113 or 114 grams;
in reality, however, they only have from 110 to 112 grams. The fact can
be put still more plastically: According to this calculation, _the male
brain falls short 25 to 51 grams of brain-mass_.[136]

"But L. Manouvrier proves more. He says:[137] 'The influence of the
weight of the body strikes the eye when we note the figures among the
vertebrates. The influence is equally manifest with man, and it is a
wonder how so many naturalists have not yet recognized this truth, even
after it was illustrated and treated by others.

"'There are a number of facts that prove the influence of the size of
the body upon the weight of the brain. The lower races and of high
stature, not only have a larger average weight of brain than the
European, but also is the number of large brains greater with them. We
must not imagine that the intelligence of a race is determined by the
number of large brains: the Patagonians, Polynesians and Indians of
North America (and according to the figures given above the people of
the Stone Age may be added) greatly surpass us Parisians and all races
of Europe, not only in the number of large brains, but also in the large
average capacity of the skull.

"'The influence of the weight of the body upon the size of the brain is
confirmed by the fact that the small skull capacities are found among
races of slight stature, like the Bushmen, the Andamans, and the Hindoo
pariahs.'

"All scientists who have treated the brain question in a really
scientific manner, have expressed themselves with greatest caution on
the difference shown by the two sexes. Other writers, on the contrary,
especially during the last years, have treated the question with such
levity, that it has been compromised in the public esteem. If there be
any intellectual difference between man and woman, it must, at any rate,
be very slight, a physiologist like Stuart Mill having declared that he
failed to find the difference. Size of body, strength of muscle,
mass--all of these present decided differences. Due to these differences
woman has been termed the defective sex; and authors who were not able
to understand these manifest differences, presumed to establish a
physiologic difference; to solve a much more difficult and complex
question, they raised their voices in praise of their own sex!

"It follows that the difference between the sexes in point of weight of
brain and capacity of skull, considered scientifically, can not be
scored to the disadvantage of woman. All the facts point to the
conclusion that the difference depends upon the weight of the body.
There is no anatomical reason to represent woman as a backward and, in
point of intelligence, subordinate being, compared with man. I shall
presently prove this.

"The proportion between the weight of the brain and the height of the
body is smaller with the female than with the male sex.[138] But the
fact is easily explained. The height of the body does not actually
express the development, or, rather, the weight of the body.

"But when we compare the proportion of the brain-weights we find that
women have more brain than men, in childhood as well as throughout life.
The difference is not great, but it would be much more considerable, if
we did not include in the weight of the body the fat, which is present
in much larger quantity with women, and which, as an inert (inactive)
mass, has no influence whatever upon the weight of the brain."

Later, in 1883, L. Manouvrier published in the seventh number of the
"Revue Scientifique" the following results of his investigations:--

"If we designate with 100 each the weight of the brain, thighbone,
skull, and lower jawbone, we find the following weights for woman:--


    Brain            88.9
    Skull            85.8
    Lower jawbone    78.7
    Thighbone        62.5


"It is, furthermore, an established fact that the weight of the skeleton
(without skull) differs as with the thighbone. Hence we may compare the
weight of the brain with that of the thighbone. It follows from the
figures given above, that women have, relatively, 26.4 per cent. more
brain-mass.

"Let us express the figures herein given somewhat more plastically.

"If a man has 100 grams of brain-mass, woman should have, instead of
100, only 62.5 grams; but she has 88.9 grams,--an excess of 26.4 grams.
It follows that if we accept 1,410 grams (according to Wagner) as the
average weight of the male brain, the female brain should weigh only
961.25 grams, instead of 1,262: woman, accordingly, has 301.75 grams
more brain-mass than the proportion demands. If we take the figures of
Huschel we find an excess of 372 grams; finally, the figures of Broca
give us an excess of 383 grams. _Under otherwise equal conditions woman
has between 300 and 400 grams more brain-mass than man."_

Although it is by no means proven that, by reason of their brain-mass,
women are inferior to men, it is no cause for wonder that, women are
mentally such as we know them to-day. Darwin is certainly right when he
says that a list of the most distinguished men in poetry, painting,
sculpture, music, science and philosophy side by side with a similar
list of the most distinguished women on the same fields will not bear
comparison with each other. But are we to wonder at that? _Wonderful
were it if it were otherwise._ For that reason Dr. Dodel-Zurich[139]
says with perfect right that matters would stand otherwise if through a
number of generations women and men were educated equally, and trained
in the exercise of those arts and of mental discipline. On an average,
woman is also weaker than man, which is by no means the case with many
wild peoples.[140] What exercise and training from early youth are able
to change in this matter, we may see in the circus women and female
acrobats, who in courage, foolhardiness, dexterity and physical strength
achieve marvelous feats.

Seeing that such a development is a matter of the conditions of life and
education--or, to express it in the naked language of science, of
"breeding"--it may be taken for certain that the application of these
laws to the physical and mental life of man would lead to the most
brilliant results, _the moment man sets his hand to the work with full
consciousness of his object and his aim_.

As plants and animals depend upon the conditions for existence that they
live under--promoted by favorable, checked by unfavorable ones--and as
forcible conditions compel them to change their appearance and
character, provided such conditions are not unfavorable enough to
destroy them wholly, so it is with man. The manner in which a person
makes his living influences not his external appearance only, it
influences also his feelings, his thoughts and his actions.[141] If,
accordingly, man's unfavorable conditions of life--defective social
conditions--are the cause of defective individual development, it
follows that _by changing his condition of life, man is himself
changed_. The question, therefore, is so to change the social conditions
that every human being shall be afforded the possibility for the full
and unhampered development of his being; that the laws of evolution and
adaptation, designated after Darwin as "Darwinian," be consciously
rendered effective to humanity. But this is possible only under
Socialism.

As a thinking and intelligent being, _man must constantly, and conscious
of his purpose, change, improve and perfect his social conditions,
together with all that thereby hangs; and he must so proceed in this
that equally favorable opportunities be open to all_. Every individual
must be placed in a position to be able to develop his abilities and
faculties to his own as well as to the advantage of the collectivity;
but his may not be the power to injure either others or the
collectivity. His own and the advantage of others must be mutual.
_Harmony of interests_ must be brought about; it must substitute the
existing _conflict of interests_ to the end that not even the thought
may be conceived of ruling and injuring others.

Darwinism, as all genuine science, is eminently democratic.[142] If any
of its advocates holds a contrary view, he only proves himself unable to
grasp its range. Its opponents, particularly the reverend clergy, who
ever display a fine nose, the moment earthly benefits or injuries are
imminent, have understood this well, and, consequently denounce
Darwinism as Socialistic and Anarchistic. Also Prof. Virchow agrees with
his sworn enemies in this. In 1877, at the convention of naturalists in
Munich, he played the following trump declaration against Prof.
Haeckel:[143] "The Darwinian theory leads to Socialism." Virchow sought
to discredit Darwinism and to denounce it because Haeckel demanded the
adoption of the theory of evolution in the schools. To teach natural
science in our schools in the sense of Darwin and of recent
investigations, that is an idea against which are up in arms all those
who wish to cling to the present order of things. The revolutionary
effect of these theories is known, hence the demand that they be taught
only in the circles of the select. We, however, are of the opinion that
if, as Virchow claims, the Darwinian theories lead to Socialism, the
circumstance is not an argument against Darwin's theories, but in favor
of Socialism. Never may a scientist inquire whether the conclusions from
his science lead to this or that political system, to this or that
social system, nor seek to justify the same. His is the duty to inquire
whether the theory is right. _If it is that, then it must be accepted
along with all its consequences._ He who acts otherwise, be it out of
personal interest, be it out of a desire to curry favor from above, or
be it out of class and party interests, _is guilty of a contemptible
act, and is no honor to science_. Science as a guild so very much at
home in our Universities, can only in rare instances lay claim to
independence and character. The fear of losing their stipends, of
forfeiting the favor of the ruler, of having to renounce titles,
decorations and promotions cause most of the representatives of science
to duck, to conceal their own convictions, or even to utter in public
the reverse of what they believe and know. If, on the occasion of the
festival of declaration of allegiance at the Berlin University, in 1870,
a Dubois-Reymond exclaimed: "The Universities are the training places
for the life-guards of the Hohenzollern," one may judge how the majority
of the others, who stand both in knowledge and importance far below
Dubois-Reymond,[144] think regarding the purpose of science. Science is
degraded to a maid-servant of the ruling powers.

We can understand how Prof. Haeckel and his disciples, such as Prof. O.
Schmidt, v. Hellwald and others, defend themselves energetically against
the charge that Darwinism plays into the hands of Socialism; and that
they, in turn, maintain the contrary to be true: that Darwinism is
aristocratic in that it teaches that everywhere in Nature the more
highly developed and stronger organism dominates the lower. Seeing that,
according to these gentlemen, the property and cultured classes
represent these more highly developed and stronger organisms in society,
they look upon the domination of these as a matter of course, being
justified by nature.

This wing among our Darwinians has not the faintest notion of the
economic laws that sway capitalist society, whose blind will raises,
without selecting either the best, or the ablest, or the most thorough,
often the most scampish and corrupt; places him on top; and thus puts
him in a position to make the conditions of life and development most
favorable for his descendants, without these having as much as to turn
their hands. Striking an average, under no economic system is the
prospect poorer than under capitalism for individuals animated with good
and noble qualities, to rise and remain above; and it may be added
without exaggeration that the prospect grows darker in the measure that
this economic system approaches its apogee. Recklessness and
unscrupulousness in the choice and application of the means, are weapons
infinitely more effective and promiseful of success than all human
virtues put together. To consider a social system, built upon such a
basis, a system of the "fittest and best" is a feat that only he can be
capable of whose knowledge of the essence and nature of such a society
equals zero; or who, swayed by dyed-in-the-wool bourgeois prejudices,
has lost all power to think on the subject and to draw his conclusions.
The struggle for existence is found with all organisms. Without a
knowledge of the circumstances that force them thereto, the struggle is
carried on unconsciously. Such a struggle for existence is found among
men also, within all social systems in which the sense of solidarity has
vanished, or has not yet come to the surface. This struggle changes
according to the forms that the social relations of man to man assume in
the course of social evolution. In the course of this evolution it takes
on the form of a class struggle that is carried on upon an ever higher
plane. But these struggles lead--and in this human beings differ from
all other creatures--to an ever clearer understanding of the situation,
and finally to the recognition of the laws that govern and control
their evolution. _Man has in the end but to apply this knowledge to his
social and political development, and to adapt the latter accordingly._
The difference between man and the brute is that _man may be called a
thinking animal, the brute, however, is no thinking man_. It is this
that a large portion of our Darwinians can not, in their one-sidedness,
understand. Hence the vicious circle in which they move.

A work from the pen of Prof. Enrico Ferri[145] proves, especially as
against Haeckel, that Darwinism and Socialism are in perfect harmony,
and that it is a fundamental error on the part of Haeckel to
characterize, as he has done down to latest date, Darwinism as
aristocratic. We are not at all points agreed with Ferri's work, and
especially do we not share his views with regard to the qualities of
woman, a matter in which he is substantially at one with Lombroso and
Ferrero. Ellis has shown in his "Man and Woman" that while the qualities
of man and woman are very different, still they are of _equal value_,--a
confirmation of the Kantian sentence that man and woman only together
constitute the human being. This notwithstanding, the work of Ferri
comes quite _apropos_.

Professor Haeckel and his followers, of course, also combat the claim
that Darwinism leads to atheism, and we find them, after themselves
having removed the Creator by all their scientific arguments and proofs,
making hysterical efforts to smuggle him in again by the back door. To
this particular end, they construct their own style of "Religion," which
is then called "higher morality," "moral principles," etc. In 1882, at
the convention of naturalists at Eisenach, and in the presence of the
family of the Grand Duke of Weimar, Prof. Haeckel made the attempt not
only to "save religion," but also to represent his master Darwin as
"religious." The effort suffered shipwreck, as all will admit who read
the essay and the letter of Darwin therein quoted. Darwin's letter
expressed the reverse of that which Prof. Haeckel sought to make out,
although in cautious words. Darwin was constrained to consider the
"religious sentiments" of his countrymen, the English, hence he never
dared to express his opinion openly upon religion. Privately, however,
he did so to Dr. L. Buechner, as became known shortly after the Weimar
convention, whom he frankly informed that _since his fortieth
year_--that is to say, since 1849--_he believed nothing, not having been
able to find any proof for his belief_. During the last years of his
life Darwin supported an atheist paper published in New York.

Woman is to take up the competitive struggle with man on the
intellectual field also. She does not propose to wait till it please man
to develop her brain functions and to clear the way for her. The
movement is well under way. Already has woman brushed aside many an
obstacle, and stepped upon the intellectual arena,--and quite
successfully in more countries than one. The movement, ever more
noticeable, among women for admission to the Universities and High
Schools, as well as for admission to the functions that correspond to
these studies, is, in the very nature of existing conditions, confined
to the women of the bourgeois circles. The circles of the working-women
are not directly interested therein: to them, these studies, together
with the posts attainable through them, are shut off. Nevertheless, the
movement and its success are of general interest, partly, because the
matter concerns a question of principle, affecting the position in
general of woman towards man, partly also because it will show what
woman is capable of achieving, even now, under conditions highly
unfavorable to her development. Finally, the female sex has a special
interest herein, in cases of sickness, for instance, when they may
confide their ailments more freely to a physician of their own than to
one of the opposite sex. To a large number of women, female
practitioners, are a positive benefit. The necessity of having to resort
to male doctors in cases of illness, generally connected with physical
disturbances that flow from their sex peculiarities, frequently deters
women from seeking timely aid, or any aid at all. Hence arise a number
of troubles, not infrequently serious ones, not to the wives alone, but
to their husbands as well. There is hardly a physician who has no cause
to complain of this frequently criminal diffidence on the part of women,
and their objection to state their complaint freely. All this is easy to
understand; irrational, however, is the posture of the men, and of
several physicians among them, who will not admit the justice and
necessity of the study of medicine, in particular, by women.

Female doctors are no new sight. Among most of the ancient peoples, the
old Germans in particular, it was upon woman that the healing cares
devolved. There were female physicians and operators of great repute
during the ninth and tenth centuries in the Arabian Kingdom,
particularly among the Arabians (Moors) in Spain, where they studied at
the University of Cordova. The pursuit by women of scientific studies at
several Italian Universities--Bologna and Palermo, for instance,--was
likewise due to Moorish influence. Later, when the "heathen" influence
vanished from Italy, the practice was forbidden. In 1377 the faculty of
the University of Bologna decreed:

"And whereas woman is the fountain of sin, the weapon of the devil, the
cause of man's banishment from Paradise and the ruin of the old laws;
and whereas for these reasons all intercourse with her is to be
diligently avoided; therefore do we interdict and expressly forbid that
any one presume to introduce in the said college any woman whatsoever,
however honorable she be. And if, this notwithstanding, any one should
perpetrate such an act, he shall be severely punished by the Rector."

Indeed, down to this day, Christian clergymen, of both Protestant and
Catholic confession, are among the most zealous enemies of the pursuit
of scientific studies by woman. The fact was shown in the debates of the
German Reichstag on the admission of women to the study of medicine; it
is furthermore shown by the reports of the Evangelical convention, held
in the spring of 1894 in Frankfurt-on-the-Main, where clerical
mouth-pieces protested sharply against allowing women equal rights in
the discussions of the convention.

The admission of women to the pursuit of University professions has,
above all, the result of exercising a beneficent influence upon the
industry of the male youth. As admitted from different quarters, the
ambition of the male students leaves much to be wished for. That alone
were a great gain. Their morals also would be greatly improved: the
inclination to drunkenness and brawling, as well as habitual
dissipations in taverns, so common among our students, would receive a
severe blow: the institutions whence mainly proceed our political
pilots, judges, district attorneys, higher police officers, clergymen
and members of legislatures would acquire a tone better in keeping with
the purpose for which these institutions are established and supported.
According to the unanimous opinion of impartial people, qualified to
judge, an improvement in this tone is a crying need of the hour.

The number of the countries that admit women to the Universities and
High Schools has been greatly on the increase during the last twenty
years; nor can any country, that lays claim to being a member of
civilization, shut its ears in the long run to the demand. Ahead of all
went the United States; Russia followed--two political systems that
present in all respects the strongest contrasts; that notwithstanding,
both were guided by the identical views with regard to the equal rights
of woman. In the North American Union, women are to-day admitted in all
the States to University studies,--in Utah since 1850, Iowa since 1860,
Kansas since 1866, Wisconsin since 1868, Minnesota since 1869,
California and Missouri since 1870, Ohio, Illinois and Nebraska since
1871; since then all the other States followed in rapid succession. In
keeping with the extension of female studies, woman conquered her place
in the United States. According to the census of 1890, there were in the
country 2,348 female physicians and surgeons, 2,136 female architects,
580 female journalists, 300 female writers, 165 female ministers, 110
female lawyers.[146]

In Europe, Switzerland, principally, opened its Universities to women.
There the number of female students grew, since 1887, as follows:--


                             Total     Female
      Year.                Students.  Students.
    1887                     2,229      167
    1888                     2,339      206
    1889                     2,412      196
    1890                     2,552      248
    1891                     2,889      297
    1892                     3,076      318
    1893                     3,307      451
    1893-94 (Winter course)  3,609      599


Accordingly, the participation of women in University studies increased
considerably in the interval between 1887-1894. In 1887 the number of
female students was 7.5 per cent. of the total number of students; in
1893-1894, however, it had risen to 16.6 per cent. In 1887, there were,
among 744 medical students, 79 women, or 10.6 per cent.; in the winter
course of 1893-1894, there were, of 1,073 medical students, 210 women,
or 19.6 per cent. In the department of philosophy, in 1887, there were,
of 530 students, 41 women, or 7.8 per cent.; in 1893-1894, there were,
of 1,640 students, 381 women, or 23.2 per cent. The large majority of
the female students in Switzerland are foreigners, among them many
Germans, whose number increases almost yearly. The example of
Switzerland was followed in the early seventies by Sweden; in 1874 by
England, in so far as medical colleges for women have been established.
Nevertheless, it was not until 1881 that Oxford, and 1884 that Cambridge
decided to admit female students. Italy followed in 1876, then Norway,
Belgium, France and Austria. In Paris, during 1891, there were 232
female students, mostly of medicine. Of these female students, 103 were
Russian, 18 French, 6 English, 3 Roumanian, 2 Turk, and 1 each from
America, Greece and Servia. In the department of philosophy there were
82 French female students and 15 foreigners matriculated.

As it will have been noticed, even Turkey is represented among the
female students. There, more than anywhere else, are female physicians
needed, due to the position that custom and religion assign to woman as
against man. The same reason caused Austria also to open Universities to
female students, in order that the Mohammedan women of Bosnia and
Herzegovina might enjoy medical attendance. Even Germany, whose
"pig-tail" was thickest, i. e., where the disfavor towards admitting
women to the Universities was most bitter, has been compelled to fall in
line with progress. In the spring of 1894, the first female student
passed her examination in Heidelberg for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy, and a second one in the fall of the same year in Göttingen.
In Karlsruhe and Berlin, High Schools were established to prepare women
for the Universities; finally in the summer of 1894, the Prussian
Minister of Public Worship issued regulations for the remodelling of the
higher instruction of girls, looking for their preparation for the study
of medicine. Also India has furnished a small contingent of female
students. Obviously, there is progress everywhere.

All medical authorities are agreed that women render the best service as
nurses of the sick, aye, that they positively can not be got along
without. In an address, delivered by Prof. Ziemssen a few years ago, he
said:

"Above all, see to it, gentlemen, in your practice that you have
thorough, well trained, kind-hearted, characterful female nurses.
Without them, all your sacrifices of time and effort are idle."

In the September, 1892, issue of the "German Review", Prof. Virchow thus
expressed himself in favor of female nurses:

"That the post of real responsibility at the sick-bed shall fall to
woman is, in my opinion, a principle that should be enforced in all our
hospitals. In the hands of a cultivated, womanly, trained person the
care of even a sick man is safer than in those of a man."

If woman is fit for the extraordinarily difficult service of nurse, a
service that places a heavy strain upon patience and self-sacrifice, why
should she not be also fit for a physician?

Above all, the idea must be resisted that women shall be educated for
physicians by separate courses of study, i. e., separated from the male
students,--a plan that Frau Mathilde Weber of Tübingen has declared
herself satisfied with.[147] If the purpose be to degrade the female
physicians, from the start, to the level of physicians of second or
third rank, and to lower them in the eyes of their male colleagues,
then, indeed, that is the best method. If it is no violation of "ethics"
and "morality" that female nurses assist in the presence of male
physicians at the performance of all possible operations upon male and
female subjects, and on such occasions render most useful service; if it
is "ethically" and "morally" permissible that dozens of young men, as
students and for the sake of their studies, stand as observers at the
bed of a woman in travail, or assist at the performance of operations on
female patients, then it is absurd and laughable to deny such rights to
female students.

Such prudery in natural things is the rage, particularly in Germany,
this big children's play-room. The English, discredited by reason of the
same qualities, may, nevertheless, be our teachers in the treatment of
natural things.

In this direction, it is the United States, in particular, that furnish
the example most worthy of imitation. There, and to the utter horror of
our learned and unlearned old fogies of both sexes, High Schools have
existed for decades, at which both sexes are educated in common. Let us
hear with what result. President White of the University of Michigan
declared as early as the middle of the seventies: "The best pupil in
Greek, for several years, among 1,300 students, has been a young lady;
the best pupil in mathematics in one of the strongest classes of our
Institute is, likewise, a young lady; and several among the best pupils
in natural science and the sciences in general are likewise young
ladies." Dr. Fairchild, President of Oberlin College in Ohio, where over
a thousand students of both sexes are instructed in common, said at
about the same time: "During my incumbency of eight years as professor
of ancient languages--Latin, Greek, and Hebrew--also in the ethical and
philosophic studies, and during my incumbency of eleven years in
abstract and applied mathematics, I have never noticed any difference in
the two sexes except in the manner of reciting." Edward H. Machill,
President of Swarthmore College in Delaware County, Pa., and author of a
pamphlet,[148] from which these facts are taken, says that, after an
experience of four years, he had arrived at the conclusion that, with an
eye to both manners and morals, the education of the two sexes in common
had given the best results. Many a pig-tail has yet to be cut off in
Germany before common sense shall have broken its way through here.

More recently, lively controversies have arisen in the literature of
almost all countries of civilization on the question whether woman could
achieve intellectually as much as man. While some, by dint of great
acumen and with the aid of facts supposed to be proofs, deny that such
is possible, others maintain that, on many fields, it undoubtedly is the
case. It is claimed that, generally speaking, woman is endowed with
qualities that man is deficient in, and _vice versa_: the male method of
reasoning is reflective and vigorous, woman's, on the contrary,
distinguishes itself by swiftness of perception and quickness of
execution. Certain it is that woman finds her way more quickly in
complicated situations, and has more tact than man. Ellis, who gathered
vast materials upon this question, turned to a series of persons, who
had male and female students under their guidance for many years, and
questioned them on their opinion and experience. McBendrick of Glasgow
answered him: "After having taught female students for twenty years, I
would sum up my observations with the statement that many women
accomplish as much as men in general, and that many men do not
accomplish as much as the female average." Other opinions in Ellis' book
are less favorable, but none is unfavorable. According to the Yearbook
of Berlin for 1870, pp. 69-77, investigation showed girls to be stronger
in the sense of space, boys at figures; the girls excelled in the
telling of stories, the boys in the explaining of religious principles.
Whatever the way these questions may be turned and twisted, the fact
appears that the two sexes supplement each other; the one is superior on
one, the other on some other field, while on a number of others there
is no difference in point of sex, but only in point of individual.

_It follows, furthermore, that there is no reason for confining one sex
to a certain field, and prescribing to it the course of development that
it shall pursue, nor that, based on differences in natural bent, in
advantages and in defects, which mutually equalize themselves,
privileges may be deducted for one sex, hindrances for another.
Consequently--equality for all, and a free field for each, with a full
swing according to their capacity and ability._

Based upon the experience made during the last decades in the higher
studies of woman, there is no longer any valid reason against the same.
The teacher can do much, by the manner in which he teaches, to affect
the attitude of his male and female pupils. Women, who devote themselves
to a science, are often animated with an earnestness and will-power in
which they excel most other students. The zeal of the female students
is, on an average, greater than that of the male.

In reality, it is wholly different reasons that cause most professors of
medicine, University teachers, in general, to take a hostile stand
towards female students. They see in it a "degradation" of science,
which might lose in the esteem of the narrow-minded masses, if the fact
were to transpire that female brains also could grasp a science, which,
until then, was confined to the select of the male sex only.

All claims to the contrary notwithstanding, our Universities, along with
our whole system of education, are in poor plight. As, at the public
school, the child is robbed of valuable time by filling his brain with
matters that accord neither with common sense nor scientific experience;
as a mass of ballast is there dumped into him that he can not utilize in
life, that, rather, hampers him in his progress and development; so
likewise is it done in our higher schools. In the preparatory schools
for the Universities a mass of dry, useless matter is pounded into the
pupils. These matters, that the pupils are made to memorize, take up
most of their time and engage their most precious brain-power;
whereupon, at the University, the identical process is carried on
further. They are there taught a mass of antiquated, stale, superfluous
lore, along with comparatively little that is valuable. The lectures,
once written, are reeled off by most of the professors year after year,
course after course, the interlarded witticisms included. The high
ministry of education becomes with many, an ordinary trade; nor need the
students be endowed with great sagacity to find this out. Furthermore,
tradition regarding University life sees to it that the young folks do
not take their years of study too seriously, and many a youth, who would
take them seriously, is repelled by the pedantic and unenjoyable style
of the professors. The decline in the zeal to learn and to study is a
fact generally noticed at all our Universities and higher schools, and
is even cause for serious concern with those in authority. Intimately
connected therewith is the "grafting" tendency, which, in these days of
ours, so poor in character, makes great progress and grows ever ranker
in the higher schools. To have "safe views" takes the place of
knowledge, and the poison spreads. To be a "patriot," that is to say, a
person without a mind of his own, who carefully takes his cue from
above, sees how the wind blows there, and trims his sails accordingly,
bends and crawls,--such a person is more considered than one of
character and knowledge. When the time for examination approaches, the
"grafter" crams for a few months what seems most indispensible, in order
to squeeze through. When, finally, examination has been happily passed
and an office or professional post is secured, most of these
"ex-students" work along in a merely mechanical and journeyman style,
and are then highly offended if one, who was not a "student," fails to
greet them with the greatest respect, and to treat them as specimens of
some other and higher race. The majority of the members of our so-called
higher professions--district attorneys, judges, doctors, professors,
Government officials, artists, etc.,--_are mere journeymen at their
trades, who feel no need of further culture, but are happy to stand by
the crib_. Only the industrious man discovers later, but only then, how
much trash he has learned, often was not taught the very thing that he
needed most, and has to begin to learn in good earnest. During the best
time of his life he has been pestered with useless or even harmful
stuff. He needs a second part of his life to rub all this off, and to
work himself up to the height of his age. Only then can he become a
useful member of society. Many do not arrive beyond the first stage;
others are stranded in the second; only a few have the energy to reach
the third.

But "decorum" requires that the mediaeval trumpery and useless
curriculum be retained; and, seeing, moreover, that women, as a
consequence of their sex, are from the start excluded from the
preparatory schools, the circumstance furnishes a convenient pretext to
shut the doors of the University lecture rooms in their faces. In
Leipsic, during the seventies, one of the most celebrated professors of
medicine made the undisguised confession to a lady: _"The gymnasium
(college) training is not necessary to the understanding of medicine.
This is true. Nevertheless, it must be made a condition precedent for
admission, in order that the dignity of science may not suffer."_

Gradually is the opposition to the necessity of a "classical" education
for the study of medicine being felt in Germany also. The immense
progress made in the natural sciences, together with their importance to
life, require an early initiation. Collegiate education, with its
preference for the classic languages, Greek and Latin, looks upon the
natural sciences as subordinate and neglects them. Hence, the students
are frequently devoid of the necessary and preparatory knowledge in
natural science that are of decided importance in certain studies,
medicine, for instance. Against such a one-sided system of education
opposition begins to spring up even in the circles of teachers, as
proven by a declaration published in the autumn of 1894 by about 400
teachers of the German High Schools. Abroad, in Switzerland, for
instance, the leading place has long since been given to the studies in
natural science, and any one, even without a so-called classic
education, is admissible to the study of medicine, provided otherwise
sufficiently equipped in natural science and mathematics. Similarly in
Russia and the United States.

In one of his writings, the late Pro. Bischoff gave "_the rudeness of
the students_" as the reason why he did not recommend the study of
medicine to women. He certainly was a good judge of that. In another
place, and also quite characteristically, he says: "Why should not one
(as professor) now and then allow some interesting, intelligent and
handsome woman to attend a lecture upon some simple subject?"--an
opinion that v. Sybel evidently shares and even expresses: "Some men
there are who have rarely been able to refuse their assistance and help
to a female pupil, greedy of knowledge and not uncomely."

Pity the words spent in the refutal of such "reasons" and views! The
time will come, when people will trouble themselves about the rudeness
of the "cultured" as little as about the old fogyism and sensuous lusts
of the learned, but will do what common sense and justice bid.

In Russia, after much pressure, the Czar gave his consent in 1872 to the
establishment of a female faculty in medicine. The medical courses were
attended in the period of 1872-1882 by 959 female students. Up to 1882
there were 281 women who had filled the medical course; up to the
beginning of 1884, there were 350; about 100 came from St. Petersburg.
Of the female students who visited the faculty up to 1882, there were 71
(9.0 per cent.) married and 13 (1.6 per cent.) widows; of the rest, 116
(15.9 per cent.) married during their studies. Most of the female
students, 214, came from the ranks of the nobility and government
officials; 138 from the merchant and privileged bourgeois class; 107
from the military, 59 from the clergy, and 54 from the lower classes of
the population. Of the 281 female physicians, who, up to 1882, had
finished their studies, 62 were engaged by several Zemstvos; 54 found
occupation in clinics; 12 worked as assistants at medical courses; and
46 took up private practice. It is noteworthy that, of these female
students, more than 52 per cent. had learned neither Latin nor Greek,
and yet they did as good work as the men. This notwithstanding, female
study was far from being a favorite among the Russian Government
circles, until the great services rendered by the female physicians on
the theater of war in Turkey during the Russo-Turkish campaign of
1877-1878, broke the ice. At the beginning of the eighties, female
studies took great increment in Russia: thousands of female pupils
devoted themselves to several branches. Due thereto, and due especially
to the fact that thereby free ideas were breaking through, threatening
to endanger despotism, the female courses were suppressed by an imperial
ukase of May 1, 1885, after the lives of the female students had for
some time been made as hard as possible.[149] Since then, resolutions
have been adopted at several Russian conventions of physicians to
petition for the re-opening of the medical courses for women,--more than
a German convention of physicians would do. As yet the attempt in Russia
has remained unsuccessful.

In Finland, a country that, although belonging to Russia, occupies an
exceptionally privileged position in the Russian system, 105 female
students were at the University of Helsingfors during the winter course
of 1894-1895, as against 73 in the summer course of 1894. Of these 105
female students, 47 were entered in the faculty of philosophy of history
and 45 in that of mathematics; 5 studied medicine, a strikingly small
figure compared with elsewhere; 7 law; and 1 theology.

Among the women who distinguished themselves in their studies, belong
the late Mrs. v. Kowalewska, who received in 1887 from the Academy of
Sciences in Paris the first prize for the solution of a mathematical
problem, and since 1884 occupied a professorship of mathematics at the
University of Stockholm. In Pisa, Italy, a lady occupies a professorship
in pathology. Female physicians are found active in Algiers, Persia and
India. In the United States there are about 100 female professors, and
more than 70 who are superintendents of female hospitals. In Germany
also the ice has been broken to the extent that in several
cities--Berlin, Dresden, Leipsic, Frankfurt-on-the-Main, etc.,--female
physicians, especially dentists, are in successful practice.

With regard to energy and capacity in the scientific studies, England,
in particular, can cite a series of handsome results. At the
examinations in 1893, six women and six men held the highest marks. The
examinations on art and on the theory and history of pedagogy were
passed by nine women and not one man. At Cambridge, ten women sustained
the severest test in mathematics. According to the sixteenth report of
examinations of female students in Oxford, it appears that 62 women
sustained the test of the first class, and 82 that of the second class;
moreover the honorary examinations were sustained by more than one-half
of the female candidates. Surely extraordinarily favorable results.

Hostility to competition with women is particularly pronounced in
Germany, because here the military turns out every year such a large
number of mustered-out officers and under-officers as aspirants for the
Civil Service, where there is little room for applicants from other
sources. If, however, women are employed, and then at lower salaries,
they appear to the already jealous men in a light that is doubly
bad,--first, as cheap labor; then as lowerers of wages. An extensive
field of activity have women gained as teachers, a field for which, on
the whole, they are well fitted. This is particularly the case in the
United States, where, in 1890, of 363,000 teachers, 238,000 were
female.[150] In Berlin there were on January 1, 1892, along with 194
Rectors and 2,022 teachers, 1,024 pedagogically educated and 642
technical female teachers, inclusive of their helpers. In England,
France and the United States there are, furthermore, since several
years, women successfully engaged in the important service of Factory
Inspectors, a move that, in view of the enormous proportions that female
labor is assuming ever more in the trades and industries, is well
justified and becomes everywhere a necessity.

At the Chicago Exposition of 1893 women, furthermore, distinguished
themselves in that, not only did female architects draw the plan and
superintend the execution of the magnificent building for the exhibition
of female products, but that women also appeared as independent
operators in a number of products of art, which provoked general
applause, and even astonishment. Also on the field of invention have
women distinguished themselves, a subject on which, as early as 1884, a
publication in the United States imparted information to the world by
producing a list of female inventors. According to the list, the
following inventions were made or improved by women: an improved
spinning machine; a rotary loom, that produces three times as much as
the ordinary loom; a chain elevator; a winch for screw steamers; a
fire-escape; an apparatus for weighing wool, one of the most sensitive
machines ever invented and of priceless value in the woolen industry; a
portable water-reservoir to extinguish fires; a device for the
application of petroleum in lieu of wood and coal as fuel on steamers;
an improved catcher of sparks and cinders on locomotives; a signal for
railroad crossings; a system for heating cars without fire; a
lubricating felt to reduce friction on railroad cars; a writing machine;
a signal rocket for the navy; a deep-sea telescope; a system for
deadening noise on railroads; a smoke-consumer; a machine to fold paper
bags, etc. Many improvements in the sewing machines are due to women, as
for instance: an aid for the stretching of sails and heavy stuffs; an
apparatus to wind up the thread while the machine is in motion; an
improvement for the sewing of leather, etc. The last of these inventions
was made by a woman who for years kept a saddle and harness shop in New
York. The deep-sea telescope, invented by Mrs. Mather, and improved by
her daughter, is an innovation of great importance: it makes possible
the inspection of the keel of the largest ship, without bringing the
same on the dry-dock. With the aid of this glass, sunken wrecks can be
inspected from the deck of a ship, and search can be made for
obstructions to navigation, torpedoes, etc. Along with these practical
advantages, its application in science is full of promise.

Among the machines, the extraordinary complexity and ingenuity of whose
construction excited great admiration in America and Europe, is one for
making paper bags. Many men, leading mechanics among them, had until
then vainly sought to construct such a machine. A woman, Miss Maggie
Knight, invented it. Since then, the lady invented also a machine to
fold paper bags, that does the work of 30 persons. She herself
superintends the construction of the machine in Amherst, Mass. That
German women have made similar inventions is not yet known.

The movement among women has spread even to Japan. In the autumn of
1892, the Japanese Parliament decided that it was forbidden to women to
figure as publishers or editors of newspapers, also of such papers as
are devoted to fashions, cooking, education of children, etc. In Japan,
even the unheard-of sight has been seen of a woman becoming the
publisher of a Socialist paper. That was a little too much for the
Japanese legislators, and they issued the above stated decree. It is,
however, not forbidden to women to act as reporters for newspapers. The
Japanese Government will succeed as little in denying their rights to
women as its European rivals of equal mental make-up.

FOOTNOTES:

[124] On this subject, the law for protection of working-women, adopted
by the people of the canton of Zurich in August, 1894, with 49,909 votes
against 12,531, contains an excellent provision. The law makes it a
penal offence for working-women to take from the shop, where they are
employed during the day, work to be done at home. This law goes further
than any other known to us for the protection of working-women. It also
prescribes an extra pay of 25 per cent. for the extra hours fixed by
law: the most effective means to check the evil of overwork.

[125] The census of 1890 gives 3,914,571 women of at least 10 years of
age engaged in gainful occupations in the United States; that is 17.6
per cent. of the total population engaged in gainful occupations, and
12.7 per cent. of the total female population of the country.

According to the census of 1900 there were 5,319,912 women of at least
10 years of age engaged in gainful occupations in the United States;
that is 18.2 per cent. of the total population engaged in gainful
occupations, and 14.3 per cent. of the total female population of the
country.

Classified by kinds of occupation, the census of 1900 shows: 977,336
women engaged in agricultural pursuits; 430,576 in professional service;
2,095,449 in domestic and personal service; 503,347 in trade and
transportation; 1,313,204 in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits.--THE
TRANSLATOR.

[126] For the sake of verification, and especially with the view of
avoiding any serious discrepancy that might arise from a translation
back into English from a German translation of the original English, an
attempt was made to secure a transcript of the original of the above
interesting article. A serious difficulty was encountered. Besides the
indefinite date, the abbreviated form, in which the German text gives
the name of the Maine paper quoted from--"Levest. Journ."--and as
reproduced in this translation, forced a recourse to guess work. The
nearest that any Maine paper, given in the American Newspaper Directory,
came to the abbreviation was the "Lewiston Evening Journal." The below
correspondence tells its tale:


"Daily People, 2, 4 and 6 New Reade street,
"New York, May 18th, 1903.

"Editor 'Lewiston Evening Journal,' Lewiston, Me.:

"Dear Sir--The within is a translation from the German of what purports
to be a German translation of an article, or part of an article, that
appeared in the 'Journal.' The only date given is 1893.

"I shall esteem it a favor if you will let me have an accurate
transcript of the passage in the original. If the 'Journal' had such an
article, the enclosed re-translation back into English may help to
identify the article. Thanking you in advance,

Yours truly, "D. DeLeon,
"Ed. 'The People.'"


"D. DeLeon, Esq., New York City:

"My Dear Sir--I regret that I can not find the article of which the
enclosed is a transcript.

"I have no doubt of its correctness, for such is frequently the case in
cities like these, where the woman is the six-loom weaver, and by her
deftness is the better wage-earner.

"Very truly yours,
"Arthur G. Staples,
"Managing Ed. 'Lewiston Journal.'"


Though success was not complete, the letter of the managing editor of
the "Lewiston Journal" is a corroboration of the substance of the
passage quoted.--THE TRANSLATOR.

[127] "Die gewerbliche Thätigkeit der Frauen."

[128] Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Königreich Sachsen auf das Jahr,
1894.

[129] Factory Inspector A. Redgrave delivered in the end of December,
1871 an address in Bradford, in the course of which he said: "I have
been struck for some time past by the altered appearance of the wool
factories. Formerly they were filled with women and children, now
machinery seems to be doing all the work. On Inquiry a manufacturer gave
me the following information; 'Under the old system I employed 63
persons; after the introduction of improved machinery I reduced my hands
to 33, and, later, in consequence of new and extensive alterations, I
was able to reduce them from 33 to 13.' Thus, within a few years, a
reduction of labor, amounting to almost 80 per cent. took place, with an
output at least as large as before." Many interesting items of
information on this subject are found in Marx's "Capital."

[130] "Original Property," chap. 20.

[131] "Bau und Leben des sozialen Körpers," Tübingen, 1878.

[132] "Husband and Wife," Dr. Havelock Ellis.

[133] Possibly the opposite is the case. We repeat what we explained
above more extensively, that it is a widely diffused fact that women and
girls nourish themselves worse and are worse nourished than men and
boys. There was a time when the fashion prevailed for woman to eat as
little as possible; she was to have as "etherial" an appearance as
possible; the conception of beauty in our upper class, even to-day, is
to the effect that it is "vulgar" if a young girl or young woman have a
blooming complexion, red cheeks and a vigorous frame. It is also known,
that with numberless women, under otherwise equal social conditions with
men, the food is greatly inferior. Out of ignorance and acquired
prejudices, women expect incredible things of themselves, and the men
encourage them therein. Such neglect and maltreatment of physical
nutrition must have the very worst consequences, if carried on through
many generations by the very sex that, by reason of the heavy monthly
losses of blood and of the expenditure of energies, required by
pregnancy, child-birth and nursing, has its physique heavily taxed.

[134] "Men of genius are, as a rule, of inferior size and massive brain.
These are also the leading features of the child, and the general facial
expression as well as the temperament of such men recall the
child."--Dr. Havelock Ellis, "Husband and Wife."

[135] The corporal weights are taken from Taupinard's "Anthropologie."

[136] If, with the authority quoted by Delaunay, we assume 11 kilograms
as the difference in weight between men and women, we would have found
35 to 70 grams.

[137] L. Manouvrier, "Revue Scientifique," No. 23, June 3, 1882.

[138] Quatrefages found the proportion to be slightly larger with woman
than with men. Thurman found the reverse, just as L. Manouvrier.

[139] "Die neuere Schöpfungsgeschichte."

[140] Dr. Havelock Ellis furnishes a number of proofs of this fact in
his frequently quoted book. According thereto, woman, among wild and
half-wild people, is not only equal to man in physical strength and size
of body, but she is partly superior. On the other side, Ellis agrees
with others that, in consequence of our progress in civilization, the
difference in the capacity of the skull of the two sexes has steadily
become more marked.

[141] This is a discovery, first made by Karl Marx, and classically
demonstrated by him in his works, especially in "Capital." The
Communistic Manifesto, that appeared in 1848, and was composed by K.
Marx and Frederick Engels, is grounded upon this fundamental principle,
and must be considered, to this day, as the norm for all agitational
work, and the most excellent of all.

[142] "The Hall of science is the Temple of democracy," Buckle, "History
of Civilization in England."

[143] Ziegler, quoted above, denies that such is the meaning of
Virchow's argument. His own quotation of Virchow's argument, however,
confirms the interpretation. Virchow said: "Now, only picture to
yourselves _how the theory of the descent of man presents itself in the
head of a Socialist_! (Laughter.) Yes, gentlemen, that may seem funny to
some; it is, however, a serious matter, and I hope that the theory of
the descent of man _may not bring upon us all the horrors that similar
theories have actually brought upon our neighboring country. At any
rate, this theory, if consistently carried out, has a side of
extraordinary gravity; and that Socialism has shown its sympathy
therewith, will, it is to be hoped, not have escaped you. We must be
perfectly clear upon that._" Now, then, we have simply done what Virchow
feared: we have drawn the conclusions from the Darwinian theories,
conclusions that Darwin himself and a large portion of his followers
either did not draw at all, or drew falsely. And Virchow warned against
the gravity of these theories, just because he foresaw that Socialism
would _and was bound to draw the conclusions that are involved in them_.

[144] Dubois-Reymond repeated this sentence in February, 1883, to the
attacks directed upon him, on the occasion of the anniversary
celebration of Frederick the Great.

[145] "Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin-Spencer-Marx)."

[146] According to the census of 1900, the figures for these respective
occupations were: 7,387 female physicians and surgeons, 1,041 female
architects, designers and draftsmen, 2,193 female journalists, 5,984
female literary and scientific persons, 3,373 female ministers, 2,193
female lawyers.--THE TRANSLATOR.

[147] "Aerztinnen für Frauenkrankheiten, eine ethische und sanitäre
Nothwendigkeit," Berlin, 1893.

[148] "An Address upon the Co-education of the Sexes."

[149] Neue Zelt, 1884, "Das Frauenstudium In Russland."

[150] The census of 1900 gives 327,614 female teachers and professors in
colleges, out of a total force of 446,133, leaving, accordingly, only
118,519 men on this field.--THE TRANSLATOR.




CHAPTER V.

WOMAN'S CIVIC AND POLITICAL STATUS.


The social dependence of a rank or a class ever finds its expression in
the laws and political institutions of a country. Laws are the mirror in
which is reflected a country's social condition, to the extent that the
same has been brought within definite rules. _Woman, as a subject and
oppressed sex, constitutes no exception to the principle._ Laws are
negative or positive. Negative in so far as they ignore the oppressed in
the distribution of privileges and rights, as though he did not exist;
positive, in so far as they expressly assign his dependent position to
the oppressed, and specify possible exceptions in his favor.

Our common law rests upon the Roman law, which, recognized persons only
as property-holding beings. The old German law, which treated woman more
worthily, has preserved its force only partially. In the French
language, the human being and the man are designated by the same word,
"_l'homme_"; likewise in the English language,--"_man_." French law
knows the human being only as _man_; and so was it also until recently
in England, where woman found herself in slavish dependence upon man. It
was similarly in Rome. There were Roman citizens, and wives of Roman
citizens, but no female citizens.

Impossible were it to enumerate the numberless laws found on the motley
map of German common rights. Let a few instances suffice.

According to the common law of Germany, the wife is a minor towards her
husband; the husband is her master, to whom she owes obedience. If the
woman is "disobedient," then, according to the law of Prussia, the
husband of "low" estate has the right of "moderate castigation." Men of
"high" estate also there are said to be who arrogate such a right to
themselves. Seeing that nowhere is the force or number of the blows
prescribed, the husband is the sovereign judge. The old city law of
Hamburg declares: "For the rest, the right of _moderate castigation of
the wife by her husband_, of children by their parents, of pupils by
their teachers, or servants by their masters and mistresses, is hereby
adjudged just and permissible."

Similar provisions are numerous in Germany. According to the law of
Prussia, the husband may prescribe to the wife _how long she shall
suckle her child_. In cases of disposing of the children, the father
alone decides. If he dies, the wife is in most German States compelled
to accept a guardian for her children: she herself is considered a
minor, and is held unfit to attend to their education herself, even when
she supports her children by her property or labor. As a rule, her
husband administers her property, and, in cases of bankruptcy, the same
is considered and disposed of as his own, unless a pre-marital contract
secures the property to her. Wherever the right of primogeniture
attaches to landed property, a woman, even if she be the first born, can
not enter into possession if there be younger brothers. She can step in
only when she has no brothers. In most German States, a married woman
can contract only with the consent of her husband, unless she owns a
business in her own name, such as, according to more recent law, she is
allowed to start. She is shut off from all public function. The Prussian
law on associations forbids pupils and apprentices under 18 years of age
and women to join political organizations. Until a few decades ago, the
attendance of women among the public at open trials was forbidden by
several German codes of criminal procedure. If a woman gives birth to an
illegitimate child, it has no claim to support from its father if its
mother accepted any presents from him during her pregnancy. If a woman
is divorced from her husband, she continues to carry his name as a
lasting memento, unless she marry again.

In Germany, hundreds of frequently contradictory laws are met with.
According to the bill for the new civil laws of Germany, the
administration of the wife's property falls to the husband, unless the
wife has secured her property to herself by special contract. This is a
reactionary attitude, long since discarded by many other countries. On
the other hand, the wife is allowed to retain what she has earned by her
own personal labor, and without assistance of her husband, or by the
independent conduct of a business enterprise.

In England, and down to 1870, the common law of the land gave to the
husband all the personal property of the wife. Only with regard to real
estate were her proprietary rights safeguarded; the husband,
nevertheless, had the right of administration and of use. At the bar of
law, the English woman was a zero: she could perform no legal act, not
even execute a valid testament; she was a veritable serf of her husband.
A crime committed by her in his presence, he was answerable for: she was
at all points a minor. If she injured any one, damage was assessed as if
done by a domestic animal: the husband was held. According to an address
delivered in 1888 by Bishop J. N. Wood in the chapel of Westminster, as
recently as a hundred years ago the wife was not allowed to eat at table
or to speak before she was spoken to: above the bed hung a stout whip,
that the husband was free to use when the wife displayed ill temper:
only her daughters were subject to her orders: her sons saw in her
merely a female servant. Since 1870 and 1882, the wife is not merely
secured in the sole possession of the property that she brings with her,
she is also the proprietor of all she earns, or receives by inheritance
or gift. These rights can be altered only by special contract between
the husband and wife. English legislation followed the example of the
United States.

Particularly backward is the civil law of France, of most of the Swiss
cantons, of Belgium, etc., in the matter of woman's civic rights.
According to the _Code Civil_, the husband could sue for divorce upon
the adultery of the wife; she, however, could institute such an action
only if the husband kept his concubine at his own home (Article 230).
This provision has been repealed by the divorce law of July 27, 1884,
but the difference continues in force in the French criminal code,--a
characteristic manoeuvre on the part of the French legislator. If the
wife is convicted of adultery, _she is punished with imprisonment for
not less than two months nor more than three years. The husband is
punished only when, according to the spirit of the former Article 230 of
the Code Civil, he keeps a concubine under the domestic roof against the
wish of his wife. If found guilty, he is merely fined not less than 100
and not more than 1,000 francs._ (Arts. 337 and 339 _Code Penal_.) Such
inequality before the law were impossible if but one woman sat in the
French Parliament. A similar law exists in Belgium. The punishment for
adultery by the wife is the same as in France; the husband is liable
only if the act of adultery is committed at the home of the married
couple: he may then suffer imprisonment for not less than one month, or
more than one year. Slightly juster is, accordingly, the law in Belgium
than in France; nevertheless, in the one place as in the other, there
are two different standards of right, one for the husband, another for
the wife. Similar provisions exist, under the influence of French law,
in Spain and Portugal. The civil law of Italy of 1865 enables the wife
to obtain a divorce from her husband only if the husband keeps his
concubine at his own home, or at such other place where the concubine's
presence must be considered in the light of a grave insult to the wife.

In France, Belgium and Switzerland, woman falls, as in Germany, under
the guardianship of her husband, the moment she marries. According to
section 215 of the _Code Civil_, she is not allowed to appear in Court
without the consent of her husband and of two of her nearest male
relations, not even if she conducts a public business. According to
section 213 the husband must protect the wife, and she must yield
obedience to him. There is a saying of Napoleon I. that typifies his
idea concerning the status of woman: "One thing is utterly un-French--a
woman that can do what she pleases."[151] In these countries,
furthermore, woman may not appear as a witness in the execution of
contracts, testaments or any notarial act. On the other hand--odd
contradiction--she is allowed to act as a witness in all criminal
trials, where her testimony may lead to the execution of a person.
_Within the purview of the criminal code, she is on all hands considered
of equal value, and she is measured for every crime or offense with the
same yard-stick as man._ The contradiction, however, does not penetrate
the wool of our legislators. As a widow, she may dispose of her
property by testament; as witness to a testament, however, she is not
admissible in a number of countries; all the same, according to Art.
1029 of the _Code Civil_, she may be appointed the executor of a will.
In Italy, since 1877, woman is qualified to appear as a witness in civil
actions also.

According to the law of the canton of Zurich, the husband is the
guardian of his wife; he administers her property; and he represents her
before third parties. According to the _Code Civil_, the husband
administers the property that the wife brings with her, he can sell her
property, alienate it, load it with mortgages without requiring her
consent, or signature. Similar provisions exist in several other cantons
of Switzerland besides Zurich, in France, Belgium, Luxemburg, the
Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark and also in a large part
of Germany. Countries in which community of property may be excluded in
marriage are, besides parts of Germany, and a large part of Switzerland,
Austria, Poland and the Baltic provinces. Countries in which the
absolute independence of married women exist with respect to their
property are: Italy, Russia, Great Britain and Ireland. In Norway, a law
of the year 1888, on the administration of the property of married
persons, provides that a married woman has the same power to dispose of
her property as unmarried women, only the law specifies a few
exceptions. In this law the expression is used that _woman becomes
un-free in marriage_. Who could blame her if, there also, as happens
frequently in France, women are seen to waive formal matrimonial
contracts?

According to the law of Berne, what the married woman earns belongs to
her husband. Similarly with most cantons of Switzerland, also in France
and Belgium. The consequence is that the wife often finds herself in a
state of virtual slavery: the husband squanders with lewd women or in
the grog-shop what his wife makes: he incurs debts: gambles away his
wife's earnings: leaves her and her children in want. He even has the
right to demand from her employer the wages due her.

By the law of December 11, 1874, Sweden secures to the married woman the
right to dispose freely of that which she earns by her personal effort.
Denmark has raised the same principle to the force of a law; nor can,
according to Danish law, the property of the wife be seized to cover the
debts of the husband. Similarly runs the law of Norway of 1888.[152] The
right of educating the children and of deciding thereupon is, according
to the legislation of most countries, the attribute of the father: here
and there a subordinate co-operation is granted the mother. The old
Roman maxim, that stood in sharp contradiction to the principles
prevalent during the mother-right, and that clothed the father alone
with rights and powers over the child, is to this day the key-note of
legislation on the subject.

Among the continental countries, woman holds the freest position in
Russia,--due to the communistic institutions there still in existence,
or to reminiscences of the same. In Russia, woman is the administrator
of her property: she enjoys equal rights in the administration of the
community. Communism is the most favorable social condition to woman.
The fact transpired from the sketch of the age of the mother-right,
given on previous pages.[153] In the United States women have conquered
full civil equality; they have also prevented the introduction of the
English and similar laws regulating prostitution.

The civic inequality of woman has provoked among the more advanced
members of the female sex demand for political rights, to the end of
wielding the power of legislation in behalf of their civic equality. It
is the identical thought that moved the working class everywhere to
direct their agitation towards the conquest of the political powers.
What is right for the working class can not be wrong for woman.
Oppressed, disfranchised, relegated everywhere to the rear, woman has
not the right only, she has the duty to defend herself, and to seize
every means she may deem fit to conquer a more independent position for
herself. Against these efforts also the reactionary mob, of course,
bristles up. Let us see how.

The great French Revolution, that, as is well known, started in 1789 and
threw all old institutions out of joint, conjured up a freedom of
spirits such as the world had never seen before. Woman also stepped upon
the stage. During the previous decades immediately preceding the
outbreak of the Revolution, many of them had taken part in the great
intellectual struggle that then raged throughout French society. They
flocked in swarms to the great scientific discussions, attended
political and scientific meetings, and did their share in preparing the
Revolution, where theory was to crystalize into fact. Most historians
have noted only the excesses of the Revolution,--and as always happens
when the object is to cast stones at the people and arouse horror
against them--have enormously exaggerated these to the end of all the
more readily extenuating the shameful transgressions of the ruling
class. As a rule, these historians have belittled the heroism and
greatness of soul, displayed also by many women in both camps. So long
as the vanquishers remain the historians of the vanquished, it will ever
be thus.

In October, 1789, a number of women petitioned the National Assembly
"that equality be restored between man and woman, work and occupation be
given them free, places be left for them that their faculties were fit
for."

When in 1793 the Convention proclaimed "_le droit de l'homme_" (the
Rights of Man), the more far-seeing women perceived that these were only
the rights of males. Olympe de Gouges, Louise Lecombe and others
paralleled these "Rights of Man" with 17 articles on the "Rights of
Woman," which, on the 28th Brumaire (November 20, 1793) they defended
before the Commune of Paris upon the principle: "If woman has the right
to mount the scaffold, she must also have the right to mount the
tribune." Their demands remained unheeded. When, subsequently, upon the
march of monarchic Europe against the Republic, the Convention declared
the "Fatherland in danger," and called upon all men, able to carry arms,
to defend the Fatherland and the Republic, inspired Parisian women
offered to do what twenty years later inspired Prussian women likewise
did against the domination of Napoleon,--defend the Fatherland, arms in
hand. The radical Chaumette rose against those Parisian women and
addressed them, asking: "Since when is it allowed to women to renounce
their sex and become men? Since when is it usage for them to abandon the
sacred cares of their households, the cradles of their children, and to
appear at public places, to speak from the tribunes, to step in the
files of the troops,--in short, to fill duties that Nature has devolved
upon man alone? Nature said to man: 'Be thou _man_! Racing, the chase,
the cultivation of the fields, politics and violent labors of all sorts
are thy _privilege_!' It said to woman: 'Be thou _woman_! The care of
thy children, the details of thy household, the sweet inquietudes of
motherhood,--that is thy _work_!' Unwise women, why wish you to become
men? Is not mankind properly divided? What more can you want? In the
name of Nature, remain what you are; and, far from envying us the perils
of so stormy a life, rest satisfied to make us forget them in the lap of
our families, by allowing our eyes to rest upon the fascinating
spectacle of our children, made happy by your tender care."

The women allowed themselves to be silenced, and went away. There can be
no doubt that the radical Chaumette voiced the innermost sentiments of
most of our men, who otherwise abhor him. We also hold that it is a
proper division of work to leave to men the defense of the country, and
to women the care of the home and the hearth. In Russia, late in the
fall of the year and after they have tended the fields, the men of whole
village districts move to distant factories, and leave to the women the
administration of the commune and the house. For the rest, the
oratorical gush of Chaumette is mere phrases. What he says concerning
the labors of the men in the fields is not even correct: since time
immemorial down to to-day, woman's was not the easy part in agriculture.
The alleged labors of the chase and the race course are no "labors" at
all: they are amusements of men; and, as to politics, it has perils for
him only who swims _against_ the stream, otherwise it offers the men at
least as much amusement as labor. It is the egoism of man that speaks in
that speech.

At about the same time when the French Revolution was under way, and
engaged the attention of all Europe, a woman rose on the other side of
the Channel also, in England, to labor publicly in behalf of equal
rights for her sex. She was Mary Wollstoncraft, born in 1759, and who,
in 1790, published a book against Edmund Burke, the most violent enemy
of the French Revolution. She later, 1792, wrote a second book--"A
Vindication of the Rights of Woman"--in which she took the stand for
absolute equality of rights for her sex. In this book she demands the
suffrage for women in the elections for the Lower House. But she met in
England with even less response than did her sisters in France.
Ridiculed and insulted by her contemporaries, she went under after
trying ordeals. Before the Revolution it was the encyclopedist Condorcet
who principally took the field for the equal rights of both sexes.

To-day, matters lie somewhat differently. Since then, conditions have
changed mightily,--the position of woman along with them. Whether
married or unmarried, more than ever before woman now has a deep
interest in social and political conditions. It can not be a matter of
indifference to her whether the Government chains every year to the army
hundreds of thousands of vigorous, healthy men; whether a policy is in
force that favors wars, or does not; whether the necessaries of life are
made dearer by taxes, that promote, besides, the adulteration of food,
and are all the harder upon a family in the measure of its size, at a
time, at that, in which the means of life are most stingily measured for
the large majority. Moreover, woman pays direct and indirect taxes out
of her support and her income. Again, the system of education is of
highest interest to her: it goes far towards determining the position of
her sex: as a mother, she has a double interest therein.

Furthermore, as has been shown, there are to-day millions of women, in
hundreds of pursuits, all of them with a lively personal interest in the
manner that our laws are shaped. Questions concerning the hours of work;
night, Sunday and child-labor; payment of wages and notice of discharge;
safety appliances in factory and shop; etc.--all are political questions
that concern them as well as the men. Workingmen know little or nothing
about conditions in many branches of industry, where women are mainly,
or exclusively, engaged. Employers have all the interest in the world to
hush up evils that they are responsible for. Factory inspection
frequently does not extend to branches of industry in which women are
exclusively employed: such as it is, it is utterly inadequate: and yet
these are the very branches in which protective measures frequently are
most needed. It suffices to mention the workshops in which seamstresses,
dressmakers, milliners, etc., are crowded together in our larger cities.
From thence, hardly a complaint issues; thither no investigation has as
yet penetrated. Finally, as a trader, woman is also interested in laws
on commerce and tariffs. There can, accordingly, be no doubt that woman
has an interest and a right to demand a hand in the shaping of things by
legislation, as well as man. Her participation in public life would
impart a strong stimulus thereto, and open manifold new vistas.

Such demands, however, are met with the curt rebuff: "Women know nothing
of politics, and most of them don't want to, either; neither do they
know how to use the ballot." True, and not true. True enough, until now,
very few women, in Germany at least, have ventured to demand political
equality also. The first woman, who, as a writer, came out in its favor
in Germany was, as far as we know, Frau Hedwig Dohm. More recently, it
is mainly the Socialist working-women, who are vigorously agitating for
the idea; and their number is ever larger.

Nothing is proved with the argument that women have, until now, shown
little interest in the political movement. The fact that, hitherto,
women have troubled themselves little about politics, is no proof that
they should continue in the same path. The same reasons, advanced to-day
against female suffrage, were advanced during the first half of the
sixties in Germany against manhood suffrage. Even as late as 1863, the
author of this book himself was of those who opposed manhood suffrage;
four years later he owed to it his election to the Reichstag. Thousands
of others went through the same mill: from Sauls they became Pauls. Many
are the men, who either do not care or do not know how to use their
important political rights. And yet that fact was no reason to withhold
the suffrage from them, and can be none to now deprive them of it. At
the Reichstag elections in Germany, 25 to 30 per cent. of the qualified
voters do not vote at all. These non-voters are recruited from _all_
classes: among them are scientists and laborers. Moreover, of the 70 to
75 per cent. of those who participate in the election, the majority,
according to our judgment, vote in a way that they would not, if they
realized their true interests. That as yet they have not realized them
comes from defective political training, a training, however, that these
70 to 75 per cent. possess in a higher degree than the 25 to 30 per
cent., who stay away altogether. Among the latter, those must be
excepted who remain away from the hustings because they cannot, without
danger, vote according to their convictions.

Political education is not gained by keeping the masses from public
affairs; it is gained by admitting them to the exercise of political
rights. Practice makes perfect. The ruling classes have hitherto found
their account in keeping the large majority of the people in political
childhood. Hence it has ever been the task of a class-conscious minority
to battle with energy and enthusiasm for the collective interest of
society, and to shake up and drag the large inert mass after them. Thus
has it been in all great Movements: it is neither astonishing nor
discouraging that the experience made with the Movement of the working
class is repeated in the Movement for the emancipation of woman.
Previous successes prove that pains, labor and sacrifices are rewarded;
the future brings triumph.

The moment woman acquires equal rights with man, the sense of her duties
will be quickened. Called upon to cast her ballot, she will ask, What
for? Whom for? Immediately, emulation in many directions will set in
between man and woman that, so far from injuring, will materially
improve their mutual relations. The less posted woman will naturally
turn to the better posted man. Interchange of ideas and mutual
instruction follows,--a condition of things until now found most rarely
between husband and wife: it will impart a fresh charm to life. The
unhappy differences in education and view-points between the two
sexes,--differences, that so frequently lead to dissensions between
husband and wife, that place the husband at variance with his many-sided
duties, and that injure the well-being of all, will be wiped out.
Instead of a clog, the husband will gain a supporter in a compatible
wife; whenever prevented by other duties from personal participation,
she will spur her husband to fulfil his own. She will find it legitimate
that a fraction of his earnings be spent in a newspaper, for agitational
purposes, because the paper serves to educate and entertain her also,
and because she realizes the necessity of the sacrifice, a sacrifice
that helps to conquer that which she, her husband and her children
lack,--an existence worthy of human beings.

Thus, the joining of hands by husband and wife for the common weal, so
closely connected with the weal of the individual, will exert a most
ennobling influence. The very reverse is called into life of that which
is claimed by near-sighted people, or by the foes of a commonwealth
based upon the equality of all. Nor would it end there. The relation
between the two sexes would be beautiful in the measure that the social
institutions will liberate husband and wife from material cares and from
excessive work. Practice and education will, here as in all other cases,
give further aid. If I go not in the water, I shall never learn to swim;
if I study no foreign language and do not practice it, I shall never
learn to speak it. Everyone finds that natural; and yet many fail to
realize that the same holds good in the affairs of government and
society. Are our women unfitter than the far lower negroes, to whom full
political equality was conceded in North America? And shall a highly
intellectual woman be vested with lesser rights than the rudest, least
cultured man,--an ignorant day-laborer of the backwoods of Pomerania, or
an ultramontane canalman, for instance, and all because accident let
these come into the world as men? The son has greater rights than his
mother, from whom, perchance, he derives his best qualities, the very
qualities that alone make him what he is. Truly wonderful!

Moreover, we in Germany would no longer be running the risk of being the
first to take the leap in the dark and the unknown. The United States,
England and other countries have opened the way. In the State of Wyoming
in the United States, woman suffrage has been tested since 1869. On
November 12, 1872, writing from Laramie City, Wyo., on the subject,
Judge Kingman says in the Chicago "Women's Journal":

"Three years ago to-day women obtained the right of electing and of
being elected to office in our Territory, in the same manner as the
other electors. During this period they have voted and have been voted
for; they have exercised the functions of jurors and arbiters; they have
taken part in large numbers at our elections, and although I believe
that some among us oppose the admission of women from motives of
principle, no one, I think, can refuse to recognize that their influence
on the elections has been an elevating one. It caused them to be
conducted in a more peaceable and orderly manner, and at the same time
enabled our courts of justice to discover and punish various kinds of
crime that had until then remained unpunished.

"For instance, when the Territory was first organized, there was
scarcely a man who did not carry a revolver and make use of it in the
slightest dispute. I cannot remember a single case in which a jury
composed of men brought in a verdict of guilty against one of those who
had shot with a revolver, but when two or three women were among them,
they have invariably attended to the instructions of the Court."

In what esteem woman suffrage was held in Wyoming twenty-five years
after its introduction, may be gathered from the address issued on
November 12, 1894, to the Parliaments of the world by the Legislature of
that State. It says:

"The possession and exercise of suffrage by the women in Wyoming for the
past quarter of a century has wrought no harm and has done great good in
many ways; it has largely aided in banishing crime, pauperism, and vice
from this State, and that without any violent or oppressive legislation;
it has secured peaceful and orderly elections, good government, and a
remarkable degree of civilization and public order; and we point with
pride to the facts that after nearly twenty-five years of Woman Suffrage
not one county in Wyoming has a poorhouse, that our jails are almost
empty, and crime, except that committed by strangers in the State,
almost unknown; and as the result of experience we urge every civilized
community on earth to enfranchise its women without delay."[154]

While giving fullest credit to the political activity of the women of
Wyoming, we cannot go to the extreme, reached by the enthusiastic
defenders of woman suffrage in the Legislature of that State, of
ascribing exclusively to the ballot in woman's hands the enviable
conditions, which, according to the account of the address, Wyoming
rejoices in. A number of social causes of other nature contribute
thereto. Nevertheless, the fact is unquestionable that female suffrage
has been accompanied by the most beneficent results for that State, and
without one disadvantage. That is the most brilliant justification of
its introduction.

The example of Wyoming found followers. To-day there are a number of
countries in which woman enjoys political rights to greater or less
extent. In the United States, women obtained several years ago the
ballot in Colorado, and in 1894 they elected a number of
representatives; likewise in Arizona, and still more recently in
Minnesota. In New Zealand, they took a lively part in the parliamentary
elections of 1893, livelier, in fact, than the men, although they were
only qualified to elect: only men were qualified to be elected. In
March, 1894, the Prime Minister declared to a deputation of women that
he would advocate their qualification to be elected. In 1893, there were
twenty-two States in the North American Union where women were qualified
both to elect and be elected for the School Boards. In Kansas, Nebraska,
Colorado, Oregon, Arizona, Dakota, Idaho, Minnesota and Montana they are
fully qualified electors for municipal officers, provided they are
resident citizens. In Argonia, Kans., the wife of a physician was
elected Mayor;[155] the same thing happened in Onehunga, New Zealand.
Since more than ten years ago, women in Sweden have the suffrage for
departmental and municipal elections, under the same restrictions as
men.

In England, the struggle, for woman's political rights has a regular
history behind it. According to the old custom of the Middle Ages,
women, seized of landed property, were also vested with the suffrage,
and, as such also filled judicial functions. In the course of time they
lost these rights. In the bill for Parliamentary Reform in 1832, the
word "person" was used, a term that, according to English conceptions,
includes the members of both sexes, men and women. This notwithstanding,
the law was interpreted adversely to women and they were turned back
wherever they made the effort to vote. In the electoral reform Act of
1867, the word "man" was substituted for the word "person." John Stuart
Mill moved the re-insertion of "person" in place of "man," with the
express purpose that women shall be vested with the suffrage under the
same conditions as men. The motion was defeated by 196 votes against 83.
Sixteen years later, 1883, the attempt was again made in the Lower House
to grant women the suffrage. A motion to that effect was defeated by a
majority of 16. A further attempt in 1884 was defeated in a fuller House
by more than 136 votes. But the minority did not evacuate the field. In
1886 it succeeded in carrying to a second reading a motion to grant
women the suffrage; but the dissolution of Parliament prevented a final
vote being taken. Again, on April 27, 1892, the Lower House defeated
with 175 votes against 152, the second reading of a motion on the
subject presented by Sir A. Rollit, and which provided as follows:

"Every woman who in Great Britain is registered or entitled to be
registered as an elector for a Town Council or County Council or who in
Ireland is a rate payer entitled to vote in the election of Guardians of
the Poor, shall be entitled to be registered as a Parliamentary elector,
and when registered, to vote at any Parliamentary election for the
county, borough, or division wherein the qualifying property is
situate."

On November 29, 1888, Lord Salisbury held a speech in Edinburgh, in the
course of which he said: "I earnestly hope that the day is not far
distant when women also will bear their share in voting for members in
the political world and in the determining the policy of the country."
And Alfred Russell Wallace, celebrated as a naturalist and follower of
Darwin, expressed himself upon the same question this wise: "When men
and women shall have freedom to follow their best impulses, when both
shall receive the best possible education, when no false restraints
shall be imposed upon any human being by the reason of the accident of
sex, and when public opinion shall be regulated by the wisest and best
and shall be systematically impressed upon youth, then shall we find
that a system of human selection will arise that is bound to have a
reformed humanity for its result. So long as woman is compelled to
regard marriage as a means by which to escape poverty and avoid neglect,
she is and remains at a disadvantage with man. Hence, the first step in
the emancipation of woman is the removal of all restraints that prevent
her from competing with man on all the fields of industry and in all
pursuits. But we must go further, and allow woman the exercise of her
_political rights_. Many of the restraints, under which woman has
suffered until now, would have been spared to her, had she had direct
representation in Parliament."

In most sections of England, married women have the same political
rights as men in the elections for the School Boards and Guardians of
the Poor, and in many places are themselves qualified for election. At
the county elections, _unmarried_ women have the right to vote under the
same restrictions as men, but are not themselves qualified for election.
Likewise did all independent tax-paying women obtain the right to vote
by the Reform Act of 1869, but are not qualified for election. _Married
women_ are in virtue of a court decision, rendered in 1872, excluded
from the suffrage, because _in English law woman loses her independence
by marriage_--a decided encouragement for women to keep away from the
legal formality of legitimate marriage. Seeing that also in other
respects unmarried or divorced women in England and Scotland are clothed
with rights denied to married women, the temptation is not slight for
women to renounce legitimate unions. It is not exactly the part of
wisdom for the male representatives of bourgeois society to degrade
bourgeois marriage into a sort of slave status for woman.[156]

In Austria, women who are landed proprietors, or conduct a business, to
which the suffrage is attached, have the right to exercise the privilege
_by attorney_. This holds both for local and Reichstag elections. If the
woman is proprietor of a mercantile or industrial establishment, which
gives the right to vote for the Chamber of Commerce, her franchise must
be exercised by a business manager. In France, on the contrary, a woman
who conducts a business, has a right to vote at the election of members
for the tribunals of commerce, but she cannot herself be elected.
According to the law of 1891 of the old Prussian provinces, women have
the suffrage, if the landed property that belongs to them conveys the
right to vote, nevertheless they must exercise the privilege through a
male representative, neither are they eligible themselves. Likewise
according to the laws of Hanover, Brunswick, Schleswig-Holstein,
Sachsen-Weimar, Hamburg and Luebeck. In Saxony, the law allows women the
suffrage if they are landed proprietors and are _unmarried_. If married,
the woman's vote goes to her husband. In all these cases, accordingly,
the right of suffrage does not attach to persons but to property--quite
a light upon existing political and legal morality: Man, thou art zero
if moneyless or propertyless; knowledge, intellect are secondary
matters. Property decides.

We see that the principle of denying woman the suffrage on the theory of
her not being "of age" is broken through in fact; and yet objection is
raised to granting her the right in full. It is said that to grant woman
the suffrage is dangerous because she yields easily to religious
prejudices, and is conservative. She is both only because she is
ignorant. Let her be educated and taught where her interests lie. For
the rest, the influence of religion on elections is exaggerated.
Ultramontane agitation has hitherto been so successful in Germany only
because it knew how to join _social with religious interests_. The
ultramontane chaplains long vied with the Socialists in uncovering the
social foulness. Hence their influence with the masses. With the close
of the Kulturkampf, the influence of the Catholic clergymen upon the
masses waned. The clergy is forced to discontinue its opposition to the
Government; simultaneously therewith, the rising class struggle compels
it to consider the Catholic capitalist class and Catholic nobility; it
will, accordingly, be compelled to observe greater caution on the social
field. Thus the clergy will forfeit its influence with the workingmen,
especially at such critical junctures when considerations for the
Government and the ruling classes drive it to approve of, or tolerate
actions and laws directed against the interests of the working class.
The same causes will, in the end, have their influence upon woman. When
at public meetings, through newspapers and from personal observation she
will have learned where her own interest lies, woman will emancipate
herself from the clergy, the same as man has done. The fiercest opponent
of female suffrage is the clergy, and it knows the reason why. Its rule
and its domains are endangered.

That the movement for the political rights of woman has not been
promptly crowned with greater success is no reason to withhold the
ballot from her. What would the workingmen say if the Liberals proposed
abolishing manhood suffrage--and the same is very inconvenient to
them--on the ground that it benefits the Socialists in particular? A
good law does not become bad by reason of him who wields it not yet
having learned its right use.

Naturally, the right to be elected should go together with the right to
elect. "A woman in the tribune of the Reichstag, that would be a
spectacle!" we hear people exclaim. Our generation has grown accustomed
to the sight of women in the speaker's tribune at their conventions and
meetings; in the United States, also in the pulpit and the jury box--why
not, then, also in the tribune of the Reichstag? The first woman elected
to the Reichstag, would surely know how to impose respect. When the
first workingmen entered the Reichstag it was also believed they could
be laughed down, and it was claimed that the working class would soon
realize the foolishness it had committed in electing such people. Its
representatives, however, knew how to make themselves quickly respected;
the fear to-day is lest there be too many of them. Frivolous witlings
put in: "Just imagine a pregnant woman in the tribune of the Reichstag;
how utterly unesthetic!" The identical gentlemen find it, however, quite
in order that pregnant women work at the most unesthetic trades, at
trades in which female dignity, health and decency are undermined. In
the eyes of a Socialist, that man is a wretch who can crack jokes over a
woman with child. The mere thought that his own mother once looked like
that before she brought him into the world, should cause his cheeks to
burn with shame; the thought that he, rude jester, expects from a
similar condition on the part of his wife the fulfillment of his dearest
wishes should cause him, furthermore, to hold his tongue in shame.

_A woman who gives birth to children renders, at least, the same service
to the commonwealth as the man who defends his country and his hearth
with his life against a foe in search of conquests._ Moreover, the life
of a woman trembles in the scales at child-birth. All our mothers have
looked death in the face at our births, and many succumbed. _The number
of women who die as a result of child-birth, or who as a consequence
pine away in sickness, is greater than that of the men who fall on the
field of battle, or are wounded._ In Prussia, between 1816-1876, not
less than 321,791 women fell a prey to child-birth fever--a yearly
average of 5,363. This is by far a larger figure than that of the
Prussians, who, during the same period, were killed in war or died of
their wounds. Nor must, at the contemplation of this enormous number of
women who died of child-birth fever, the still larger number of those be
lost sight of, who, as a consequence of child-birth, are permanently
crippled in health, and die prematurely.[157] These are additional
reasons for woman's equal rights with man--reasons to be held up
especially to those, who play man's duty to defend the Fatherland as a
decisive circumstance, entitling them to superior consideration to
women. For the rest, in virtue of our military institutions, most men do
not even fill this duty: to the majority of them it exists upon paper
only.

All these superficial objections to the public activity of woman would
be unimaginable were the relations of the two sexes a natural one, and
were there not an antagonism, artificially raised side by side with the
relation of master and servant between the two. From early youth the two
are separated in social intercourse and education. Above all, it is the
antagonism, for which Christianity is responsible, that keeps the sexes
steadily apart and the one in ignorance about the other, and that
hinders free social intercourse, mutual confidence, a mutual
supplementing of traits of character.

One of the first and most important tasks of a rationally organized
society must be to end this unhallowed split, and to reinstate Nature in
its rights. The violence done to Nature starts at school: First, the
separation of the sexes; next, mistaken, or no instruction whatever, in
matters that concern the human being as a sexual entity. True enough,
natural history is taught in every tolerably good school. The child
learns that birds lay eggs and hatch them out: he also learns when the
mating season begins: that males and females are needed: that both
jointly assume the building of the nests, the hatching and the care of
the young. He also learns that mammals bring forth live young: he learns
about the rutting season and about the fights of the males for the
females during the same: he learns the usual number of young, perhaps
also the period of pregnancy. But on the subject of the origin and
development of his own stock he remains in the dark; that is veiled in
mystery. When, thereupon, the child seeks to satisfy his natural
curiosity with questions addressed to his parents, to his mother in
particular--he seldom ventures with them to his teacher--he is saddled
with the silliest stories that cannot satisfy him, and that are all the
more injurious when he some day does ascertain the truth. There are
probably few children who have not made the discovery by the twelfth
year of their age. In all small towns, in the country especially,
children observe from earliest years the mating of birds, the copulation
of domestic animals; they see this in closest proximity, in the yard, on
the street, and when the cattle are turned loose. They see that the
conditions under which the heat of the cattle is gratified, as well as
the act of birth of the several domestic animals are made the subject of
serious, thorough and undisguised discussion on the part of their
parents, elder brothers and servants. All that awakens doubts in the
child's mind on the accounts given him of his own entry into life.
Finally the day of knowledge does come; but it comes in a way other than
it would have come under a natural and rational education. The secret
that the child discovers leads to estrangement between child and
parents, particularly between child and mother. The reverse is obtained
of that which was aimed at in folly and shortsightedness. He who
recalls his own youth and that of his young companions knows what the
results frequently are.

An American woman says, among other things in a work written by her,
that wishing to answer the repeated questions of her eight-year-old son
on his origin, and unwilling to saddle him with nursery tales, she
disclosed the truth to him. The child listened to her with great
attention, and, from the day that he learned what cares and pains he had
caused his mother, he clung to her with a tenderness and reverence not
noticed in him before, and showed the same reverence toward other women
also.[158] The authoress proceeds from the correct premises that only by
means of a natural education can any real improvement--more respect and
self-control on the part of the male toward the female sex--be expected.
He who reasons free from prejudice will arrive at no other conclusion.

Whatever be the point of departure in the _critique_ of our social
conditions, the conclusion is ever the same--their _radical
transformation_; thereby a radical transformation in the position of the
sexes is inevitable. Woman, in order to arrive all the quicker at the
goal, must look for allies whom, in the very nature of things, the
movement of the working class steers in her direction. Since long has
the class-conscious proletariat begun the storming of the fortress, the
Class-State, which also upholds the present domination of one sex by the
other. That fortress must be surrounded on all sides with trenches, and
assailed to the point of surrender with artillery of all calibre. The
besieging army finds its officers and munitions on all sides. Social and
natural science, jointly with historical research, pedagogy, hygiene and
statistics are advancing from all directions, and furnish ammunition and
weapons to the movement. Nor does philosophy lag behind. In
Mainlaender's "The Philosophy of Redemption,"[159] it announces the
near-at-hand realization of the "Ideal State."

The ultimate conquest of the Class-State and its transformation is
rendered all the easier to us through the divisions in the ranks of its
defenders, who, despite the oneness of their interests against the
common enemy, are perpetually at war with one another in the strife for
plunder. Further aid comes to us from the daily-growing mutiny in the
ranks of the enemies, whose forces to a great extent are bone of our
bone, and flesh of our flesh--elements that, out of misunderstanding and
misled, have hitherto fought against us and thus against themselves, but
are gradually becoming clearsighted, and pass over to us. Finally we are
aided by the desertion of the honorable elements from the ranks of the
hitherto hostile men of thought, who have perceived the truth, and whose
higher knowledge spurs them to leap their low class interests, and,
following their ideal aspirations after justice, join the masses that
are thirsting for freedom.

Many do not yet realize the stage of dissolution that State and Society
are in. Hence, and although the dark blotches have been frequently
pointed out in the preceding chapters, a separate treatment of the
subject is requisite.

FOOTNOTES:

[151] Louis Bridel, "La Puissance Maritale," Lausanne, 1879.

[152] In the presentation of these civil rights we have merely followed
Louis Bridel's work: "Le Droit des Femmes et le Marriage," Paris, 1893.

[153] How correct this view is transpires also from the comedy of
Aristophanes: "The Popular Assembly of Women." In that comedy,
Aristophanes depicts how the Athenian government had reached the point
when everything was going at sixes and sevens. The Prytaneum put the
question to the popular assembly of the Athenian citizens: "How is the
State to be saved?" Thereupon a woman, disguised as a man, made the
proposition to entrust the helm of State to the women, and the
proposition was accepted without opposition "because it was the only
thing that had never before happened in Athens." The women seized the
helm, and forthwith instituted _communism_. Of course, Aristophanes
turns this condition into ridicule, but the significant point in the
play is that, the moment the women had a decisive word in public
affairs, they instituted communism as the only rational political and
social condition from the standpoint of their own sex. Aristophanes
little dreamed how he hit the truth while meaning to joke.

[154] The above two paragraphs are left as they appear in the text,
although they seem to be subject to corrections.

A diligent search in the libraries of this city for the original of the
above "Address to the Parliaments of the World," stated to have been
issued by the Legislature of Wyoming in 1894, having proved vain, the
Secretary of the State of Wyoming was written to. His answer was:


The State of Wyoming,
Office of the Secretary of State.
Cheyenne, June 5, 1903.

Mr. Daniel DeLeon, New York City:

Dear Sir--Replying to your letter of June 1st, would say that the
Legislature of Wyoming was not in session in 1894, and did not pass any
resolutions on Woman Suffrage in 1893 or 1895.

I enclose herewith the resolutions adopted by the Legislature of 1901,
and also Senate and House resolutions adopted in 1903 on the subject of
Woman Suffrage. Yours truly,

F. Chatterton,
Secretary of State.


The resolutions enclosed in the above letter were these:

[House Joint Resolution No. 8, adopted February, 1901.]

Whereas, Wyoming was the first state to adopt equal suffrage and equal
suffrage has been in operation since 1869; was adopted in the
constitution of the State of Wyoming in 1890, during which time women
have exercised the privilege as generally as men, with the result that
better candidates have been selected for office, methods of election
have been purified, the character of legislation improved, civic
intelligence increased and womanhood developed to greater usefulness by
political responsibility;

Therefore, Resolved, by the House of Representatives, the Senate
concurring, That, in view of these results, the enfranchisement of women
in every state and territory of the American Union is hereby recommended
as a measure tending to the advancement of a higher and better social
order.

That an authenticated copy of these resolutions be forwarded by the
Governor of the state to the legislature of every state and territory,
and that the press be requested to call public attention to these
resolutions.

                          Edward W. Stone,
                            President of Senate.
J. S. Atherly,
  Speaker of House.
                   Approved February 13th, 1901.
                                     DeF. Richards,
                                            Governor.


[Senate and House Resolution, Seventh Legislature, 1903.]

Whereas, The question of equal suffrage is being seriously considered in
many States of the Union; and,

Whereas, Equal suffrage has been in operation in Wyoming ever since
Territorial days in 1869, during which time women have exercised the
privilege of voting generally and intelligently, with the result that a
higher standard of candidates have usually been selected for office;
elections have been made peaceful, orderly and dignified; the general
character of legislation improved; intelligence in political, civic and
social matters greatly increased; and,

Whereas, Under the responsibilities incident to suffrage the women of
Wyoming have not in any sense been deprived of any of their womanly
qualities, but on the contrary the womanhood of Wyoming has developed to
a broader usefulness; therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate of the Wyoming Legislature, That in view of the
beneficence and practical results of equal suffrage for men and women in
Wyoming, the enfranchisement of women is hereby endorsed as a great
national reform and a measure that will improve and advance the
political and social conditions of the country at large.

Resolved, That copies of this resolution be transmitted to Mrs. Carrie
Chapman Catt, President National Women Suffrage Association, 2008
American Tract Society Building, New York, and to Mrs. Harriet Taylor
Upton, National Treasurer, Warren, Ohio.

                                       G. A. Guernsey,
Approved February 19th, 1903.       President of the Senate.
  DeF. Richards,
    Governor.
                                         J. S. Atherly,
                                     Speaker of the House.


Agitational literature on woman suffrage, furnished by the Boston,
Mass., "Woman's Journal," after the above note was in print, gives the
address cited in the text, but not as issued by the Legislature of
Wyoming, nor in 1894. The address was adopted in March, 1893, by the
House of Representatives of the Wyoming Legislature, just before the
final adjournment of the body, and was not acted upon by the
Senate.--THE TRANSLATOR.

[155] In Colorado, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming women have full suffrage, and
vote for all officers, including Presidential electors. In Utah and
Wyoming woman suffrage is a constitutional provision.

In Indiana women may hold any office under the school laws, but can not
vote for any such office.

In Kansas women exercise the suffrage largely in municipal elections.

In some form, mainly as to taxation or the selection of school officers,
woman suffrage exists in a limited way in Arizona, Connecticut,
Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota,
Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota,
Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Washington and
Wisconsin.--THE TRANSLATOR.

[156] On September 5, 1902, the Trades Union Congress of England--made
up, of course, of the British style of Trades Unionism, known in America
as "Pure and Simple" Trades Unionism--rejected a resolution introduced
for the purpose of giving the franchise to women on the same terms as
men.--THE TRANSLATOR.

[157] "To every woman who to-day dies in child-bed, from 15 to 20 must
be added who remain more or less seriously injured, and subject to womb
troubles and general ill health, often for life."--Dr. H. B. Adams.

[158] Isabella Beecher-Hooker, "Womanhood, Its Sanctities and
Fidelities."

[159] "Philosophie der Erlösung."




CHAPTER VI.

THE STATE AND SOCIETY.


During the last few decades and in all countries of civilization, the
economic life of society has assumed an uncommonly rapid pace of
development, a development that every progress on any field of human
activity adds swing to. Our social relations have thereby been thrown
into a state of unrest, fermentation and dissolution never known before.
The ruling classes no longer feel the ground safe under them, nor do
existing institutions any longer possess the firmness requisite to
breast the storm, that is approaching from all sides. A feeling of
uneasiness, of insecurity and of dissatisfaction has seized upon all
circles, high and low. The paroxysmal efforts put forth by the ruling
classes to end this unbearable state of things by means of tinkering at
the body social prove themselves vain and inadequate. The general sense
of increasing insecurity, that comes from these failures, increases
their uneasiness and discomfort. Hardly have they inserted a beam in the
shape of some law into the rickety structure, than they discover ten
other places where shoring is still more urgent. All along they are at
perpetual strife among themselves and deeply rent by differences of
opinion. What one set deems necessary, in order somewhat to calm and
reconcile the increasingly discontented masses, the other considers as
going too far, and unpardonable weakness and pliancy, only calculated to
prick the longing after greater concessions. Striking evidences thereof
are the debates in the 1894-5 sessions of the Reichstag, both on the
floor of the house and in committee, on the so-called "revolutionary
bill," as well as numerous other discussions in all parliaments. Within
the ruling classes themselves there exist unbridgeable contrasts, and
they sharpen the social conflicts.

Governments--and not in Germany alone--are shaking like reeds in the
wind. They must lean on something: without support they cannot exist:
they now lean on this side, then on that. In no progressive country of
Europe is there a Government with a lasting parliamentary majority, on
which it can count with safety. Majorities are breaking up and
dissolving; and the ever changing course, in Germany, especially,
undermines the last vestige of confidence that the ruling class had in
themselves. To-day one set is anvil, the other the hammer; to-morrow it
is the other way. The one tears down what the other painfully builds up.
The confusion is ever greater; the discontent ever more lasting; the
causes of friction multiply and consume in a few months more energies
than years did formerly. Along with all that, material sacrifices,
called for by manifold taxes, swell beyond all measure.

In the midst of all this, our sapient statesmen are lulling themselves
in wondrous illusions. With an eye to sparing property and the rich,
forms of taxation are selected that smite the needy classes heaviest,
and they are decreed with the belief that, seeing a large portion of the
masses have not yet discovered their real nature, neither will they be
felt. This is an error. The masses to-day understand fully the nature of
indirect imports and taxes upon the necessaries of life. Their growing
political education and perspicuity disclose to them the gross injustice
of the same; and they are all the more sensitive to these burdens by
reason of the wretchedness of their economic conditions, especially
where families are large. The rise of prices in the necessaries of
life--due to indirect imposts, or to causes that bring on similar
results, such as the premiums on brandy and sugar that, to the amount of
dozens of millions, a part of the ruling class pockets yearly at the
expense of the poor of the kingdom, and that it seeks to raise still
higher--are realized to be a gross injustice, a heavy burden, measures
that stand in odd contradiction with the nature of the so-called
Christian State, the State of Social Reform. These measures extinguish
the last spark of faith in the sense of justice of the ruling classes,
to a degree that is serious to these. It changes nothing in the final
effect of these measures that the draining is done in pennies. The
increase in the expenditure is there, and is finally sensible to the
feeling and the sight of all. Hundreds upon hundreds of millions cannot
be squeezed out of practically empty pockets, without the owners of the
pockets becoming aware of the lifting. The strong pressure of direct
taxation, directs the dissatisfaction among the poor against the State;
the still stronger indirect taxation, _directs the discontent against
society also, the evil being felt to be of a social as well as political
character_. In that there is progress. Him whom the gods would destroy,
they first make blind.

In the endeavor to do justice to the most opposed interests, laws are
heaped upon laws; but no old one is thoroughly repealed, nor new one
thoroughly enforced. Everything is done by halves, giving satisfaction
in no direction. The requirements of civilization that spring from the
life of the people, demand some attention, unless everything is to be
risked; even the fractional way they are attended to, demands
considerable sacrifice, all the more seeing that our public institutions
are overrun by parasites. At the same time, not only are all the
unproductive institutions, wholly at variance with the trend of
civilization, continued in force, but, due to the existing conflicts of
interests, they are rather enlarged, and thus they become all the more
burdensome and oppressive in the measure that increasing popular
intelligence ever more loudly pronounces them superfluous. Police,
armies, courts of law, prisons, the whole administrative apparatus--all
are enlarged ever more, and become ever more expensive. And yet neither
external nor internal security is obtained. The reverse follows.

A wholly unnatural state of things has gradually arisen in the
international relations of the several nations. The relations between
nation and nation multiply in the measure that the production of goods
increases; that, thanks to improved transportation, the exchange of this
mass of merchandise is facilitated; and that the economic and scientific
achievements of each become the public possession of all. Treaties of
commerce are concluded; expensive routes of traffic--Suez Canals, St.
Gotthard Tunnels--are opened with international funds. Individual
countries support with heavy subsidies steamship lines that help to
promote intercourse between several nations. The Postal Union--a step of
first rank in civilization--is established; international conventions
are convoked for all imaginable practical and scientific purposes; the
literary products of genius of any nation are spread abroad by
translations into the leading languages. Thus the tendency is ever more
strongly marked toward the internationalizing, the fraternizing of all
peoples. Nevertheless, the political, the military state of the nations
of Europe stands in strange contrast to this general development. The
hatred of nation against nation, Chauvinism, is artificially nourished
by all. The ruling classes seek everywhere to keep green the belief that
it is the peoples who are hostilely inclined toward one another, and
only wait for the moment when one of them may fall upon another and
destroy it. The competitive struggle between the capitalists of several
countries, together with their jealousy of one another, assume upon the
international field the character of a struggle between the capitalists
of one country against those of another, and, backed by the political
blindness of the large masses, it conjures into existence a contest of
military armaments such as the world has never seen before. This contest
has brought forth armies of magnitudes that never were known; it
produced implements of murder and destruction for land and naval warfare
of such perfection as is possible only in an age of such advanced
technique as ours. The contest drives these antagonisms to a head, it
incites a development of means of destruction that finally destroy
themselves. The support of the armies and navies demand sacrifices that
yearly become larger, and that finally ruin the richest nation. Germany,
for instance, had, according to the imperial budget of 1894-95, a
regular army and navy outlay of nearly 700 million marks--inclusive of
pensions and of interest on the national debt, which amounts in round
figures to two milliards, incurred mainly for purposes of war. Under
these war expenses, the appropriations for educational and other
purposes of culture suffer severely; the most pressing needs in this
direction are neglected; and that side of the State, devoted to
so-called external defence, acquires a preponderance that undermines the
original purpose of the State itself. The increasing armies absorb the
healthiest and most vigorous portion of the nation; for their
improvement all mental and physical forces are enlisted in a way as if
education in mass-murder were the highest mission of our times.
Furthermore, implements of war as of murder are continuously improved:
they have attained--in point of swiftness, range and power--a perfection
that renders them fearful to friend and foe. If some day this tremendous
apparatus is set in operation--when the hostile forces of Europe will
take the field with twelve or fourteen million men--the fact will appear
that it has become uncontrollable. There is no general who could command
such masses; there is no field vast enough to collect and set them up;
no administrative apparatus that could nourish them for any length of
time. If battles are delivered, hospitals would be lacking to shelter
the wounded: the interment of the numerous dead would be an
impossibility.

When to all this is added the frightful disturbances and devastations,
produced to-day by a European _war on the economic-field_, there is no
exaggeration in the saying: "_the next war is the last war_." The number
of bankruptcies will be unparalleled; export stops--and thereby
thousands of factories are condemned to idleness; the supply of food
ceases--and thereby the prices of the means of life rise enormously. The
number of families whose breadwinner is in the field runs up into the
millions, and most of them must be supported. Whence shall the means
come for all that?

The political and military state of Europe has taken a development that
cannot choose but end in a catastrophe, which will drag capitalist
society down to its ruin. Having reached the height of its development,
it produces conditions that end with rendering its own existence
impossible; it digs its own grave; it slays itself with the identical
means that itself, as the most revolutionary of all previous social
systems, has called into life.

Gradually a large portion of our municipalities are arriving at a
desperate pass: they hardly know how to meet the increasing demands upon
themselves. It is more particularly upon our rapidly growing large
cities, and upon the localities situated in industrial districts, that
the quickened increase of population makes a mass of demands, which the
generally poor communities can come up to only by raising taxes and
incurring debts. The budgets leap upward from year to year for school
buildings, and street paving, for lighting, draining and water works;
for sanitary, public and educational purposes; for the police and the
administration. At the same time, the favorably situated minority makes
the most expensive demands upon the community. It demands higher
institutions of education, theatres, the opening of particularly fine
city quarters with lighting, pavement, etc., to match. However justly
the majority may complain of the preference, it lies in the very nature
of modern affairs. The minority has the power and uses it to satisfy its
social wants as much as possible at the expense of the collectivity. In
and of themselves nothing can be said against these heightened social
wants: they denote progress; the fault is only that their satisfaction
falls mainly to the lot of the property classes, while all others should
share them. A further evil lies in that often the administration is not
the best, and yet is expensive. The officials often are inadequate; they
are not sufficiently equipped for the many-sided demands made upon them,
demands that often presuppose thorough knowledge. The members of
Aldermanic Boards have generally so much to do and to attend to in their
own private affairs that they are unable to make the sacrifices demanded
for the full exercise of these public duties. Often are these posts used
for the promotion of private interests, to the serious injury of those
of the community. The results fall upon the taxpayers. Modern society
cannot think of undertaking a thorough change in these conditions. It is
powerless and helpless. It would have to remove itself, and that, of
course, it will not. Whatever the manner in which taxes be imposed,
dissatisfaction increases steadily. In a few decades, most of our
municipalities will be unable to satisfy their needs under their present
form of administration and of raising revenues. On the municipal as well
as on the national field, the need of a radical change is manifest: it
is upon the municipalities that the largest social demands are made: it
is society _in nuce_: it is the kernel from which, so soon as the will
and the power shall be there, the social change will radiate. How can
justice be done to-day, when private interests dominate and the
interests of the commonweal are made subservient?

Such, in short, is the state of things in the nation and in the
municipality. They are both but the reflection of the economic life of
society.

       *       *       *       *       *

The struggle for existence in our economic life grows daily more
gigantic. The war of all against all has broken out with virulence; it
is conducted pitilessly, often regardless of the weapon used. The
well-known French expression: "_ote-toi de la, que je m'y mette_." (Get
away, that I may step in) is carried out in practice with vigorous
elbowings, cuffings, and pinchings. The weaker must yield to the
stronger. Where physical strength--which here is the power of money, of
property--does not suffice, the most cunning and unworthy means are
resorted to. Lying, swindle, deceit, forgery, perjury--the very blackest
crimes are often committed in order to reach the coveted object. As in
this struggle for existence one individual transgresses against the
other, the same happens with class against class, sex against sex, age
against age. Profit is the sole regulator of human feelings; all other
considerations must yield. Thousands upon thousands of workingmen and
working-women are, the moment profit demands it, thrown upon the
sidewalk, and, after their last savings have been spent, turned to
public charity or forced to emigrate. Workingmen travel, so to speak, in
herds from place to place, criss-cross across the country, and are
regarded by "decent" society with all the more fear and horror, seeing
that the continuity of their enforced idleness deteriorates their
external appearance, and, as a consequence, demoralizes them internally.
Decent society has no inkling of what it means to be forced, for months
at a stretch, to be denied the simplest exigencies of order and
cleanliness, to wander from place to place with a hungry stomach, and to
earn, generally, nothing but ill-concealed fear and contempt, especially
from those quarters that are the very props of this system. The families
of these wretches suffer all along utmost distress--a distress that not
infrequently drives the parents, out of desperation, to frightful crimes
upon their own children and themselves. The last years have furnished
numerous shocking instances of whole families falling a prey to murder
and suicide. Let one instance do for many. The private correspondent,
S----, in Berlin, 45 years of age, with a still handsome wife 39 years
old, and a daughter of 12, is without work and starving. The wife
decides, with the consent of her husband, to turn prostitute. The police
gets wind thereof. The wife is placed under moral control. The family,
overcome with shame and desperate, agree, all three, to poison
themselves, and carry out their resolve on March 1, 1883.[160] A few
days before, the leading circles of Berlin celebrated great court
festivities at which hundreds of thousands were squandered.

Such are the shocking contrasts of modern society--and yet we live in
"the best of all possible worlds." Berlin has since then often witnessed
the holocaust of whole families due to material want. In 1894 the
spectacle was frequent, to an extent that called forth general horror;
nor are the instances few, reported from large and small towns within
and without Germany. This murder and suicide of whole families is a
phenomenon peculiar to modern times, and an eloquent sign of the sorry
economic state that society is in.

This general want also drives women and girls in increasing numbers into
the arms of prostitution. Demoralization and crime are heaped up, and
assume the most manifold forms. The only thing that prospers is the
jails, penitentiaries and so-called houses of correction, no longer able
to accommodate the mass that is sent to them. The crimes of all sorts
and their increase are intimately connected with the economic state of
society--a fact, however, that the latter will not have. Like the
ostrich, it sticks its head in the sand, to avoid having to admit the
incriminating state of things, and it lies to the point of deceiving
itself into the belief that the fault lies with the laziness of the
workingmen, with their love of pleasure, and with their irreligiousness.
This is a self-deception of the most dangerous, or a hypocrisy of the
most repulsive, sort. The more unfavorable the state of society is for
the majority, all the more numerous and serious are the crimes
committed. The struggle for existence assumes its rudest and most
violent aspect: it transfers man into conditions where each sees a
mortal enemy in the other. The social bonds become looser every
day.[161]

The ruling classes, who do not probe matters to the bottom, or do not
like to, seek to meet the evil after their own fashion. If poverty and
want, and, as a result therefrom, demoralization and crime increase, the
source of the evil is not searched after, so that it may be stopped; no;
the products of the conditions are punished. The more gigantic the evils
grow, and the numbers of evil-doers multiply in proportion,
proportionately severe penalties and persecutions are deemed necessary.
It is sought to drive out the devil with Beelzebub. Prof. Haeckel also
considers it proper to proceed against criminals with the severest
punishments possible, and that capital punishment, in particular, be
stringently applied.[162] By this stand the Professor places himself in
sweet accord with the re-actionists of all shades, who otherwise are
mortally opposed to him. Haeckel is of the opinion that incorrigible
scape-graces must be uprooted like weeds that take from plants light,
air and space. Had Haeckel turned his mind slightly toward social,
instead of engaging it wholly with natural science, he would know that
these criminals could, in most instances, be transformed into useful
members of human society, provided society offered them the requisite
conditions of existence. He would also find that the annihilation of
individual criminals or the rendering of them harmless, prevents as
little the commission of fresh crimes in society, as the removal of
weeds on a field would prevent their returning if the roots and seeds
are not likewise destroyed. Absolutely to prevent the forming of harmful
organisms in Nature is a feat man never will be able to achieve but _to
so improve his own social system, a system produced by himself, that it
may afford favorable conditions of life for all, and furnish to each
equal freedom to unfold, to the end that they no longer need suffer
hunger, or be driven to satisfy their desire for property, or their
ambition at the expense of others--that is possible_. Let the cause of
the crimes be studied, and let that be removed; then will the crimes
themselves be wiped out.[163]

Those who would remove crimes by removing the causes thereof, cannot, as
a matter of course, sympathize with a plan of brutal suppression. They
cannot prevent society from protecting itself after its own fashion
against the criminals, whom it cannot allow a free hand; but we demand
all the more urgently the radical reformation of society, i. e., the
removal of the causes of crime.

The connection between social conditions, on the one hand, and evildoing
and crimes, on the other, has been frequently established by
statisticians and sociologists. One of the misdemeanors nearest at
hand--one that, all Christian charitable tenets to the contrary
notwithstanding, modern society regards as a misdemeanor--is begging,
especially during hard times. On that subject, the statistics of the
Kingdom of Saxony inform us that, in the measure in which the last
industrial crisis increased--a crisis that began in Germany in 1890, and
whose end is not yet in sight--the number of persons also increased who
were punished for begging. In 1889, there were 8,566 persons punished
for this crime in the Kingdom of Saxony; in 1890, there were 8,815; in
1891, there were 10,075; and in 1892 the figures rose to 13,120--quite
an increase. Mass-impoverishment on one side, swelling affluence on the
other--such is the sign-manual of our age. In Austria, in 1873, there
was one pauper to every 724 persons; in 1882, to every 622 persons.
Crimes and misdemeanors show similar tendency. In Austria-Hungary, in
1874, there were 308,605 persons sentenced in the criminal courts; in
1892, their number was 600,000. In the German Empire, in 1882, there
were 329,968 persons sentenced for crimes and misdemeanors under the
laws of the land; that is to say, to every 10,000 inhabitants of twelve
years and over there were 103.2 criminals; in 1892, the number of
criminals was 422,327, or 143.3--an increase of 39 per cent. Among the
persons punished, there were, for crimes and misdemeanors against
property:--


                          To Every 10,000
                          Inhabitants,
                          12 Years of Age
      Year.      Total.    and Over.
    1882        169,334      53.0
    1891        196,437      55.8


We think these figures speak volumes. They show how the deterioration of
social conditions intensify and promote poverty, want, misdemeanors and
crimes.

The basis of our social state is the capitalist system of production. On
it modern society rests. All social, all political institutions are
results and fruits of that system. It is the ground from which the whole
social and political superstructure, together with its bright and dark
sides, have sprung up. It influences and dominates the thoughts and
feelings and actions of the people who live under it. Capital is the
leading power in the State and in Society: the capitalist is the ruler
of the propertyless, whose labor-power he buys for his use, and at a
price, that, like all other merchandise, is governed by supply and
demand and oscillates now above, then below the cost of reproduction.
But the capitalist does not buy labor-power out of "sweet charity," in
order to do a favor to the workingmen, although he often so pretends. He
buys it for the purpose of obtaining surplus wealth from the labor of
the workingmen, which he then pockets under the name of profit,
interest, house and ground rent. This surplus wealth, squeezed out of
the workingmen, and which in so far as the capitalist does not squander
it in dissipation, crystallizes in his hands into more capital, puts him
in a condition to steadily enlarge his plant, improve the process of
production, and occupy increased labor forces. That, at the same time,
enables him to step up before his weaker competitors, like a mailed
knight before an unarmed pedestrian, and to destroy them. This unequal
struggle between large and small capital spreads amain, and, as the
cheapest labor-power, next to that of children and lads, woman plays
therein a _role_ of increasing importance. The result is the ever
sharper division of a smaller minority of mighty capitalists and a mass
of capital-less male and female lack-alls whose only resource is the
daily sale of their labor-power. The middle class arrives hereby at a
plight that grows ever graver. One field of industry after another,
where small production still predominated, is seized and occupied to
capitalist ends. The competition of capitalists among themselves compels
them to explore ever newer fields of exploitation. Capital goes about
"like a roaring lion, seeking whom it may devour." The smaller and
weaker establishments are destroyed; if their owners fail to save
themselves upon some new field--a feat that becomes ever harder and less
possible--then they sink down into the class of the wage earners, or of
Catilinarians. All efforts to prevent the downfall of handicraft and of
the middle class by means of institutions and laws, borrowed from the
lumber-room of the musty past, prove utterly ineffective. They may
enable one or another to deceive himself on his actual condition; but
soon the illusion vanishes under the heavy weight of facts. The process
of absorption of the small by the large takes its course with all the
power and pitilessness of a law of Nature, and the process is sensible
to the feeling and the sight of all.

In the period between 1875-1882, the number of small industries
decreased in Prussia by 39,655,[164] although the population increased
in this period by about two million heads. The number of workmen
employed in small industries sank, during that time, from 57.6 per
cent., to 54.9 per cent. The industrial statistics for 1895 will furnish
much more drastic figures. The development of large production stands in
close relation to the development of steam machine and steam
horse-power. And what is the picture presented by these? Prussia had:--


                               1878.   1893.
    Stationary steam boilers  32,411  53,024 +  63.6 per cent.
    Stationary steam engines  29,895  53,092 +  77.6 per cent.
    Movable machines           5,536  15,725 + 184   per cent.


The Kingdom of Saxony had:--


                               1861.    1891.
    Stationary steam engines   1,003    8,075 + 700 per cent.
    Horse-power               15,633  160,772 + 922 per cent.


In 1861, a steam engine in Saxony had, on an average, a 15.5
horse-power; in 1891, it had 19. All Germany had in 1878 about three
million horse-power in operation in industry; in 1894, about five
million. Austria had in 1873 in round figures 336,000 horse-power; in
1888, about 2,150,000. Steam power spreads daily, and stronger steam
machines drive out weaker ones--large production drives out small. The
fact is shown emphatically in the industries in which steam has become
the general power, the brewery industry, for instance. In the German
brewery tax department, exclusive of Bavaria, Wuertemburg, Baden and
Alsace-Lorraine, there were:--


               Breweries       Industrially
      Year.  in Operation.      Operated.          Output.
    1873         13,561          10,927          19,654,900 hl.
    1891-2        8,460           7,571          33,171,100 hl.
                 ------          ------          ----------
                  5,101           3,356          13,516,200 hl.
                Decrease        Decrease          Increase
             = 38 per cent.  = 31.1 per cent.  = 68.8 per cent.


The breweries in general, this table shows, had decreased during this
period 38 per cent., the industrially operated ones 31.1 per cent.; the
output, however, had increased 68.8 per cent. The giant concerns
increased at the expense of the middle and small ones. The identical
development is going on _in all countries of civilization, in all
industries capitalistically operated_. Let us now take up the brandy
distilleries. In all the eight provinces of Prussia, there were in
operation:--[165]


                               Consumed in Distillery,
      Year.  Distilleries.    Brandy (Double Quintal).
    1831       13,806        1,736,458          5,418,217
    1886-87     5,814        2,518,478         24,310,196
               ------        ---------         ----------
                7,992          782,020         18,891,979
              Decrease        Decrease          Increase
           = 38 per cent.  = 31.1 per cent.  = 68 per cent.


Similar results are revealed in the coal and the mineral mining
industries of the German Empire. In the former, the number of leading
concerns--623 in number between the years 1871-1875--dropped to 406 in
1889, but the output increased simultaneously from 34,485,400 tons to
67,342,200 tons, and the average number of employees rose from 172,074
to 239,954. In the latter, the average number of leading establishments
between 1871-1875, was 3,034, with an average force of 277,878 hands,
that turned out 51,056,900 tons; in 1889, the number of leading
establishments had _dropped to 1,962, while the average force had risen
to 368,896 hands, and the output to 99,414,100 tons_.[166] We see that
in the coal mine industry the number of concerns decreased during that
period 35 per cent., while the number of employees rose 40 per cent.,
and production as much as 95.2 per cent. Similarly in the mineral mining
industry. Here the number of establishments decreased 35.3 per cent.,
while the number of workingmen employed rose 33 per cent., and
production 94.7 per cent. A smaller but much richer number of employers
now confronted a greatly swollen number of proletarians. Nor does this
technical revolution proceed in industry alone: it is also going on in
the department of transportation and communication. German commerce had
upon the seas:--


              Sailing
      Year.   Vessels.   Tonnage.   Crews.
    1871       4,372     900,361    34,739
    1893       2,742     725,182    17,522
               -----     -------    ------
               1,630     175,179    17,217
             Decrease.  Decrease.  Decrease.


Sail navigation, we see, declines perceptibly, but in so far as it
continues to exist, _the tonnage of vessels increases, and the force of
the crews decreases_. In 1871, there came to every one sailing vessel
205.9 tons and 7.9 crew; in 1893, however, the average tonnage per
sailing vessel was 271.7 and only a crew 6.4 strong. A different picture
is offered by the German ocean steamship navigation. Germany had:--


    Year.        Steamers.  Tonnage.   Crews.
    1871            147      81,994    4,736
    1893            986     786,397   24,113
                    ---     -------   ------
        Increase    839     704,403   19,377


We see that, not only did the number of steamers rise considerably, but
that their tonnage increased still more; on the other hand, the force of
the crews had relatively decreased. In 1871, steamers had on an average
a 558 tonnage, with a 32.1 crew; in 1893 they had a 797.5 tonnage and
only a 24.5 crew. It is an economic law that the number of workingmen
_decreases_ everywhere with the concentration of industry, while,
relatively to the whole population, wealth concentrates in ever fewer
hands, and the number of employers, rendered unable to hold their own
and driven into bankruptcy by the process of concentration, mounts ever
higher.

In the eight old provinces of Prussia, the population increased 42 per
cent. during 1853-1890. But the incomes in the several grades rose in
the following rates:--[167]


      Incomes.                 Increased
    Up to     3,000 marks     42 per cent.
    3,000--  36,000 marks    333 per cent.
    36,000-- 60,000 marks    590 per cent.
    60,000--120,000 marks    835 per cent.
    Over    120,000 marks    942 per cent.


The number of incomes up to 3,000 marks increased exactly with the
population; it would, however, have lagged behind it if, within the
period of 1853-1890, there had not been an extraordinary increase of
national, State, municipal and private officials, the large majority of
whose incomes falls below 3,000 marks. On the other hand, the number of
large incomes has risen beyond all proportion, although, during the
period under consideration, there was not yet any provision in Prussia
making the correct estimate of incomes obligatory. This was introduced
in 1891. The actual increase of incomes was, accordingly, much larger
than the figures indicate. As stated before, the concentration of
wealth, on the one side, is paralleled with mass-proletarianization, on
the other, and also with swelling figures of bankruptcy. During the
period of 1880-1889, the number of bankruptcy cases, adjudicated by law,
averaged, in Germany, 4,885 a year; it rose to 5,908 in 1890; to 7,234
in 1891; and to 7,358 in 1892. These figures do not include the large
number of bankruptcies that did not reach the courts, the assets not
being large enough to cover the costs; neither are included among them
those that were settled out of court between the debtors and their
creditors.

The same picture that is presented by the economic development of
Germany is presented by that of all industrial countries of the world.
All nations of civilization are endeavoring to become industrial States.
They wish to produce, not merely for the satisfaction of their own
domestic wants, but also for exportation. Hence the absolute propriety
of no longer speaking of "national" but of "international" economy. It
is the world's market that now regulates the price of numberless
products of industry and agriculture, and that controls the social
position of nations. The productive domain, that, in the near future,
will dominate the world's market is that of the United States--a quarter
from which is now proceeding the principal impetus toward
revolutionizing the relations of the world's market, and, along
therewith, all bourgeois society. According to the census of 1890, the
capital invested in industry in the United States has risen to 6,524
million dollars, as against 2,790 million in 1880, an increase of 136
per cent. The value of the industrial products rose during that period
from 5,369 million dollars to 9,370 million, or 75 per cent. in round
figures, while the population increased only 25 per cent.[168] The
United States has reached a point of development where it must export a
large mass of products in order to be able to continue producing in
sufficient quantities. Instead of importing articles of industry from
Europe, these will henceforth be exported in large volumes, thereby
upsetting commercial relations everywhere. What pass has been reached
there is indicated by the mammoth struggles between Capital and Labor,
by the distress of the masses that has lasted years, and by the colossal
increase of bankruptcy during the last crisis. In 1879, 1880 and 1881
the sum absorbed in bankruptcies ran up to 82 million dollars in round
figures; in 1890 the amount was 190 million dollars, and in 1891 it rose
to 331 million dollars. An instance will illustrate the gigantic measure
of the concentration of capital in that country. In 1870, there were in
the United States 2,819 woolen mills, in which 96 million dollars were
invested as capital; in 1890 the number of these mills had sunk to
1,312, but the capital invested had risen to 136 million. In 1870, on an
average, $34,000 sufficed to establish a woolen mill; in 1890, not less
than $102,000 was requisite. The increased demands upon capital forces
the building of stock corporations, which, in turn, promote the
concentration still more. Where the powers of a single capitalist do not
suffice, several of them join; they appoint technical overseers, who are
well paid, and they pocket, in the form of dividends, the profits which
the workingmen must raise. The restlessness of industry reaches its
classic form in the stock corporation, which demonstrates how useless
the person of the capitalist has become as a leader of industry.

Seeing that this process of development and concentration is proceeding
equally in all leading countries, the inevitable results of the anarchic
method of production is "over-production," the stoppage of trade, the
crisis.

Accordingly, the crisis is a consequence of the absence of any means
whatever whereby at any time the actual demand for certain goods can be
gauged and controlled. There is no power in bourgeois society able to
regulate production as a whole; the customers are spread over too vast
an area; then also, their purchasing power, upon which depends their
power of consumption, is affected by a number of causes, beyond the
control of the individual producer. Moreover, along with each individual
producer, are a number of others, whose productive powers and actual
yield also are unknown to him. Each strives, with all the means at his
command--cheap prices, advertisements, long credit, drummers, also
secret and crafty detraction of the quality of the goods of his
competitor, the last of which is a measure that flourishes particularly
at critical moments--to drive all other competitors from the field.
Production is wholly left to accident and to the judgment of
individuals. Accident often is more unfavorable than otherwise. Every
capitalist must produce a certain quantity of goods, in order that he
may exist; he is, however, driven to increase his output, partly because
his increase of revenues depends upon that, partly also because upon
that depend his prospects of being able to overcome his competitors, and
keep the field all to himself. For a while, the output is safe; the
circumstance tends to expansion and increased production. But prosperous
times do not tempt one capitalist alone; they tempt them all. Thus
production rises far above demand, and suddenly the market is found
overstocked. Sales stop; prices fall; and production is curtailed. The
curtailment of production in any one branch implies a diminished demand
for workingmen, the lowering of wages and a retrenchment of consumption
in the ranks of labor. A further stoppage of production and business in
other departments is the necessary consequence. Small producers of all
sorts--trademen, saloonkeepers, bakers, butchers, etc.,--whose
customers are chiefly workingmen, lose the profitable sale of their
goods and likewise land in distress.

The way in which such a crisis works appears from a census on the
unemployed which the Social Democratic Party of Hamburg undertook on
February 14, 1894. Of 53,756 workingmen who were interrogated, and of
whom 34,647 were married, with an aggregate family dependence of
138,851, there were 18,422 who, during the last year, had been idle a
total of 191,013 weeks; 5,084 persons had been idle from 1 to 5 weeks;
8,741 from 6 to 10 weeks; 1,446 from 11 to 15 weeks; 984 from 16 to 20
weeks; 2,167 more than 20 weeks. These are workingmen, who wished to
work, but who, in this best of all possible worlds, could find no work.
The sorry plight of these people may be imagined.

Again, one industry furnishes its raw material to another; one depends
upon the other; it follows that all must suffer and pay for the blows
that fall upon any. The circle of participants and sufferers spreads
ever wider. A number of obligations, assumed in the hope of a long
continuance of prosperity, cannot be met, and thus new fuel is added to
the conflagration of the crisis, whose flames rise higher from month to
month. An enormous mass of stored-up goods, tools, machinery, becomes
almost worthless. The goods are got rid of at great sacrifices. Not only
their proprietor is thereby ruined, but also dozens of others who are
thereby likewise forced to give up their goods under cost. During the
crisis itself, the method of production is all along improved with the
view of meeting future competition; but this only prepares the ground
for new and still worse crises. After the crisis has lasted years, after
the surplusage of goods has been gradually done away with through sales
at ruinous prices, through retrenchment of production, and through the
destruction of smaller concerns, society slowly begins to recover again.
Demand rises, and production follows suit--slowly at first and cautious,
but, with the continuance of prosperity, the old vertigo sets in anew.
Everyone is anxious to recover what he lost, and expects to be under
cover before the next crisis breaks in. Nevertheless, seeing that all
capitalists foster the identical thought, and that each one improves his
plant so as to head off the others, the catastrophe is soon brought on
again and with all the more fatal effect. Innumerable establishments
rise and fall like balls at a game, and out of such continuous ups and
downs flows the wretched state of things that is witnessed at all
crises. These crises crowd upon one another in the measure that large
production increases, and the competitive struggle--not between
individuals only, but between whole nations--becomes sharper. The
scampering for customers, on a small scale, and for markets on a large
one, gains in fierceness, and ends finally in great losses. Goods and
implements are heaped mountain high, yet the masses of the people suffer
hunger and want.

The autumn of the year 1890 brought new proof of the correctness of
this outline. After a long series of years of business depression,
during which, however, large capitalist development was steadily
progressing, an improvement in our economic life set in during 1887-8,
stimulated in no slight degree by the extensive changes introduced in
our army and navy systems. The upward movement continued during 1889 and
up into the first quarter of 1890. During this period, a number of new
establishments began to crop up everywhere in several fields of
industry; a large number of others were enlarged and improved to the
highest point of technical perfection, and their capacity greatly
increased. In the same measure that this large capitalist development
progressed, a larger and ever larger number of establishments passed
from the hands of individual capitalists into stock corporations--a
change that ever is more or less connected with an increase of
production. The new issues, that, as a result of these combinations and
due also to the increase of the public debt, were contracted in the
international money market, ran up in 1887 to about 4,000 million marks;
in 1888, to 5,500 million; and in 1889, to even 7,000 million. On the
other hand, the capitalists of all countries were endeavoring to
"regulate" prices and production by means of national and international
agreements. Rings and Trusts sprang up like mushrooms over night. The
majority, often all the capitalists concerned in the more important
branches of production, formed syndicates, by means of which prices were
fixed, and production was to be regulated by the light of accurate
statistical information. Over-production was thus to be prevented. A
marvelous monopolization of industry, such as had never been seen, was
thus achieved in the interest of the capitalists and at the expense of
the workingmen, and of the consumers in general. For a while it seemed
as if capital had come into possession of the means that enabled it to
control the market in all directions, to the injury of the public and to
its own greater glory. But appearances deceived. The laws of capitalist
production proved themselves stronger than the shrewdest representatives
of the system who imagined they held in their hands the power to
regulate it. The crisis set in. One of the largest international
business houses of England fell and involved a number of others in its
fall. All exchanges and markets--of London, Paris, Vienna and Berlin, as
far as St. Petersburg, New York and Calcutta--shook and trembled. It had
again been shown that the profoundest calculations prove deceptive, and
that capitalist society cannot escape its fate.

All this notwithstanding, capitalism proceeds on its course: it can be
no other than it is. By means of the forms that its course dictates, it
throws all the laws of capitalist economics overboard. "Free
competition," the Alpha and Omega of bourgeois society, is to bring the
fittest to the top of the enterprises; but the stock corporation
removes all individuality, and places the crown upon that combination
that has the longest purse and the strongest grip. The syndicates,
Trusts and rings carry the point still further. Whole branches of
industry are monopolized; the individual capitalist becomes but a pliant
link in a chain, held by a capitalist committee. _A handful of
monopolists set themselves up as lords of the world and dictate to it
the price of goods, to the workingmen their wages and conditions of
life._

The whole course of this development brings out how utterly superfluous
the individual capitalist has become, and that production, conducted
upon a national and international scale, is the goal toward which
society steers--with this difference, that, in the end, this organized
production will redound to the benefit, not of a class, but of the
collectivity.

The economic revolution just sketched, and which is driving bourgeois
society with great swiftness to its apogee, becomes more pointed from
year to year. While Europe finds itself pressed more and more in its
foreign markets, and finally on its own territory, by the competition of
the United States, latterly enemies have risen in the East also,
rendering still more critical the plight of Europe, and at the same time
threatening the United States also. This danger proceeds from the
progress of English India toward becoming a great agricultural and
industrial State--a progress that, in the first place, looks to the
meeting of the wants of India's own two hundred million strong
population, and, in the second place, develops into a mortal enemy of
English and German industry in particular. And still another industrial
State is beginning to rise in the East--_Japan_. According to the
"Kreuzzeitung" of February 20, 1895, "during the last ten years, Japan
has imported from Europe the best perfected machinery for setting up
industrial plants, especially in cotton spinning. In 1889, she had only
35,000 spindles; now she has over 380,000. In 1889, Japan imported 31
million pounds of raw cotton; in 1891, she imported 67 million. She is
steadily decreasing her importations of manufactured articles, and
increasing her importations of raw material, which she then retransports
in the shape of manufactures. During the last year Hongkong, a European
colony, bought over two million marks of Japanese cotton goods. The
Japanese are providing their own markets with goods that formerly were
imported from Europe and the United States. They are also exporting to
Oriental markets, that were formerly provided from western sources. They
are exporting matches and soap; they are manufacturing clothing, felt
hats and hosiery; they have glass-blowing establishments, breweries,
tileries, tan-yards and rope-walks."

The further expansion of Japan's industry steadily reduces importations
from Europe and the United States, and simultaneously places it in
condition to turn up in the world's market as a competitor. Should
China also, as a result of the Japanese-Chinese war, be compelled to
open her immense territory to European culture, then, in view of the
great adaptability and marvelous unpretentiousness of the Chinese
workingman, another competitive power will have risen, more dangerous
than any that the world's market has yet had to reckon with. Truly, the
future of bourgeois society is threatened from all sides with grave
dangers, and there is no way to escape them.

Thus _the crisis becomes permanent and international_. It is a result of
all the markets being overstocked with goods. And yet, still more could
be produced; but the large majority of people suffer want in the
necessaries of life because they have no income wherewith to satisfy
their wants by purchase. They lack clothing, underwear, furniture,
homes, food for the body and mind, and means of enjoyment, all of which
they could consume in large quantities. But all that does not exist to
them. Hundreds of thousands of workingmen are even thrown upon the
sidewalk, and rendered wholly unable to consume because their
labor-power has become "_superfluous_" to the capitalists. Is it not
obvious that our social system suffers of serious ailments? How could
there be any "over-production" when there is no lack of capacity to
consume, i. e., of wants that crave satisfaction? Obviously, it is not
production, in and of itself, that breeds these unhallowed conditions
and contradictions: _it is the system under which production is carried
on, and the product is distributed_.

       *       *       *       *       *

In human society, all its members are bound to one another by a thousand
threads; and these threads are all the more numerous in proportion to a
people's grade of culture. If disturbances set in, they are forthwith
felt by all. Disturbances in production affect distribution and
consumption; and _vice versa_. The feature of capitalist production is
the concentration of property into ever fewer hands and into ever larger
establishments. In distribution, on the contrary, an opposite current is
noticeable. Whoever, due to the destructive effect of competition, is
stricken from the list of independent producers, seeks, in nine cases
out of ten, to squeeze himself as a dealer between the producer and the
consumer, and thus to earn his livelihood.

Hence the striking phenomenon of the increase of the middleman--dealers,
shopkeepers, hucksters, commissioners, brokers, agents, saloonkeepers,
etc. Most of these, among whom women are strongly represented, lead a
life of worries and a needy existence. Many are compelled, in order to
keep their heads above water, to speculate upon the lowest passions of
man and to promote them in all manner of ways. Hence the marvelous swing
of the most repulsive advertisements, particularly in all matters the
object of which is the gratification of sexual pleasures.

It is undeniable, and, viewed from a higher viewpoint, it is also
cheering, that the current for a greater enjoyment of life runs deep in
modern society. Man begins to understand that, in order to be human, a
life worthy of human beings is requisite, and the feeling is expressed
in such form as corresponds with the respective conceptions of the
enjoyment of life. As far as the distribution of its wealth is
concerned, society has become much more _aristocratic_ than at any
previous period. Between the richest and the poorest, the chasm is wider
to-day than ever before. On the other hand, with regard to its ideas and
laws, society has become more _democratic_.[169] Hence the masses strive
after greater equality; and, seeing that in their ignorance they know
not yet the path by which to attain their wishes, they seek equality in
the imitation of the upper classes by furnishing themselves with
whatever pleasures are within their reach. All possible artificial means
are resorted to in order to exploit this tendency; the consequences are
often serious. The gratification of a justified desire thus leads in a
number of cases to wrong paths, often to crime; and society intervenes
in its own way, without thereby improving matters in the least.

The increasing mass of the middlemen draws many evils in its wake.
Although this class toils arduously and works under the load of heavy
cares, _the majority are parasites, they are unproductively active, and
they live upon the labors of others, just the same as the capitalist
class_. Higher prices is the inevitable consequence of this industry.
Food and other goods rise in price in such manner that they often cost
twice or many times as much as the producer received for them.[170] If
it is thought unadvisable or impossible to materially raise the price of
the goods, lest consumption decline, they are artificially deteriorated,
and recourse is had _to adulteration of food, and to false weights and
measures_, in order to make the requisite profits. The chemist Chevalier
reports that he knows, among the several adulterations of food, 32 for
coffee, 30 for wine, 28 for chocolate, 24 for meal, 23 for brandy, 20
for bread, 19 for milk, 10 for butter, 9 for olive oil, 6 for sugar,
etc. The Chamber of Commerce of Wesel reported in 1870 that an extensive
system of swindle was practiced in the shops in the sale of
ready-weighed articles: for 1 pound, 24 or 26 pennyweights were given,
and in that way twice as much was gained as the difference in the price.
Workingmen and small traders who get their goods on credit and who must,
accordingly, submit, even when the fraud is obvious, fare worst of all.
Grave abuses are also perpetrated in bakeries. Swindling and cheating
are inseparable from our modern conditions, and certain government
institutions, such as high indirect taxes, are direct incentives
thereto. The laws against the adulteration of food alter matters but
little. The struggle for existence compels the swindlers to resort to
ever shrewder means, nor is there any thorough and strict inspection.
Leading and influential circles of our ruling classes are even
interested in the system of swindle. Under the pretext that, in order to
discover adulterations a more comprehensive and more expensive
administrative apparatus is required, and that "legitimate business"
would suffer thereby, almost all inspection, worthy of the name, is
lamed. If, however, laws and measures of inspection do actually
intervene, they affect a considerable rise in the price of the
unadulterated products, seeing that the lower price was made possible
only by adulteration.

With the view of avoiding these evils of trade, evils that, as ever and
everywhere, are hardest on the masses, "Consumers' Associations" have
been set up. In Germany, the "Consumers' Association" plan, especially
among the military and civil service employees, reaches such a point
that numerous business houses have been ruined, and many are not far
from the same fate. These Associations demonstrate the superfluousness
of trade in a differently organized society.[171] In that consists their
principal merit. The material advantages are not great for the members;
neither are the facilities that they offer enough to enable the members
to discover any material improvement in their condition. Not
infrequently is their administration poor, and the members must pay for
it. In the hands of capitalists, these Associations even become an
additional means to chain the workingman to the factory, and they are
used as weapons to depress wages. The founding of these "Consumers'
Associations" is, however, a symptom that the evils of trade and at
least the superfluousness of the middlemen have been realized in wide
circles. Society will reach that point of organization at which trade
becomes wholly superfluous; the product will reach the consumer without
the intervention of any middlemen other than those who attend to its
transportation from place to place, and who are in the service of
society. A natural demand, that flows from the collective procurement of
food, _is its collective preparation for the table upon a large scale,
whereby a further and enormous saving would be made of energy, space,
material and all manner of expenditures_.

       *       *       *       *       *

The economic revolution in industry and transportation has spread to
agriculture also, and in no slight degree. Commercial and industrial
crises are felt in the country as well. Many relatives of families
located in the country are partially or even wholly engaged in
industrial establishments in cities, and this sort of occupation is
becoming more and more common because the large farmers find it
convenient _to convert on their own farms a considerable portion of
their produce_. They thereby save the high cost of transporting the raw
product--potatoes that are used for spirits, beets for sugar, grain for
flour or brandy or beer. Furthermore, they have on their own farms
cheaper and more willing labor than can be got in the city, or in
industrial districts. Factories and rent are considerably cheaper, taxes
and licenses lower, seeing that, to a certain extent, the landed
proprietors are themselves lawgivers and law officers: from their midst
numerous representatives are sent to the Reichstag: not infrequently
they also control the local administration and the police department.
These are ample reasons for the phenomenon of increasing numbers of
funnel-pipes in the country. Agriculture and industry step into ever
closer interrelation with each other--an advantage that accrues mainly
to the large landed estates.

The point of capitalist development reached in Germany also by
agriculture has partially called forth conditions similar to those found
in England and the United States. As with the small and middle class
industries, so likewise with the small and middle class farms, they are
swallowed up by the large. A number of circumstances render the life of
the small and middle class farmer ever harder, and ripen him for
absorption by the large fellow.

No longer do the one-time conditions, as they were still known a few
decades ago, prevail in the country. Modern culture now pervades the
country in the remotest corners. Contrary to its own purpose, militarism
exercises a certain revolutionary influence. The enormous increase of
the standing army weighs, in so far as the blood-tax is concerned,
heaviest of all upon the country districts. The degeneration of
industrial and city life compels the drawing of by far the larger
portion of soldiers from the rural population. When the farmer's son,
the day laborer, or the servant returns after two or three years from
the atmosphere of the city and the barracks, an atmosphere not exactly
impregnated with high moral principles;--when he returns as the carrier
and spreader of venereal diseases, he has also become acquainted with a
mass of new views and wants whose gratification he is not inclined to
discontinue. Accordingly, he makes larger demands upon life, and wants
higher wages; his frugality of old went to pieces in the city.
Transportation, ever more extended and improved, also contributes toward
the increase of wants in the country. Through intercourse with the city,
the rustic becomes acquainted with the world from an entirely new and
more seductive side: he is seized with new ideas: he learns of the wants
of civilization, thitherto unknown to him. All that renders him
discontented with his lot. On top of that, the increasing demands of the
State, the province, the municipality hit both farmer and farmhand, and
make them still more rebellious.

True enough, many farm products have greatly risen in value during this
period, but not in even measure with the taxes and the cost of living.
On the other hand, transmarine competition in food materially
contributes toward reducing prices: this reduces incomes: the same can
be counterbalanced only by improved management: and nine-tenths of the
farmers lack the means thereto. Moreover, the farmer does not get for
his product the price paid by the city: he has to deal with the
middlemen: and these hold him in their clutches. The broker or dealer,
who at given seasons traverses the country and, as a rule, himself sells
to other middlemen, wants to make his profits: the gathering of many
small quantities gives him much more trouble than a large invoice from a
single large holder: the small farmer receives, as a consequence, less
for his goods than the large farmer. Moreover, the quality of the
products from the small farmer is inferior: the primitive methods that
are there generally pursued have that effect: and that again compels the
small farmer to submit to lower prices. Again, the farm owner or tenant
can often not afford to wait until the price of his goods rises. He has
payments to meet--rent, interest, taxes; he has loans to cancel and
debts to settle with the broker and his hands. These liabilities are due
on fixed dates: he must sell however unfavorable the moment. In order to
improve his land, to provide for co-heirs, children, etc., the farmer
has contracted a mortgage: he has no choice of creditor: thus his plight
is rendered all the worse. High interest and stated payments of arrears
give him hard blows. An unfavorable crop, or a false calculation on the
proper crop, for which he expected a high price, carry him to the very
brink of ruin. Often the purchaser of the crop and the mortgagee are one
and the same person. The farmers of whole villages and districts thus
find themselves at the mercy of a few creditors. The farmers of hops,
wine and tobacco in Southern Germany; the truck farmers on the Rhine;
the small farmers in Central Germany--all are in that plight. The
mortgagee sucks them dry; he leaves them, apparent owners of a field,
that, in point of fact, is theirs no longer. The capitalist vampire
often finds it more profitable to farm in this way than, by seizing the
land itself and selling it, or himself doing the farming. Thus many
thousand farmers are carried on the registers as proprietors, who, in
fact, are no longer such. Thus, again, many a large farmer--unskilled in
his trade, or visited by misfortune, or who came into possession under
unfavorable circumstances--also falls a prey to the executioner's axe of
the capitalist. The capitalist becomes lord of the land; with the view
of making double gains he goes into the business of "butchering
estates:" he parcels out the domain because he can thereby get a larger
price than if he sold it in lump: then also he has better prospects of
plying his usurious trade if the proprietors are many and small holders.
It is well known that city houses with many small apartments yield the
largest rent. A number of small holders join and buy a portion of the
parcelled-out estate: the capitalist benefactor is ready at hand to pass
larger tracts over to them on a small cash payment, securing the rest by
mortgage bearing good interest. This is the milk in the cocoanut. If the
small holder has luck and he succeeds, by utmost exertion, to extract a
tolerable sum from the land, or to obtain an exceptionally cheap loan,
then he can save himself; otherwise he fares as shown above.

If a few heads of cattle die on the hands of the farm-owner or tenant, a
serious misfortune has befallen him; if he has a daughter who marries,
her outfit augments his debts, besides his losing a cheap labor-power;
if a son marries, the youngster wants a piece of land or its equivalent
in money. Often this farmer must neglect necessary improvements: if his
cattle and household do not furnish him with sufficient manure--a not
unusual circumstance--then the yield of the farm declines, because its
owner cannot buy fertilizers: often he lacks the means to obtain better
seed. The profitable application of machinery is denied him: a rotation
of crops, in keeping with the chemical composition of his farm, is often
not to be thought of. As little can he turn to profit the advantages
that science and experience offer him in the conduct of his domestic
animals: the want of proper food, the want of proper stabling and
attention, the want of all other means and appliances prevent him.
Innumerable, accordingly, are the causes that bear down upon the small
and middle class farmer, drive him into debt, and his head into the
noose of the capitalist or the large holder.

The large landholders are generally intent upon buying up the small
holdings, and thereby "rounding up" their estates. The large capitalist
magnates have a predilection for investments in land, this being the
safest form of property, one, moreover, that, with an increasing
population, rises in value without effort on the part of the owners.
England furnishes the most striking instance of this particular increase
of value. Although due to international competition in agricultural
products and cattle-raising, the yield of the land decreased during the
last decades, nevertheless, seeing that in Scotland two million acres
were converted into hunting grounds, that in Ireland four million acres
lie almost waste, that in England the area of agriculture declined from
19,153,900 acres in 1831, to 15,651,605 in 1880, a loss of 3,484,385
acres, which have been converted into meadow lands, rent increased
considerably. The aggregate rent from country estates amounted, in
pounds sterling, to:--


      Countries.          1857.       1875.       1880.     Increase.
    England and Wales  41,177,200  50,125,000  52,179,381  11,002,181
    Scotland            5,932,000   7,493,000   7,776,919   1,844,919
    Ireland             8,747,000   9,293,000  10,543,000   1,796,700
                       ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
        Total          55,856,200  67,911,000  70,499,300  14,643,800


Accordingly, an increase of 26.2 per cent. within 23 years, and that
without any effort on the part of the owners. Although, since 1880, due
to the ever sharper international competition in food, the agricultural
conditions of England and Ireland have hardly improved, the large
English landlords have not yet ventured upon such large demands upon the
population as have the continental, the German large landlords in
particular. England knows no agricultural tariffs; and the demand for a
minimum price, fixed by government, of such nature that they have been
styled "price raisers" and as the large landlords of the East Elbe
region together with their train-bands in the German Reichstag are
insisting on at the cost of the propertyless classes, would raise in
England a storm of indignation.

According to the agricultural statistics gathered in Germany on June 2,
1882, the farms fell into the following categories according to size:--


                                       Percentage of
     Area.                    Farms.   Total Farms.
    Under 1 hectare         2,323,316     44.03
      1 to     5 hectares   1,719,922     32.54
      5 to    10 hectares     554,174     10.50
     10 to    20 hectares     372,431      7.06
     20 to    50 hectares     239,887      4.50
     50 to   100 hectares      41,623      0.80
    100 to   200 hectares      11,033      0.21
    200 to   500 hectares       9,814      0.18
    500 to 1,000 hectares       3,629      0.07
           1,000 hectares         515      0.01
                            ---------     -----
           Total            5,276,344     99.90


According to Koppe, a minimum of 6 hectares are requisite in Northern
Germany for a farmer's family to barely beat itself through; in order
to live in tolerable circumstances, 15 to 20 hectares are requisite. In
the fertile districts of Southern Germany, 3 to 4 hectares are
considered good ground to support a peasant family on. This minimum is
reached in Germany by not four million farms, and only about 6 per cent.
of the farmers have holdings large enough to enable them to get along in
comfort. Not less than 3,222,270 farmers conduct industrial or
commercial pursuits besides agriculture. It is a characteristic feature
of the lands under cultivation that the farms of less than 50
hectares--5,200,000 in all--contained only 3,747,677 hectares of grain
lands, whereas the farms of more than 50 hectares--66,000 in round
figures--contained 9,636,246 hectares. One and a quarter per cent. of
the farms contained 2˝ times more grain land than the other 98-3/4 per
cent. put together.

And yet the picture presented by these statistics falls by far short of
the reality. It has not been ascertained among how many owners these
5,276,344 farms are divided. The number of owners is far smaller than
that of the farms themselves: many are the owners of dozens of farms: it
is in the instance of large farms, in particular, that many are held by
one proprietor. A knowledge of the concentration of land is of the
highest socio-political importance, yet on this point the agricultural
statistics of 1882 leave us greatly in the lurch. A few facts are,
nevertheless, ascertained from other sources, and they give an
approximate picture of the reality. The percentages of large landed
property--over 100 hectares--to the aggregate agricultural property was
as follows:--


      Provinces.  Percentage.         Provinces.    Percentage.
    Pomerania        64.87          Brandenburg        42.60
    Posen            61.22          Silesia            42.14
    West Prussia     54.41          Saxony             30.89
    East Prussia     41.79          Schleswig-Holstein 18.03


According to the memorial of the Prussian Minister of Agriculture,
published in the bulletin of the Prussian Bureau of Statistics, the
number of middle class farms sank, from 354,610 with 35,260,084 acres,
in 1816, to 344,737 with 33,498,433 acres, in 1859. The number of these
farms had, accordingly, decreased within that period by 9,873, and
peasant property had been wiped out to the volume of 1,711,641 acres.
The inquiry extended only to the provinces of Prussia, Posen (from 1823
on), Pomerania, exclusive of Stralsund; Brandenburg, Saxony, Silesia,
and Westphalia.

What disappears as peasant property usually goes into large estates. In
1885, in the province of Pomerania, 62 proprietors held 118 estates; in
1891, however, the same number of proprietors held 203 estates with an
area of 147,139 hectares. Altogether, there were in the province of
Pomerania, in 1891, 1,353 noble and bourgeois landlords, owning 2,258
estates with 1,247,201 hectares.[172] The estates averaged 551 hectares
in size.

Our eastern provinces give this table of landlords for the year 1888:--


    Prince of Hohenlohe-Oehringen   39,365 hectares
    Prince of Sigmaringen           29,611    "
    Prince of Thurn and Taxis       24,482    "
    Prince Bismarck                 18,600    "
    Prince Radziwill                16,398    "
    Duke of Milzinski               13,933    "
    Representative Kennemann        10,482    "
    Duke Serg. v. Czarnecki          9,263    "
    v. Hansemann                     7,734    "
        Etc., etc., etc.


We see that we here have to do with owners of latifundia of first rank;
and a portion of these gentlemen own also large estates in Southern
Germany and Austria.

According to Conrad,[173] there were in the year 1888, in East Prussia,
547 entails, of which 153 were instituted before the beginning of the
nineteenth century. Entailed land is property that an heir can neither
mortgage, divide nor alienate. The owner may go into bankruptcy through
a dissolute life, but the entail and the income that flows therefrom
remain unseizable. These entails, which only the very rich can
institute, are steadily increasing in number since the last decades. The
547 entails in existence in the eastern provinces of Prussia in 1888,
held by 529 persons, 20 of whom were bourgeois, embraced 1,408,860
hectares, or 2,454 hectares on an average. According to the statistical
figures, submitted in the spring of 1894 by the Prussian Minister of
Agriculture to the Agrarian Commission, the entails of Prussia embraced
at that time 1,833,754 hectares with a net income of 22,992,000 marks.
Estimating the holders of entails at 550, each has an unseizable income
of 41,800 marks. Assuming, however, that these entails are concentrated
in one province, it would mean that the whole province of
Schleswig-Holstein, with an area of 1,890,000 hectares, belonged to 550
owners. In 1888 there were in the eastern provinces of Prussia 154
persons--among them 15 ruling Princes (the Kings of Prussia, Saxony,
etc.); 89 Dukes, other Princes and Counts; 40 noblemen and 10
bourgeois--who alone owned 1,830 estates aggregating 1,768,648 hectares
of land. Probably, the property of these persons has in the meantime
increased considerably, seeing that a good portion of the net incomes
from these estates is expended in acquiring new ones. The nobility of
the first and second rank are the principal elements engaged in this
gigantic concentration of landed property; but they are closely followed
by the aristocracy of finance, who, with increasing predilection, invest
their wealth in land, consisting mainly in magnificent woods, stocked
with roe, deer and wild boar, that the owners may gratify their passion
for the hunt. A large number of the baronial manors consist of the
estates of dispossessed peasants, who were driven from their homes and
reduced to day laborers. According to Neumann, in the provinces of East
and West Prussia alone, there were from twelve to thirteen thousand
small holdings appropriated in that way between 1825 to 1859. This
process of dispossessing, proletarianizing the country population by the
capitalist landlords, has the laying waste of the land as a natural
consequence. The population emigrates, or moves to the cities and
industrial centers. Woods and meadows gain upon cultivated lands, the
remaining territories are operated with machinery, that render human
labor superfluous, or that need such only for short periods during the
plowing and sowing seasons, or when the crops are gathered. The rapidly
increasing number of movable steam engines, already mentioned, consists
mainly of engines employed in the cultivation of the land. The decrease
of the rural population, resulting upon these and other causes of
secondary nature, is sharply expressed in the statistics on population.
Within the eight old provinces of Prussia, the proportion between the
rural and the city population revealed, between 1867 and 1890, the
following progression:--


      Year.      City Population.  Country Population.
    1867             7,452,000        16,568,000
    1890            11,783,000        18,173,000
                    ----------        ----------
        Increase     4,331,000         1,605,000
                  = 58 per cent.    = 9.7 per cent.


The rapidity is obvious with which the city is surpassing the country
population. But the situation is still more unfavorable to the country
if the fact is considered that 148 communities, with from 5,000 to
40,000 inhabitants, and aggregating a population of 1,281,000 strong,
are included in the rural but really belong to the industrial districts.
They are essentially proletarian villages, located near large cities.
Furthermore, 647 communities, with from 2,000 to 5,000 inhabitants, and
aggregating a population of 1,884,000, are likewise included in the
rural, while, to a perceptible degree, they belong to the industrial
districts.

Similar conditions exist in Saxony and Southern Germany. In Baden and
Wurtemberg also the population of many districts is on the decline. The
small farmer can no longer hold his head above water; to thousands upon
thousands of them the fate of a factory hand is inevitable; they enter
the field of industry; and, with the help of their families, they
cultivate during leisure hours the plot of land that may still be
theirs. At the same time the large landlord's hunger for land knows no
bounds; his appetite increases the more peasant lands he devours.

As in Germany so are things developing in neighboring Austria, where
large landed property has long ruled almost unchecked. The difference
there is that the Catholic Church shares the land with the nobility and
the bourgeoisie. The process of smoking-out the farmer is in full swing
in Austria. All manner of efforts are put forth in order to push the
peasants and mountaineers of Tyrol, Salzburg, Steiermark, Upper and
Lower Austria, etc., off their inherited patrimony and to drive them to
relinquish their property. The spectacle, once presented to the world by
England and Scotland, is now on the boards of the most beautiful and
charming regions of Austria. Enormous tracts of land are bought in lump
by rich men, and what cannot be bought outright is leased. Access to the
valleys, manors, hamlets and even houses is thus barred by these new
masters, and stubborn owners of separate small holdings are driven by
all manner of chicaneries to dispose of their property at any price to
these wealthy owners of the woodlands. Old farmlands, on which numerous
generations have been supported for thousands of years, are being
transformed into wilderness, in which the roe and the deer house, while
the mountains, that the noble or bourgeois capitalist calls his own,
become the abode of large herds of chamois. Whole communities are
pauperized, the turning of their cattle upon the Alpine pastures being
made impossible to them, or their right to do so being even disputed.
And who is it that thus raises his hand against the peasant's property
and independence? Princes, noblemen and rich bourgeois. Side by side
with Rothschild and Baron Mayer-Melnhof are found the Dukes of Koburg
and Meiningen, the Princes of Hohenlohe, the Prince of Lichtenstein, the
Duke of Braganza, Prince Rosenberg, Prince Pless, the Counts of
Schoenfeld, Festetics, Schafgotsca, Trautmannsdorff, the hunting
association of the Count of Karolysche, the hunting association of Baron
Gustaedtsche, the noble hunting association of Bluehnbacher, etc.

Large landed property is everywhere on the increase in Austria. The
number of large landlords rose 9.5 per cent. from 1873 to 1891, and that
means a considerable decrease of small holders: land cannot be
increased.

In Lower Austria, of a total area embracing 3,544,596 yokes, 521,603
were taken up by large estates (247 owners), and 94,882 yokes by the
Church. Nine families alone owned, in the middle of the eighties,
157,000 yokes, among these owners was the Count of Hoyos, with 54,000
yokes. The area of Moravia is 2,222,190 hectares. Of these, the Church
held 78,496, 3.53 per cent.; 145 private persons held 525,632, and one
of these alone held 107,247 hectares. Of Austrian Silesia's area of
514,085 hectares, the Church owned 50,845, or 9.87 per cent.; 36
landlords owned 134,226, or 26.07 per cent. The area of Bohemia is
5,196,700 hectares: of these the clergy owned 103,459 hectares; 362
private persons owned 1,448,638. This number is distributed among Prince
Colloredo-Mansfeld with 58,239 hectares; Prince Fuerstenberg with
39,814; Imperial Duke Waldstein with 37,989; Prince Lichtenstein with
37,937; the Count of Czerin with 32,277; the Count of Clam-Gallas with
31,691; Emperor Franz Joseph with 28,800; the Count von Harrach with
28,047; Prince von Lobkowitz with 27,684; Imperial Count Kinsky with
26,265; the Count of Buquoy with 25,645; the Prince of Thurn and Taxis
with 24,777; Prince Schwarzenberg with 24,037; Prince
Metternich-Winneburg with 20,002; Prince Auersperg with 19,960; Prince
Windischgraetz with 19,920 hectares, etc.[174]

The absorption by the large landlords of the small holdings in land
frequently proceeds in "alarming manner." For instance, in the judicial
district of Aflenz, community of St. Ilgen, an Alpine hill of over 5,000
yokes, with pasture ground for 300 head of cattle, and a contiguous
peasant estate of 700 yokes, was all converted into a hunting ground.
The same thing happened with Hoellaep, located in the community of
Seewiesen, which had pasture land for 200 head of cattle. In the same
judicial district of Aflenz, 47 other pieces of land, holding 840 head
of cattle, were gradually absorbed and turned into hunting grounds.
Similar doings are reported from all parts of the Alps. In Steiermark, a
number of peasants find it more profitable to sell the hay to the lordly
hunters as _feed for the game in winter_, than give it to their own
cattle. In the neighborhood of Muerzzuschlag, some peasants no longer
keep cattle, but sell all the feed for the support of the game.

In the judicial district of Schwarz, 7, and in the judicial district of
Zell, 16 Alpine hills, formerly used for pasture, were "cashiered" by
the new landlords and converted into hunting grounds. The whole region
of the Karwendel mountain has been closed to cattle. It is generally the
high nobility of Austria and Germany, together with rich bourgeois
upstarts, who bought up Alpine stretches of land of 70,000 yokes and
more at a clip and had them arranged for hunting parks. Whole villages,
hundreds upon hundreds of holdings are thus wiped out of existence; the
inhabitants are crowded off; and in the place of human beings, together
with cattle meet for their sustenance, roes, deer and chamois put in
their appearance. Oddest of all, more than one of the men, who thus lay
whole provinces waste, is seen rising in the parliaments and declaiming
on the "distress of landed property," and abuses his power to secure the
protection of Government in the shape of duties on corn, wood and meat,
and premiums on brandy and sugar,--all at the expense of the
propertyless masses.

According to the census of the eighties, there were 8,547,285 farms in
France; 2,993,450 farm owners had an average annual income of 300
francs, the aggregate income of these being 22.5 per cent. of the total
income from farms; 1,095,850 farm owners had an average annual income of
1,730 francs, the aggregate income of these being 47 per cent. of the
total income from farms; 65,525 large landlords, owning 109,285 farms,
drew 25.4 per cent. of the total agricultural revenues:--_their
possessions embraced more than one-half of the agricultural lands of
France_.

Large agricultural property is becoming the standard in all countries of
civilization, and, in virtue of its political influence, it sways
legislation without regard to the welfare of the commonwealth.
Nevertheless, the tenure of agricultural land and its cultivation is of
high importance to social development. Upon land and its productivity
depends first of all the population and its subsistence. Land can not be
multiplied at will, hence the question is of all the greater magnitude
to everyone how the land is cultivated and exploited. Germany, whose
population increases yearly by from 5,600,000 heads, needs a large
supply of breadstuffs and meat, if the prices of the principal
necessaries of life shall remain within the reach of the people.

At this point an important antagonism arises between the industrial and
the agricultural population. The industrial population, being
independent of agriculture, has a vital interest in cheap food: the
degree in which they are to thrive both as men and as workers depends
upon that. Every rise in the price of food leads, either to further
adulterations, or to a decline of exports, and thereby of wages as a
consequence of increased difficulties of competition. The question is
otherwise with the cultivator of the soil. As in the instance of the
industrial producer, the farmer is bent upon making the largest gains
possible out of his trade, whatever line that may be in. If the
importation of corn and meat reduces the high prices for these articles
and thereby lowers his profits, then he gives up raising corn and
devotes his soil to some other product that may bring larger returns: he
cultivates sugar-beet for the production of sugar, potatoes and grain
for distilleries, instead of wheat and rye for bread. He devotes the
most fertile tracts to tobacco instead of vegetables. In the same way,
thousands of hectares are used as horse pastures because horses for
soldiers and other purposes of war fetch good prices. On the other hand,
extensive forests, that can be made fertile, are kept at present for the
enjoyment of the hunting lords, and this often happens in neighborhoods
where the dismantling of a few hectares of woodland and their conversion
to agricultural purposes could be undertaken without thereby injuriously
affecting the humidity of the neighborhood.

Upon this particular point, forestry to-day denies the influence of
woodlands upon moisture. Woods should be allowed in large masses only at
such places where the nature of the soil permits no other form of
cultivation, or where the purpose is to furnish mountain regions with a
profitable vegetation, or with a check to the rapid running down of
water in order to prevent freshets and the washing away of the land.
From this point of view, thousands of square kilometers of fertile land
could be reclaimed in Germany for agriculture. But such an alteration
runs counter as well to the interests of the hierarchy of
office-holders--foresters--as to the private and hunting interests of
the large landlords, who are not inclined to forfeit their hunting
grounds and pleasures of the chase.

To what extent the process of rendering "hands" superfluous is
progressing in agriculture and in the industries therewith connected has
been shown in the palpable depopulation of the rural districts of
Germany. It may, furthermore, be specified that in the period between
1885 and 1890, the decrease of the rural population in 74 districts east
of the Elbe was above 2 per cent.; in 44 of these 74 districts it was
even above 3 per cent. In western Prussia, a decrease was established of
over 2 per cent. in 16 districts, in two of which the decrease exceeded
3 per cent. Especially high was the percentage of decrease in those
neighborhoods where large landlords figure as special dispensations of
Providence. In Wurtemberg, during the period between 1839 and 1885, the
population of 22 peasant districts declined from 29,907 heads to
19,213,--not less than 35.7 per cent. In East and West Prignitz, the
rural population declined during the period of 1868-1885 from 100,000
heads to 85,000,--15 per cent.

The decrease of the rural working population is marked also in England
where, as well known, latifundia property reigns supreme. The
progression in the decrease of agricultural workers was there as
follows:--


      Sexes.        1861.         1871.      Decrease.
    Males        1,833,652     1,328,151      505,501
    Females        376,797       186,450      193,127
                 ---------     ---------      -------
        Total    2,210,449     1,514,601      698,628


Since then the decrease has proceeded further. According to Dr. B. J.
Brock, in the year 1885 there was the following yield per acre in
bushels:--


      Countries.      Wheat.   Barley.
    Great Britain      35.2     37.8
    Germany            18.7     23.6
    France             16.0     19.5
    Austria            15.5     16.8
    Hungary            11.7     16.0


The difference in productivity between Great Britain and the other
countries is, we see, considerable, and it is attained through a more
extensive operation of the soil. In Hungary also the number of persons
engaged in agriculture has decreased considerably:--


    1870          4,417,514
    1880          3,669,177


a decrease of 748,457, or more than 17 per cent. in ten years. The
agricultural lands passed into the hands of large magnates and
capitalists, who employed machines instead of human workers, and thus
rendered the latter "superfluous." These phenomena manifest themselves
everywhere in agriculture,--just as in large industrial production. The
productivity of labor increases, and in the same measure a portion of
the working class is promoted to the sidewalk.

As a matter of course, this process has its evil consequences for woman
also. Her prospects of being a proprietor and housewife decline, and the
prospects increase of her becoming a servant, a cheap hand for the large
landlord. As a sexual being she is more exposed even than in the city to
the illicit wishes and cravings of the master or his lieutenants. More
so than in industry, on the land proprietary rights in the labor-power
frequently expand to proprietary rights over the whole person. Thus, in
the very midst of "Christian" Europe a quasi Turkish harem system has
developed. In the country, woman is isolated to a higher degree than in
the city. The magistrate or a close friend of his is her employer:
newspapers and a public opinion, to which she otherwise might look for
protection, there are none: furthermore, male labor itself is generally
in a disgraceful state of dependence. But "the heavens are away up, and
the Tsar is away off."

The census of occupation of 1882 established that, out of 5,273,344
farms, only 391,746, or 7˝ per cent., employ machinery. Out of the
24,999 large farms, however, containing over 100 hectares of land,
machinery was in use on 20,558, or 82Ľ per cent. Naturally, it is the
larger farms only that can utilize machinery. The application of
machinery on a large surface, all of one product, engages labor only a
comparatively short time, the number of male and female hands,
absolutely needed on the place and for tending the cattle, is reduced,
and after the field work is done, the day laborers are discharged. Thus
with us, just as in England and in a still higher degree in the United
States, a rural proletariat of grave aspect springs up. If, in view of
the shortness of the season, these workingmen demand correspondingly
high wages when they are needed, their impudence is denounced; if, upon
their discharge, they roam about in hunger and idleness, they are called
vagabonds, are abused, and not infrequently dogs are set upon them to
chase them from the yards as "tramps," unwilling to work, and they are
handed over to the constabulary for the workhouse. A pretty social
"order."

Capitalist exploitation of agriculture leads in all directions to
capitalist conditions. One set of our farmers, for instance, has for
years made enormous profits out of beet-root and the production of sugar
therewith connected. Our system of taxation favored the exportation of
sugar, and it was so framed that the tax on beets yielded but an
infinitesimal revenue to the treasury of the Empire, the premium on the
exportation of sugar being large enough to almost swallow the tax.

The rebate allowed the sugar manufacturers per double quintal was
actually higher than the tax paid by them on beets; and this premium
enabled them to sell large quantities of sugar at the expense of the
domestic tax-payers, and to extend ever more the cultivation of the
sugar-beet. The profit that accrued from this system of taxation to
about 400 sugar factories was estimated at over 30 million marks for
1889-1890: on an average 78,000 marks per factory. Several hundreds of
thousands of hectares of land, previously devoted to raising grain, were
turned into beet-root fields; factories upon factories were started, and
are still being started; the inevitable consequence is an eventual
crash. The large returns yielded by the beet-root cultivation affected
favorably the price of land. It rose. The result was the buying up of
the small farms, whose owners, seduced by the high prices, allowed
themselves to be inveigled into selling. While the land was thus being
used for industrial speculation, the raising of potatoes and grain was
being confined to narrower fields, hence the increasing need of
importation of food from abroad. The demand exceeds the supply.
Thereupon, the large supply of foreign farm products and their cheaper
transportation from Russia, the Danubian Principalities, North and South
America, India, etc., finally leads to prices on which the domestic
farmers--weighed down with mortgages and taxes, and hampered by the
smallness of their farms, and their often faultily organized and
deficiently conducted farming--can no longer exist. High duties are then
placed upon importations; but these duties accrue only to the large
farmer; the small fellow profits little by them, or none at all; and
they become heavy burdens to the non-agricultural population. The
advantage of the few becomes the injury of the many; small farming
retrogresses; for it there is no balm in Gilead. That the condition of
the small peasants in the tariff areas of Germany has been steadily
deteriorating, will be generally admitted. The advantages to the large
farmer from high duties, prohibitions of importations and measures of
exclusion enable him all the more easily to buy out the small holder.
The large number of those who do not produce in meat and bread what they
consume themselves--and a glance at the statistics of occupation and
division of the soil shows that these are by far the larger majority of
the farmers--even suffers a direct injury from the increased prices
resulting upon higher tariffs and indirect taxes. An unfavorable crop,
that lowers still more the returns from the farm, not only aggravates
the pressure, but also increases the number of the agriculturists who
are compelled to become purchasers of farm products themselves. Tariffs
and indirect taxes can not improve the economic condition of the
majority of the farmers: he who has little or nothing to sell, what, to
him, does the tariff boot, be it never so high! The incumbrance of the
small farmer and his final ruin are thereby promoted rather than
checked.

For Baden--overwhelmingly a State of small farms--the increase of
mortgage indebtedness during the period of 1884-1894 is estimated at 140
to 150 million marks. The mortgage indebtedness of the Bern peasants
aggregated in round figures 200 million francs in 1860; in 1890 it
aggregated 500 million francs. According to a report of the Bohemian
representative Gustave Eim, made to his constituents in 1893, the
indebtedness that weighed upon the farms of Bohemia stood as follows:--


    1879       2,716,641,754 guilders
    1889       3,105,587,363 guilders


We see that inside of that period the burden of indebtedness increased
14.13 per cent.--that of small holdings 13.29 per cent., while that of
the large holdings increased only 3.77 per cent. The bulk of the
increased indebtedness fell to the share of middle class property.

How the cultivator of the soil operates his farm is--under the aegis of
St. Private Property--his own business. His private interest decides.
What cares he about the commonwealth and its well-being? He has to look
out for himself: so, then, stand aside! Does not the industrialist
proceed on that plan? He produces obscene pictures, turns out immoral
books, sets up factories for adulterating food. These and many other
occupations are harmful to society: they undermine morality and incite
corruption. What does that matter! It brings in money, even more money
than moral pictures, scientific books, and honest dealing in
unadulterated food. The industrialist, greedy after profits, needs to
concern himself only about escaping the too sharp eye of the police; he
can quietly pursue his shameful trade, assured that the money he will
thereby rake in will earn for him the envy and esteem of society.

The Mammon character of our age is best typified by the Exchange and its
doings. Land and industrial products; means of transportation;
meteorologic and political conditions; scarcity and abundance;
mass-misery and accidents; public debts, inventions and discoveries; the
health, sickness and death of influential persons; war and rumors of
war, often started for the express purpose;--all this and much more is
made objects of speculation, for exploitation and mutual cheating. The
matadors of capital attain decided influence upon society, and, favored
by the powerful means at their disposal and their connections, they
amass enormous fortunes. Cabinet ministers and whole Governments become
puppets in their hands, compelled to act according as matadors of the
Exchange pull the wires behind the scenes. Not the State has the
Exchange, but the Exchange has the State in its power. Will he, nill he,
a Minister is often forced to water the upas tree, which he might prefer
to tear up by the roots, but that he now must aid in growing.

All these facts, that, seeing the evils gain by the day in magnitude,
daily force themselves with increasing importunity upon the
consideration of everyone, demand speedy and radical help. But modern
society stands bewildered before all these phenomena, just as certain
animals are said to stand before a mountain;[175] it turns like a horse
in the treadmill, constantly in a circle,--lost, helpless, the picture
of distress and stupidity. Those who would bring help are yet too weak;
those who should bring help still lack the necessary understanding;
those who could bring help will not, they rely upon force; at best, they
think with Madame Pompadour "_apres nous le deluge_" (after us the
deluge). But how if the deluge were to come before their departure from
life?

The flood rises and is washing out the foundations upon which our State
and Social structure rests. All feel that the ground shakes, and that
only the strongest props can now stead. But these demand great
sacrifices on the part of the ruling classes. There is the rub. Every
proposition injurious to the material interests of the ruling classes,
and that threatens their privileged position, is bitterly opposed and
branded as a scheme looking to the overthrow of the modern political and
social order. Neither is the sick world to be cured without any danger
to the privileges and immunities of the ruling classes, nor without
their final abolition by the abolition of the classes themselves.

"The struggle for the emancipation of the working class is no struggle
for privileges, but a struggle for equal rights and equal duties; it is
a struggle for the abolition of all privileges"--thus runs the programme
of the Socialist Movement. It follows that half-measures and small
concessions are fruitless.

Until now, the ruling classes regard their privileged position as quite
natural and normal, as to the justice of which no doubt may be
entertained. It is a matter of course, therefore, that they should
object and resolutely oppose every attempt to shake their prerogatives.
Even propositions and laws, that affect neither the fundamental
principles of the existing social order nor the privileged position of
the ruling classes, throw them into great commotion the moment their
purses are or might be touched. Mountains of paper are filed in the
parliaments full of speeches and printed matter, until the heaving
mountains bring forth a ridiculous mouse. The simplest and most obvious
questions regarding the protection of Labor are met by them with such a
resistance as though the existence of society hinged on such
concessions. After endless struggles a few concessions are finally wrung
from them, and then they act as if they had sacrificed a large part of
their fortunes. The same stubborn resistance do they display if the
point is the formal recognition of the equality of the oppressed
classes, to allow these, for instance, to have an equal voice with them
in wage and other labor agreements.

This resistance to the simplest matters and the most obvious demands
confirms the old principle founded in experience, that no ruling class
can be convinced by _reasoning_, until the force of circumstances drives
them to sense and to submission. This force of circumstances lies in the
development of society, and in the increasing intelligence awakened by
this very development among the oppressed. The class-antagonism--the
sketch of our social conditions has pointed them out--grow more
pronounced, visible and sensible. Along therewith increases the
understanding of the untenableness of the existing order among the
oppressed and exploited classes; their indignation mounts higher, and,
as a result thereof, also the imperious demand for a change and for
improved conditions. By penetrating ever wider circles, such
understanding of the situation finally conquers the vast majority of
society, most directly interested in the change. In the same measure,
however, as the popular understanding increases regarding the
untenableness of the existing order and the necessity of its radical
change, the power of resistance decreases on the part of the ruling
classes, whose power rests upon ignorance and lack of intelligence on
the part of the oppressed and exploited. This cross effect is evident;
hence, everything that promotes it must be welcome. The progress made by
large capitalization, on one side, is amply compensated, on the other,
by the increasing perception by the proletariat of the contradiction in
which the social order stands with the well-being of the enormous
majority. The dissolution and abolition of the social antagonisms may
cost extraordinary pains, sacrifices and efforts, it may depend upon
factors that lie beyond the influence of the individual, or even of a
class. Nevertheless, the solution is reached the moment these
antagonisms have reached their acme,--a point towards which they are
rushing.

The measures to be adopted at the various phases of development depend
upon the then conditions. It is impossible to foretell what measures may
become necessary under given circumstances. No Government, no Minister,
be he ever so powerful, can foresee what circumstances may require in
the next few years. All the less is it possible to foretell measures,
that will be influenced by circumstance, which elude all accurate
calculation. The question of "measures" is a question of tactics in
battle. These depend upon the enemy and upon the means at his disposal,
and at mine. A measure that would be excellent to-day, may be harmful
to-morrow, the circumstances that yesterday justified its application
having changed to-day. With the goal in view, the means to attain it by
depend upon time and tide; imperative is but the seizing of the most
effective and thorough going ones that time and tide may allow. In
forecasting the future, hypotheses alone are available: things must be
supposed to exist that have not yet set in.

_Accordingly, we suppose the arrival of a day when all the evils
described will have reached such maturity that they will have become
oppressingly sensible to the feeling as to the sight of the vast
majority, to the extent of being no longer bearable; whereupon a general
irresistible desire for a radical change will seize society, and then
the quickest will be regarded the most effective remedy._

All social evils, without exception, have their source in that social
order of things, which, as has been shown, rests upon capitalism, upon
the capitalist system of production. Under this system, the capitalist
class is the possessor of all instruments of labor--land, mines,
quarries, raw material, tools, machines, means of transportation and
communication--and it exploits and oppresses the vast majority of the
people. The result of such abuses is an increased precariousness of
livelihood, increased misery, oppression and degradation of the
exploited classes. It is, consequently, necessary to convert this
capitalist property into social property by means of a general
expropriation. _Production for sale must be converted into socialist
production, conducted for and by Society. Production on a large scale,
and the increasing fertility of social labor,--until now a source of
misery and of oppression for the exploited classes--must be turned into
a source of highest well-being and of full and harmonious culture._

FOOTNOTES:

[160] Let also one American instance be cited. It occurred on April 1,
1894, in Dolgeville, N. Y., where an employe of the "profit-sharing"
concern of Alfred Dolge--at whose annual dinners Professor, now
President George Gunton was regularly a star guest, and orator to the
"dined" workingmen on the beauties of "profit-sharing,"--one of the
workingmen, driven by the pinching poverty and incertitude inflicted
upon him by the "profit-sharing" practice, killed his wife, four
children and himself, and left a letter describing his plight. (See "The
People," April 8, 1894)--THE TRANSLATOR.

[161] As early as the days of Plato were the consequences of such
conditions understood. He writes: "A nation in which classes exist, is
not one, but two: one class is made up of the poor, the other of the
rich, both living together, yet on the watch against each other.... In
the end, the ruling class is unable to conduct a war, because it would
then have to avail itself of the masses, whom, armed, it fears more than
the enemy himself"; Plato, "The Republic." Aristotle says: "Widespread
poverty is an evil, inasmuch as it is hardly possible to prevent such
people from becoming inciters of sedition"; Aristotle, "Politics."

[162] "Natuerliche Schoepfungsgeschichte."

[163] Similarly Plato in "The Republic": "Crimes have their roots in
want of culture, in bad education and bad social institutions."
Evidently, Plato understood the nature of society better than one of his
learned successors twenty-three hundred years later,--not a cheering
contemplation.

[164] In the sense of German industrial statistics, every employer is
placed under the head of "small producer" who employs less than five
persons.

[165] Clemens Heiss: "Die grossen Einkommen in Deutschland."

[166] Clemens Heiss, _ubi supra._

[167] Clemens Heiss: "Die grossen Einkommen in Deutschland."

[168] According to the census of 1900, the capital invested in industry
was 9,831 million dollars,--an increase over 1890 of 3,307 million; and
the value of the industrial products was 13,010 million dollars,--an
increase over 1890 of 3,640 millions.--THE TRANSLATOR.

[169] Professor Adolf Wagner expresses the same thought in his first
revised edition of Raus' "Lehrbuch der politischen Oekonomie." He says,
p. 361: "The social question is the consciousness gained by the people
of the contradiction between the economic development and the social
principle of freedom and equality, that hovers over their minds as the
ideal, and is realized in political life."

[170] Dr. E. Sax says in his work "Die Hausindustrie in Thüringen,"
among other things, that in 1869 the production of 244Ľ million slate
pencils had given from 122,000 to 200,000 gilders in wages to the labor,
but the final price paid by the consumer rose to 1,200,000 gilders; it
was, accordingly, at least six times as much as the producer received.
In the summer of 1888, there were 5 marks paid at first hand for 5
hundredweights of shellfish; the retailer paid the wholesale dealer 15
marks; and the public paid 125 marks. Moreover, large quantities of
foodstuffs are destroyed because the prices will not pay for
transportation. For instance, in years of great herring draughts, whole
boatloads are turned to manure, while inland there are hundreds of
thousands of people who can buy no herrings. It was likewise in 1892
with the large potato crops in California. And yet sense is claimed for
such a state of things.

[171] The industrial census of June 5, 1882, gives Germany 386,157 large
and 154,474 small stores, a total of 531,631. In the large shops, there
were 705,906 persons employed.

[172] Dr. Rud. Meyer, "Das Sinken der Grundrente."

[173] "Die Fideikommisse in den westlichen Provinzen Pruessens."

[174] For further details see, "Das soziale Elend und die besitzenden
Klassen in Oesterreich," T. W. Teisen.

[175] A German idiom, expressive of dumb bewilderment, uses the simile:
"Like oxen before a mountain."--THE TRANSLATOR.




CHAPTER VII.

THE SOCIALIZATION OF SOCIETY.


The soon as possible general expropriation of all the means of
production furnishes society with a new foundation. The conditions of
life and labor--in manufacture, agriculture, transportation and
communication, education, marriage, science, art and intercourse--are
radically changed for both sexes. Human existence acquires a new sense.
The present political organization gradually loses ground: the State
vanishes: in a measure it abolishes itself.

It was shown in the first part of this book why the State arose. It
arises, as the product of a social growth, from a primitive form of
society, that rested on communism and that dissolved in the measure that
_private property_ developed. With the rise of private property,
antagonistic interests take shape within society; in the course of its
development these antagonisms lead to rank and class contrasts, and
these, in turn, grow into enmities between the several groups of
interests, and finally into rank and class struggles, that threaten the
existence of the new social order. In order to keep down these rank and
class struggles, and to protect the property-holders, an organization is
requisite that parries the assaults on property, and that pronounces
"legal and sacred" the property obtained under certain forms. _This
organization and power, that guards and upholds property, is the State._
Through the enactment of laws it secures the owner in his ownership, and
it steps as judge and avenger before him who assails the established
order. By reason of its innermost being, the interest of a ruling
property class, and of the Government therewith connected, is ever
conservative. The organization of the State changes only when the
interest of property so demands. The State is, accordingly, the
_inevitably necessary_ organization of a social order that rests upon
class rule. The moment class antagonisms fall through the abolition of
private property, the State loses both the _necessity_ and the
_possibility_ for its existence. With the removal of the conditions for
rulership, the State gradually ceases to be, the same as creeds wane
when the belief ceases in supernatural beings, or in transcendental
powers gifted with reason. Words must have sense; if they lose that they
cease to convey ideas.

"Yes," interjects at this point a capitalist-minded reader, "that is all
very well, but by what 'legal principle' can society justify such a
change?" The legal principle is the same that ever prevailed, whenever
it was the question of changes and reforms,--_public policy_. Not the
State, but society is the source of right; the State is but the
committee of Society, authorized to administer and dispense right.
Hitherto, "Society" has been a small minority; yet it acted in the name
of the whole community (the people) by pronouncing itself "Society,"
much as Louis XIV. pronounced himself the "State,"--"_L'état c'est moi_"
(I am the State). When our newspapers announce: "The season begins;
society is returning to the city," or "The season has closed; society is
rushing to the country," they never mean the people, but only the upper
ten thousand, who constitute "Society" as they constitute the "State."
The masses are "plebs," "vile multitude," "canaille," "people." In
keeping therewith, all that the State has done in the name of Society
for the "public weal" has always been to the advantage and profit of the
ruling class. It is in its interests that laws are framed. "_Salus
reipublicae suprema lex esto_" (Let the public weal be the supreme law)
is a well known legal principle of Old Rome. But who constituted the
Roman Commonwealth? Did it consist of the subjugated peoples, the
millions of slaves? No. A disproportionately small number of Roman
citizens, foremost among these the Roman nobility, all of whom were
supported by the subject class.

When, in the Middle Ages, noblemen and Princes stole the common
property, they did so "according to law," in the "interest of the public
weal," and how drastically the common property and that of the helpless
peasants was treated on the occasion we have sufficiently explained. The
agrarian history of the last fifteen centuries is a narration of
uninterrupted robbery perpetrated upon common and peasant property by
the nobility and the Church in all the leading countries of Europe. When
the French Revolution expropriated the estates of the nobility and the
Church, it did so "in the name of the public weal"; and a large part of
the seven million of landed estates, that are to-day the prop of modern
bourgeois France, owe their existence to this expropriation. "In the
name of the public weal," Spain more than once embargoed Church
property, and Italy wholly confiscated the same,--both with the plaudits
of the zealous defenders of "sacred property." The English nobility has
for centuries been robbing the Irish and English people of their
property, and, during the period of 1804-1832 made itself a present of
not less than 3,511,710 acres of commons "in the interest of the public
welfare." When during the great North American war for the emancipation
of the negro, millions of slaves, the regular property of their masters,
were declared free without indemnity to the latter, the thing was done
"in the name of the public weal." Our whole capitalist development is an
uninterrupted process of expropriation and confiscation, at which the
manufacturer expropriates the workingman, the large landlord
expropriates the peasant, the large merchant expropriates the small
dealer, and finally one capitalist expropriates another, i. e., the
larger expropriates and absorbs the smaller. To hear our bourgeoisie,
all this happens in the interest of the "public weal," for the "good of
society." The Napoleonites "saved Society" on the 18th Brumaire and 2d
of December, and "Society" congratulated them. If hereafter Society
shall save itself by resuming possession of the property that itself has
produced, it will enact the most notable historic event--_it is not
seeking to oppress some in the interest of others, but to afford to all
the prerequisite for equality of existence, to make possible to each an
existence worthy of human beings_. It will be morally the cleanest and
most stupendous measure that human society has ever executed.

In what manner this gigantic process of social expropriation will be
achieved, and under what modality, eludes all surmise. Who can tell how
general conditions will then be, and what the demands of public interest
will be?

In his fourth social letter to v. Kirchmann, entitled "Capital,"
Rodbertus says: "The dissolution of all capitalist property in land is
no chimera; on the contrary, it is easily conceivable in national
economy. It would, moreover, be the most radical aid to society, that,
as might be put in a few words, is suffering of rent-rising--rent of
land and capital. Hence the measure would be the only manner of
abolishing property in land and capital, _a measure that would not even
for a moment interrupt the commerce and progress of the nation_." What
say our agrarians to this opinion of their former political
co-religionist?

In the contemplation of how matters will probably shape themselves along
the principal lines of human activity, upon such a measure of general
expropriation, there can be no question of establishing hard and fast
lines, or rigid institutions. No one is able to forecast the detailed
molds in which future generations may cast their social organizations,
and how they will satisfy their wants. In Society as in Nature,
everything is in constant flux and reflux; one thing rises, another
wanes; what is old and sered is replaced with new and living forms.
Inventions, discoveries and improvements, numerous and various, the
bearing and significance of which often none can tell, are made from day
to day, come into operation, and, each in its own way, they
revolutionize and transform human life and all society.

We can, accordingly, be concerned only with general principles, that
flow inevitably from the preceding _expose_, and whose enforcement may
be supervised, up to a certain point. If even hitherto society has been
no automatic entity, leadable and guidable by an individual, much as
appearances often pointed the other way; if even hitherto those who
imagined they pushed were themselves pushed; if even hitherto society
was an organism, that developed according to certain inherent laws;--if
that was hitherto the case, in the future all guiding and leading after
individual caprice is all the more out of question. Society will have
discovered the secret of its own being, it will have discovered the laws
of its own progress, and it will apply these consciously towards its own
further development.

So soon as society is in possession of all the means of production, _the
duty to work, on the part of all able to work, without distinction of
sex, becomes the organic law of socialized society_. Without work
society can not exist. Hence, society has the right to demand that all,
who wish to satisfy their wants, shall exert themselves, according to
their physical and mental faculties, in the production of the requisite
wealth. The silly claim that the Socialist does not wish to work, that
he seeks to abolish work, is a matchless absurdity, which fits our
adversaries alone. Non-workers, idlers, exist in capitalist society
_only_. Socialism agrees with the Bible that "He who will not work,
neither shall he eat." But work shall not be mere activity; it shall be
useful, productive activity. The new social system will demand that each
and all pursue some industrial, agricultural or other useful occupation,
whereby to furnish a certain amount of work towards the satisfaction of
existing wants. _Without work no pleasure, no pleasure without work._

All being obliged to work, all have an equal interest in seeing the
following three conditions of work in force:--

First, that work shall be moderate, and shall overtax none;

Second, that work shall be as agreeable and varied as possible;

Third, that work shall be as productive as possible, seeing that both
the hours of work and fruition hinge upon that.

These three conditions hinge, in turn, upon the nature and the number of
the productive powers that are available, and also upon the aspirations
of society. But Socialist society does not come into existence for the
purpose of living in proletarian style; _it comes into existence in
order to abolish the proletarian style of life of the large majority of
humanity_. It seeks to afford to each and all the fullest possible
measure of the amenities of life. The question that does rise is, How
high will the aspirations of society mount?

In order to determine this, an administration is requisite that shall
embrace all the fields of social activity. Our municipalities constitute
an effective basis thereto: if they are too large to allow a ready
supervision, they can be divided into wards. As in primitive society,
all members of the community who are of age participate in the
elections, _without distinction of sex_, and have a voice in the choice
of the persons who are to be entrusted with the administration. At the
head of all the local administrations stands the central
administration--as will be noted, not a Government, with power to rule,
but an executive college of administrative functions. Whether the
central administration shall be chosen directly by popular vote or
appointed by the local administration is immaterial. These questions
will not then have the importance they have to-day: the question is then
no longer one of filling posts that bestow special honor, or that vest
the incumbent with greater power and influence, or that yield larger
incomes: it is then a question of filling positions of trust, for which
the fittest, whether male or female, are taken; and these may be
recalled or re-elected as circumstances may demand, or the electors may
deem preferable. All posts are for given terms. The incumbents are,
accordingly, clothed with no special "official qualities"; the feature
of continuity of office is absent, likewise a hierarchical order of
promotion. Hence it is also immaterial to us whether there shall be
middle stages, say provincial administrations, between the central and
the local administrations. If they are deemed necessary, they are set
up; if they are not deemed necessary, they are left alone. All such
matters are decided by actual exigencies, as ascertained in practice. If
the progress of society has rendered any old organization superfluous,
it is abolished without further ado and dispute, there being no longer
any personal interest in conflict; and new ones are similarly
established. Obviously, _such an administration, resting upon the
broadest democratic foundation, differs radically from what we have
to-day_. What a battle of newspapers, what a war of tongues in our
parliaments, what mountains of public documents in our bureaus, if but a
trivial change is made in the administration or the Government!

The principal thing to ascertain is the number and the nature of the
forces that are available, the quantity and nature of the means of
production,--the factories, workshops, means of transportation and
communication, land--and also their productivity. The next thing to
ascertain is the quantity of the supplies that are on hand and the
extent to which these can satisfy the wants of society. As to-day the
State and the several municipalities yearly cast up their budgets, the
thing will then be done with an eye to all the wants of society, without
thereby excluding changes that increased or new wants may demand.
Statistics here play the chief _role_: they become the most important
subsidiary science of the new order: they furnish the measure for all
social activities.

Statistics are extensively used to-day for similar purposes. The
Imperial, State and municipal budgets are based upon a large amount of
statistical reports, made yearly by the several administrative branches.
Long experience and a certain degree of stability in the running wants
facilitate their gathering. Every operator of a large factory, every
merchant is, under normal conditions, able to determine accurately what
he will need during the next three months, and how he should regulate
his production and purchases. Unless excessive changes set in, his
calculations will be found safe.

The experience that crises are caused by blind, anarchic production, i.
e., that production is carried on without a knowledge of the volume of
supply, of sales and of demand of and for the several goods in the
world's market, has, as indicated in previous passages, caused large
manufacturers in several branches of industry to join in Trusts and
rings, partly with the view of steadying prices, partly also for the
purpose of regulating production by the light of previous experience and
of the orders received. According to the capability of each
establishment and to the probable demand, the output of each is
determined for the next few months. Infractions are punished with heavy
conventional mulcts, and even expulsion. The capitalists do not conclude
these agreements for the benefit of the public, but to its injury and to
their own profit. Their purpose is to utilize the power of combination
in order to secure the greatest advantages to themselves. This
regulation of production has for its object to enable the capitalist to
demand from the public prices that could not be got if the competitive
struggle was on between the several capitalists. These enrich themselves
at the expense of the consumers who are forced to pay whatever price is
demanded for the goods they need. As the consumer, so is the workingman
injured by the Trusts. The artificial regulation of production throws a
part of the working class out of work, and, in order that these may
live, they underbid their fellows at work. Thus the employer derives a
double advantage: he receives higher prices, and he pays lower wages.
Such a regulation of production by combinations of capitalists _is
exactly the reverse of that which will be practiced in Socialist
society_. While to-day the interests of the capitalists is the
determining factor, the interests of all will then be the guide.
Production will then be carried on for the satisfaction of human wants,
and not in order to obtain, through high prices, large profits for
private individuals. Nevertheless, the best planned combination in
capitalist society can not take in and control all the factors needed in
the calculation: competition and speculation run wild despite all
combinations: finally the discovery is made that the calculation had a
leak, and the scheme breaks down.

The same as production on a large scale, commerce also has extensive
statistics. Every week the larger centers of commerce and the ports
publish reports on the supply of petroleum, coffee, cotton, sugar,
grain, etc. These statistics are frequently inaccurate, seeing that the
owners of the goods frequently have a personal interest in concealing
the truth. On the whole, however, the statistics are pretty safe and
furnish to those interested, information on the condition of the
market. But here also speculation steps in, upsets all calculations, and
often renders all legitimate business impossible. Seeing how impossible
is a general regulation of production in capitalist society, due to the
existence of many thousands of private producers with conflicting
interests, it will be obvious why the speculative nature of commerce,
the number of merchants and their conflicting interests render equally
impossible the regulation of distribution. Nevertheless, what is done in
these directions indicates what could be done so soon as private
interest were to drop out and the interests of all were alone dominant.
A proof of this is furnished by the statistics of crops, that are yearly
issued by the leading countries of civilization, and that enable certain
general conclusions to be drawn upon the size of the crops, the extent
that they will supply the demand, and the probable price.

In a socialized society matters are fully regulated; society is held in
fraternal bonds. Everything is done in order; there, it is an easy
matter to gauge demand. With a little experience, the thing is easy as
play. If, for instance, the demand is statistically established for
bread, meat, shoes, linen, etc., and, on the other hand, the
productivity of the respective plants is equally known, _the average
daily amount of socially necessary labor is thereby ascertained. The
figures would, furthermore, point out where more plants for the
production of a certain article may be needed, or where such may be
discontinued as superfluous, or turned to other purposes._

Everyone decides the pursuit he chooses: the large number of different
fields of activity caters to the tastes of all. If on one field there is
a surplus and on another a dearth of labor-power, the administration
attends to the equalization of forces. To organize production, and to
furnish the several powers with the opportunity to apply themselves at
the right places will be the principal task of these functionaries. In
the measure that the several forces are broken in, the wheels will move
with greater smoothness. The several branches and divisions of labor
choose their foremen, who superintend the work. These are no
slave-drivers, like most foremen of to-day; they are fellow workers,
who, instead of a productive, exercise an administrative function
entrusted to them. The idea is by no means excluded that, with the
attainment of higher perfection, both in point of organization and of
individuals, these functions should alternate so that, within a certain
time, and in certain order, they are filled by all _regardless of sex_.

A system of labor, organized upon a plan of such absolute liberty and
democratic equality, where each stands for all, and all stand for each,
and where the sense of solidarity reigns supreme,--such a system would
generate a spirit of industry and of emulation nowhere to be found in
the modern economic system. Nor could such a spirit of industry fail to
react both upon the productivity of labor and the quality of labor's
product.

Furthermore--seeing that all are mutually active--the interest becomes
general in the best and most complete, as well as in the quickest
possible production of goods, with the object of saving labor, and of
gaining time for the production of further wealth, looking to the
gratification of higher wants. _Such a common interest spurs all to bend
their thoughts towards simplifying and quickening the process of labor.
The ambition to invent and discover is stimulated to the highest pitch:
each will seek to outdo the other in propositions and ideas._[176]

Just the reverse will, accordingly, happen of which the adversaries of
Socialism claim. How many are not the inventors and discoverers who go
to pieces in the capitalist world! How many has it not exploited and
then cast aside! If talent and intellect, instead of property, stood at
the head of bourgeois society, _the larger part of the employers would
have to make room for their workingmen, master mechanics, technical
overseers, engineers, chemists, etc._ These are the men, who, in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, make the inventions, discoveries and
improvements, which the man with the money-bag exploits. How many
thousands of discoverers and inventors have gone to pieces unable to
find the man of means ready to provide the wherewithal for the execution
of their thoughts; how many germs of inventions and discoveries have
been and continue to be nipped by the social stress for bare existence,
is a matter that eludes all calculation. Not the men of head and brain,
but those of large wealth are to-day the masters of the world,--which,
however, does not exclude the occasional and exceptional phenomenon of
brains and wealth being united in one person. The exception only proves
the rule.

Everyone in practical life knows with what suspicion the workingman
to-day regards every improvement, every invention introduced in the
shop. And he is right. He rarely derives any advantage therefrom; it all
accrues to the employer. The workingman is assailed with the fear lest
the new machine, the new improvement cast him off to-morrow as
superfluous. Instead of gladsome applause for an invention that does
honor to man and is fraught with benefit for the race, he only has a
malediction on his lips. We also know, from personal experience, how
many an improvement perceived by the workingman, is not introduced: the
workingman keeps silent, fearing to derive no benefit but only harm from
it. Such are the natural consequences of an antagonism of
interests.[177]

This antagonism of interests is removed in Socialist society. Each
unfolds his faculties in his own interest, and, by so doing,
simultaneously benefits the commonweal. To-day personal gratification is
generally antagonistic to the common weal; the two exclude each other.
In the new Order, the antagonisms are removed: _The gratification of the
ego and the promotion of the common weal harmonize, they supplement each
other._[178]

The marvelous effect of such a mental and moral condition is obvious.
The productivity of labor will rise mightily, and such increased
productivity makes possible the satisfaction of higher wants. Especially
will the productivity of labor rise through the discontinuance of the
present and enormous disintegration of labor, in hundreds of thousands,
even millions of petty establishments, conducted with imperfect tools.
According to the industrial census of the German Empire for the year
1882, there were 3,005,457 leading establishments, exclusive of
commerce, transportation, hotels and inns, in which 6,396,465 persons
were occupied. Of these leading establishments, 61.1 per cent. employed
less than 5 persons, and 16.8 per cent. employed from 6 to 50 persons.
The former are small concerns, the latter middle class ones. Through the
concentration of the small and middle class establishments into large
ones, equipped with all the advantages of modern technique, an enormous
waste in power, time, material (light, heat, etc.) space, now incurred,
would be avoided, and the productivity of labor would gain
proportionally. What difference there is in the productivity of small,
middle class and large establishments, even where modern technique is
applied, may be illustrated by the census of manufactories of the State
of Massachusetts for 1890. The establishments in ten leading industries
were divided into three classes. Those that produced less than $40,000
worth of goods were placed in the lowest class; those that produced from
$40,000 to $150,000 were placed in the middle class; and those that
produced over $150,000 worth of goods were placed in the upper class.

The result was this:--


               Number of        Percentage    Productivity Percentage
               Establishments.    of All          of        of Total
    Classes.                  Establishments.  Each Class. Productivity.
  Lower        2,042                55.2        51,660,617       9.4
  Middle         968                26.2       106,868,635      19.5
  Upper          686                18.6       390,817,300      71.1
               -----               -----       -----------     -----
               3,696               100.0       549,346,552     100.0


The more than twice as large number of small establishments turned out
only 9.4 per cent. of the total product. But even the large
establishments could, with hardly any exception, be conducted far more
rationally than now, so that, under a system of collective production,
aided by the most highly perfected technical process, an infinitely
larger demand could be supplied.

Upon the subject of the saving of time, possible under a system of
production planted on a rational basis, Th. Hertzka of Vienna has made
some interesting calculations.[179] He investigated the amount of
labor-power and time requisite for the satisfaction of the wants of the
22 million inhabitants of Austria by means of production on a large
scale. To this end Hertzka gathered information upon the capacity of
large establishments in several fields, and he based his calculations
upon the data thus ascertained. In Hertzka's calculation are included
10,500,000 hectares of agricultural and 3,000,000 hectares of pasture
lands, that should suffice for the production of agricultural products
and of meat for the said population. Hertzka also included in his
computation the building of houses on the basis of a house of 150 square
meters, 5 rooms and strong enough to last 50 years, to each family. The
result was that, for agricultural, building, the production of flour,
sugar, coal, iron, machinery, clothing and chemicals, only 615,000
workingmen were needed, at work the whole year and at the present
average hours of daily labor. These 615,000 workingmen are, however,
_only 12.3 per cent. of the population of Austria, capable to work,
exclusive of all the women as well as the males under 16 and over 50
years of age_. If all the 5,000,000 men, and not merely the above figure
of 615,000, were engaged, then, _each of them would need to work only
36.9 days--six weeks in round figures_--in order to produce the
necessaries of life for 22 million people. Assuming 300 work days in the
year, instead of 37, and 11 as the present daily hours of work, it
follows that, under this new organization of labor, _only 1-3/8 hours a
day would be needed to cover the most pressing needs of all_.

Hertzka further computes the articles of luxury that the better situated
demand, and he finds that the production of the same for 22 million
people would require an additional 315,000 workingmen. Altogether,
according to Hertzka, and making allowance for some industries that are
not properly represented in Austria, one million in round figures, equal
to 20 per cent. of the male population able to work, exclusive of those
under 16 and above 50 years of age, would suffice to cover _all the
needs of the population_ in 60 days. If, again, the whole male
population able to work is made the basis of the computation, these
would need to furnish but _two and a half hours work a day_.[180]

This computation will surprise none who take a comprehensive view of
things. Considering, then, that, at such moderate hours, even the men 50
years old--all the sick and invalid excepted--are able to work;
furthermore, that also youths under 16 years of age could be partially
active, as well as a large number of women, in so far as these are not
otherwise engaged in the education of children, the preparation of food,
etc.;--considering all that, it follows that even these hours could be
considerably lowered, or the demand for wealth could be considerably
increased. None will venture to claim that no more and unforeseen
progress, and considerable progress, at that, is possible in the
process of production, thus furnishing still greater advantages. But
the issue now is to satisfy a mass of wants felt by all that to-day are
satisfied only by a minority. With higher culture ever newer wants
arise, and these too should be met. We repeat it: _the new Social order
is not to live in proletarian style; it lives as a highly developed
people demand to live, and it makes the demand in all its members from
the first to the last_. But such a people can not rest content with
satisfying merely its material wants. All its members are to be allowed
fullest leisure for their development in the arts and sciences, as well
as for their recreation.

Also in other important respects will Socialist society differ from the
bourgeois individualist system. The motto: "Cheap and bad"--which is and
must be standard for a large portion of bourgeois production, seeing
that the larger part of the customers can buy only cheap goods, that
quickly wear out--likewise drops out. Only the best will be produced; it
will last longer and will need replacing at only wider intervals. The
follies and insanities of fashion, promoted by wastefulness and
tastelessness, also cease. People will probably clothe themselves more
properly and sightfully than to-day, when, be it said in passing, the
fashions of the last hundred years, especially as to men, distinguish
themselves by their utter tastelessness. No longer will a new fashion be
introduced every three months, an act of folly that stands in intimate
relation with the competitive struggle of women among themselves, with
the ostentatiousness and vanity of society, and with the necessity for
the display of wealth. To-day a mass of establishments and people live
upon this folly of fashion, and are compelled by their own interests to
stimulate and force it. Together with the folly of fashion in dress,
falls the folly of fashion in the style of architecture. Eccentricity
reaches here its worst expression. Styles of architecture that required
centuries for their development and that sprang up among different
peoples--we are no longer satisfied with European styles, we go to the
Japanese, Indians and Chinese--are used up in a few decades and laid
aside. Our poor professional artists no longer know whither and whereto
they should turn with and for their samples and models. Hardly have they
assorted themselves with one style, and expect to recover with ease the
outlays they have made, when a new style breaks in upon them, and
demands new sacrifices of time and money, of mental and physical powers.
The nervousness of the age is best reflected in the rush from one
fashion to the other, from one style to the other. No one will dare to
claim any sense for such hurrying and scurrying, or the merit of its
being a symptom of social health.

_Socialism alone will re-introduce a greater stability in the habits of
life._ It will make repose and enjoyment possible; it will be a
liberator from hurry and excessive exertion. Nervousness, that scourge
of our age, will disappear.

But labor is also to be made pleasant. To that end practical and
tastefully contrived workshops are required; the utmost precautions
against danger; the removal of disagreeable odors, gases and smoke,--in
short, of all sources of injury or discomfort to health. At the start,
the new social system will carry on production with the old means,
inherited from the old. But these are utterly inadequate. Numerous and
unsuitable workshops, disintegrated in all directions; imperfect tools
and machinery, running through all the stages of usefulness;--this heap
is insufficient both for the number of the workers and for their demands
of comfort and of pleasure. The establishment of a large number of
spacious, light, airy, fully equipped and ornamented workshops is a
pressing need. Art, technique, skill of head and hand immediately find a
wide field of activity. All departments in the building of machinery, in
the fashioning of tools, in architecture and in the branches of work
connected with the internal equipment of houses have the amplest
opportunity. Whatever human genius can invent with regard to comfortable
and pleasant homes, proper ventilation, lighting and heating, mechanical
and technical provisions and cleanliness is brought into application.
The saving of motor power, heating, lighting, time, as well as the
promotion of all that tends to render work and life agreeable, demand a
suitable concentration of the fields of labor on certain spots.
Habitations are separated from places of work and are freed from the
disagreeable features of industrial and other manual work. These
disagreeable features are, in their turn, reduced to the lowest measure
possible by means of suitable arrangements and provisions of all sorts,
until wholly removed. The present state of technique has now means
enough at command to wholly free from danger the most dangerous
occupations, such as mining and the preparation of chemicals, etc. But
these means can not be applied in capitalist society because they are
expensive, and there is no obligation to do more than what is absolutely
necessary for the workingman. The discomforts attached to mining can be
removed by means of a different sort of draining, of extensive
ventilation, of electric lighting, of a material reduction of hours of
work, and of frequent shifts. Nor does it require any particular
cleverness to find such protective means as would render building
accidents almost impossible, and transform work in that line into the
most exhilarating of all. Ample protections against sun and rain are
possible in the construction of the largest edifices. Furthermore, in a
society with ample labor-power at its disposal, such as Socialist
society would be, frequent shifts and the concentration of certain work
upon certain seasons of the year and certain hours of day would be an
easy matter.

The problem of removing dust, smoke, soot and odors could likewise be
completely solved by modern chemistry and technique; it is solved only
partially or not at all, simply because the private employers care not
to make the necessary sacrifice of funds. The work-places of the future,
wherever located, whether above or under ground, will, accordingly,
distinguish themselves most favorably from those of to-day. Many
contrivances are, under the existing system of private enterprise, first
of all, a question of money: can the business bear the expenditure? Will
it pay? If the answer is in the negative, then let the workingmen go to
pieces. Capital does not operate where there is no profit. Humanity is
not an "issue" on the Exchange.[181]

The question of "profit" has exhausted its _role_ in Socialist society:
_in Socialist society the only consideration is the welfare of its
members_. Whatever is beneficent to these and protects them must be
introduced; whatever injures them must stop. None is forced to join in a
dangerous game. If matters are undertaken that have dangers in prospect,
volunteers will be numerous, all the more so seeing that the object can
never be to the injury, but only to the promotion of civilization.

The amplest application of motor powers and of the best machinery and
implements, the utmost subdivision of labor, and the most efficient
combinations of labor-power will, accordingly, carry production to such
pitch that the hours of work can be materially reduced in the production
of the necessaries of life. The capitalist lengthens the hours of labor,
whenever he can, especially during crises, when the worker's power of
resistance is broken, and by squeezing more surplus values out of him,
prices may be lowered. In Socialist society, an increase of production
accrues to the benefit of all: _The share of each rises with the
productivity of labor and increased productivity again makes possible
the reduction of the hours of work, socially determined as necessary._

Among the motor powers that are coming into application, electricity
will, according to all appearances, take a decisive place.[182]
Capitalist society is now everywhere engaged in harnessing it to its
service. The more extensively this is done the better. The
revolutionizing effect of this mightiest of all the powers of Nature
will but all the sooner snap the bonds of bourgeois society, and open
the doors to Socialism. But only in Socialist society will electricity
attain its fullest and most widespread application. If the prospects now
opened for its application are even but partially realized--and on that
head there can be no doubt--electricity, as a motor power as well as a
source of light and heat, will contribute immeasurably towards the
improvement of the conditions of life. Electricity distinguishes itself
from all other motor power in that, above all, its supply in Nature is
abundant. Our water courses, the ebb and tide of the sea, the winds, the
sun-light--all furnish innumerable horse-powers, the moment we know how
to utilize them in full. Through the invention of accumulators it has
been proved that large volumes of power, which can be appropriated only
periodically, from the ebbs and tides, the winds and mountain streams,
can be stored up and kept for use at any given place and any given time.
All these inventions and discoveries are still in embryo: their full
development may be surmised, but can not be forecast in detail.

The progress expected from the application of electricity sounds like a
fairy tale. Mr. Meems of Baltimore has planned an electric wagon able to
travel 300 kilometers an hour--actually race with the wind. Nor does Mr.
Meems stand alone. Prof. Elihu Thomson of Lynn, Mass., also believes it
possible to construct electromotors of a velocity of 160 kilometers,
and, with suitable strengthening of the rolling stock and improvement of
the signal system, of a velocity of 260 kilometers; and he has given a
plausible explanation of his system. The same scientist holds, and in
this Werner Siemens, who expressed similar views at the Berlin
Convention of Naturalists in 1887, agrees with him, that it is possible
by means of electricity _to transform the chemical elements directly
into food_--a revolution that would hoist capitalist society off its
hinges. While in 1887 Werner Siemens was of the opinion that it was
possible, though only in the remote future, to produce artificially a
hydrate of carbon such as grape sugar and later the therewith closely
related starch, whereby "bread could be made out of stone," the chemist
Dr. B. Meyer claims that ligneous fibre could eventually be turned into
a source of human food. Obviously, we are moving towards ever newer
chemical and technical revolutions. In the meantime, the physiologist E.
Eiseler has actually produced grape sugar artificially, and thus made a
discovery that, in 1887, Werner Siemens considered possible only in the
"remote future." In the spring of 1894, the French ex-Minister of Public
Worship, Prof. Berthelot, delivered an address in Paris at the banquet
of the Association of Chemical Manufacturers upon the significance of
chemistry in the future. The address is interesting in more respects
than one. Prof. Berthelot sketched the probable state of chemistry at
about the year 2000. While his sketch contains many a droll
exaggeration, it does contain so much that is serious and sound that we
shall present it in extract. After describing the achievements of
chemistry during the last few decades, Prof. Berthelot went on to say:--

"The manufacture of sulphuric acids and of soda, bleaching and coloring,
beet sugar, therapeutic alkaloids, gas, gilding and silvering, etc.;
then came electro-chemistry, whereby metallurgy was radically
revolutionized; thermo-chemistry and the chemistry of explosives,
whereby fresh energy was imparted to mining and to war; the wonders of
organic chemistry in the production of colors, of flavors, of
therapeutic and antiseptic means, etc. But all that is only a start:
soon much more important problems are to be solved. About the year 2000
there will be no more agriculture and no more farmers: chemistry will
have done away with the former cultivation of the soil. There will be no
more coal-shafts, consequently, neither will there be any more miners'
strikes. Fuel is produced by chemical and physical processes. Tariffs
and wars are abolished: aerial navigation, that helped itself to
chemicals as motor power, pronounced the sentence of death upon those
obsolete habits. The whole problem of industry then consists in
discovering sources of power, that are inexhaustible and resortable to
with little labor. Until now we have produced steam through the chemical
energy of burning mineral coal. But mineral coal is hard to get and its
supply decreases daily. Attention must be turned towards utilizing the
heat of the sun and of the earth's crust. The hope is justified that
both sources will be drawn upon without limit. The boring of a shaft
3,000 to 4,000 meters deep does not exceed the power of modern, less yet
it will exceed that of future engineers. The source of all heat and of
all industry would be thus thrown open. Add water to that, and all
imaginable machinery may be put in perpetual operation on earth: the
source of this power would experience hardly any diminution in hundreds
of years.

"With the aid of the earth's heat, numerous chemical problems will
become solvable, among these the greatest of all--_the chemical
production of food_. In principle, the problem is solved now. The
synthesis of fats and oils has been long known; likewise are sugar and
hydrates of carbon known; nor will it be long before the secret of
compounding azote is out. The food problem is a purely chemical one.
The day when the corresponding cheap power shall have been obtained,
food of all sort will be producable with carbon out of carbon oxides,
and with hydrogen and acids out of water, and with nitrogen out of the
atmosphere. What until now vegetation has done, industry will
thenceforth perform, and more perfectly than Nature itself. The time
will come when everyone will carry about him a little box of chemicals
wherewith to provide his food supply of albumen, fat and hydrates of
carbon, regardless of the hour of the day or the season of the year,
regardless of rain or drought, of frost or hail, or insects. A
revolution will then set in of which no conception is so far possible.
Fields bearing fruit, wine-bearing mountain slopes and pastures for
cattle will have vanished. Man will have gained in gentleness and
morality seeing he no longer lives on the murder and destruction of
living beings. Then also will the difference drop away between fertile
and barren districts; perchance deserts may then become the favorite
homes of man being healthier than the damp valleys and the
swamp-infected plains. Then also will Art, together with all the
beauties of human life reach full development. No longer will the face
of earth be marred, so to speak, with geometrical figures, now entailed
by agriculture: it will become a garden in which, at will, grass or
flowers, bush or woods, can be allowed to grow, and in which the human
race will live in plenty, in a Golden Age. Nor will man thereby sink
into indolence and corruption. Work is requisite to happiness, and man
will work as much as ever, because he will be working for himself aiming
at the highest development of his mental, moral and esthetical powers."

Every reader may accept what he please of this address of Prof.
Berthelot; certain, however, is the prospect that in the future and in
virtue of the progress of science, wealth--the volume and variety of
products--will increase enormously, and that the pleasures of life of
the coming generations will take undreamed of increment.

An aspiration, deeply implanted in the nature of man, is that of freedom
in the choice and change of occupation. As uninterrupted repetition
renders the daintiest of dishes repulsive, so with a daily
treadmill-like recurring occupation: it dulls and relaxes the senses.
Man then does only mechanically what he must do; he does it without
swing or enjoyment. There are latent in all men faculties and desires
that need but to be awakened and developed to produce the most beautiful
results. Only then does man become fully and truly man. Towards the
satisfaction of this need of change, Socialist society offers, as will
be shown, the fullest opportunity. The mighty increase of productive
powers, coupled with an ever progressing simplification of the process
of labor, not only enables a considerable lowering of hours of work, it
also _facilitates the acquisition of skill in many directions_.

The old apprentice system has survived its usefulness: it exists to-day
only and is possible only in backward, old-fashioned forms of
production, as represented by the small handicrafts. Seeing, however,
that this vanishes from the new social Order, all the institutions and
forms peculiar thereto vanish along with it. New ones step in. Every
factory shows us to-day how few are its workingmen, still engaged at a
work that they have been apprenticed in. The employes are of the most
varied, heterogeneous trades; a short time suffices to train them in any
sub-department of work, at which, in accord with the ruling system of
exploitation, they are then kept at work longer hours, without change or
regard to their inclinations, and, lashed to the machine, become
themselves a machine.[183] Such a state of things has no place in a
changed organization of society. There is ample time for the acquisition
of dexterity of hand and the exercise of artistic skill. Spacious
training schools, equipped with all necessary comforts and technical
perfections will facilitate to young and old the acquisition of any
trade. Chemical and physical laboratories, up to all the demands of
these sciences, and furnished with ample staffs of instructors will be
in existence. Only then will be appreciated to its full magnitude what a
world of ambitions and faculties the capitalist system of production
suppresses, or forces awry into mistaken paths.[184]

It is not merely possible to have a regard for the need of change; it is
the purpose of society to realize its satisfaction: the harmonious
growth of man depends upon that. The professional physiognomies that
modern society brings to the surface--whether the profession be in
certain occupations of some sort or other, or in gluttony and idleness,
or in compulsory tramping--will gradually vanish. There are to-day
precious few people with any opportunity of change in their occupations,
or who exercise the same. Occasionally, individuals are found who,
favored by circumstances, withdraw from the routine of their daily
pursuits and, after having paid their tribute to physical, recreate
themselves with intellectual work; and conversely, brain workers are met
off and on, who seek and find change in physical labors of some sort or
other, handwork, gardening, etc. Every hygienist will confirm the
invigorating effect of a pursuit that rests upon alternating physical
and mental work; only such a pursuit is natural. The only qualification
is that it be moderately indulged, and in proportion to the strength of
the individual.

Leo Tolstoi lashes the hypertrophic and unnatural character that art and
science have assumed under the unnatural conditions of modern
society.[185] He severely condemns the contempt for physical labor,
entertained in modern society, and he recommends a return to natural
conditions. Every being, who means to live according to the laws of
nature and enjoy life, should divide the day between, first, physical
field labor; secondly, hand work; thirdly, mental work; fourthly,
cultured and companionable intercourse. More than eight hours' physical
work should not be done. Tolstoi, who practices this system of life, and
who, as he says, has felt himself human only since he put it into
practice, perceives only what is possible to him, a rich, independent
man, but wholly impossible to the large mass of mankind, under existing
conditions. The person who must do hard physical work every day ten,
twelve and more hours, to gain a meager existence, and who was brought
up in ignorance, can not furnish himself with the Tolstoian system of
life. Neither can they, who are on the firing line of business life and
are compelled to submit to its exactions. The small minority who could
imitate Tolstoi have, as a rule, no need to do so. It is one of the
illusions that Tolstoi yields to, the belief that social systems can be
changed by preaching and example. The experiences made by Tolstoi with
his system of life prove how rational the same is; in order, however, to
introduce such a system of life as a social custom, a social foundation
is requisite other than the present. It requires a new society.

_Future society will have such a foundation; it will have scientists and
artists of all sorts in abundance; but all of them will work physically
a part of the day, and devote the rest, according to their liking, to
study, the arts or companionable intercourse._[186]

The existing contrast between mental and manual labor--a contrast that
the ruling classes seek to render as pronounced as possible with the
view of securing for themselves also the intellectual means of
sovereignty--will likewise be removed.

It follows from the preceding arguments that crises and compulsory
idleness are impossible phenomena in the new social Order. Crises arise
from the circumstance that individualist, capitalist production--incited
by profit and devoid of all reliable gauge with which to ascertain the
actual demand--brings an overstocking of the world's market, and thus
overproduction. The merchandise feature of the products under
capitalism, of the products that their owners endeavor to exchange,
makes the use of the product dependent upon the consumer's _capacity to
buy_. The capacity to buy is, however, limited, in so far as the
overwhelming majority are concerned, they being under-paid for their
labor, or even wholly unable to sell the same if the capitalist does not
happen to be able to squeeze a surplus value out of it. _The capacity to
buy and the capacity to consume are two wholly distinct things in
capitalist society._ Many millions of people are in want of clothes,
shoes, furniture, linen, eatables and drinkables, but they have no
money, and their wants, i. e., their capacity to consume, remains
unsatisfied. The market is glutted with goods, but the masses suffer
hunger; they are willing to work, but they find none to buy their
labor-power because the holder of money sees nothing to "make" in the
purchase. "Die, canaille; become vagabonds, criminals! I, the
capitalist, can not help it. I have no use for goods that I have no
purchaser to buy from me with corresponding profit." And, in a way, the
man is right.

In the new social Order this contradiction is wiped out. Socialist
society produces not "merchandise," in order to "buy" and to "sell;" _it
produces necessaries of life, that are used, consumed, and otherwise
have no object_. In Socialist society, accordingly, the capacity to
consume is not bounded, as in bourgeois society, by the individual's
capacity to buy; _it is bounded by the collective capacity to produce_.
If labor and instruments of labor are in existence, all wants can be
satisfied; the social capacity to consume is bounded only by _the
satisfaction of the consumers_.

There being no "merchandise" in Socialist society, neither can there be
any "money." Money is the visible contrast of merchandise; yet itself is
merchandise! Money, though itself merchandise, is at the same time the
social equivalent for all other articles of merchandise. But Socialist
society produces no articles of merchandise, only articles of use and
necessity, whose production requires a certain measure of social labor.
The time, on an average requisite for the production of an article is
the only standard by which it is measured for social use. Ten minutes
social labor in one article are equal to ten minutes social labor in
another--neither more nor less. Society is not "on the make"; it only
seeks to effect among its members the exchange of articles of equal
quality, equal utility. It need not even set up a standard of use value.
It merely produces what it needs. If society finds that a three-hour
work day is requisite for the production of all that is needed, it
establishes such a term of work.[187] If the methods of production
improve in such wise that the supply can be raised in two hours, the
two-hour work day is established. If, on the contrary, society demands
the gratification of higher wants than, despite the increase of forces
and the improved productivity of the process of labor, can be satisfied
with two or three hours work, then the four-hour day is introduced. Its
will is law.

How much social labor will be requisite for the production of any
article is easily computed.[188] The relation of the part to the whole
of the working time is measured accordingly. Any voucher--a printed
piece of paper, gold or tin--certifies to the time spent in work, and
enables its possessor to exchange it for articles of various kinds.[189]
If he finds that his wants are smaller than what he receives for his
labor, he then works proportionally shorter hours. If he wishes to give
away what he does not consume, nothing hinders him. If he is disposed to
work for another out of his own free will, so that the latter may revel
in the _dolce far niente_,--if he chooses to be such a blockhead,
nothing hinders him. But none can compel him to work for another; none
can withhold from him a part of what is due him for labor performed.
Everyone can satisfy all his legitimate desires--only not at the expense
of others. He receives the equivalent of what he has rendered to
society--neither more nor less, and he remains free from all
exploitation by third parties.

"But what becomes of the difference between the lazy and the
industrious? between the intelligent and the stupid?" That is one of the
principal questions from our opponents, and the answer gives them no
slight headache. That this distinction between the "lazy" and the
"industrious," the "intelligent" and the "stupid" is not made in our
civil service hierarchy, but that the term of service decides in the
matter of salary and generally of promotion also--these are facts that
occur to none of these would-be puzzlers and wiseacres. The teachers,
the professors--and as a rule the latter are the silliest
questioners--move into their posts, not according to their own
qualities, but according to the salaries that these posts bring. That
promotions in the army and in the hierarchies of the civil service and
the learned professions are often made, not according to worth, but
according to birth, friendship and female influence, is a matter of
public notoriety. That, however, wealth also is not measured by
diligence and intelligence may be judged by the Berlin inn-keepers,
bakers and butchers, to whom grammar often is a mystery, and who figure
in the first of the three classes of the Prussian electorate, while the
intellectuals of Berlin, the men of science, the highest magistrates of
the Empire and the State, vote with the second class. There is not now
any difference between the "lazy" and the "diligent," the "intelligent"
and the "stupid" for the simple reason that what is understood by these
terms exists no longer. A "lazy" fellow society only calls him who has
been thrown out of work, is compelled to lead a vagabond's life and
finally does become a vagabond, or who, grown up under improper
training, sinks into vice. But to style "lazy fellow" the man who rolls
in money and kills the day with idleness or debauchery, would be an
insult: he is a "worthy and good man."

How do matters stand in Socialist society? All develop under equal
conditions, and each is active in that to which inclination and skill
point him, whence differences in work will be but insignificant.[190]
The intellectual and moral atmosphere of society, which stimulates all
to excel one another, likewise aids in equalizing such differences. If
any person finds that he cannot do as much as others on a certain field,
he chooses another that corresponds with his strength and faculties.
Whoever has worked with a large number of people in one establishment
knows that men who prove themselves unfit and useless in a certain line,
do excellent work in another. There is no normally constructed being who
fails to meet the highest demands in one line or another, the moment he
finds himself in the right place. By what right does any claim
precedence over another? If any one has been treated so step-motherly by
Nature that with the best will he can not do what others can, _Society
has no right to punish him for the shortcomings of Nature_. If, on the
contrary, a person has received from Nature gifts that raise him above
others, _Society is not obliged to reward what is not his personal
desert_. In Socialist society all enjoy equal conditions of life and
opportunities for education; all are furnished the same opportunities to
develop their knowledge and powers according to their respective
capacities and inclinations. In this lies a further guarantee that not
only will the standard of culture and powers be higher in Socialist than
in bourgeois society, but also that both will be more equally
distributed and yet be much more manifold.

When, on a journey up the Rhine, Goethe studied the Cathedral of
Cologne, he discovered in the archives that the old master-builders paid
their workmen equal wages for equal time. They did so because they
wished to get good and conscientious work. This looks like an anomaly to
modern bourgeois society. It introduced the system of piece-work, that
drives the workingmen to out-work one another, and thus aids the
employer in underpaying and in reducing wages.

As with manual, so with mental work. Man is the product of the time and
circumstances that he lives in. A Goethe, born under equally favorable
conditions in the fourth, instead of the eighteenth, century might have
become, instead of a distinguished poet and naturalist, a great Father
of the Church, who might have thrown St. Augustine into the shade. If,
on the other hand, instead of being the son of a rich Frankfort
patrician, Goethe had been born the son of a poor shoemaker of the same
town, he never would have become the Minister of the Grand Duke of
Weimar, but would probably have remained a shoemaker, and died an
honorable member of the craft. Goethe himself recognized the advantage
he had in being born in a materially and socially favorable station in
order to reach his stage of development. It so appears in his "Wilhelm
Meister." Were Napoleon I. born ten years later, he never would have
been Emperor of France. Without the war of 1870-1871, Gambetta had never
become what he did become. Place the naturally gifted child of
intelligent parents among savages, and he becomes a savage. _Whatever a
man is, society has made him._ Ideas are not creations that spring from
the head of the individual out of nothing, or through inspiration from
above; they are products of social life, of the _Spirit of the Age_,
raised in the head of the individual. An Aristotle could not possibly
have the ideas of a Darwin, and a Darwin could not choose but think
otherwise than an Aristotle. Man thinks according as the Spirit of the
Age, i. e., his surroundings and the phenomena that they present to him
drive him to think. Hence the experience of different people often
thinking simultaneously the same thing, of the same inventions and
discoveries being made simultaneously in places far apart from each
other. Hence also the fact that an idea, uttered fifty years too early,
leaves the world cold; fifty years later, sets it ablaze. Emperor
Sigismund could risk breaking his word to Huss in 1415 and order him
burned in Constance; Charles V., although a more violent fanatic, was
compelled to allow Luther to depart in peace from the Reichstag at Worms
in 1521. Ideas are, accordingly, the product of combined social causes
and social life. What is true of society in general, is true in
particular of the several classes that, at given historic epochs,
constitute society. As each class has its special interests, it also has
its special ideas and views, that lead to those class struggles of which
recorded history is full, and that reach their climax in the class
antagonisms and class struggles of modern days. Hence, it depends not
merely upon the age in which a man lives, but also upon the social
stratum of a certain age in which he lived or lives, and whereby his
feelings, thoughts and actions are determined.

Without modern society, no modern ideas. That is obvious. With regard to
the future social Order, it must be furthermore added that the means
whereby the individual develops are the property of society. Society
can, accordingly, not be bound to render special homage to what itself
made possible and is its own product.

So much on the qualification of manual and brain work. It follows that
there can be no real distinction between "higher" and "lower" manual
work, such as not infrequently a mechanic to-day affects towards the
day-laborer, who performs work on the street, or the like. Society
demands only socially necessary work; hence all work is of equal value
to society. If work that is disagreeable and repulsive can not be
performed mechanically or chemically and by some process converted into
work that is agreeable--a prospect that may not be put in doubt, seeing
the progress made on the fields of technique and chemistry--and if the
necessary volunteer forces can not be raised, then the obligation lies
upon each, as soon as is his turn, to do his part. False ideas of shame,
absurd contempt for useful work, become obsolete conceptions. These
exist only in our society of drones, where to do nothing is regarded as
an enviable lot, and the worker is despised in proportion to the
hardness and disagreeableness of his work, and in proportion to its
social usefulness. To-day work is badly paid in proportion as it is
disagreeable. The reason is that, due to the constant revolutionizing of
the process of production, a permanent mass of superfluous labor lies on
the street, and, in order to live, sells itself for such vile work, and
at such prices that the introduction of machinery in these departments
of labor does not "pay." Stone-breaking, for instance, is proverbially
one of the worst paid and most disagreeable kinds of work. It were a
trifling matter to have the stone-breaking done by machinery, as in the
United States; but we have such a mass of cheap labor-power that the
machine would not "pay."[191] Street and sewer cleaning, the carting
away of refuse, underground work of all sorts, etc., could, with the aid
of machinery and technical contrivances, even at our present state of
development, be all done in such manner that no longer would any trace
of disagreeableness attach to the work. Carefully considered, the
workingman who cleans out a sewer and thereby protects people from
miasmas, is a very useful member of society; whereas a professor who
teaches falsified history in the interest of the ruling classes, or a
theologian who seeks to befog the mind with supernatural and
transcendental doctrines are highly injurious beings.

The learned fraternity of to-day, clad in offices and dignities, to a
large extent represents a guild intended and paid to defend and justify
the rule of the leading classes with the authority of science; to make
them appear good and necessary; and to prop up existing superstitions.
In point of fact this guild is largely engaged in the trade of quackery
and brain-poisoning--a work injurious to civilization, intellectual
wage-labor in the interest of the capitalist class and its clients.[192]
A social condition, that should make impossible the existence of such
elements, would perform an act towards the liberation of humanity.

Genuine science, on the other hand, is often connected with highly
disagreeable and repulsive work, such, for instance, as when a physician
examines a corpse in a state of decomposition, or operates on supurating
wounds, or when a chemist makes experiments. These often are labors more
repulsive than the most repulsive ones ever performed by day-laborers
and untutored workingmen. Few recognize the fact. The difference lies in
that the one requires extensive studies in order to perform it, whereas
the other can be performed by anyone without preparatory studies. Hence
the radical difference in the estimation of the two. But in a society
where, in virtue of the amplest opportunities of education afforded to
all, the present distinction between "cultured" and "uncultured" ceases
to exist, the contrast is likewise bound to vanish between learned and
unlearned work, all the more seeing that technical development knows no
limits and manual labor may be likewise performed by machinery or
technical contrivances. We need but look at the development of our art
handicrafts--xylography and copper-etching, for instance. As it turns
out that the most disagreeable kinds of work often are the most useful,
so also is our conception regarding agreeable and disagreeable work,
like so many other modern conceptions, utterly superficial; it is a
conception that has an eye to externals only.

       *       *       *       *       *

The moment production is carried on in Socialist society upon the lines
traced above, it no longer produces "merchandise," but only articles of
use for the direct demand of society. Commerce, accordingly, ceases,
having its sense and reason for being only in a social system that rests
upon the production of goods for sale. A large army of persons of both
sexes is thus set free for productive work.[193] This large army, set
free for production, not only increases the volume of wealth produced,
but makes possible a reduction of the hours of work. These people are
to-day more or less parasites: they are supported by the work of others:
in many instances they must toil diligently in return for a meagre
existence. In Socialist society they are superfluous as merchants,
hosts, brokers and agents. In lieu of the dozens, hundreds and thousands
of stores and commercial establishments of all sorts, that to-day every
community holds in proportion to its size, large municipal stores step
in, elegant bazaars, actual exhibitions, requiring a relatively small
administrative personnel. This change in itself represents a revolution
in all previous institutions. The tangled mass of modern commerce is
transformed into a centralized and purely administrative department,
with only the simplest of functions, that can not choose but grow still
simpler through the progressive centralization of all social
institutions. Likewise does the whole system of transportation and
communication undergo a complete change.

The telegraph, railroads, Post Office, river and ocean vessels, street
railways--whatever the names of the vehicles and institutions may be
that attend to the transportation and communication of capitalist
society--now become _social_ property. Many of these institutions--Post
Offices, telegraph and railroads generally--are now State institutions
in Germany. Their transformation into social property presents no
difficulties: there no private interests are left to hurt: if the State
continues to develop in that direction, all the better. But these
institutions, administered by the State, are no Socialist institutions,
as they are mistakenly taken for. They are business plants, that are
exploited as capitalistically as if they were in private hands. Neither
the officers nor the workingmen have any special benefit from them. The
State treats them just as any private capitalist. When, for instance,
orders were issued not to engage any workingman over 40 years of age in
the railway or marine service of the Empire, the measure carries on its
brows the class stamp of the State of the exploiters, and is bound to
raise the indignation of the working class. Such and similar measures
that proceed from the State as an employer of labor are even worse than
if they proceed from private employers. As against the State, the latter
is but a small employer, and the occupation that this one denies another
might grant. The State, on the contrary, being a monopolistic employer,
can, at one stroke, cast thousands of people into misery with its
regulations. That is not Socialist, it is capitalist conduct; and the
Socialist guards against allowing the present State ownership being
regarded as Socialism, or the realization of Socialist aspirations. In a
Socialist institution there are no employers. The leader, chosen for the
purpose, can only carry out the orders and superintend the execution of
the disciplinary and other measures prescribed by the collectivity
itself.

As in the instance of the millions of private producers, dealers and
middlemen of all sorts, large centralized establishments take their
place, so does the whole system of transportation and communication
assume new shape. The myriads of small shipments to as many consignees
that consume a mass of powers and of time, now grow into large shipments
to the municipal depots and the central places of production. Here also
labor is simplified. The transportation of raw material to an
establishment of a thousand workers is an infinitely simpler matter than
to a thousand small and scattered establishments. Thus centralized
localities of production and of transportation for whole communities, or
divisions of the same, will introduce a great saving of time, of labor,
of material, and of means both of production and distribution. The
benefit accrues to the whole community, and to each individual therein.
The physiognomy of our productive establishments, of our system of
transportation and communication, especially also of our habitations,
will be completely altered for the better. The nerve-racking noise,
crowding and rushing of our large cities with their thousands of
vehicles of all sorts ceases substantially: society assumes an aspect of
greater repose. The opening of streets and their cleaning, the whole
system of life and of intercourse acquires new character. Hygienic
measures--possible to-day only at great cost and then only partially,
not infrequently only in the quarters of the rich--can be introduced
with ease everywhere. To-day "the common people" do not need them; they
can wait till the funds are ready; and these never are.

Such a system of communication and transportation can not then choose
but reach a high grade of perfection. Who knows but aerial navigation
may then become a chief means of travel. The lines of transportation and
communication are the arteries that carry the exchange of
products--circulation of the blood--throughout the whole body social,
that effect personal and mental intercourse between man and man. They
are, consequently, highly calculated to establish an equal level of
well-being and culture throughout society. The extension and
ramification of the most perfect means of transportation and
communication into the remotest corners of the land is, accordingly, _a
necessity and a matter of general social interest_. On this field there
arise before the new social system tasks that go far beyond any that
modern society can put to itself. Finally, such a perfected system of
transportation and communication, will promote the decentralization of
the mass of humanity that is to-day heaped up in the large cities. It
will distribute the same over the country, and thus--in point of
sanitation as well as of mental and material progress--it will assume a
significance of inestimable value.

       *       *       *       *       *

Among the means of production in industry and transportation, land holds
a leading place, being the source of all human effort and the foundation
of all human existence, hence, of Society itself. Society resumes at its
advanced stage of civilization, what it originally possessed. Among all
races on earth that reached a certain minimum degree of culture, we find
community in land, and the system continues in force with such people
wherever they are still in existence. Community in land constituted the
foundation of all primitive association: the latter was impossible
without the former. Not until the rise and development of private
property and of the forms of rulership therewith connected, and then
only under a running struggle, that extends deep into our own times, was
the system of common ownership in land ended, and the land usurped as
private property. The robbery of the land and its transformation into
private property furnished, as we have seen, the first source of that
bondage that, extending from chattel slavery to the "freedom" of the
wage-earner of our own century, has run through all imaginable stages,
until finally the enslaved, after a development of thousands of years
re-convert the land into common property.

The importance of land to human existence is such that in all social
struggles the world has ever known--whether in India, China, Egypt,
Greece (Cleomenes), Rome (the Gracchi), Christian Middle Ages (religious
sects, Munzer, the Peasants War), in the empires of the Aztecs and of
the Incas, or in the several upheavals of latter days--the possession of
land is the principal aim of the combatants. And even to-day, the public
ownership of land finds its justifiers in such men as Adolf Samter,
Adolf Wagner, Dr. Schaeffle, who on other domains of the Social Question
are ready to rest content with half-measures.[194]

The well-being of the population depends first of all upon the proper
cultivation of the land. To raise the same to the highest degree of
perfection is eminently a matter of public concern. That the
cultivation of the land can reach the necessary high degree of
perfection neither under the large, nor the middle, least of all under
the small landlord system, has been previously shown. The most
profitable cultivation of land depends not merely upon the special care
bestowed upon it. Elements come here into consideration that neither the
largest private holder, nor the mightiest association of these is equal
to cope with. These are elements that lap over, even beyond the reach of
the State and require international treatment.

Society must first of all consider the land as a whole--its
topographical qualities, its mountains, plains, woods, lakes, rivers,
ponds, heaths, swamps, moors, etc. The topography, together with the
geographical location of land, both of which are unchangeable, exercises
certain influences upon climate and the qualities of the soil. Here is
an immense field on which a mass of experience is to be gathered and a
mass of experiments to be made. What the State has done until now in
this line is meager. What with the small means that it applies to these
purposes, and what with the limitations imposed upon it by the large
landlords, who even if the State were willing, would check it, little or
nothing has been done. The State could do nothing on this field without
greatly encroaching upon private property. Seeing, however, that its
very existence is conditioned upon the safe-keeping and "sacredness" of
private property, the large landlords are vital to it, and it is
stripped of the power, even if it otherwise had the will, to move in
that direction. Socialist society will have the task of undertaking vast
improvements of the soil,--raising woods here, and dismantling others
yonder, draining and irrigating, mixing and changing of soil, planting,
etc., in order to raise the land to the highest point of productivity
that it is capable of.

An important question, connected with the improvement of the land, is
the contrivance of an ample and systematically planned network of rivers
and canals, conducted upon scientific principles. The question of
"cheaper" transportation on the waterways--a question of such gravity to
modern society--loses all importance in Socialist society, seeing that
the conceptions "cheap" and "dear" are unknown to it. On the other hand,
however, waterways, as comfortable means of transportation, that can,
moreover, be utilized with but slight expenditure of strength and
matter, deserve attention. Moreover river and canal systems play
important _roles_ in the matter of climate, draining and irrigation, and
the supply of fertilizers and other materials needed in the improvement
of agricultural land.

Experience teaches that poorly-watered regions suffer more severely from
cold winters and hot summers than well-watered lands, whence coast
regions are exempt from the extremes of temperature, or rarely undergo
them. Extremes of temperature are favorable neither to plants nor man.
An extensive system of canalization, in connection with the proper
forestry regulations, would unquestionably exercise beneficent
influences. Such a system of canalization, along with the building of
large reservoirs, that will collect the water in cases of freshets
through thaws or heavy rainfalls, would be of great usefulness. Freshets
and their devastating results would be impossible. Wide expanses of
water, together with their proportional evaporations, would also, in all
probability, bring about a more regular rain-fall. Finally such
institutions would facilitate the erection of works for an extensive
system of irrigation whenever needed.

Large tracts of land, until now wholly barren or almost so, could be
transformed into fertile regions by means of artificial irrigation.
Where now sheep can barely graze, and at best consumptive-looking pine
trees raise their thin arms heavenward, rich crops could grow and a
dense population find ample nutriment. It is merely a question of labor
whether the vast sand tracts of the Mark, the "holy dust-box of the
German Empire," shall be turned into an Eden. The fact was pointed out
in an address delivered in the spring of 1894 on the occasion of the
agricultural exposition in Berlin.[195] The requisite improvements,
canals, provisions for irrigation, mixing of soil, etc., are matters,
however, that can be undertaken neither by the small nor the large
landlords of the Mark. Hence those vast tracts, lying at the very gates
of the capital of the Empire, remain in a state of such backward
cultivation that it will seem incredible to future generations. Again, a
proper canalization would, by draining, reclaim for cultivation vast
swamps and marshes in North as well as South Germany. These waterways
could be furthermore utilized in raising fish; they could thus be vast
sources of food; in neighborhoods where there are no rivers, they would
furnish opportunity for commodious bath-houses.

Let a few examples illustrate the effectiveness of irrigation. In the
neighborhood of Weissensfels, 7˝ hectares of well-watered meadows
produced 480 cwt. of after-grass; 5 contiguous hectares of meadow land
of the same quality, but not watered, yielded only 32 cwt. The former
had, accordingly, a crop ten times as large as the latter. Near Reisa in
Saxony, the irrigation of 65 acres of meadow lands raised their revenue
from 5,850 marks to 11,100 marks. The expensive outlays paid. Besides
the Mark there are in Germany other vast tracts, whose soil, consisting
mainly of sand, yields but poor returns, even when the summer is wet.
Crossed and irrigated by canals, and their soil improved, these lands
would within a short time yield five and ten times as much. There are
examples in Spain of the yield of well-irrigated lands exceeding
thirty-seven fold that of others that are not irrigated. Let there but
be water, and increased volumes of food are conjured into existence.

Where are the private individuals, where the States, able to operate
upon the requisite scale? When, after long decades of bitter experience,
the State finally yields to the stormy demands of a population that has
suffered from all manner of calamities, and only after millions of
values have been destroyed, how slow, with what circumspection, how
cautious does it proceed! It is so easy to do too much, and the State
might by its precipitancy lose the means with which to build some new
barracks for the accommodation of a few regiments. Then also, if one is
helped "too much," others come along, and also want help. "Man, help
yourself and God will help you," thus runs the bourgeois creed. Each for
himself, none for all. And thus, hardly a year goes by without once,
twice and oftener more or less serious freshets from brooks, rivers or
streams occurring in several provinces and States: vast tracts of
fertile lands are then devastated by the violence of the floods, and
others are covered with sand, stone and all manner of debris; whole
orchard plantations, that demanded tens of years for their growth, are
uprooted; houses, bridges, dams are washed away; railroad tracks torn
up; cattle, not infrequently human beings also, are drowned; soil
improvements are carried off; crops ruined. Vast tracts, exposed to
frequent inundations, are cultivated but slightly, lest the loss be
double.

On the other hand, unskilful corrections of the channels of large rivers
and streams,--undertaken in one-sided interests, to which the State ever
yields readily in the service of "trade and transportation"--increase
the dangers of freshets. Extensive cutting down of forests, especially
on highlands and for private profit, adds more grist to the flood mill.
The marked deterioration of the climate and decreased productivity of
the soil, noticeable in the provinces of Prussia, Pomerania, the
Steuermark, Italy, France, Spain, etc., is imputed to this vandalic
devastation of the woods, done in the interest of private parties.

Frequent freshets are the consequence of the dismantling of mountain
woodlands. The inundations of the Rhine, the Oder and the Vistula are
ascribed mainly to the devastation of the woods in Switzerland, Galicia
and Poland; and likewise in Italy with regard to the Po. Due to the
baring of the Carnian Alps, the climate of Triest and Venice has
materially deteriorated. Madeira, a large part of Spain, vast and once
luxurious fields of Asia Minor have in a great measure forfeited their
fertility through the same causes.

It goes without saying that Socialist society will not be able to
accomplish all these great tasks out-of-hand. But it can and will
undertake them, with all possible promptness and with all the powers at
its command, seeing that its sole mission is to solve problems of
civilization and to tolerate no hindrance. Thus it will in the course of
time solve problems and accomplish feats that modern society can give no
thought to, and the very thought of which gives it the vertigo.

The cultivation of the soil will, accordingly, be mightily improved in
Socialist society, through these and similar measures. But other
considerations, looking to the proper exploitation of the soil, are
added to these. To-day, many square miles are planted with potatoes,
which are to be applied mainly to the distilling of brandy, an article
consumed almost exclusively by the poor classes of the population.
Liquor is the only stimulant and "care-dispeller" that they are able to
procure. The population of Socialist society needs none of that, hence
the raising of potatoes and corn for that purpose, together with the
labor therein expended, are set free for the production of healthy
food.[196] The speculative purposes that our most fertile fields are put
to in the matter of the sugar beet for the exportation of sugar, have
been pointed out in a previous chapter. About 400,000 hectares of the
best wheat fields are yearly devoted to the cultivation of sugar beet,
in order to supply England, the United States and Northern Europe with
sugar. The countries whose climate favors the growth of sugar cane
succumb to this competition. Furthermore, our system of a standing army,
the disintegration of production, the disintegration of the means of
transportation and communication, the disintegration of agriculture,
etc.,--all these demand hundreds of thousands of horses, with the
corresponding fields to feed them and to raise colts. The completely
transformed social and political conditions free the bulk of the lands
that are now given up to these various purposes; and again large areas
and rich labor-power are reclaimed for purposes of civilization.
Latterly, extensive fields, covering many square kilometers, have been
withdrawn from cultivation, being needed for the manoeuvering and
exercising of army corps in the new methods of warfare and long
distance firearms. All this falls away.

The vast field of agriculture, forestry and irrigation has become the
subject of an extensive scientific literature. No special branch has
been left untouched: irrigation and drainage, forestry, the cultivation
of cereals, of leguminous and tuberous plants, of vegetables, of fruit
trees, of berries, of flowers and ornamental plants; fodder for cattle
raising; meadows; rational methods of breeding cattle, fish and poultry
and bees, and the utilization of their excrements; utilization of manure
and refuse in agriculture and manufacture; chemical examinations of
seeds and of the soil, to ascertain its fitness for this or that crop;
investigations in the rotations of crops and in agricultural machinery
and implements; the profitable construction of agricultural buildings of
all nature; the weather;--all have been drawn within the circle of
scientific treatment. Hardly a day goes by without some new discovery,
some new experience being made towards improving and ennobling one or
other of these several branches. With the work of J. v. Liebig, the
cultivation of the soil has become a science, indeed, one of the
foremost and most important of all, a science that since then has
attained a vastness and significance unique in the domain of activity in
material production. And yet, if we compare the fullness of the progress
made in this direction with the actual conditions prevailing in
agriculture to-day, _it must be admitted that, until now, only a small
fraction of the private owners have been able to turn the progress to
advantage_, and among these there naturally is none who did not proceed
from the view point of his own private interests, acted accordingly,
kept only that in mind, and gave no thought to the public weal. The
large majority of our farmers and gardeners, we may say 98 per cent. of
them, are in no wise in condition to utilize all the advances made and
advantages that are possible: they lack either the means or the
knowledge thereto, if not both: as to the others, they simply do as they
please. Socialist society finds herein a theoretically and practically
well prepared field of activity. It need but to fall to and organize in
order to attain wonderful results.

The highest possible concentration of productions affords, of itself,
mighty advantages. Hedges, making boundary lines, wagon roads and
footpaths between the broken-up holdings are removed, and yield some
more available soil. The application of machinery is possible only on
large fields: agricultural machinery of fullest development, backed by
chemistry and physics could to-day transform unprofitable lands, of
which there are not a few, into fertile ones. The application of
accumulated electric power to agricultural machinery--plows, harrows,
rollers, sowers, mowers, threshers, seed-assorters, chaff-cutters,
etc.--is only a question of time. Likewise will the day come when
electricity will move from the fields the wagons laden with the crops:
draught cattle can be spared. A scientific system of fertilizing the
fields, hand in hand with thorough management, irrigation and draining
will materially increase the productivity of the land. A careful
selection of seeds, proper protection against weeds--in itself a head
much sinned against to-day--sends up the yield still higher.

According to Ruhland, a successful war upon cereal diseases would of
itself suffice to render superfluous the present importation of grain
into Germany.[197] Seeding, planting and rotation of crops, being
conducted with the sole end in view of raising the largest possible
volume of food, the object is then obtainable.

What may be possible even under present conditions is shown by the
management of the Schnistenberg farm in the Rhenish Palatinate. In 1884
the same fell into the hand of a new tenant, who, in the course of eight
years, raised three or four times as much as his predecessor.[198] The
said property is situated 320 meters above the level of the sea, 286
acres in size, of which 18 are meadows, and has generally unfavorable
soil, 30 acres being sandy, 60 stony, 55 sand loam and 123 hard loam.
The new method of cultivation had astonishing results. The crops rose
from year to year. The increase during the period of 1884-1892 was as
follows per acre:


      Product.       1884.         1892.
    Rye           7.75 cwts.   19.50 cwts.
    Wheat         3.50  "      15.30   "
    Barley       12.00  "      18.85   "
    Oats          7.00  "      18.85   "


The neighboring community of Kiegsfeld, the witness of this marvelous
development, followed the example and reached similar results on its own
ground. The yield per acre was on an average this:


      Product.         1884.           1892.
    Wheat           10 to 12 cwts.  13 to 18 cwts.
    Rye             12 to 15  "     15 to 20  "
    Oats             7 to  9  "     14 to 22 and even 24
    Barley           9 to 11  "     18 to 22 cwts.


Such results are eloquent enough.

The cultivation of fruits, berries and garden vegetables will reach a
development hardly thought possible. How unpardonably is being sinned at
present in these respects, a look at our orchards will show. They are
generally marked by a total absence of proper care. This is true of the
cultivation of fruit trees even in countries that have a reputation for
the excellence of these; Wurtemberg, for instance. The concentration of
stables, depots for implements and manure and methods of
feeding--towards which wonderful progress has been made, but which can
to-day be applied only slightly--will, when generally introduced,
materially increase the returns in raising cattle, and thereby
facilitate the procurement of manure. Machinery and implements of all
sorts will be there in abundance, very differently from the experience
of ninety-nine one hundredths of our modern farmers. Animal products,
such as milk, eggs, meat, honey, hair, wool, will be obtained and
utilized scientifically. The improvements and advantages in the dairy
industry reached by the large dairy associations is known to all
experts, and ever new inventions and improvements are daily made. Many
are the branches of agriculture in which the same and even better can be
done. The preparation of the fields and the gathering of the crops are
then attended to by large bodies of men, under skilful use of the
weather, such as is to-day impossible. Large drying houses and sheds
allow crops being gathered even in unfavorable weather, and save losses
that are to-day unavoidable, and which, according to v. d. Goltz, often
are so severe that, during a particularly rainy year, from eight to nine
million marks worth of crops were ruined in Mecklenburg, and from twelve
to fifteen in the district of Koenigsberg.

Through the skilful application of artificial heat and moisture on a
large scale in structures protected from bad weather, the raising of
vegetables and all manner of fruit is possible at all seasons in large
quantities. The flower stores of our large cities have in mid-winter
floral exhibitions that vie with those of the summer. One of the most
remarkable advances made in the artificial raising of fruit is
exemplified by the artificial vineyard of Garden-Director Haupt in
Brieg, Silesia, which has found a number of imitators, and was itself
preceded long before by a number of others in other countries, England
among them. The arrangements and the results obtained in this vineyard
were so enticingly described in the "Vossische Zeitung" of September 27,
1890, that we have reproduced the account in extracts:

"The glass-house is situated upon an approximately square field of 500
square meters, i. e., one-fifth of an acre. It is 4.5 to 5 meters high,
and its walls face north, south, east and west. Twelve rows of double
fruit walls run inside due north and south. They are 1.8 meters apart
from each other and serve at the same time as supports to the flat roof.
In a bed 1.25 meters deep, resting on a bank of earth 25 centimeters
strong and which contains a net of drain and ventilation pipes,--a bed
'whose hard ground is rendered loose, permeable and fruitful through
chalk, rubbish, sand, manure in a state of decomposition, bonedust and
potash'--Herr Haupt planted against the walls three hundred and sixty
grape vines of the kind which yields the noblest grape juice in the
Rhinegau:--white and red Reissling and Tramine, white and blue
Moscatelle and Burgundy.

"The ventilation of the place is effected by means of large fans, twenty
meters long, attached to the roof, besides several openings on the
side-walls. The fans can be opened and shut by means of a lever,
fastened on the roof provided with a spindle and winch, and they can be
made safe against all weather. For the watering of the vines 26
sprinklers are used, which are fastened to rubber pipes 1.25 meters
long, and that hang down from a water tank. Herr Haupt introduced,
however, another ingenious contrivance for quickly and thoroughly
watering his 'wine-hall' and his 'vineyard', to wit, an artificial rain
producer. On high, under the roof, lie four long copper tubes,
perforated at distances of one-half meter. The streams of water that
spout upward through these openings strike small round sieves made of
window gauze and, filtered through these, are scattered in fine spray.
To thoroughly water the vines by means of the rubber pipes requires
several hours. But only one faucet needs to be turned by this second
contrivance and a gentle refreshing rain trickles down over the whole
place upon the grape vines, the beds and the granite flags of the walks.
The temperature can be raised from 8 to 10 degrees R. above the outside
air without any artificial contrivance, and simply through the natural
qualities of the glass-house. In order to protect the vines from that
dangerous and destructive foe, the vine louse, should it show itself, it
is enough to close the drain and open all the water pipes. The
inundation of the vines, thus achieved, the enemy can not withstand. The
glass roof and walls protect the vineyard from storms, cold, frost and
superfluous rain; in cases of hail, a fine wire-netting is spread over
the same; against drought the artificial rain system affords all the
protection needed. The vine-dresser of such a vineyard is his own
weather-maker, and he can laugh at all the dangers from the incalculable
whims and caprices of indifferent and cruel Nature,--dangers that ever
threaten with ruin the fruit of the vine cultivator.

"What Herr Haupt expected happened. The vines thrived remarkably under
the uniformly warm climate. The grapes ripened to their fullest, and as
early as the fall of 1885 they yielded a juice not inferior to that
generally obtained in the Rhinegau in point of richness of sugar and
slightness of sourness. The grapes thrived equally the next year and
even during the unfavorable year of 1887. On this space, when the vines
have reached their full height of 5 meters, and are loaded with their
burden of swollen grapes, 20 hectoliters of wine can be produced yearly,
and the cost of a bottle of noble wine will not exceed 40 pennies.

"There is no reason imaginable why this process should not be conducted
upon a large scale like any other industry. Glass-houses of the nature
of this one on one-fifth of an acre can be undoubtedly raised upon a
whole acre with equal facilities of ventilation, watering, draining and
rain-making. Vegetation will start there several weeks sooner than in
the open, and the vine-shoots remain safe from May frosts, rain and cold
while they blossom; from drought during the growth of the grapes; from
pilfering birds and grape thieves and from dampness while they ripen;
finally from the vine-louse during the whole year and can hang safely
deep into November and December. In his address, held in 1888 to the
Society for the Promotion of Horticulture, and from which I have taken
many a technical expression in this description of the 'Vineyard', the
inventor and founder of the same closed his words with this alluring
perspective of the future: 'Seeing that this vine culture can be carried
on all over Germany, especially on otherwise barren, sandy or stony
ground, such as, for instance, the worst of the Mark, that can be made
arable and watered, it follows that the great interests in the
cultivation of the soil receive fresh vigor from "vineyards under
glass." I would like to call this industry "the vineyard of the
future".'

"Just as Herr Haupt has furnished the practical proof that on this path
an abundance of fine and healthy grapes can be drawn from the vine, he
has also proved by his own pressing of the same what excellent wine they
can yield. More thorough, more experienced, better experts and tried
wine-drinkers and connoisseurs than myself have, after a severe test,
bestowed enthusiastic praise upon the Reissling of the vintage of '88,
upon the Tramine and Moscatelle of the vintage of '89, and upon the
Burgundy of the vintage of '88, pressed from the grapes of this
'vineyard'. It should also be mentioned that this 'vineyard' also
affords sufficient space for the cultivation of other side and twin
plants. Herr Haupt raises between every two vines one rose bush, that
blossoms richly in April and May; against the east and west walls he
raises peaches, whose beauty of blossom must impart in April an
appearance of truly fairy charm to this wine palace."

The enthusiasm with which the reporter describes this artificial
"vineyard" in a serious paper testifies to the deep impression made upon
him by this extraordinary artificial cultivation. There is nothing to
prevent similar establishments, on a much more stupendous scale and for
other branches of vegetation. The luxury of a double crop is obtainable
in many agricultural products. To-day all such undertakings are a
question of money, and their products are accessible only to the
privileged classes. A Socialist society knows no other question than
that of sufficient labor-power. If that is in existence, the work is
done in the interest of all.

Another new invention on the field of food is that of Dr. Johann
Hundhausen of Hamm in Westphalia, who succeeded in extracting the
albumen of wheat--the secret of whose utilization in the legume was not
yet known--in the shape of a thoroughly nutritive flour. This is a
far-reaching invention. It is now possible to render the albumen of
plants useful in substantial form for human food.

The inventor erected a large factory which produces vegetal albumen or
aleurone meal from 80 to 83 per cent. of albumen, and a second quality
of about 50 per cent. That the so-called aleurone meal represents a very
concentrated albuminous food appears from the following comparison with
our best elements of nourishment:


                                          Carbon-
                   Water  Albumen   Fat   hydrate Cellulose Salt
    Aleurone meal   8.83   82.67    0.27   7.01     0.45    0.78
    Hen's eggs     73.67   12.55   12.11   0.55     0.55    1.12
    Beef           55.42   17.19   26.58   ....     ....    1.08


Aleurone meal is not only eaten directly, it is also used as a condiment
in all sorts of bakery products, as well as soups and vegetables.
Aleurone meal substitutes in a high degree meat preserves in point of
nutrition; moreover, it is by far the cheapest albumen obtainable
to-day. One kilogram of albumen costs:


    In aleurone meal                             1.45 marks
    In white bread or white flour            4 to 4.5   "
    In hen's eggs, according to the season   8 to 16    "
    In beef                                 12 to 13    "


Beef, accordingly, is about eight times dearer, as albuminous food, than
aleurone meal; eggs five times as dear; white bread or common white
flour about three times as dear. Aleurone meal also has the advantage
that, with the addition of about one-eighth of the weight of a potato,
it not only furnishes a considerable quantity of albumen to the body,
but produces a complete digestion of the starch contained in the potato.
Dogs, that have a nose for albumen, eat aleurone meal with the same
avidity as meat, even if they otherwise refuse bread, and they are then
better able to stand hardships.

Aleurone meal, as a dry vegetal albumen, is of great use as food on
ships, in fortresses and in military hospitals during war. It renders
large supplies of meat unnecessary. At present aleurone meal is a side
product in starch factories. Within short, starch will become a side
product of aleurone meal. A further result will be that the cultivation
of cereals will crowd out that of potatoes and other less productive
food plants; the volume of nutrition of a given field of wheat or rye is
tripled or quadrupled at one stroke.

Dr. Rudolf Meyer of Vienna, whose attention was called by us to the
aleurone meal says[199] that he furnished himself with a quantity of it
and had it examined on June 19, 1893, by the bureau of experiments of
the Board of Soil Cultivation of the Kingdom of Bohemia. The examination
fully confirmed our statements. For further details Meyer's work should
be read. Meyer also calls attention to a discovery made by Otto Redemann
of Bockenheim near Frankfort-on-the-Main. After granulating the peanut
and removing its oil, he analyzed its component elements of nutrition.
The analysis showed 47 per cent. of albumen, 19 of fat and 19 of
starch--altogether 2,135 units of nutritious matter in one kilo.
According to this analysis the peanut is one of the most nutritious
vegetal products. The pharmacist Rud. Simpson of Mohrungen discovered a
process by which to remove the bitterness from the lupine, which, as may
be known, thrives best on sandy soil, and is used both as fodder and as
a fertilizer; and he then produced from it a meal, which, according to
expert authority, baked as bread tastes very good, is solid, is said to
be more nutritious than rye-bread, and, besides all that, much cheaper.

Even under present conditions a regular revolution is plowing its way in
the matter of human food. _The utilization of all these discoveries is,
however, slow, for the reason that mighty classes--the farmer element
together with its social and political props--have the liveliest
interest in suppressing them._ To our agrarians, a good crop is to-day a
horror--although the same is prayed for in all the churches--because it
lowers prices. Consequently, they are no wise anxious for a double and
threefold nutritive power of their cereals; it would likewise tend to
lower prices. Present society is everywhere at fisticuffs with its own
development.

The preservation of the soil in a state of fertility depends primarily
upon fertilization. The obtaining of fertilizers is, accordingly, for
future society also one of the principal tasks.[200] Manure is to the
soil what food is to man, and just as every kind of food is not equally
nourishing to man, neither is every kind of manure of equal benefit to
the soil. The soil must receive back exactly the same chemical
substances that it gave up through a crop; and the chemical substances
especially needed by a certain vegetable must be given to the soil in
larger quantities. Hence the study of chemistry and its practical
application will experience a development unknown to-day.

Animal and human excrements are particularly rich in the chemical
elements that are fittest for the reproduction of human food. Hence the
endeavor must be to secure the same in the fullest quantity and cause
its proper distribution. On this head too modern society sins
grievously. Cities and industrial centers, that receive large masses of
foodstuffs, return to the soil but a slight part of their valuable
offal.[201] The consequence is that the fields, situated at great
distances from the cities and industrial centers, and which yearly send
their products to the same, suffer greatly from a dearth of manure; the
offal that these farms themselves yield is often not enough, because the
men and beasts who live on them consume but a small part of the product.
Thus frequently a soil-vandalism is practiced, that cripples the land
and decreases the crops. All countries that export agricultural products
mainly, but receive no manure back, inevitably go to ruin through the
gradual impoverishment of the soil. This is the case with Hungary,
Russia, the Danubian Principalities, North America, etc. Artificial
fertilizers, guano in particular, indeed substitute the offal of men and
beasts; but many farmers can not obtain the same in sufficient
quantity; it is too dear; at any rate, it is an inversion of nature to
import manure from great distances, while it is allowed to go to waste
nearby.

Several years since has the Thomas-slag been recognized as an eminently
fit manure for certain soils. The manufacturers, however, who grind the
Thomas-slag into flour and carry it to market, have built a ring, and,
to the injury of the farming interests who make bitter complaints on
that score, they keep the prices high. Thus every progress is crippled
by greed in bourgeois society. Another and at present inexhaustable
source of fertilizers is offered by the deposits of potash in the
province of Saxony and contiguous regions. The Prussian State owns a
number of potash works and it also made the attempt to monopolize the
industry, to the end of raising the largest possible revenues for the
Treasury.

If the opinion of Julius Hensel on the subject of fertilizers proves
correct, it will mean a revolution in the theory of fertilization, and a
complete saving of the expenses now made for the importation of
fertilizers, amounting for guano and Chile saltpeter to from 80 to 100
million marks a year.[202] Hensel makes the emphatic claim, and produces
numerous proofs of the correctness of his views, that the mineral of our
mountains contain an inexhaustible supply of the best fertilizing
stuffs. Granite, porphyry, basalt, broken and ground up, spread upon the
fields or vineyards and furnished with a sufficiency of water, furnished
a fertilizer that excelled all others, even animal and human
refuse.[203] These minerals, he claims, contain all the elements for the
cultivation of plants: potash, chalk, magnesia, phosphoric, sulphuric
and silicic acids, and also hydrochlorides. According to Hensel, the
Sudeton, Riesen, Erz, Tichtel, Hartz, Rhone, Vogel, Taunus, Eisel and
Weser mountains, the woods of Thuringen, Spessart and Oden had an
inexhaustible supply of fertilizers. It will be literally possible to
"make bread out of stones." The dust and dirt of our highways also are,
according to Hensel, inexhaustible sources of the same blessing. In this
matter we are laymen and can not test the correctness of Hensel's
theories; a part of them, however, sound most plausible. Hensel charges
the manufacturers of and dealers in artificial fertilizers with
hostility to his discovery and with systematic opposition, because they
would suffer great loss.

According to Heider, a healthy adult secretes on an average 48.8
kilograms of solid and 438 of liquid matter a year. Estimated by the
present standard of the prices of manure, and if utilized without loss
by evaporation, etc., this offal represents a money value of 11.8
marks. Calculating the population of Germany to be 50,000,000 in round
figures, and estimating the average value of the human offal at 8 marks,
the sum of 400,000,000 marks is obtained, which now is almost totally
lost to agriculture, owing to the present imperfect methods for
utilizing it. The great difficulty in the way of a full utilization of
these stuffs lies in the establishment of proper and extensive
provisions for their collection, and in the cost of transportation.
Relatively, this cost is now higher than the importation of guano from
far-away transmarine deposits, which, however, decline in mass in the
measure that the demand increases. Every living being, however, casts
off regularly an annual supply of manure about enough for a field that
yields food for one person. The enormous loss is obvious. A large
portion of the city excrement runs out into our rivers and streams, and
pollutes them. Likewise is the refuse from kitchens and factories, also
serviceable as manure, recklessly squandered.

Future society will find means and ways to stop this waste. What is done
to-day in this direction is mere patchwork, and utterly inadequate. As
an illustration of what could be done to-day, may be cited the
canalization and the laying out of vast fields in the capital of the
Empire, on whose value, however, experts are of divided opinion.
Socialist society will solve the question more easily, due, in a great
measure, to the fact that _large cities will gradually cease to exist,
and population will decentralize_.

No one will regard our modern rise of metropoles as a healthy
phenomenon. The modern system of manufacture and production in general,
steadily draws large masses of the population to the large cities.[204]
There is the seat of manufacture and commerce; there the avenues of
communication converge; there the owners of large wealth have their
headquarters, the central authorities, the military staffs, the higher
tribunals. There large institutions rear their heads--the academies of
art, large pleasure resorts, exhibitions, museums, theaters, concert
halls, etc. Hundreds are drawn thither by their professions, thousands
by pleasure, and many more thousands by the hope of easier work and an
agreeable life.

But, speaking figuratively, the rise of metropolitan cities makes the
impression of a person whose girth gains steadily in size, while his
legs as steadily become thinner, and finally will be unable to carry the
burden. All around, in the immediate vicinity of the cities, the
villages also assume a city aspect, in which the proletariat is heaped
up in large masses. The municipalities, generally out of funds, are
forced to lay on taxes to the utmost, and still remain unable to meet
the demand made upon them. When finally they have grown up to the large
city and it up to them, they rush into and are absorbed by it, as
happens with planets that have swung too close to the sun. But the fact
does not improve the conditions of life. On the contrary, they grow
worse through the crowding of people in already overcrowded spaces.
These gatherings of masses--inevitable under modern development, and, to
a certain extent, the raisers of revolutionary centers,--will have
fulfilled their mission in Socialist society. Their gradual dissolution
then becomes necessary: _the current will then run the other way:
population will migrate from the cities to the country: it will there
raise new municipalities corresponding with the altered conditions, and
they will join their industrial with their agricultural activities_.

So soon as--due to the complete remodeling and equipment of the means of
communication and transportation, and of the productive establishments,
etc., etc.--the city populations will be enabled to transfer to the
country all their acquired habits of culture, to find there their
museums, theaters, concert halls, reading rooms, libraries, etc.--just
so soon will the migration thither set in. Life will then enjoy all the
comforts of large cities, without their disadvantages. The population
will be housed more comfortably and sanitarily. The rural population
will join in manufacturing, the manufacturing population in agricultural
pursuits,--a change of occupation enjoyed to-day by but few, and then
often under conditions of excessive exertion.

As on all other fields, bourgeois society is promoting this development
also: every year new industrial undertakings are transferred to the
country. The unfavorable conditions of large cities--high rents and high
wages--drive many employers to this migration. At the same time, the
large landlords are steadily becoming industrialists--manufacturers of
sugar, distillers of liquor, beer brewers, manufacturers of cement,
earthen wares, tiles, woodwork, paper goods, etc. In the new social
order offal of all sorts will then be easily furnished to agriculture,
especially through the concentration of production and the public
kitchens. Each community will, in a way, constitute a zone of culture;
it will, to a large extent, itself raise its necessaries of life.
Horticulture, perhaps the most agreeable of all practical occupations,
will then reach fullest bloom. The cultivation of vegetables, fruit
trees and bushes of all nature, ornamental flowers and shrubs--all offer
an inexhaustible field for human activity, a field, moreover, whose
nature excludes machinery almost wholly.

_Thanks to the decentralization of the population, the existing contrast
and antagonism between the country and the city will also vanish._

The peasant, this Helot of modern times, hitherto cut off from all
cultural development through his isolation in the country, now becomes a
free being because he has fully become a limb of civilization.[205] The
wish, once expressed by Prince Bismarck, that he might see the large
cities destroyed, will be verified, but in a sense wholly different from
that which he had in mind.[206]

If the preceding arguments are rapidly passed in review, it will be seen
that, with the abolition of private property in the means of production
and their conversion into social property, the mass evils, that modern
society reveals at every turn and which grow ever greater and more
intolerable under its sway, will gradually disappear. The over-lordship
of one class and its representatives ceases. Society applies its forces
planfully and controls itself. As, with the abolition of the wage system
the ground will be taken from under the exploitation of man by man,
likewise will it be taken from under swindle and cheating--the
adulteration of food, the stock exchange, etc.,--with the abolition of
private capitalism. The halls in the Temples of Mammon will stand
vacant; national bonds of indebtedness, stocks, pawn-tickets, mortgages,
deeds, etc., will have become so much waste paper. The words of
Schiller: "Let our book of indebtedness be annihilated, and the whole
world reconciled" will have become reality, and the Biblical maxim: "In
the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread" will now come into force for
the heroes of the stock exchange and the drones of capitalism as well.
Yet the labor that, as equal members of society they will have to
perform, will not oppress them: their bodily health will be materially
improved. The worry of property--said to be, judging from the pathetic
assurances of our employers and capitalists in general, harder to bear
than the uncertain and needy lot of the workingman--will be forever
removed from those gentlemen. The excitements of speculation, that breed
so many diseases of the heart and bring on so many strokes of apoplexy
among our exchange jobbers, and that render them nervous wrecks, will
all be saved to them. A life free from mental worry will be their lot
and that of our descendants; and in the end they will gladly accommodate
themselves thereto.

With the abolition of private property and of class antagonism, the
State also gradually vanishes away;--it vanishes without being missed.

"By converting the large majority of the population more and more into
proletarians, the capitalist mode of production creates the power, that,
under penalty of its own destruction, is forced to accomplish this
revolution. By urging more and more the conversion of the large, already
socialized means of production into State property, it points the path
for the accomplishment of this revolution.... The State was the official
representative of the whole society; it was the constitution of the
latter into a visible body; but it was so only in so far as it was the
State of that class which itself, at its time, represented the whole
society; in antiquity, the State of slave-holding citizens; in the
middle ages, the State of the feudal nobility; in our own days, the
State of the capitalist class. By at last becoming actually the
representative of the whole social body, it renders itself superfluous.
As soon as there is no longer any social class to be kept down; as soon
as, together with class rule and the individual struggle for life,
founded in the previous anarchy of production, the conflicts and
excesses that issued therefrom have been removed, there is nothing more
to be repressed, and the State or Government, as a special power of
repression, is no longer necessary. The first act, wherein the State
appears as the real representative of the whole body social--the seizure
of the means of production in the name of society--is also its last
independent act as State. The interference of the State in social
relations becomes superfluous in one domain after another, and falls of
itself into desuetude. The place of a government over persons is taken
by the administration of things and the conduct of the processes of
production. The State is not 'abolished'--_it dies out!_"[207]

Along with the State, die out its representatives--cabinet ministers,
parliaments, standing armies, police and constables, courts, district
attorneys, prison officials, tariff and tax collectors, in short, the
whole political apparatus. Barracks, and such other military structures,
palaces of law and of administration, prisons--all will now await better
use. Ten thousand laws, decrees and regulations become so much rubbish;
they have only historic value. The great and yet so petty parliamentary
struggles, with which the men of tongue imagine they rule and guide the
world, are no more, they will have made room for administrative colleges
and delegations whose attention will be engaged in the best means of
production and distribution, in ascertaining the volume of supplies
needed, in introducing and applying effective improvements in art, in
architecture, in intercourse, in the process of production, etc. These
are all practical matters, visible and tangible, towards which everyone
stands objectively, there being no personal interests hostile to society
to affect their judgment. None has any interest other than the
collectivity, and that interest consists in instituting and providing
everything in the best, most effective and most profitable manner.

The hundreds of thousands of former representatives of the State pass
over into the various trades, and help with their intelligence and
strength to increase the wealth and comforts of society. Henceforth
there are known neither political crimes nor common ones. There are no
more thieves, seeing that private property has ceased to be in the means
of production, and everyone can now satisfy his wants with ease and
comfort by work. Tramps and vagabonds likewise cease to be; they are the
product of a social system based on private property; the former cease
to be with the latter. And murder? Why? None can grow rich at the
expense of another. Even murder out of hatred and revenge flows directly
or indirectly from the modern social system. Perjury, false testimony,
cheating, thefts of inheritance, fraudulent failures? There is no
private property on and against which to commit these crimes. Arson? Who
is to derive pleasure or satisfaction therefrom, seeing that society
removes from him all sources of hatred? Counterfeiting? Why, money has
become a chimera, love's labor would be lost. Contempt for religion?
Nonsense. It is left to the "omnipotent and good God" to punish him who
should offend Him--provided there be still controversies on the
existence of God.

Thus all the cornerstones of the present "order" become myths. Parents
will tell their children stories on those heads, like legends from olden
days. The narrations of the persecutions, that men with new ideas are
to-day overwhelmed with, will sound to them just as the stories of the
burning of heretics and witches sound to us to-day. The names of all the
great men, who to-day distinguish themselves by their persecutions of
the new ideas, and who are applauded by their narrow-minded
contemporaries, are forgotten and blown over, and they are run across
only by the historian who may happen to dive into the past. What remarks
may escape him, we care not to tell, seeing that, unhappily, we do not
yet live in an age where man is free to breathe.

As with the State, so with "Religion."[208] It is not "abolished." God
will not be "dethroned"; religion will not be "torn out of the hearts of
people"; nor will any of the silly charges against the Socialists
materialize. Such mistaken policies the Socialists leave to the
Bourgeois ideologists, who resorted to such means in the French
Revolution and, of course, suffered miserable shipwreck. Without any
violence whatever, and without any manner of oppression of thought,
religion will gradually vanish.

Religion is the transcendental reflection of the social conditions of
given epochs. In the measure that human development advances and society
is transformed, religion is transformed along with it. It is, as Marx
puts it, a popular striving after the illusory happiness that
corresponds with a social condition which needs such an illusion.[209]
The illusion wanes so soon as real happiness is descried, and the
possibility of its realization penetrates the masses. The ruling classes
endeavor, in their own interest, to prevent this popular conception.
Hence they seek to turn religion into a means to preserve their
domination. The purpose appears fully in their maxim: "The people must
be held to religion." This particular business becomes an official
function in a society that rests upon class rule. A caste is formed that
assumes this function and that turns the whole acumen of their minds
towards preserving, and enlarging such a social structure, seeing that
thereby their own power and importance are increased.

Starting in fetishism at low stages of civilization and primitive social
conditions, religion becomes polytheism at a higher, and monotheism at a
still higher stage. It is not the gods that create men, it is man who
turns the gods into God. "In the image of himself (man) he created Him"
(God), not the opposite way. Monotheism has also suffered changes. It
has dissolved into a pantheism that embraces and permeates the
universe--and it volatilizes day by day. Natural science reduced to myth
the dogma of the creation of the earth in six days; astronomy,
mathematics, physics have converted heaven into a structure of air, and
the stars, once fastened to the roof of heaven in which angels had their
abodes, into fixed stars and planets whose very composition excludes all
angelic life.

The ruling class, finding itself threatened in its existence, clings to
religion as a prop of all authority, just as every ruling class has done
heretofore.[210] The bourgeoisie or capitalist class itself believes in
nothing. Itself, at every stage of its development and through the
modern science that sprang from none but its own lap, has destroyed all
faith in religion and authority. Its faith is only a pretence; and the
Church accepts the help of this false friend because itself is in need
of help. "Religion is necessary for the people."

No such considerations animate Socialistic Society. Human progress and
unadulterated science are its device. If any there be who has religious
needs, he is free to please himself in the company of those who feel
like him. It is a matter that does not concern society. Seeing that the
clergyman's own mind will be improved by work, the day will dawn to him
also when he will realize that _the highest aim is to be man_.

Ethics and morality exist without organized religion. The contrary is
asserted only by weak-minded people or hypocrites. Ethics and morality
are the expression of conceptions that regulate the relations of man to
man, and their mutual conduct. Religion embraces the relations of man
with supernal beings. And, just as with religion, moral conceptions also
are born of existing social conditions at given times. Cannibals regard
the eating of human beings as highly moral; Greeks and Romans regarded
slavery as moral; the feudal lord of the Middle Ages regarded serfdom as
moral; and to-day the modern capitalist considers highly moral the
institution of wage-slavery, the flaying of women with night work and
the demoralization of children by factory labor.[211] Here we have four
different social stages, and as many different conceptions of morality,
and yet in none does the highest moral sense prevail. Undoubtedly the
highest moral stage is that in which men stand to one another free and
equal; that in which the principle: "What you do not wish to be done
unto you, do not unto others" is observed inviolate throughout the
relations of man to man. In the Middle Ages, the genealogical tree was
the standard; to-day it is property; in future society, the standard of
man is man. And the future is Socialism in practice.

       *       *       *       *       *

The late Reichstag delegate, Dr. Lasker, delivered, in the seventies, an
address in Berlin, in which he arrived at the conclusion that an equal
level of education for all members of society was possible. Dr. Lasker
was an anti-Socialist a rigid upholder of private property and of the
capitalist system of production. The question of education is to-day,
however, a question of money. Under such conditions, an equal level of
education for all is an impossibility. Exceptional persons, situated in
relatively favorable conditions, may, by dint of overcoming all
difficulties and by the exertion of great energy, not given to
everybody, succeed in acquiring a higher education. The masses never, so
long as they live in a state of social oppression.[212]

In the new social order, the conditions of existence are equal for all.
Wants and inclinations differ, and, differences being grounded in the
very nature of man, will continue so to be. Each member, however, can
live and develop under the same favorable conditions that obtain for
all. The uniformity, generally imputed to Socialism, is, as so many
other things, false and nonsensical. Even if Socialism did so wish it,
the wish were absurd; it would come in conflict with the nature of man;
Socialism would have to give up the idea of seeing society develop
according to its principles.[213] Aye, even if Socialism were to succeed
in overpowering society and to force upon it unnatural conditions, it
would not be long before such conditions, felt to be shackles, would be
snapped, and Socialism would be done for. Society develops out of
itself, according to laws latent in it, and it acts accordingly.[214]

One of the principal tasks of the new social system will be the
education of the rising generation in keeping with its improved
opportunities. Every child that is born, be it male or female, is a
welcome addition to society. Society sees therein the prospect of its
own perpetuity, of its own further development. It, therefore, also
realizes the duty of providing for the new being according to its best
powers. The first object of its attention must, consequently, be the one
that gives birth to the new being--the mother. A comfortable home;
agreeable surroundings and provisions of all sorts, requisite to this
stage of maternity; a careful nursing--such are the first requirements.
The mother's breast must be preserved for the child as long as possible
and necessary. This is obvious. Moleschott, Sonderegger, all hygienists
and physicians are agreed that nothing can fully substitute the mother's
nourishment.

People who, like Eugen Richter, indignate at the idea of a young mother
being placed in a lying-in establishment, where she is surrounded by all
that to-day is possible only to the very wealthiest, and which even
these cannot furnish in the fullness attainable at institutions
especially equipped for the purpose--such people we wish to remind of
the fact that, to-day, at least four-fifths of the population are born
under the most primitive circumstances and conditions, that are a
disgrace to our civilization. Of the remaining one-fifth of our mothers,
only a minority is able to enjoy the nursing and comforts that should be
bestowed upon a woman in that state. _The fact is that in cities with
excellent provisions for child-birth--Berlin for instance, and all
University cities--even to-day not a few women resort to such
institutions as soon as they feel their time approaching, and await
their delivery. Unfortunately, however, the expenses at such
institutions are so high, that but few women can use them, while others
are held back by prejudice._ Here again we have an instance of how
everywhere bourgeois society carries in its own lap the germ of the
future order.

For the rest, maternity among the rich has a unique taste; the maternal
duties are transferred as soon as possible to a _proletarian nurse_. As
is well known, the Wendt Lausitz (Spreewald) is the region that the
women of the Berlin bourgeoisie, who are unwilling or unable to nurse
their own babies, draw their wet-nurses from. The "cultivation of
nurses" is there carried on as a peculiar trade. It consists in the
girls of the district causing themselves to be impregnated, with the end
in view of being able, after the birth of their own children, to hire
themselves out as nurses to rich Berlin families. Girls who give birth
to three or four illegitimate children, so as to be able to go out as
nurses, are no rarity; and they are sought after by the males of the
Spreewald according to their earnings in this business. Such a system is
utterly repellant from the view-point of bourgeois morality; from the
view-point of the family interests of the bourgeoisie it is considered
praiseworthy and desirable.

So soon as in the society of the future the child has grown up, it falls
in with the other children of its own age for play, and under common
surveillance. All that can be furnished for its mental and physical
culture is at hand, according to the measure of general intelligence.
Whosoever has watched children knows that they are brought up best in
the company of their equals, their sense of gregariousness and instinct
of imitation being generally strong. The smaller are strongly inclined
to take the older ones as example, and rather follow them than their own
parents. These qualities can be turned to advantage in education.[215]
The playgrounds and kindergartens are followed by a playful introduction
into the preliminaries of knowledge and of the various manual
occupations. This is followed up by agreeable mental and physical work,
connected with gymnastic exercises and free play in the skating rink and
swimming establishments; drills, wrestling, and exercises for both sexes
follow and supplement one another. The aim is to raise a healthy, hardy,
physically and mentally developed race. Step by step follows the
induction of the youth in the various practical pursuits--manufacturing,
horticulture, agriculture, the technique of the process of production,
etc.; nor is the development of the mind neglected in the several
branches of science.

The same process of "dusting" and improvement observed in the system of
production, is pursued in that of education; obsolete, superfluous and
harmful methods and subjects are dropped. The knowledge of natural
things, introduced in a natural way, will spur the desire for knowledge
infinitely more than a system of education in which one subject is at
odds with another, and each cancels the other, as, for instance, when
"religion" is taught on one hand, and on the other natural sciences and
natural history. The equipment of the school rooms and educational
establishments is in keeping with the high degree of culture of the new
social order. All the means of education and of study, clothing and
support are furnished by society; no pupil is at a disadvantage with
another.[216] That is another chapter at which our "men of law and
order" bristle up indignantly.[217] "The school-house is to be turned
into barracks; parents are to be deprived of all influence upon their
children!" is the cry of our adversaries. All false! Seeing that in the
future society parents will have infinitely more time at their disposal
than is the case to-day with the large majority--we need but to call
attention to the ten to fifteen hour day of many workingmen in the post
office, the railroads, the prisons, the police department, and to the
demands made upon the time of the industrial workers, the small farmers,
merchants, soldiers, many physicians, etc.--it follows that they will be
able to devote themselves to their children in a measure that is
impossible to-day. _Moreover, the parents themselves have the regulation
of education in their hands; it is they who determine the measures that
shall be adopted and introduced. We are then living in a thoroughgoing
democratic society. The Boards of Education, which will exist, of
course, are made up of the parents themselves--men and women--and of
those following the educational profession._ Does any one imagine they
will act against their own interests? That happens only to-day when the
State seeks but to enforce its own exclusive interests.

Our opponents furthermore demean themselves as though to-day one of the
greatest pleasures of parents was to have their children about them all
day long, and to educate them. It is just the reverse in reality. What
hardships and cares are to-day caused by the education of a child, even
when a family has but one of them, those parents are best able to judge
who are themselves so situated. Several children, in a manner,
facilitate education, but then again they give rise to so much more
trouble that their father and especially the mother, who is the one to
bear the heaviest burden, is happy when the school hour arrives, and
thus the house is rid of the children for a portion of the day. Most
parents can afford but a very imperfect education to their children.
The large majority of fathers and mothers lack time; the former have
their business, the latter their household to attend to, and their time
is furthermore taken up with social duties. Even when they actually have
time, in innumerable instances they lack the ability. How many parents
are able to follow the course of their children's education at school,
and to take them under the arm in their schoolwork at home? Only few.
The mother, who in most such cases has greater leisure at her disposal,
lacks capacity; she has not herself received sufficient training.
Moreover, the method and the courses of education change so frequently
that these are strange to the parents.

Again, the home facilities are generally so poor that the children enjoy
neither the necessary comfort, nor order, nor quiet to do their
schoolwork at home, or to find there the needed aid. Everything
necessary is generally wanting. The home is narrow and overcrowded;
small and grown-up brothers and sisters move about over that narrow
space; the furniture is not what it should be, and furnishes no
facilities to the child for study. Not infrequently light, also air and
heat are wanting; the materials for study and work, if there be any of
them, are poor; frequently even hunger gnaws at the stomach of the child
and robs it of mind and pleasure for its work. As a supplement to this
picture, the fact must be added that hundreds of thousands of children
are put to all manner of work, domestic and industrial, that embitters
their youth and disables them from fulfilling their educational task.
Again, often do children have to overcome the resistance of
narrow-minded parents when they try to take time for their schoolwork or
for play. In short, the obstacles are so numerous that, if they are all
taken into account, the wonder is the youth of the land is as well
educated. It is an evidence of the health of human nature, and of its
inherent ambition after progress and perfection.

Bourgeois society itself recognizes some of these evils by the
introduction of public education and by facilitating the same still more
through the free supply, here and there, of school material--two things
that, as late as about the year 1885 the then Minister of Education of
Saxony designated as a "Social Democratic demand," and as such flung the
designation in the face of the Socialist Representative in the Landtag.
In France, where, after long neglect, popular education advanced so much
more rapidly, progress has gone still further. At least in Paris, the
school children are fed at public expense. The poor obtain food free,
and the children of parents who are better circumstanced contribute
thereto a slight tax toward the common treasury--a communistic
arrangement that has proved satisfactory to parents and children alike.

An evidence of the inadequacy of the present school system--it is
unable to fulfil even the moderate demands made upon it--is the fact
that thousands upon thousands of children _are unable to fulfil their
school duties by reason of insufficient food_. In the winter of 1893-94,
it was ascertained in Berlin that _in one school district alone 3,600
children went to school without breakfast_. In such shocking conditions
there are hundreds of thousands of children in Germany to-day at certain
seasons of the year. With millions of others the nourishment is utterly
insufficient. For all these children public alimentation and clothing
also would be a godsend. A commonwealth that pursued such a policy and
thus, by the systematic nourishing and clothing of the children, would
bring humanity home to them, is not likely to see the sight of
"penitentiaries." Bourgeois society cannot deny the existence of such
misery, which itself has called forth. Hence we see compassionate souls
foregathering in the establishment of breakfast and soup houses, to the
end of partially filling by means of charity what it were the duty of
society to fill in full. Our conditions are wretched--_but still more
wretched is the mental make-up of those who shut their eyes to such
facts_.

The system of reducing so-called home school work, and of having the
same done at school under the supervision of a teacher is progressing;
the inadequacy of home facilities is realized. Not only is the richer
pupil at an advantage over the poorer by reason of his position, but
also by reason of his having private teachers and such other assistance
at his command. On the other hand, however, laziness and shiftlessness
are promoted with the rich pupil by reason of the effects of wealth,
luxury and superfluity; these make knowledge appear superfluous to him,
and often they place before him such immoral sights that he easily
slides into temptation. He who every day and every hour hears the
praises sung of rank, position, money, property, and that they are
all-essential, acquires abnormal conceptions regarding man and his
duties, and regarding State and social institutions.

Closely looked into, bourgeois society has no reason to feel indignant
at the communistic education, which Socialists aim at. Bourgeois society
has itself partly introduced such a system for the privileged classes,
but only as a caricature of the original. Look at the cadet and alumni
establishments, at the seminaries, at the schools for clergymen, and at
the homes for military orphans. In them many thousands of children,
partly from the so-called upper classes, are educated in a one-sided and
wrongful manner, and in strict cloister seclusion; they are trained for
certain specific occupations. And again, many members of the better
situated classes, who live in the country or in small places as
physicians, clergymen, government employes, factory owners, landlords,
large farmers, etc., send their children to boarding schools in the
large cities and barely get a glimpse of them, except possibly during
vacations.

There is, accordingly, an obvious contradiction between the indignation
expressed by our adversaries at a communistic system of education and at
"the estrangement of children from their parents," on the one hand, and
their own conduct, on the other, in _introducing the identical system
for their own children--only in a bungling, absolutely false and
inadequate style_.

In equal tempo with the increased opportunities for education must the
number of teachers increase. In the matter of the education of the
rising generations the new social order must proceed in a way similar to
that which prevails in the army, in the drilling of soldiers. There is
one "under-officer" to each eight or ten men. With one teacher to every
eight or ten pupils, the future may expect the results that should be
aimed at.

The introduction of mechanical activities in the best equipped
workshops, in garden and field work, will constitute a good part of the
education of the youth. It will all be done with the proper change and
without excessive exertion, to the end of reaching the most perfectly
developed beings.

Education must also be equal and in common for both sexes. Their
separation is justifiable only in the cases where the difference in sex
makes such separation absolutely necessary. In this manner of education
the United States is far ahead of us. There education of the two sexes
is in common from the primary schools up to the universities. Not only
is education free, but also school materials, inclusive of the
instruments needed in manual training and in cooking, as also in
chemistry, physics, and the articles needed for experimenting and at
bench-work. To many schools are attached gymnastic halls, bath houses,
swimming basins and playgrounds. In the higher schools, the female sex
is trained in gymnastics, swimming, rowing and marching.[218]

The Socialist system of education, properly regulated and ordered and
placed under the direction of a sufficient force, continues up to the
age when society shall determine that its youth shall enter upon their
majority. Both sexes are fully qualified to exercise all the rights and
fill all the duties that society demands from its adult members. Society
now enjoys the certainty of having brought up only thorough, fully
developed members, human beings to whom nothing natural is strange, as
familiar with their nature as with the nature and conditions of society
which they join full-righted.

The daily increasing excesses of our modern youth--all of them the
inevitable consequences of the present tainted and decomposing state of
society--will have vanished. Impropriety of conduct, disobedience,
immorality and rude pleasure-seeking, such as is especially noticeable
among the youth of our higher educational institutions--the gymnasia,
polytechnics, universities, etc.--vices that are incited and promoted by
the existing demoralization and unrest of domestic life, by the
poisonous influence of social life such as the immoral literature that
wealth procures--all these will likewise have vanished. In equal measure
will disappear the evil effects of the modern factory system and of
improper housing, that dissoluteness and self-assurance of youths at an
age when the human being is most in need of reining and education in
self-control. All these evils future society will escape without the
need of coercive measures. The nature of the social institutions and of
the mental atmosphere, that will spring from them and that will rule
society itself, rendering impossible the breaking out of such evils; as
in Nature disease and the destruction of organisms can appear only when
there is a state of decay that invites disease; so likewise in society.

No one will deny that our present system of instruction and of education
suffers of serious defects--the higher schools and educational
establishments even more so than the lower. The village school is a
paragon of moral health compared with the college; common schools for
the manual training of poor girls are paragons of morality compared with
many leading boarding schools for girls. The reason is not far to seek.
In the upper classes of society, every aspiration after higher human
aims is smothered; _those classes no longer have any ideal_. As a
consequence of the absence of ideals and of noble endeavor, an unbounded
passion for physical indulgence and hankering after excesses spread
their physical and moral gangrene in all directions. How else can the
youth be that is brought up in such an atmosphere? Purely material
indulgence, without stint and without bounds, is the only aim that it
sees or knows of. Why exert themselves, if the wealth of their parents
makes all effort seem superfluous? The maximum of education with a large
majority of the sons of our bourgeoisie consists in passing the
examinations for the one year's service in the army. Is this goal
reached, then they imagine to have climbed Pelion and Ossa, and regard
themselves at least as demi-gods. Have they a reserve officer's
certificate in their pocket, then their pride and arrogance knows no
limit. The influence exercised by this generation--a generation it has
become by its numbers--weak in the character and knowledge of its
members, but strong in their designs and the spirit of graft,
characterizes the present period as the "Age of Reserve Officers." Its
peculiarities are: Characterlessness and ignorance, but a strong will;
servility upward, arrogance and brutality downward.

The daughters of our bourgeoisie are trained as show-dolls, fools of
fashion and drawingroom-ladies, on the chase after one enjoyment after
another, until, finally, surfeited with _ennui_, they fall a prey to all
imaginable real and supposed diseases. Grown old, they become devotees
and beads-women, who turn up their eyes at the corruption of the world
and preach asceticism. As regards the lower classes, the effort is on
foot to lower still more the level of their education. The proletariat
might become too knowing, it might get tired of its vassalage, and might
rebel against its earthly gods. The more stupid the mass, all the easier
is it to control and rule.

And thus modern society stands before the question of instruction and
education as bewildered as it stands before all other social questions.
What does it? It calls for the rod; preaches "religion," that is,
submission and contentment to those who are now but too submissive;
teaches abstinence where, due to poverty, abstinence has become
compulsory in the utmost necessaries of life. Those who in the rudeness
of their nature rear up brutally are taken to "reformatories," that
usually are controlled by pietistic influences;--and the pedagogic
wisdom of modern society has about reached the end of its tether.

From the moment that the rising generation in future society shall have
reached its majority, all further growth is left to the individual:
society will feel sure that each will seize the opportunity to unfold
the germs that have been so far developed in him. Each does according as
inclination and faculties serve him. Some choose one branch of the ever
more brilliant natural sciences: anthropology, zoology, botany,
mineralogy, geology, physics, chemistry, prehistoric sciences, etc.;
others take to the science of history, philologic researches, art;
others yet become musicians from special gifts, or painters, or
sculptors, or actors. The future will have "guild artists" as little as
"guild scientists" or "guild artisans." Thousands of brilliant talents,
hitherto kept down, unfold and assert themselves and display their
knowledge and ability wherever opportunity offers. No longer are there
any musicians, actors, artists and scientists by profession; they will
exist only by inspiration, talent and genius; and the achievements of
these bid fair to excel modern achievements on these fields as vastly as
the industrial, technical and agricultural achievements of future
society are certain to excel those of to-day. An era of art and sciences
will spring up such as the world never saw before; nor will its
creations fail to correspond to such a _renaissance_.

What transformation and new-birth science will experience when
conditions shall have become worthy of the human race, no less a man
than the late Richard Wagner foresaw and expressed as early as 1850 in
his work "Art and Revolution." This work is all the more significant
seeing that it made its appearance immediately after a revolution that
had just been beaten down, that Wagner took part in, and by reason of
which he had to flee from Dresden. In this book Wagner foretells what
the future will bring on. He turns directly to the working class as the
one called upon to emancipate true art. Among other things he says:

"When, with the free human race of the future, the earning of a living
shall no longer be the object of life; when, on the contrary, thanks to
the rise of a new faith, or of higher knowledge, the gaining of a
livelihood by means of compatible work shall be raised above all
uncertainty;--in short, when industry shall no longer be our master but
our servant, then will we place the object of life in the pleasure of
life, and seek to make our children fit and worthy through education. An
education that starts from the exercise of strength, from the care of
the beauty of the body will, due to the undisturbed love for the child
and to the joy experienced at the thriving of its charms, become purely
artistic; and thus in some sense or another every being will be an
artist in truth. The diversity of natural inclinations will develop the
most manifold aptitudes into an unprecedented wealth of beauty!"--at all
points a Socialist line of thought, and fully in keeping with the
arguments herein made.

       *       *       *       *       *

Social life in future will be ever more public. What the trend is may be
gathered from the wholly changed position of woman, compared with former
times. Domestic life will be confined to what is absolutely necessary,
while the widest field will be opened to the gratification of the social
instincts. Large gathering places for the holding of addresses and
discussions, and for conferring upon all social questions, over which
the collectivity has the sovereign word; play, meal and reading rooms;
libraries, concert halls and theaters; museums and gymnastic
institutions; parks, promenades, public baths, educational institutions
of all sorts; laboratories, etc.;--all of these, erected in the best and
equipped in the fittest manner possible, will afford richest opportunity
for all manner of intercourse, of art and of science to achieve the
highest. Likewise will the institutions for the nursing of the sick, the
weak, the infirm through old age, meet the highest demands.

How little will then our much boasted about age seem in comparison.
This fawning for favor and sunshine from above; this cringing and
dog-like frame of mind; this mutual struggle of enviousness, with the
aid of the most hateful and vilest means, for the privileged place. All
along the suppression of convictions; the veiling of good qualities,
that might otherwise give offence; the emasculation of character; the
affectation of opinions and feelings;--in short, all those qualities
that may be summed up in words "cowardice and characterlessness" are now
every day more pronounced. Whatever elevates and ennobles
man--self-esteem, independence and incorruptibility of opinion and
convictions, freedom of utterance--modern conditions generally turn into
defects and crimes. Often do these qualities work the ruin of their
owners, unless he suppresses them. Many do not even realize their
degradation; they have grown accustomed thereto. The dog regards it a
matter of course that he has a master, who, when out of temper, visits
him with the whip.

Such altered conditions in social life will impart a radically different
aspect to literary productions. Theological literature, whose entries
are at present most numerous in the yearly catalogues of literary works,
drops out in company with its juridic cousin,--there is no more interest
in the former, and no more use for the latter. All the literary
productions that refer to the struggle over political institutions will
be seen no more,--their subject-matter has ceased to be. The study of
all such matters will belong to the history of civilization. The vast
mass of inane productions--the evidences of a spoiled taste, often
possible only through sacrifices at the altar of the author's
vanity--are gone. Even speaking from the view-point of present
conditions, it may be said without exaggeration that four-fifths of all
literary productions could disappear from the market without loss to a
single interest of civilization. Such is the vastness of the mass of
superficial or harmful books, palpable trash, extant to-day on the field
of literature.

Belles-lettres and the press will be equally hit. There is nothing
sorrier, more spiritless or superficial than the large majority of our
newspaper literature. If our stage in civilization and scientific
attainments were to be gauged by the contents of that set of papers, it
would be low indeed. The actions of men and the condition of things are
judged from a view-point that corresponds with centuries gone by, and
that has been long since proved laughable and untenable by science. A
considerable portion of our journalists are people who, as Bismarck once
put it, "missed their calling," but whose education and standard of
wages fit with bourgeois interests. Furthermore, these newspapers, as
well as the majority of the belles-lettric magazines, have the mission
of circulating impure advertisements; the interests of their purses are
on this field the same as on the former: the material interests of
their owners determine their contents.

On an average, belles-lettric literature is not much superior to
newspaper literature. Its forte is to cultivate sex excesses: it renders
homage either to shallow enlightenment or to stale prejudices and
superstitions. Its general purpose is to represent the capitalist order
of society, all its shortcomings notwithstanding, which are conceded in
trifles, as the best of all possible worlds.

On this extensive and important field, future society will institute
some thorough-going housecleaning. Science, truth, beauty, the contest
of the intellect after the best will rule supreme. Everyone who achieves
what is worthy will enjoy the opportunity to exercise his faculties. He
no longer depends upon the favor of a publisher, moneyed considerations
or prejudice, but only upon the impartial judgment of experts whom he
himself joins in electing, and from whose unfavorable decision he can
always appeal to the general vote of the whole community,--all of which
is to-day against him or impossible. The childish notion that all
contest of intellect would be held down in a Socialist society they
alone can maintain who hold the bourgeois world to be the most perfect
social system, and who, out of enmity to Socialism seek to slander and
to belittle it. A society, that rests upon full democratic equality,
neither knows nor tolerates oppression. Only the fullest freedom of
thought makes uninterrupted progress possible, and this is the principle
of life with society. Moreover, it is an act of deception to represent
bourgeois society as the paladin of true freedom of thought. Parties
that represent class interests will publish in the press only that which
does not injure their class' own interests, and woe to him who would
attempt the contrary. His social ruin would be sealed, as every one
knows. In what manner publishers handle literary work that does not suit
them, every writer almost could tell a tale of woe on. Finally, the
German press and criminal laws betray the spirit that animates our
ruling and leading classes. Actual freedom of thought is looked upon by
them as the most dangerous of evils.

       *       *       *       *       *

The individual is to develop himself fully. That must be the law of
human association. Accordingly, the individual may not remain fettered
to the soil on which the accident of birth first placed him. Men and the
world should be known, not from books and papers only: personal
observation, practical experience are also needed. Accordingly, future
society must enable everyone to do what is now done by many, although in
most instances it happens to-day under the whip that want cracks. The
wish for change in all the relations of life is a craving strongly
stamped in man. It springs from the instinct after perfection, inherent
in all organic beings. The plant that stands in a dark room, stretches
and strains, as though endowed with consciousness, towards the light
that falls from some crevice. Just so with man. An instinct implanted in
man, consequently a natural instinct, must be rationally gratified. The
conditions of future society will not balk the instinct after change; on
the contrary, they promote its gratification with all: it is facilitated
by the highly developed system of intercommunication; it is demanded by
international relations. In future days, infinitely more people will
travel through the world, and for the most varied of purposes, than
happens to-day.

In order to meet all demands, society furthermore requires an ample
provision of all the necessaries of life. Society regulates its hours of
work accordingly. It makes them longer or shorter, according as its
needs or the season of the year may suggest. It may turn its strength at
one season mainly to agriculture, at another mainly to industrial and
similar production. It directs its labor forces as occasion may require.
Through the combination of numerous forces, equipped with the best
technical provisions, it can carry through with swiftness, aye,
playingly, undertakings that to-day seem impossible.

As society assumes the care of its youth, so it does of its aged, sick
or invalid members. It guards whoever, by whatever circumstance, has
become unable to work. There is in this no question of _charity_, but of
_duty_; not of an alms morsel, but of an assistance born of every
possible consideration due him, who, during the time of his strength and
ability to work, fulfilled his duties to the commonwealth. The setting
sun of old age is beautiful with all that society can offer: everyone
being buoyed up with the confidence that he will some day himself enjoy
what now he affords to others. No longer are the aged now disturbed with
the thought that others are awaiting their death in order to "inherit;"
likewise has the fear vanished from the mind of man that, grown old and
helpless, he will be cast off like a squeezed lemon. Man now feels
himself left neither to the benevolence of his children, nor to the alms
of the community. What the condition is in which most parents find
themselves, who depend in old age upon the support of their children, is
notorious. How demoralizing is not the effect of the hope of inheriting
upon the children, and, in a still greater degree, upon relatives! What
vile qualities are not awakened; and how many are not the crimes that
such hopes have led to!--murder, forgery, perjury, extortion, etc.
Capitalist society has no reason to be proud of its laws of
inheritance; to them are ascribable part of the crimes that are
committed every year; and yet the large majority of people have nothing
to bequeath or to inherit.[219]

The moral and physical condition of future society; the nature of its
work, homes, food, clothing, its social life--everything will greatly
contribute to avoid accidents, sickness, debility. Natural death by the
decline of the vigor of life will become the rule. The conviction that
"heaven" is on earth, and that to be dead means to be ended, will cause
people to lead rational lives.[220] He enjoys most who enjoys longest.
None know how to appreciate a long life better than the very clergy who
prepare people for the "after world;" a life free from care makes it
possible for these gentlemen to reach the highest age average.[221]

Life requires, first of all, food and drink. Friends of the so-called
"natural way of living" often ask why is Socialism indifferent to
vegetarianism. The question causes us to take up the subject in a few
lines. Vegetarianism, that is, the doctrine that prescribes an exclusive
vegetal diet, found its first supporters in such circles as are in the
agreeable position of being able to choose between a vegetal and an
animal diet. To the large majority of people there is no such choice:
they are forced to live according to their means, the meagerness of
which in many instances keeps them almost exclusively to a vegetal diet,
and to the least nutritive, at that. With our working class population
in Silesia, Saxony, Thuringen, etc., the potato is the principal
nourishment; even bread comes in only secondarily; meat, and then only
of poor quality, is hardly ever seen on the table. Even the largest part
of the rural population, although they are the raisers of cattle, rarely
partake of meat: they must sell the cattle in order to satisfy other
pressing wants with the money obtained therefor.

For the innumerable people, who are compelled to live as vegetarians, an
occasional solid beefsteak, or good leg of mutton, would be a decided
improvement in the diet. When vegetarianism directs itself against the
overrating of the nutrition contained in meat, it is right; it is wrong,
however, when it combats the partaking of meat as harmful and fatal,
mainly on sentimental grounds--such as "the nature of man forbids the
killing of animals and to partake of a corpse." In order to live
comfortably and undisturbed, we are compelled to declare war upon and
destroy a large number of living beings in the shape of all manner of
vermin; in order not to be ourselves eaten up, we must undertake the
killing and extirpating of wild animals. The quiet toleration of those
"good friends of man," the domestic animals, would increase the number
of these "good friends" in a few decades so immensely that they would
"devour" us by robbing us of food. Neither is the claim true that a
vegetarian diet produces mildness of temperament. The "beast" was
awakened even in the mild, vegetarian Hindoo when the severity of the
Englishmen drove him to mutiny.

In our opinion Sonderegger hits the nail on the head when he says:
"There is no order of rank in the matter of the different kinds of food;
but there is an unalterable law in the matter of combining their several
nutritious qualities." It is true that no one can nourish himself on an
exclusively meat diet, but that he can on an exclusively vegetal diet,
provided always he can select to suit; but neither would any one be
satisfied with one vegetable, let it be the most nutritive. Beans, for
instance, peas, lentils, in short, the leguminosae, are the most
nutritive of all food. Nevertheless, to be forced to feed exclusively on
them--which is said to be possible--were a torture. Karl Marx mentions
in "Capital" that the Chilian mine-owners compel their workingmen to eat
beans year in and year out, because the food imparts to them great
strength and enables them to carry burdens that they could not carry
with any other diet. Despite its nutrition, the workingmen turn against
such food, but get none other, and are thus obliged to rest content
therewith. Under no circumstances do the happiness and well-being of
people depend upon a certain diet, as is claimed by the fanatics among
the vegetarians. Climate, custom, individual tastes are the determining
factors.

In the measure that civilization advances, a vegetal diet progressively
takes the place of the exclusive meat diet, such as is indulged in by
hunting and pastoral peoples. A many-sided agriculture is a sign of
higher culture. On a given field, vegetal nutritive matter can be raised
in larger quantities than could meat be obtained through cattle raising.
This development imparts to vegetal nutrition an ever greater
preponderance. The transportation of meat, that the modern vandalic
economic system furnishes us with from foreign lands, especially from
South America and Australia, has been very nearly exhausted within few
decades. On the other hand, animals are raised, not merely for the sake
of meat, but also for that of wool, hair, bristles, skin and hides,
milk, eggs, etc., upon which many industries and human wants are
dependent. Again offal of several kinds can be turned in no way to
better advantage than through cattle raising. The seas will also in
future be made to yield to man their wealth of animal food to a much
larger extent than now. It will be in future a rare occurrence to see,
as we do to-day, whole loads of fish turned to manure, because the
facilities and costs of transportation, or the facilities of
preservation prevent their being otherwise used. It follows that a
purely vegetal diet is neither probable nor necessary in the future.

In the matter of food, _quality_ rather than _quantity_ is to be
considered. Quantity is of little use if not good. Quality is greatly
improved by the manner of preparation. The preparation of food must be
conducted as scientifically as any other function, if it is to reach the
highest point of utility possible. Knowledge and equipment are thereto
requisite. That our women, upon whom to-day mainly devolves the
preparation of food, do not and can not possess this knowledge, needs no
proof. They lack all the necessary equipments therefor. As every well
equipped hotel kitchen, the steam kitchen of barracks or of hospitals
and especially the cooking expositions teach us, the cooking
apparatuses, together with many technical arrangements for all manner of
food preparation, have reached a high degree of perfection and have been
contrived upon scientific principles. That will in the future be the
rule. The object aimed at must be to obtain the best results with the
smallest expenditure of power, time and material. _The small private
kitchen is, just like the workshop of the small master mechanic, a
transition stage, an arrangement by which time, power and material are
senselessly squandered and wasted._ The preparation of food also will
in future society be a social establishment, conducted on the most
improved plane, in proper and advantageous manner. The private kitchen
disappears, as it has now disappeared in the instance of those families
who, although they generally provide themselves through their own
kitchen, always resort to hotel kitchens or to those of caterers, the
moment the question is to provide for banquets or to procure dishes a
knowledge of which both they and their domestics lack.[222]

The Chicago Exposition of 1893 brought out a mass of interesting facts
on the revolution that has taken place in the kitchen also, and in the
preparation of food;--among other things a kitchen in which the heating
and cooking was done wholly through electricity. Electricity not only
furnished the light, but was also active in the washing of dishes, which
thereupon required the aid of the human hand only in finishing up. In
this kitchen of the future there was no hot air, no smoke, no vapors.
Numberless apparatuses and subsidiary machinery performed a number of
operations that until then had to be performed by human hands. This
kitchen of the future resembled more a parlor than a kitchen that
everyone who has nothing to do in, likes to stay away from. Work therein
at the Chicago Exposition was pleasurable and free from all the
unpleasantness that are features of the modern kitchen. Can a private
kitchen be imagined even approximately equipped like that? And then,
what a saving in all directions through such a central kitchen! Our
women would seize the opportunity with both hands to exchange the
present for the kitchen of the future.

The nutritive value of food is heightened by its facility of
assimilation. This is a determining factor.[223] A natural system of
nourishment for all can be reached only by future society. Cato praises
the Rome of before his days for having had experts in the art of
healing, but, down to the sixth century of the city, no occupation for
exclusive physicians. People lived so frugally and simply, that disease
was rare, and death from old age was the usual form of decease. Not
until gourmandizing and idleness--in short, license with some, want and
excessive work with others--had permeated society, did matters change,
and radically so. In future, gluttony and license will be impossible,
and likewise want, misery and privation. There is enough, and an
abundance, for all. More than fifty years ago Henrich Heine sang:


    Why, there grows down here abundance
      And a plentitude for all;
    Roses, myrtles, beauty and joy;
      Yes, and sugar beans withal--

    Aye, sugar beans in bursting pods
      For everyone are here,
    But they're left to heaven's angels
      And the sparrows of the air.


"He who eats little lives well"--that is, long, said the Italian Cornaro
in the sixteenth century, as quoted by Niemeyer. In the end chemistry
will be active in the preparation and improvement of nourishment to a
degree thitherto unknown. To-day the science is greatly abused in the
interest of adulterations and fraud. It is obvious that a chemically
prepared food that has all the qualities of the natural product will
accomplish the same purpose. The form of the preparation is of secondary
importance, provided the product otherwise meets all requirements.

As in the kitchen, the revolution will be accomplished throughout
domestic life: it will remove numberless details of work that must be
attended to to-day. As in the future the domestic kitchen is rendered
wholly superfluous by the central institutions for the preparation of
food, so likewise are all the former troubles of keeping ranges, lamps,
etc., in working order, removed by the central heating and electric
apparatuses for lighting. Warm and cold water supplies place bathing
within the reach of all at pleasure, and without the aid of any person.
The central laundries assume the washing, drying, etc., of clothes; the
central cleaning establishments see to the dusting, etc., of clothing
and carpets. In Chicago, carpet-cleaning machines were exhibited that
did the work in so short a time as to call forth the admiration of the
ladies who visited the Exposition. The electric door opens at a slight
pressure of the finger, and shuts of itself. Electric contrivances
deliver letters and newspapers on all the floors of the houses; electric
elevators save the climbing of stairs. The inside arrangement of the
houses--floorings, garnishing of the walls, furnitures--will be
contrived with an eye to the facility of cleaning and to the prevention
of the gathering of dust and bacteria. Dust, sweepings and offal of all
sorts will be carried by pipes out of the houses as water, that has
been used, is carried off to-day. In the United States, in many a
European city--Zurich, for instance--there are to-day tenements,
exquisitely equipped, in which numerous affluent families--others could
not bear the expense--live and enjoy a large part of the conveniences
just sketched.

Here again we have an illustration of how capitalist society breaks the
way in revolutionizing human affairs, in this instance in domestic
life,--but only for its elect. Domestic life being thus radically
transformed, the servant, this "slave of all the whims of the mistress,"
is no more,--and the mistress neither. "No servants, no culture!" cries
the horrified Herr v. Treitschke with comic pathos. He can as little
imagine society without servants as Aristotle could without slaves. The
matter of surprise is that Herr v. Treitschke looks upon our servants as
the "carriers of civilization." Treitschke, like Eugen Richter, is
furthermore greatly worried by the shoe-polishing and clothes-dusting
question, which neither is able to attend to personally. It so happens,
however, that with nine-tenths of the people everyone sees to that
himself, or the wife does for her husband, or a daughter or son for the
family. We might answer that what the nine-tenths have hitherto done,
the remnant tenth may also do. But there is another way out. Why should
not in future society the youth of the land, without distinction of sex,
be enlisted for such necessary work? Work does not dishonor, even if it
consist in polishing boots. Many a member of the old nobility, and
officers of the army at that, learned the lesson when, to escape their
debts, they ran off to the United States, and there became servants, or
shoe-polishers. Eugen Richter, in his pamphlets, goes even so far as to
cause the downfall of the "Socialist Imperial Chancellor" on the
"Shoe-polishing Question," and the consequent falling to pieces of the
"Socialist State." The "Socialist Imperial Chancellor" refuses to polish
his own shoes; hence his troubles. The bourgeoisie has hugely enjoyed
this description of Richter, and it has thereby furnished evidence of
the modesty of its demands upon a criticism of Socialism. But Eugen
Richter lived to experience the sorrow of not only seeing one of his own
party members in Nuerenberg invent a shoe-polishing machine soon after
the appearance of that pamphlet, but of also learning that at the
Chicago Exposition of 1893 an electric shoe-polishing machine was
exhibited that did the work perfectly. Thus the principal objection,
raised by Richter and Treitschke against Socialist society, has been
practically thrown overboard by an invention made under the bourgeois
social system itself.

The revolutionary transformation, that radically changes all the
relations of man, especially the position of woman, is, as we see, going
on now under our own eyes. It is only a question of time when society
will take the process into its own hands and upon a large scale, thus
quickening and perfecting the change and affording to all, without
exception, the opportunity to share its innumerable advantages.

FOOTNOTES:

[176] "The power of emulation, in exciting to the most strenuous
exertions for the sake of the approbation and admiration of others, is
borne witness to by experience in every situation in which human beings
publicly compete with one another, even if it be in things frivolous, or
from which the public derives no benefit. A contest, who can do most for
the common good, is not the kind of competition which Socialists
repudiate."--John Stuart Mill's "Principles of Political Economy." Every
union, every association of people, who pursue equal aims, likewise
furnishes numerous examples of greater effort with no material, but only
an ideal, reward in view. The emulators are moved by the ambition to
distinguish themselves, by the desire to serve the common cause. But
this sort of ambition is no vice; it is a virtue; it is put forth in the
interest of all; and the individual finds his satisfaction in that along
with all others. Ambition is harmful and objectionable only when it is
put forth to the injury of the whole, and at the expense of others.

[177] Von Thuenen says in his "Der isolirte Staat": "The reason why the
proletarians, on the one hand, and property classes, on the other, face
each other permanently as enemies lies in the antagonism of their
interests; and they will remain unreconciled _so long as this division
of interests is not removed_. Not only the well-being of his wage-giver
but--through discoveries in industry, the pavement of streets and
building of railroads, the forming of new business connections--the
revenues of the Nation also may increase. Under our present social
order, however, the workingman is touched by none of these; his
condition remains what it was, and _the whole increase of revenues
accrues to the employers, the capitalists and the landlords_." This last
sentence is an almost literal anticipation of the words of Gladstone in
the English Parliament, when he declared in 1864 "this intoxicating
increase of incomes and power" that England had experienced in the
course of the previous twenty years, "has been confined exclusively to
the possessing classes." Again on p. 207 of his work, v. Thuenen says:
"The evil lies in the divorce of the workingman from his product."

Morelly declares in his "Principles of Legislation": "Property divides
us into two classes--Rich and Poor. The former love their property and
care not to defend the State; the latter can not possibly love the
Fatherland, seeing that it bestows upon them naught but misery. Under
the system of Communism, however, all love the Fatherland, seeing that
all receive from it life and happiness."

[178] In weighing the advantages and the disadvantages of Communism,
John Stuart Mill says in his "Principles of Political Economy": "No soil
could be more favorable to the growth of such a feeling, than a
Communist association, since all the ambition, and the bodily and mental
activity, which are now exerted in the pursuit of separate and
self-regarding interests, would require another sphere of employment,
and would naturally find it in the pursuit of the general benefit of the
community."

[179] "Die Gesetze der sozialen Entwickelung."

[180] What does Herr Eugene Richter say to this calculation? In his
"Irrelehren" (False Doctrines) he makes merry over the enormous
shortening of the hours of work that we have held out in this work as
the result that would follow upon the obligation of all to work and upon
the higher technical organization of the process of production. He seeks
to minimize as much as possible the productivity of production on a
large scale, and to enhance the importance of production on a small
scale. He does so in order that he might claim that the expected
increased production was not practicable. In order to make Socialism
seem impossible, these defenders of the existing "order" are forced to
discredit the merits of their own social system.

[181] "Capital is said by a Quarterly Reviewer to fly turbulence and
strife, and to be timid, which is very true; but this is very
incompletely stating the question. Capital eschews no profit, or very
small profit, just as Nature was formerly said to abhor a vacuum. With
adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 per cent. will
ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent. certain will produce
eagerness; 50 per cent. positive audacity; 100 per cent. will made it
ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent., and there is not a
crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the
chance of its owner being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a
profit, it will freely encourage both. Smuggling and the slave-trade
have amply proved all that is here stated." (P. J. Dunning, 1. c., p.
35.) Cited by Karl Marx in "Capital," p. 786, edition Swan-Sonnenscheim
& Co., London, 1896.

[182] A competitor with electricity, applied to lighting purposes, has
recently arisen in the shape of the so-called acetylene gas, which was
discovered in the United States, by means of an electrolytic process,
similar to that used in the preparation of aluminum. A compound is made
of calcium and carbon, called calcium-carbide, which, in touch with
water, produces the acetylene gas. Its lighting power is fifteen times
that of the ordinary illuminating gas, besides being much cheaper.

[183] "The generality of laborers in this and most other countries, have
as little choice of occupation or freedom of locomotion, are practically
as dependent on fixed rules, and on the will of others, as they could be
on any system short of actual slavery."--John Stuart Mill's "Principles
of Political Economy."

[184] "A French workman, on his return from San Francisco, writes as
follows: 'I never could have believed that I was capable of working at
the various occupations I was employed on in California. I was firmly
convinced that I was fit for nothing but letter-press printing.... Once
in the midst of this world of adventurers, who change their occupation
as often as they do their shirt, egad, I did as the others. As mining
did not turn out remunerative enough, I left it for the town, where in
succession I became typographer, slater, plumber, etc. In consequence of
this finding out that I am fit for any sort of work, I feel less of a
mollusk and more of a man.'" (A. Courbou, "De l'Enseignement
Professional," 2eme ed. p. 50.) Cited by Karl Marx in "Capital", p. 493,
edition Swan-Sonnenschein Co., London, 1896.

[185] Tolstoi's "The Significance of Science and Art."

[186] What may be made of a man under favorable circumstances is
illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci, who was a distinguished painter,
celebrated sculptor, favorite architect and engineer, excellent builder
of fortifications, musician and improvisator. Benvenuto Cellini was a
celebrated goldsmith, excellent molder, good sculptor, leading builder
of fortifications, first-rate soldier and thorough musician. Abraham
Lincoln was a splitter of rails, agriculturist, boatman, shop-assistant
and lawyer, until he was placed in the Presidential chair of the United
States. It may be said without exaggerating, most people are engaged in
occupations that do not correspond with their faculties, simply because,
not freedom of choice, but the force of necessity dictated their career.
Many a bad professor would do good work as a shoemaker, and many a good
shoemaker could be a good professor as well.

[187] It should always be kept in mind that production is then organized
up to the highest point of technical perfection, and all the people are
at work. It may thus happen that, under given circumstances, a
three-hour day is rather longer, and not shorter, than necessary. Owen
in his time--first quarter of the nineteenth century--considered two
hours' work sufficient.

[188] "It is not necessary to go a round-about way in order to ascertain
the amount of social labor crystallized in a given product. Daily
experience shows directly the requisite average. Society can easily
calculate how many hours are contained in a steam engine, in a
hectoliter of last year's wheat, in a hundred square meters of cloth of
a certain quality. Society will, therefore, never dream of re-expressing
these units of work,--crystallized in the products and known to it
directly and absolutely--by a merely relative, varying and insufficient
measure, formerly used by it as a make-shift that it could not get along
without; a measure, moreover, which itself is a third product, instead
of by their natural, adequate and absolute measure--time.... Society
will have to organize the plan of production according to the means of
production, under which category labor-power especially belongs. The
various utilities of the several articles of use, balanced with one
another and with the amount of labor necessary for their production,
will in the end determine the plan. People settle matters a good deal
more simply without the intervention of the celebrated 'money
value.'"--Fr. Engels' "Herr Eugene Duehring's Umwaelzung der
Wissensehaft."

[189] Herr Eugene Richter is so astonished at the dropping away of money
in Socialist society--abolished money will not be: with the abolition of
the merchandise character from the products of labor, money drops away
of itself--that he devotes to the subject a special chapter in his
"Irrelehren." What is particularly hard for him to understand is the
idea that it is immaterial whether the voucher for labor performance be
a piece of paper, gold or tin. On this head he says: "With gold, the
devil of the modern social order would re-enter the Social Democratic
State"--that there could then be only a Socialist society, and not a
Social Democratic State, Herr Richter stubbornly overlooks: he must,
else a good portion of his polemic would fall through--"seeing that gold
has an independent metal value, can be easily saved, and thus the
possession of gold pieces would enable the heaping up of values
wherewith to purchase escape from the obligation to work, and wherewith
even to lay out money on interest."

Herr Richter must take his readers for great blockheads to dare dish up
such trash to them on the subject of our gold. Herr Richter, who can not
rid himself of the concept of capital, can, of course, not understand
that where there is no capital, neither is there any merchandise, nor
can there be any "money"; and where there is no "capital" and no
"money", neither could there be any "interest." Herr Richter is nailed
so fast to the concept of capital that he is unable to conceive a world
without "capital." We should like to know how a member of a Socialist
society could "save up" his gold certificates of labor, or even loan
them out to others and thereby rake in interest, when all other members
possess what that one is offering them and--_on which he lives_.

[190] "All people of average healthy build _are born with almost equal
intellectual powers, but education, laws and circumstances alter them
relatively_. The correctly understood interest of the individual is
blended into one with the common or public interest."--Helvetius' "On
Man and His Education." Helvetius is right with regard to the large
majority of people; but that does not take away that the natural
faculties of each are different for different occupations.

[191] "If, therefore, the choice were to be made between Communism with
all its chances, and the present state of society with all its
sufferings and injustices; if the institution of private property
necessarily carried with it as a consequence, that the produce of labor
should be apportioned as we now see it, almost in an inverse ratio to
the labor--the largest portions to those who have never worked at all,
the next largest to those whose work is almost nominal, and so in a
descending scale, the remuneration dwindling as the work grows harder
and more disagreeable, until the most fatiguing and exhausting bodily
labor cannot count with certainty on being able to earn even the
necessaries of life; if this or Communism, were the alternative, all the
difficulties, great or small, of Communism would be but as dust in the
balance."--John Stuart Mill, "Principles of Political Economy." Mill
strove diligently to "reform" the bourgeois world, and to "bring it to
reason." Of course, in vain. And so it came about that he, like all
clear-sighted men, became a Socialist. He dared not, however, admit the
fact in his life time, but ordered that, after his death, his
auto-biography be published, containing his Socialist confession of
faith. It happened to him as with Darwin, who cared not to be known in
his life as an atheist. The bourgeoisie affects loyalty, religion and
faith in authority because through the acceptance of these "virtues" by
the masses its own rule is safeguarded; in its own sleeves, however, it
laughs at them.

[192] "Scholarship is as often the hand-maid of ignorance as of
progress."--Buckle's "History of Civilization in England."

[193] According to the census of 1882 there were in Germany engaged in
trade and transportation 1,570,318 persons, inclusive of those occupied
in hotels and inns, and exclusive of 295,451 domestics.

[Some opinion may be formed of the volume of useless labor, parasitism,
in the United States, from the census figures for 1900. Under this head
of "Trade and Transportation" alone come 4,766,964 persons. Among them,
substantially useless, are the 241,162 agents, the 73,277 brokers, the
92,919 commercial travelers, the 76,649 hucksters and peddlers, the
790,886 merchants and dealers (except wholesale), the 42,293 merchants
and dealers (wholesale), the 74,072 officials of banks and companies,
the 33,656 livery stable keepers, the 71,622 messengers and errand and
office boys, and the 59,545 packers and shippers--in all 1,556,081. Of
the remaining 3,210,883--among whom are 254,880 bookkeepers and
accountants, 632,127 clerks and copyists, 611,139 salesmen and
women--fully two-thirds could be spared to-day under a rational social
system. The proportion of wasteful forces, and even parasitism, is still
larger under the heads of "Professional Service" and "Domestic and
Personal Service," among which--to pick up only a few of the worst
items--are 111,638 clergymen, 114,460 lawyers, 86,607 government
officials, including officers of the United States army and navy, 33,844
saloon keepers, 1,560,721 servants and waiters, 43,235 soldiers, sailors
and marines (U. S.), etc., etc.--THE TRANSLATOR.]

[194] Even the Fathers of the Church, Bishops and Popes could not
refrain from preaching in a communistic vein during those early
centuries when community of property still prevailed, but its theft was
assuming larger proportions. The Syllabus and the encyclicals of the
nineteenth century have lost all recollection of this tone, and even the
Roman Popes have been compelled to become subjects of capitalist
society, and now pose as its zealous defenders against the Socialists.

In contrast therewith Bishop Clemens I. (deceased 102 of our reckoning)
said: "The use of all things in this world is to be common to all. It is
an injustice to say: 'This is my property, this belongs to me, that
belongs to another.' Hence the origin of contentions among men."

Bishop Ambrose of Milan, who lived about 347, exclaimed: "Nature bestows
all things on all men in common, for God has created all things that
their enjoyment might be common to all, and that the earth might become
the common possession of all. Common possession is, therefore, a right
established by Nature, and only unjust usurpation (usurpatio) has
created the right of private property."

St. John Chrysostomus (deceased 407) declared in his homilies directed
against the immorality and corruption of the population of
Constantinople: "Let none call aught his own; we have received
everything from God for enjoyment in common, and 'mine' and 'thine' are
words of falsehood."

St. Augustine (deceased 430) expressed himself thus: "Because private
property exists there exists also law suits, enmities, dissensions,
wars, rebellions, sins, injustice, murder. Whence proceed all these
scourges? From property only. Let us then, my brothers, refrain from
possessing anything as our property; at least let us refrain from loving
it."

Pope Gregory the Great declares about 600: "Let them know that the earth
from which they spring and of which they are formed belongs to all men
in common, and that therefore the fruits which the earth brings forth
must belong to all without distinction."

And one of the moderns, Zacharia, says in his "Forty Books on the
State": "All the evils with which civilized nations have to contend, can
be traced back to private property in land."

All these authorities have recognized more or less accurately the nature
of private property, which, since its existence, as St. Augustine
correctly puts it, brought law suits, enmities, dissensions, wars,
rebellions, injustice and murder into the world,--all of them evils that
will disappear with its abolition.

[195] "The employment of water in the cultivation of fruit as well as of
vegetables is highly desirable; water associations with these ends in
view could turn with us also deserts into paradises." Official report on
the Chicago Exposition of 1893, rendered by the Imperial Commissioner,
Berlin, 1894.

[196] This prospect seems nearer realization and in a quite different
manner than the most far-sighted could have imagined. The discovery of
acetylene gas is the point of departure for a long line of products of
organic chemistry, that, with proper treatment, can be drawn from it.
Among the articles of enjoyment, that may be expected to be gained first
of all on this path, is alcohol, the production of which promises to be
the easiest of all and very cheap, and is expected in but few years. If
this succeeds, a large part of the agriculture of the East Elbian
district, which depends upon the production of alcohol, will be put in
jeopardy. The circumstance will bring on a revolution in the respective
agricultural interests that will play mightily into the hands of
Socialism. Evidently, what Werner, Siemens and Berthelot held out, is
approaching reality.

[197] Dr. G. Ruhland, "Die Grundprinzipien aktueller Agrarpolitik."

[198] A petition by Julius Zuns, which finally was not sent to the
Reichstag, on the subject of an agrarian investigation.

[199] Dr. Rudolf Meyer, "Der Kapitalismus fin de sičcle."

[200] "There is a prescription for securing the fertility of the fields
and perpetual repetition of their produce. If this prescription be
consistently carried out it will prove more remunerative than any which
has ever been applied in agriculture. It is this: Let every farmer, like
the Chinese coolie, who carries a sack of corn or a hundred weight of
rape, or carrots or potatoes, etc., to town, bring back with him as much
if possible or more of the ingredients of his field products as he took
with him, and restore it to the field whence it came. He must not
despise a potato paring or a straw, but remember that one of his
potatoes still needs a skin, and one of his ears of corn a stalk. The
expense for this importation is slight, the outlay secure; a savings
bank is not securer, and no investment brings in a higher rate of
interest. The returns of his fields will be doubled in ten years: he
will produce more corn, more meat and more cheese without expending more
time or labor, and he will not be driven by constant anxiety to seek for
new and unknown means, which do not exist, to make his ground fertile in
another manner.... Old bones, soot, ashes, whether washed out or not,
and blood of animals and refuse of all kinds ought to be collected in
storehouses, and prepared for distribution.... Governments and town
police should take precautions for preventing the loss of these
materials by a suitable arrangement of drains and closets."--Liebig's
"Chemical Letters."

[201] "Every coolie (in China) who carries his produce to market in the
morning, brings home two buckets full of manure on a bamboo rod in the
evening. The appreciation of manure goes so far that every one knows how
much a man secretes in a day, a month and a year, and the Chinaman
considers it more than rude if his guest leaves his house carrying with
him a benefit to which his host thinks himself justly entitled as a
return for his hospitality.... Every substance derived from plants or
animals is carefully collected and used as manure by the Chinese.... To
complete the idea of the importance attached to animal refuse, it will
suffice to mention the fact that the barbers carefully collect and trade
with the hairs cut from the heads and beards of the hundred millions of
customers whom they daily shave. The Chinese are acquainted with the use
of gypsum and chalk, and it not infrequently occurs that they renew the
plaster in their kitchens merely for the purpose of using the old
plaster as manure."--Liebig's "Chemical Letters."

[202] Karl Schober, Address delivered on the agricultural, municipal and
national economic significance of city refuse; Berlin, 1877.

[203] "Life, Its Elements and the Means of Its Conservation."

[204] According to the census of 1890, Germany had 26 large cities of
over 100,000 inhabitants each. In 1871 it had only 8 of them. In 1871,
Berlin had, in round figures, 826,000 inhabitants; in 1890 it had
1,578,794--it had almost doubled. A number of these large cities were
compelled to take within their municipalities the contiguous industrial
towns, that in themselves had populations large enough for cities.
Through the process, the population of the former rose immediately.
Thus, within the period of 1885 to 1890, Leipsic rose from 170,000 to
353,000; Cologne from 161,000 to 282,000; Madgeburg from 114,000 to
201,000; Munich from 270,000 to 345,000 inhabitants, etc. At the same
time, most of the other cities that incorporated no contiguous towns
increased considerably during that period. Breslau grew from 299,000 to
335,000; Dresden from 246,000 to 276,000; Frankfurt-on-Main from 154,000
to 180,000; Hanover from 140,000 to 163,000; Dusseldorf from 115,000 to
146,000; Nuerenberg from 115,000 to 142,000; Chemnitz from 111,000 to
139,000 inhabitants. Similar growths were also registered by many
middle-sized cities of 50,000 to 100,000 inhabitants.

[In the United States, the concentration of population in large cities
has been marked. In 1790 only 3.4 per cent. of the total population
lived in cities. The proportion of urban to the total population then
grew from census year to census year (decade to decade) as follows: 4.0
in 1800; 4.9 in 1810; 4.9 in 1820; 6.7 in 1830; 8.5 in 1840; 12.5 in
1850; 16.1 in 1860; 20.9 in 1870; 22.6 in 1880; 29.2 in 1890; and 33.1
in 1900. According to the census of 1900 there live 14,208,347 of the
population in cities of at least 100,000 inhabitants; 5,549,271 in
cities of 25,000 to 100,000 inhabitants; 5,286,375 in cities of 8,000 to
25,000 inhabitants; 3,380,193 in cities of 4,000 to 8,000 inhabitants;
and 2,214,136 in cities of 2,500 to 4,000 inhabitants. In country
districts there live 45,573,846 of a total population of 76,212,168,
including Alaska and Hawaii.--THE TRANSLATOR.]

[205] Prof. Adolf Wagner says in his work "Lehrbuch der politischen
Oekonomie von Rau": "Small private holdings in land constitute an
economic basis, that can be substituted by no other institution for a
most important part of the population--an independent, self-sustaining
peasantry, together with its peculiar socio-political position and
function." Where, for the sake of his conservative friends, the author
does not enthuse _a tout prix_ for the small farmer, he is bound to
regard this class as one of the poorest. Under existing circumstances,
the small farmer is downright inaccessible to higher culture: he toils
at hard labor from early dawn till late, and lives often worse than a
dog. Meat, butter, eggs, milk, which he produces, he does not enjoy: he
produces them for others: under present circumstances he can not raise
himself into better conditions: he thus becomes an element that clogs
civilization. He who loves retrogression, seeing he finds his account
therein, may also find satisfaction in the continuance of such a social
stratum. Human progress demands its disappearance.

[206] At the Erfurt "Union Parliament" of 1850, Prince Bismarck
thundered against the large cities as "the hot-beds of revolution," that
should be razed to the ground. He was quite right: capitalist society
produces its own "grave-diggers" in the modern proletariat.

[207] Frederick Engels, "The Development of Socialism from Utopia to
Science."

[208] ["Religion" In English is not quite the same as "Die Religion" in
German. For all their etymology is identical, custom and social
institutions have imparted to the German term a meaning, or a shade of a
meaning, that it lacks in English. "Die Religion" is in Germany a State
institution; it is part of the curriculum of colleges; and it is there
so utterly creedy, churchianic, and dogmatic that it is a positive
abomination even to the students who mean to devote themselves to
theology. That, however, even in the German language the word has a
varying meaning may be gathered from the epigram of Schiller: "To what
religion I belong? To none. Why? Out of religiousness"--literally in
German, "out of religion." The reproduction in this translation of the
idea conveyed by the term "Die Religion" presented its difficulties. As
none could be found in English to convey its varying sense, the word
"religion" has been preserved throughout as the nearest equivalent.--THE
TRANSLATOR.]

[209] Karl Marx: "Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechts-Philosophie."

[210] How the ancients thought upon the subject appears from the
following utterance of Aristotle: "A tyrant (the term applied to
autocrats in Old Greece) must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion
to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a
ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they
do not easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his
side."--Aristotle's "Politics." Aristotle was born 384 B. C. at Stagira,
whence he is frequently called "the Stagirite."

"A prince, then, is to have particular care that nothing falls from his
mouth but what is full of the five qualities aforesaid, and that to see
and to hear him, he appears all goodness, integrity, humanity and
religion, which last he ought to pretend to more than ordinarily because
more men do judge by the eye than by the touch; for everybody sees, but
few understand; everybody sees how you appear, but few know what in
reality you are, and those few dare not oppose the opinion of the
multitude who have the majesty of their prince to defend them; and in
the actions of all men, especially princes, where no man has power to
judge, every one looks to the end. Let a prince, therefore, do what he
can to preserve his life, and continue his supremacy, the means which he
uses shall be thought honorable, and be commended by everybody; because
the people are always taken with the appearance and event of things,
and, the greatest part of the world consists of the people; those few
who are wise taking place when the multitude has nothing else to rely
upon."--Macchiavelli in his celebrated work, "The Prince." Macchiavelli
was born in Florence, 1469.

[211] Whenever the modern bourgeois is at a loss for reasons to justify
some enormity with, a thousand to one he falls back upon "morality." In
the spring of 1894, it went so far that, at a meeting of the Evangelical
Synod, a "liberal" member of the Berlin Chamber of the Exchequer
pronounced it "moral" that only taxpayers should have the right to vote
at Church meetings (!)

[212] "A certain degree of well-being and culture is a necessary
external condition for the development of the philosophic spirit....
Thence we find that people began to philosophize only in those nations,
that had raised themselves to a considerable height of well-being and
culture."--Tennemann, quoted by Buckle in a foot note, _ubi supra_.

"Material and intellectual interests go hand in hand. The one can not
exist without the other. Between the two there is the same connection as
between body and soul: to separate them is to bring on death."--v.
Thuenen's "Der Isolirte Staat."

"The best life, as well for the individual in particular, as for the
State in general, is that life in which virtue is decked out with
_external_ goods also, sufficient to make possible an active indulgence
in beautiful and good actions."--Aristotle's "Politics."

[213] When Eugene Richter in his "Irrelehren" (False Doctrines) repeats
the old wornout phrase about the Socialists aiming at a "Penitentiary
State"--that the question is no longer about a "State" will have by this
time become clear to our readers--he presupposes the existence of a
"State" or social order _that will violate its own interests_. A new
State or social order radically different from the preceding one can not
possibly be produced at will; to imagine such a thing would be to ignore
and deny all the laws of development, obedient to which State and
Society have hitherto risen and developed. Eugen Richter and those who
share his views may take comfort: if Socialism really implies the silly
and unnatural aims imputed to it by them, it will go to pieces, and
without the aid of the "Irrelehren" of Richter. But it happens that
there is no political party that stands as squarely and logically upon
the evolutionary field as the Social Democratic.

Quite as unfounded as all the other objections are the remarks of Eugene
Richter: "For a social condition, such as the Socialists want, the
people must be angels." As is well known, there are no angels, nor do we
need any. Partly are men influenced by conditions, and partly are
conditions influenced by men, and the latter will be increasingly the
case in the measure that men learn to know the nature of the social
system that they themselves rear, and in the measure that the experience
thus gathered is consciously applied by them by corresponding changes in
their social organization,--and that is Socialism. What we need is not
other people, but wiser and more intelligent people than most of them
are to-day. It is with the end in view of making people wiser and more
intelligent that we agitate, Herr Richter, and that we publish works
like this one.

[214] It is surprising that, considering the fathomless blockishness of
our adversaries, none has yet claimed that in Socialist society everyone
would receive an equal portion of food and an equal quantity of linen
and clothing so as to "crown the work of uniformity." Such a claim is
quite stupid enough to expect its being made by our opponents.

[215] Fourier made this the subject of a brilliant argument, although he
ran into utopianism in the elaboration of his ideas.

[216] Condorcet demands in his plan of education: "Education must be
free, equal, general, bodily, mental, industrial and political, and it
must aim at real and actual equality."

Likewise Rousseau in his "Political Economy": "Above all, education must
be public, equal and mixed, for the purpose of raising men and
citizens."

Aristotle also demands: "Seeing the State has but one object, it must
also provide one and the same education for all its members. The care
hereof must be the concern of the State and not a private affair."

[217] Eugene Richter among them, in his "Irrelehren."

[218] "America's Bildungswesen," by Prof. Emil Hausknecht.

[219] "The person who has led an honorable and active life until old age
should not then have to live either on the charity of his children or of
bourgeois society. An independent old age, free from cares or toil, is
the natural reward for continuous exertions in the days of strength and
health."--v. Thuenen's "Der Isolirte Staat." But how is it to-day in
this bourgeois society? Millions look with dread towards the time when,
having grown old, they are thrown upon the street. And our industrial
system causes people to age prematurely. The very much boasted about
old-age and invalid pensions in the German Empire afford but a very
scanty substitute: even its most zealous defenders admit that. Their
aids are still more inadequate than the pensions which the
municipalities allow to the large majority of the officials whom they
provide with pensions.

[220] [It is a feature of theology to be positive, precise and emphatic
in descriptions of what the describer knows nothing about. No less
theologic, in this sense of the term, are negative assertions concerning
matters that science has not yet illumined. Whether "to be dead means to
be ended" or not, is no part either of the general question of
Socialism, or the specific question of Woman. Nevertheless, while
respecting the author's private opinion in the matter, and leaving his
sentence untouched, the following phrasing would seem preferable, as
free from the taint of what may be called the "theologic method," and
also more in keeping with the mental posture of positive knowledge:
"Whether to be dead means to be ended or not, is a matter on which man
awaits the fiat of Science."--THE TRANSLATOR.]

[221] [It is otherwise in the United States, where, as a rule, clergymen
have to "hustle"--both to curry favor with their parishioners and to
countermine the mines laid by their competitors for fatter "calls," or
by their numerous unemployed "brothers of the cloth." According to the
census of 1900, clergymen had the very highest death rate (23.5) among
the professional occupations for the registration area,--and it was
among the highest altogether. It was excelled only by the death rate of
the coopers (23.8); of the millers, flour and grist, (26.6); of the
sailors, pilots, fishermen and oystermen (27.7); and of the stock
raisers, herders and drovers (32.1). The census also shows that the
death rate of clergymen is on the increase--18.2 in 1890; now 23.5.--THE
TRANSLATOR.]

[222] Herr Eugen Richter in his "Irrelehren" is also raving mad over the
idea of abolishing the private kitchen. As far as we know, Herr Richter
is a bachelor. Obviously he does not miss his own kitchen: to judge from
the rotundity of his body, he does not fare ill. If Herr Richter were a
married man and possessed a wife, who had herself to administer the
kitchen department and to perform in it the needed work, instead of
leaving all that to servants, as is the fashion with the women of the
property classes, then, a hundred to one his wife would nicely prove to
him how happy she would be if she only could be freed from the bondage
of the kitchen through the large and thoroughly equipped communal
institute for meals.

[223] Niemeyer, "Gesundheitslehre."




PART III

WOMAN IN THE FUTURE




WOMAN IN THE FUTURE.


This chapter can be condensed in few words. It only contains the
conclusions that flow from what has been said, conclusions that the
reader may draw for himself.

The woman of future society is socially and economically independent;
she is no longer subject to even a vestige of dominion and exploitation;
she is free, the peer of man, mistress of her lot. Her education is the
same as that of man, with such exceptions as the difference of sex and
sexual functions demand. Living under natural conditions, she is able to
unfold and exercise her mental powers and faculties. She chooses her
occupation on such field as corresponds with her wishes, inclinations
and natural abilities, and she works under conditions identical with
man's. Even if engaged as a practical working-woman on some field or
other, at other times of the day she may be educator, teacher or nurse,
at yet others she may exercise herself in art, or cultivate some branch
of science, and at yet others may be filling some administrative
function. She joins in studies, enjoyments or social intercourse with
either her sisters or with men,--as she may please or occasion may
serve.

In the choice of love, she is, like man, free and unhampered. She woos
or is wooed, and closes the bond from no considerations other than her
own inclinations. This bond is a private contract, celebrated without
the intervention of any functionary--just as marriage was a private
contract until deep in the Middle Ages. Socialism creates in this
nothing new: it merely restores, at a higher level of civilization and
under new social forms, that which prevailed at a more primitive social
stage, and before private property began to rule society.

Under the proviso that he inflict injury upon none, the individual shall
himself oversee the satisfaction of his own instincts. _The satisfaction
of the sexual instinct is as much a private concern as the satisfaction
of any other natural instinct._ None is therefor accountable to others,
and no unsolicited judge may interfere. How I shall eat, how I shall
drink, how I shall sleep, how I shall clothe myself, is my private
affair,--exactly so my intercourse with a person of the opposite sex.
Intelligence and culture, perfect individual freedom--qualities that
become normal through the education and the conditions of future
society--will guard everyone against the commission of acts that will
redound to his injury. Self-training and the knowledge of their own
being are possessions of the men and the women of future society to a
degree much above the present. The simple circumstance that all bashful
prudery and affectation of secrecy regarding natural matters will have
vanished is a guarantee of a more natural intercourse of the sexes than
that which prevails to-day. If incompatibility, disenchantment, or
repulsion set in between two persons that have come together, morality
commands that the unnatural, and therefore immoral, bond be dissolved.
Seeing, moreover, that all the circumstances and conditions, which until
then condemned large numbers of women to celibacy and to prostitution,
will have vanished, man can no longer superimpose himself. On the other
hand, the completely changed social conditions will have removed the
numerous inconveniences that to-day affect married life, that often
prevent its favorable unfolding, or that even render it wholly
impossible.

The contradictions in and the unnatural features of the present position
of woman are realized with ever increasing force in wide social circles.
The sentiment finds lively utterance in the literature of the Social
Question as well as in works of fiction,--often, it must be confessed,
in wrongful manner. That the present form of marriage corresponds ever
less with its purpose, no thinking person any longer denies. Thus is
seen the phenomenon of the demand for freedom in the choice of love, and
for the untrammeled dissolution of the marriage bond, when necessary,
made by people who refuse to draw the requisite conclusions for the
change of the present social system. They believe that the freedom of
sexual intercourse must be asserted only in behalf of the privileged
classes. In a polemic against Fanny Lewald's efforts in behalf of the
emancipation of woman, Mathilde Reichhardt-Stromberg expresses herself
this wise:

"If you (Fanny Lewald) claim the complete equality of woman with man in
social and political life, George Sand also must be right in her
struggles for emancipation, which aim no further than at what man has
long been in undisputed possession of. Indeed, there is no reasonable
ground for admitting the head and not the heart of woman to this
equality, to give and to take as freely as man. On the contrary, if
woman has by nature the right, and, consequently, also the duty--for we
should not bury the talent bestowed upon us--of exerting her brain
tissue to the utmost in the race with the intellectual Titans of the
opposite sex, she must then have precisely the same right to preserve
her equilibrium by quickening the circulation of her heart's blood in
whatever way it may seem good to her. Do we not all read without the
slightest moral indignation how Goethe--to begin with the greatest as an
illustration--again and again wasted the warmth of his heart and the
enthusiasm of his great soul on a different woman? Reasonable people
regard this as perfectly natural by the very reason of the greatness of
his soul, and the difficulty of satisfying it. Only the narrow-minded
moralist stops to condemn his conduct. Why, then, deride the 'great
souls' among women!... Let us suppose that the whole female sex
consisted of great souls like George Sand, that every woman were a
Lucretia Floriani, whose children are all children of love and who
brought up all these children with true motherly love and devotion, as
well as with intelligence and good sense. What would become of the
world? There can be no doubt that it could continue to exist and to
progress, just as it does now; it might even feel exceptionally
comfortable under the arrangement."[224]

Accordingly, Mathilde Reichhardt-Stromberg is of the opinion that, if
every woman were a Lucretia Floriani, that is, a great soul like George
Sand, who draws her own picture in Lucretia Floriani, they should be
free for the "preservation of their equilibrium to quicken the
circulation of their heart's blood in whatever way it may seem good to
them." But why should that be the privilege of the "great souls" only,
and not of the others also, who are no "great souls," and can be none?
No such difference exists to us. If a Goethe and a George Sand--to take
these two from the many who have acted and are acting like them--live
according to the inclinations of their hearts--and about Goethe's love
affairs whole libraries are published that are devoured by his male and
female admirers in wrapt ecstasy--why condemn in others that, which done
by a Goethe or a George Sand, becomes the subject of ecstatic
admiration?

Indeed, such freedom in the choice of love is an impossibility in
bourgeois society. This fact was the objective point in our preceding
array of evidence. But place the whole community under social conditions
similar to those enjoyed by the material and intellectual elect, and
forthwith the opportunity is there of equal rights and freedom for all.
In "Jacques," George Sand depicts a husband who judges the adulterous
relations of his wife with another man in these words: "No human being
can command love; and none is guilty if he feels, or goes without it.
What degrades the woman is the lie: what constitutes her adultery is not
the hour that she grants to her lover, but the night that she thereupon
spends with her husband." Thanks to this view of the matter, Jacques
feels obliged to yield the place to his rival, Borel, and he proceeds to
philosophize: "Borel, in my place, would have quietly beaten his wife,
and perhaps would not have blushed to receive her afterwards into his
bed, debased by his blows and his kisses. There are men who cut the
throat of an unfaithful wife without ceremony, after the fashion of the
Orientals, because they consider her as legal property. Others fight
with their rival, kill him or drive him away, and again seek the kisses
of the woman they pretend to love, and who shrinks from them with
horror, or resigns herself in despair. These, in cases of conjugal love,
are the most common ways of acting, and I say that the love of the hogs
is less vile and less gross than that of these men." Commenting on these
passages, Brandes observes: "These truths, which are considered
elemental with our cultured classes, were 'sophisms that cried to
heaven' only fifty years ago." But the "property and cultured world"
dare not to this day openly avow the principles of George Sand,
although, in point of fact, it lives up to them in the main. As in
morality and religion, the bourgeois is a hypocrite in marriage also.

What Goethe and George Sand did, has been done and continues to be done
by thousands of others, who are not to be compared with Goethe, yet
without in the least losing the esteem and respect of society. All that
is needed is a respectable position, the rest comes of itself. All this
notwithstanding, the liberties of a Goethe and a George Sand are
improper, judged from the standpoint of bourgeois morality, and stand in
contradiction with the nature of its social principles. Compulsory
marriage is the normal marriage of bourgeois society: it is the only
"moral" union of the sexes: all other sexual union, by whomsoever
entered into, is immoral. Bourgeois marriage--we have proved the point
beyond cavil--is the result of bourgeois property relations. This
marriage, which is intimately related with private property and the
right of inheritance--demands "legitimate" children as heirs: it is
entered into for the purpose of acquiring these: under the pressure of
social conditions, it is forced even upon those who have nothing to
bequeath:[225] it becomes a social law, the violation of which the State
punishes by imprisoning for a term of years the men or women who live in
adultery and have been divorced.

In future society there is nothing to bequeath, unless the domestic
equipment and personal inventory be regarded as inheritance: the modern
form of marriage is thus devoid of foundation and collapses. The
question of inheritance is thereby solved, and Socialism need not
concern itself about abolishing the same. No right of inheritance can
arise where there is no private property.

Woman is, accordingly, free, and her children, where she has any, do not
impair her freedom: they can only fill all the fuller the cup of her
enjoyments and her pleasure in life. Nurses, teachers, female friends,
the rising female generations--all these are ready at hand to help the
mother when she needs help.

It is possible that there may be men in the future who will say with
Alexander von Humboldt: "I am not built for the father of a family.
Moreover, I consider marriage a sin, and the begetting of children a
crime." What of it? The power of natural instincts will restore the
equilibrium. We are alarmed neither by a Humboldt's hostility to
marriage nor by the philosophic pessimism of a Schopenhauer, a
Mainlaender or a v. Hartmann, who raise to man the prospect of
self-destruction in the "ideal State," In this matter we hold with Fr.
Ratzel, who justly says:

"Man may no longer look upon himself as an exception to the laws of
Nature; he should rather begin at last to ascertain the law that
underlies his own acts and thoughts, and to endeavor to live his life
according to the laws of Nature. He will arrive at the point when he
will arrange his social life with his fellows, that is, his family and
the State, not after the precepts of far-back centuries, but after the
rational principles of natural sense. Politics, morals, principles of
justice--all of which are at present fed from all possible sources--will
be determined according to the laws of Nature alone. An existence worthy
of human beings, dreamed of for thousands of years, will finally become
reality."[226]

That day is approaching with giant strides. Human society has traversed,
in the course of thousands of years, all the various phases of
development, to arrive in the end where it started from,--communistic
property and complete equality and fraternity, but no longer among
congeners alone, but among the whole human race. In that does the great
progress consist. What bourgeois society has vainly striven for, and at
which it suffers and is bound to suffer shipwreck--the restoration of
freedom, equality and fraternity among men--Socialism will accomplish.
Bourgeois society could only set up the theory; here, as in so many
other respects, their practice was at odds with their theories. It is
for Socialism to harmonize the theory with the practice.

Nevertheless, while man returns to the starting point in his
development, the return is effected upon an infinitely higher social
plane than that from which he started. Primitive society held property
in common in the gens and clan, but only in the rawest and most
undeveloped stage. The process of development that took place since,
reduced, it is true, the common property to a small and insignificant
vestige, broke up the gentes, and finally atomized the whole of society;
but, simultaneously, it raised mightily the productivity of that society
in its various phases and the manifoldness of social necessities, and it
created out of the gentes and tribes nations and great States, although
again it produced a condition of things that stood in violent
contradiction with social requirements. The task of the future is to end
the contradiction by the re-transformation upon the broadest basis, of
property and productive powers into collective property.

Society re-takes what once was its own, but, in accord with the newly
created conditions of production, it places its whole mode of life upon
the highest stage of culture, which enables all to enjoy what under more
primitive circumstances was the privilege of individuals or of
individual classes only.

Now woman again fills the active _role_ that once was hers in primitive
society. She does not become the mistress, she is the equal of man.

"The end of social development resembles the beginning of human
existence. The original equality returns. The mother-web of existence
starts and rounds up the cycle of human affairs"--thus writes Bachofen,
in his frequently quoted work "Das Mutterrecht," forecasting coming
events. Like Bachofen, Morgan also passes judgment upon bourgeois
society, a judgment that, without his having any particular information
on Socialism, coincides essentially with our own. He says:

"Since the advent of civilization, the outgrowth of property has been so
immense, its forms so diversified, its uses so expanding and its
_management so intelligent in the interests of its owners, that it has
become, on the part of the people, an unmanageable power_. The human
mind stands bewildered in the presence of its own creation. The time
will come, nevertheless, when human intelligence will rise to the
mastery over property, and define the relations of the State to the
property it protects, as well as the obligations and the limits of the
rights of its owners. _The interests of society are paramount to
individual interests, and the two must be brought into just and
harmonious relations._ A mere property career is not the final destiny
of mankind, if progress is to be the law of the future as it has been of
the past. The time which has passed away since civilization began is but
a fragment of the past duration of man's existence; and but a fragment
of the ages yet to come. _The dissolution of society bids fair to become
the termination of a career of which property is the end and aim;
because such a career contains the elements of self-destruction.
Democracy in government, brotherhood in society, equality in rights and
privileges, and universal education, foreshadow the next higher plane of
society to which experience, intelligence and knowledge are steadily
tending. It will be a revival, in a higher form, of the liberty,
equality and fraternity of the ancient gentes._"[227]

Thus we see how men, proceeding from different starting-points, are
guided by their scientific investigations to the identical conclusions.
The complete emancipation of woman, and her equality with man is the
final goal of our social development, whose realization no power on
earth can prevent;--and this realization is possible only by a social
change that shall abolish the rule of man over man--hence also of
capitalists over workingmen. Only then will the human race reach its
highest development. The "Golden Age" that man has been dreaming of for
thousands of years, and after which he has been longing, will have come
at last. Class rule will have reached its end for all time, and, along
with it, the rule of man over woman.

FOOTNOTES:

[224] "Frauenrecht und Frauenpflilcht. Eine Antwort auf Fanny Lewald's
Briefe 'Fuer und wider die Frauen.'"

[225] In his work "Bau und Leben des sozialen Koerpers" (The Structure
and Life of the Social Body), Dr. Schaeffle says: "A loosening of the
bonds of matrimony by the facilitation of divorce is certainly
undesirable. It flies in the face of the moral objects of human pairing,
and would be injurious to the preservation of the population as well as
the education of the children." After what has been said herein it
follows that we not only consider this view wrong, but are inclined to
regard it as "immoral." Nevertheless, Dr. Schaeffle will allow that the
idea of introducing and maintaining institutions that do violence to its
own conceptions of morality, is simply unimaginable in a society of much
higher culture than the present.

[226] Quoted in Haeckel's "Natuerliche Schoepfungsgeschichte."

[227] Morgan's "Ancient Society."



PART IV

INTERNATIONALITY




INTERNATIONALITY.


In the very nature of things, an existence worthy of human beings can
never be the exclusive possession of a single privileged people.
Isolated from all others, no nation could either raise or keep up such
an establishment. The development that we have reached is the product of
the co-operation of national and international forces and relations.
Although with many the national idea still wholly sways the mind, and
subserves the purpose of maintaining political and social dominations,
possible only within national boundaries, the human race has reached far
into internationalism.

Treaties of commerce, of tariffs and of shipping, postal unions,
international expositions, conventions on international law and on
international systems of measurement, international scientific
congresses and associations, international expeditions of discovery, our
trade and intercommunication, especially the international congresses of
workingmen, who are the carriers of the new social order and to whose
moral influence was mainly due the international congress for factory
legislation in the interest of the workingmen, assembled in Berlin in
the spring of 1890 upon the invitation of the German Empire,--these and
many other phenomena testify to the international character that,
despite national demarcations, the relations between the various
civilized nations have assumed. National boundary lines are being broken
through. The term "world's economy" is taking the place of "national
economy": an increasing significance is attaching to it, seeing that
upon it depends the well-being and prosperity of individual nations. A
large part of our own products is exchanged for those of foreign
nations, without which we could no longer exist. As one branch of
industry is injured when another suffers, so likewise does the
production of one nation suffer materially when that of another is
paralyzed. Despite all such transitory disturbances as wars and race
persecutions, the relations of the several nations draw ever closer,
because material interests, the strongest of all, dominate them. Each
new highway, every improvement in the means of intercommunication, every
invention or improvement in the process of production, whereby goods are
made cheaper, strengthens these relations. The ease with which personal
contact can be established between distantly located countries and
peoples is a new and powerful link in the chain that draws and holds the
nations together. Emigrations and colonizations are additional and
powerful levers. One people learns from the other. Each seeks to excel.
Along with the interchange of material products, the interchange of the
products of the mind is going on, in the original tongue as well as in
translations. To millions the learning of foreign living languages
becomes a necessity. Next to material advantages, nothing contributes
more towards removing antipathies than to penetrate into the language
and the intellectual products of a foreign people.

The effect of this process of drawing together, that is going on upon an
international scale, is that the several nations are resembling one
another ever more in their social conditions. With the most advanced,
and therefore pace-setting nations, the resemblance is now such that he
who has learned to understand the social structure of one, likewise
knows that of all the others in essentials. It happens similarly as in
Nature where, among animals of the same species the skeleton formation
and organization is the same, and, if in possession of a part of such a
skeleton, one can theoretically construct the whole animal.

A further result is this, that where the same social foundations are
found, their effects must be the same--the accumulation of vast wealth,
and its opposite pole of mass-poverty, wage-slavery, dependence of the
masses upon the machinery of production, their domination by the
property-holding minority, and the rest of the long train of
consequences.

Indeed, we see that the class antagonisms and the class struggles, that
rage throughout Germany, equally keep all Europe, the United States,
Australia, etc., in commotion. In Europe, from Russia across to
Portugal, from the Balkans, Hungary and Italy across to England and
Ireland, the same spirit of discontent is prevalent, the identical
symptoms of social fermentation, of general apprehension and of
decomposition are noticeable. Externally unlike, according to the degree
of development, the character of the people and their political
organization, these movements are all essentially alike. Deep-reaching
social antagonisms are their cause. Every year these antagonisms become
more pronounced, the fermentation and discontent sinks deeper and
spreads wider, until finally some provocation, possibly insignificant in
seeming, brings on the explosion, that then spreads like lightning
throughout the civilized world, and calls upon the people to take
sides--pro or con.

The battle is then on between New and Old Society. Masses of people step
upon the stage; an abundance of intelligence is enlisted, such as the
world never before saw engaged in any contest, and never again will see
gathered for such a purpose. _It is the last social struggle of all._
Standing at the elevation of this century, the sight is obvious of the
steady coming to a head of the forces for the struggle in which the New
Ideas will triumph.

The new social system will then rear itself upon an international basis.
The peoples will fraternize; they will reach one another the hand, and
they will endeavor to gradually extend the new conditions over all the
races of the earth.[228] No people any longer approaches another as an
enemy, bent upon oppression and exploitation; or as the representative
of a strange creed that it seeks to impose upon others;--they will meet
one another as friends, who seek to raise all human beings to the height
of civilization. The labors of the new social order in its work of
colonization and civilization will differ as essentially in both purpose
and method from the present, as the two social orders are essentially
different from each other. Neither powder nor lead, neither "firewater"
(liquor) nor Bible will be used. The task of civilization is entered
upon with the instruments of peace, which will present the civilizers to
the savages, not as enemies, but as benefactors. Intelligent travelers
and investigators have long learned to know how successful is that path.

When the civilized peoples shall have reached the point of joining in a
large federation, the time will have come when for evermore the storms
of war shall have been lain. Perpetual peace is no dream, as the
gentlemen who strut about in uniforms seek to make people believe. That
day shall have come the moment the peoples shall have understood their
true interests: these are not promoted by war and dissension, by
armaments that bear down whole nations; they are promoted by peaceful,
mutual understandings, and jointly laboring in the path of civilization.
Moreover, as was shown on page 238, the ruling classes and their
Governments are seeing to it that the military armaments and wars break
their own backs by their own immensity. Thus the last weapons will
wander into the museums of antiquity, as so many of their predecessors
have done before, and serve as witnesses to future generations of the
manner in which the generations gone by have for thousands of years
frequently torn up one another like wild animals--until finally the
human in them triumphed over the beast.

National peculiarities are everywhere nourished by the ruling classes in
order that, at a given conjuncture, a great war may furnish a drainage
for dangerous tendencies at home. As a proof of the extent to which
these national peculiarities engender wars, an utterance of the late
General Fieldmarshal Moltke may here be quoted. In the last volume of
his posthumous work, which deals with the German-French war of 1870-71,
this passage occurs among others in the introductory observations:

"So long as nations lead separate existences there will be dissensions
that only strokes can arbitrate. In the interest of humanity, however,
it is to be hoped that wars may become as much rarer as they have become
more fearful."

Now then, this national separate existence, that is, the hostile
shutting off of one nation from another, will vanish. Thus future
generations will be able to achieve without trouble tasks that gifted
heads have long conceived, and unsuccessfully attempted to accomplish.
Condorcet, among others, conceived the idea of an international
language. The late Ulysses S. Grant, ex-President of the United States,
uttered himself this wise on a public occasion: "Seeing that commerce,
education and the rapid exchange of thought and of goods by telegraphy
and steam have altered everything, I believe that God is preparing the
world to become one nation, to speak one language and to reach a state
of perfection in which armies and navies will no longer be needed." It
is natural that with a full-blooded Yankee the leading _role_ be played
by the "dear God," who, after all, is but the product of historic
development. Hypocrisy, or perhaps also ignorance in matters that
concern religion, is nowhere as stupendous as in the United States. The
less the power of the State presses upon the masses, all the more must
religion do the work. Hence the phenomenon that the bourgeoisie is most
pious wherever the power of the State is laxest. Next to the United
States, come England, Belgium and Switzerland in this matter. Even the
revolutionary Robespierre, who played with the heads of aristocrats and
priests as with nine-pin balls, was, as is known, very religious, whence
he ceremoniously introduced the "Supreme Being," which shortly before
had, with equal bad taste, been dethroned by the Convention. And seeing
that the frivolous and idle aristocrats of France had been greatly
bragging about their atheism, Robespierre regarded atheism as
aristocratic, and denounced it in his speech to the Convention on the
"Supreme Being" with these words: "Atheism is aristocratic. The idea of
a Supreme Being, that watches over oppressed innocence and punishes
triumphant crime, comes from the people. If there were no God, one would
have to be invented." The virtuous Robespierre had his misgivings
concerning the power of his virtuous republic to cancel the existing
social antagonisms, hence his belief in a Supreme Being that wreaks
vengeance and seeks to smooth the difficulties that the people of his
time were unable to smooth. Hence also was such a belief a necessity to
the first republic.

One step in progress will bring another. Mankind will ever set new
tasks to itself, and the accomplishment of the same will lead it to such
a degree of social development that wars, religious quarrels and similar
manifestations of barbarism will be unknown.

FOOTNOTE:

[228] "National and human interests stand to-day opposed to each other.
At a higher stage of civilization these interests will coincide and
become one."--v. Thuenen, "Der Isolirte Staat."




PART V

POPULATION _and_ OVER-POPULATION




POPULATION AND OVER-POPULATION


It has become quite fashionable with people who occupy themselves with
the social question to consider the question of population as the most
important and burning of all. They claim that we are threatened with
"over-population;" aye, that the danger is upon us. This, more than any
other division of the Social Question, must be treated from an
international standpoint. The feeding and the distribution of the people
have pre-eminently become international issues of fact. Since Malthus,
the law underlying the increase of population has been the subject of
extensive dispute. In his celebrated and now notorious "Essay on the
Principles of Population," which Marx has characterized as a
"school-boyish, superficial and pulpiteer piece of declamatory
plagiarism on Sir James Stewart, Townsend, Franklin, Wallace and others"
and which "contains not one original sentence," Malthus lays down the
proposition that mankind has the tendency to increase in geometric
progression (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.), while food could increase only
in arithmetic progression (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.); and that the
consequence is a rapid disproportion between the numbers of the
population and the supply of food, that inevitably leads to want and
starvation. The final conclusion was the necessity of "abstinence" in
the procreation of children, and abstinence from marriage without
sufficient means for the support of a family, contrariwise there would
be no place at "the banquet table of Nature" for the descendants.

The fear of over-population is very old. It was touched upon in this
work in connection with the social conditions of the Greeks and Romans,
and at the close of the Middle Ages. Plato and Aristotle, the Romans,
the small bourgeois of the Middle Ages were all swayed by it, and it
even swayed Voltaire, who, in the first quarter of the eighteenth
century, published a treatise on the subject. The fear ever turns up
again--this circumstance must be emphasized--_at periods when the
existing social conditions are disintegrating and breaking down_. Seeing
on all sides privation and discontent at such periods, the privation and
discontent are forthwith ascribed to the shortness of the supply of
food, instead of to the manner in which the existing supply is
distributed.

All advanced social stages have hitherto rested upon class-rule, and the
principal means of class-rule was the appropriation of the land. The
land gradually slips from the hands of a large number of proprietors
into those of a small number that utilize and cultivate it only
partially. The large majority are rendered propertyless and are stripped
of the means of existence; their share of food then depends upon the
good will of their masters, for whom they now have to work. According to
the social condition of things, the struggle for the land takes its form
from period to period; the end, however, was that the land continued
steadily to concentrate in the hands of the ruling class. If undeveloped
means of transportation or political isolation impede the intercourse
abroad of a community and interfere with the importation of food when
the crops fail and provisions are dear, forthwith the belief springs up
that there are too many people. Under such circumstances, every increase
in the family is felt as a burden; the specter of over-population rises;
and the terror that it spreads is in direct proportion to the
concentration of the land in few hands, together with its train of
evils--the partial cultivation of the soil, and its being turned to
purposes of pleasure for its owners. Rome and Italy were poorest off for
food at the time when the whole soil of Italy was held by about 3,000
latifundia owners. Hence the cry: "The latifundia are ruining Rome!" The
soil was converted into vast hunting-grounds and wonderful
pleasure-gardens; not infrequently it was allowed to be idle, seeing
that its cultivation, even by slaves, came out dearer to the magnates
than the grain imported from Sicily and Africa. It was a state of things
that opened wide the doors for usury in grain, a practice in which the
rich nobility likewise led. In consideration of this usury of grain the
domestic soil was kept from cultivation. Thereupon the impoverished
Roman citizen and the impoverished aristocracy resolved to renounce
marriage and the begetting of children; hence the laws placing premiums
on marriage and children in order to check the steady decrease of the
ruling classes.

The same phenomenon appeared towards the close of the Middle Ages, after
the nobility and clergy had, in the course of centuries and with the aid
of all the crafty and violent means at their command, robbed unnumbered
peasants of their property and appropriated the common lands to
themselves. When, thereupon, the peasants revolted and were beaten down,
the robber-trade gained new impetus, and it was then also practiced upon
the Church estates by the Princes of the Reformation. The number of
thieves, beggars and vagabonds was never larger than immediately before
and after the Reformation. The expropriated rural population rushed to
the cities; but there, due to causes that have been described in
previous pages, the conditions of life were likewise
deteriorating,--hence "over-population" was felt all around.

The appearance of Malthus coincides with that period of English industry
when, due to the inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright and Watt, powerful
changes set in both in mechanism and technique, changes that affected,
first of all, the cotton and linen industries, and rendered breadless
the workingmen engaged in them. The concentration of capital and land
assumed at the time large proportions in England: along with the rapid
increase of wealth, on the one hand, there went the deepening misery of
the masses, on the other. At such a juncture, the ruling classes, who
have every reason to consider the existing world the "best of all
possible worlds," were bound to seek an explanation for so contradictory
a phenomenon as the pauperization of the masses in the midst of swelling
wealth and flourishing industry. Nothing was easier than to throw the
blame upon the too-rapid procreation of the workingmen, and not upon
their having been rendered superfluous through the capitalist process of
production, and the accumulation of the soil in the hands of landlords.
With such circumstances for its setting, the "school-boyish, superficial
and pulpiteer piece of declamatory plagiarism," that Malthus published,
was a work that gave drastic utterance to the secret thoughts and wishes
of the ruling class, and justified their misdeeds to the world. Hence
the loud applause that it met from one side, and violent opposition from
another. Malthus had spoken the right word at the right time for the
English bourgeoisie; hence, although his essay "contained not one
original sentence," he became a great and celebrated man, and his name a
synonym for the doctrine.[229]

Now, then, the conditions that caused Malthus thus to give his signal of
alarm and proclaim his brutal doctrine--he addressed it to the working
class, thus adding insult to injury--have since grown worse from decade
to decade. They have grown worse, not alone in the fatherland of
Malthus, Great Britain, but in all the countries of the world run by the
capitalist system of production, whose consequences ever are the robbery
of the soil and the dependence and subjugation of the masses through
machinery and the factory. This system consists, as has been shown, in
the separation of the workingman from his means of production--be these
land or tools--and in the transfer of the latter to the capitalist
class. That system produces ever new branches of industry, develops and
concentrates them, and thereby throws ever larger masses of the people
upon the street as "superfluous." On the field of agriculture it
promotes, as the Rome of old, the latifundia ownership with all its
sequences. Ireland, in this respect the classic land of Europe, and
afflicted worst of all by the English system of land-grabbing, had in
1887 an area of 884.4 square miles of meadow and pasture land, but only
263.3 square miles of agricultural fields and the conversion of
agricultural fields into meadows and pastures for sheep and cattle and
into hunting grounds for the landlords makes every year further
strides.[230]

Moreover the agricultural fields of Ireland are, in great measure, in
the hands of a large number of small tenants, who are not able to
cultivate the land in the most profitable manner. Thus Ireland presents
the aspect of a country that is retrogressing from an agricultural into
a pastoral condition. The population, that at the beginning of the
nineteenth century was over eight million strong, has declined to about
five million, and still several millions are "in excess." Ireland's
normal state of rebellion against England is thus easily explained; and
yet the struggle of the "Home Ruler" aims only at the creation of an
Irish landlord class and no wise carries the wished-for deliverance to
the mass of the Irish people. The Irish people will perceive that so
soon as the Home Ruler shall carry out his plans. Scotland presents a
picture similar to that of Ireland with regard to the ownership and
cultivation of its soil.[231]

A similar development reappears in Hungary, a country that entered upon
the modern field of development only recently. Hungary, a land in point
of the fertility of her soil, as rich as few in Europe, is overloaded
with debt, and her population, pauperized and in the hands of usurers,
emigrates in large numbers. Hungary's soil is now concentrated in the
hands of modern capitalist magnates, who carry on a ruinous system of
cultivation in forest and field so that Hungary is not far from the
time when it will have ceased to be a grain exporting country. It is
quite similarly with Italy. In Italy, just as in Germany, the political
unity of the nation has taken capitalist development powerfully under
the arm; but the thrifty peasants of Piedmont and Lombardy, of Tuscany,
Romagna and Sicily are ever more impoverished and go to ruin. Swamps and
moors are reappearing on the sites occupied but recently by the well
cultivated gardens and fields of small peasants. Before the very gates
of Rome, in the so-called Campagna, a hundred thousand hectares of land
lie fallow in a region that once was the "garden of Rome." Swamps cover
the ground, and exhale their poisonous miasmas. If, with the application
of the proper means the Campagna were thoroughly drained and properly
irrigated, the population of Rome would have a fertile source of food.
But Italy suffers of the ambition to become a "leading power:" she is
ruining herself with military and naval armaments and with African
colonization plans, and, consequently, has no funds left for such tasks
as the reclaiming of the Campagna for cultivation. And as the Campagna,
so are South Italy and particularly Sicily. The latter, once the granary
of Rome, sinks ever more into deepening poverty. There is no more
sucked-out, poverty-stricken and maltreated people in all Europe than
the Sicilian. The easily-contented sons of the most beautiful region of
all Europe overrun half Europe and the United States as lowerers of
wages because they care not to starve to death upon the native soil that
has ceased to be their property. Malaria, that frightful fever, is
spreading over Italy to an extent that, frightened at the prospect, the
government instituted in 1882 an investigation, which brought to light
the deplorable fact that, of the 69 provinces of the country, 32 were
severely afflicted by the disease, 32 were infected, and only 5 had so
far remained free. The disease, once known only in the rural districts,
penetrated the cities, where the urban, increased by the rural
proletariat, constitutes a center of infection.

These facts, together with what has been said touching the effects and
results of the capitalist system of production, teach us that want and
misery with the masses are not the results of insufficiency in the means
of existence, but of an unequal distribution, that furnishes some with a
superfluity and condemns others to privation. It causes the destruction
and squandering of supplies, and, along with that, negligence in
producing these. The Malthusian assertions have sense only from the
standpoint of the system of capitalist production. Whoever stands on
that principle has every reason to defend it, otherwise the ground would
slip from under him.

On the other side, however, the capitalist system itself favors the
production of children, in so far as it needs cheap "hands" in the shape
of such in its factories. The begetting of children, moreover, often
becomes a matter of calculation with the proletariat. They cost the
parents little or nothing: they soon earn their own support. In the
house industries the proletarian is even obliged to have many children:
they equip him all the better for the competitive struggle. It certainly
is an abominable system: it conceals the pauperization of the workingman
and it provokes his own rendering of himself superfluous through the
children who work for the most miserable of wages. The immorality and
harmfulness of this system are obvious, and they spread with the
extension of capitalism. It is precisely for that reason that the
bourgeois ideologists--and all bourgeois economists are that--defend the
Malthusian theories. Hence in Germany also and in particular the notion
of "over-production" ever finds support among the bourgeoisie. Capital
is the innocent defendant, the workingman is the criminal.

Unfortunately, however, for this theory Germany has "superfluity," not
of proletarians only, but also of "intellectuals." Capital brings about
not only an over-production of soil, goods, workingmen, women and
children, but also of "officials and learning"--as we shall show. There
is only one thing that is not "superfluous" in this capitalist
world--capital and its owner, the capitalist.

If the capitalist economists are Malthusians they are simply what their
capitalist interests compel them to be. Only, they should not shift
their bourgeois whims to the shoulders of Socialist society. John Stuart
Mill says among other things: "But Communism is precisely the state of
things in which opinion might be expected to declare itself with
greatest intensity against this kind of selfish intemperance. An
augmentation of numbers which diminished the comfort or increased the
toil of the mass, would then cause (which now it does not) immediate and
unmistakable inconvenience to every individual in the association;
inconvenience which could not then be imputed to the avarice of
employers, or the unjust privileges of the rich. In such altered
circumstances, opinion could not fail to reprobate, and if reprobation
did not suffice, to repress by penalties of some description, this or
any other culpable self-indulgence at the expense of the community. The
Communistic scheme, instead of being peculiarly open to the objection
drawn from danger of over-population, has the recommendation of tending
in an especial degree to the prevention of that evil." And Prof. Ad.
Wagner says: "Least of all could freedom of marriage or freedom of
procreation be tolerated in a Socialist community."[232] These authors
proceed from the theory that the tendency towards over-population is
one common to all social conditions, but both allow that Socialism is
better able than any other social system to establish the equilibrium
between population and food. The latter is true, not so the former.

True enough, there were one time Socialists, who, tainted by the
Malthusian theories, perceived the "imminent danger" of over-population.
But these Socialist Malthusians have disappeared. A clearer insight into
the nature of bourgeois society, together with the fact that, judging
from the plaintive songs of our Agrarians, we produce not too little but
too much food, and that the resulting low prices render the production
of foodstuffs unprofitable, has enlightened them on the subject.

A part of our Malthusians imagine--and the chorus of the mouth-pieces of
the bourgeoisie parrot-like echo their utterances--that a Socialist
society, in which there is freedom in the choice of love and ample
provision for a livelihood worthy of human beings, must soon degenerate
into a rabbit warren: it would succumb to excessive sexual indulgence
and to excessive procreation. Exactly the reverse is most likely to
happen, as certain observations go to prove. Until now the largest
number of children were had, not by the best, but by the worst situated.
It may even be said without being guilty of exaggeration: the poorer the
condition of a proletarian stratum, the more numerous also is its
average blessing of children, conceding exceptions here and there. Even
Virchow confirms this. He says: "As the English workingman in his
deepest degradation, in the utter vacancy of the mind, finally knows but
two sources of enjoyment, drunkenness and coition, so did the population
of Upper Silesia, until recent years, concentrate all its wishes, all
its desires upon these two things. Liquor and the gratification of
sexual cravings had become sovereign with it. Hence it is easy to
understand that its population gained as rapidly in numbers as it lost
in physical vigor and moral fibre." Karl Marx expresses himself
similarly when he says in "Capital:" "As a matter of fact, not only the
number of births and deaths but the absolute size of families is in
reverse ratio to the height of wages, i. e., to the means of subsistence
which the various categories of workmen have at their disposal. _This
law of capitalist society would sound absurd among savages, or even
civilized colonists._ It reminds us of the enormous power of
reproduction among animals that are individually weak and much hunted
down;" and Marx furthermore quotes Laing, who says: "If all the world
were in comfortable circumstances, the earth would soon be depopulated."
We see Laing's views are opposed to Malthus: he is of the opinion that a
good living is not conducive to the increase but to the decrease of
births. In the same vein says Herbert Spencer: "Always and everywhere
progress and procreative capacity are opposed to each other. It follows
that the higher development, that mankind looks forward to, will
probably have as a result a decline in procreation."

Thus we see men, who otherwise differ, absolutely at one on this head,
and their views coincide wholly with ours.

The whole question of population could be practically disposed of off
hand with the observation that there is no danger of over-population
within sight: we find ourselves in front of such a superabundance of
food, which even threatens to increase, that the greatest worry, now
afflicting the producers of means of subsistence, is to furnish this
wealth of food at tolerable prices. A rapid increase of consumers would
even be the most desirable thing for producers. But our Malthusians are
tireless in the raising of objections: thus we are forced to meet these,
lest they have the excuse that they can not be refuted.

They claim that the danger of an over-population in a not-distant future
lies in the law of a "decreasing yield of the soil." Our fields become
"tired of cultivation;" increasing crops are no longer to be looked for;
seeing that fields, fit for cultivation, become daily rarer, the danger
of a scarcity of food is imminent, if the population continue to
increase. We believe to have proved beyond doubt, in the passages on the
agricultural utilization of the soil, what enormous progress mankind can
make with respect to the acquisition of new masses of nutriment. But we
shall give further illustrations. A very able landlord of wide acres and
economist of acknowledged worth, a man, accordingly who excelled Malthus
in both respects, said as early as 1850--a time when chemical
agriculture was still in its swaddling clothes--on the subject of
agricultural production: "The productivity of raw products, especially
foodstuffs, will in future no longer lag behind the productivity of the
factory and of transportation.... Chemical agriculture has only started
in our days to open to agriculture prospects that will no doubt lead to
many false roads, but that in the end will place the production of
foodstuffs as fully in the power of society, as it lies now in its power
to furnish yards of cloth, if but the requisite supply of wool is at
hand."[233]

Justus v. Liebig, the founder of chemical agriculture, holds that "if
human labor and manure are available in sufficient quantity, the soil is
inexhaustible, and can yield uninterruptedly the richest harvests." The
"law of a decreasing yield of the soil" is a Malthusian notion, that had
its justification at a time when agriculture was in an undeveloped
state; the notion has long since been refuted by science and
experience. The law is rather this: "The yield of a soil stands in
direct ratio to the human labor expended (science and technique being
included), and to the proper fertilizers applied to it." If it was
possible for small-peasant France to more than quadruple the yield of
her soil during the last ninety years, without the population even
doubling, much better results are to be expected from a Socialist
society. Our Malthusians, furthermore, overlook the fact that, under our
existing conditions, not our soil merely is to be taken into account,
but the soil of the whole earth, that is, to a great extent, territories
whose fertility yields twenty, thirty and many more times as much as our
corresponding fields of the same size. The earth is now extensively
appropriated by man; nevertheless, a small fraction excepted, it is
nowhere cultivated and utilized as it could be cultivated and utilized.
Not Great Britain alone could, as has been shown, produce a much larger
quantity of food than she does to-day, but France, Germany, Austria and
to a still much greater extent the other countries of Europe also could
do the same. In little Wurtemberg, with her 879,970 hectares of grain
soil, the mere application of the steam plow would raise the average
crop of 6,410,000 to 9,000,000 cwts.

European Russia--measured by the present standard of the population of
Germany--would be able to nourish, instead of her present population, of
90,000,000, one of 475,000,000 souls. To-day European Russia has about
1,000 inhabitants to the square mile, Saxony over 12,000.

The objection that Russia contains vast stretches of territory, whose
climate renders impossible any higher degree of cultivation, is true; on
the other hand, however, she has to the south a climate and fertility of
soil by far unknown in Germany. Then, again, due to the denseness of
population and the improved cultivation of soil therewith connected,
such as clearings of woods, draining, etc., changes, wholly
unmeasureable to-day, will be brought on in climate. Wherever man
aggregates in large numbers climatic changes are perceived. To-day we
attach too little importance to this phenomenon; we are even unable to
realize the same to its full extent, seeing that we have no occasion
therefor, and, as things are to-day, lack the means to undertake the
needed experiments on an adequate scale. Furthermore, all travelers are
agreed that in the high latitudes of Northern Siberia, where spring,
summer and autumn crowd together in rapid succession within a few
months, an astonishing luxuriance of vegetation suddenly springs forth.
Thus Sweden and Norway, to-day so sparsely populated, would, with their
mammoth woods and positively inexhaustible mineral wealth, their
numerous rivers and long stretch of coast lines, furnish rich sources of
food for a dense population. The requisite means and appliances are not
obtainable under present circumstances, and thus even that sparse
population casts off its shoals of emigrants.

What may be said of the north applies with still more force to the south
of Europe--Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, the Danubian States, Hungary,
Turkey, etc. A climate of surpassing quality, a soil so luxuriant and
fertile as is hardly found in the best regions of the United States,
will some day furnish an abundance of food to unnumbered people. The
decrepit political and social conditions of those countries cause
hundreds of thousands of our own people to prefer crossing the ocean
rather than to settle in those much nearer and more comfortably located
States. Soon as rational social conditions and international relations
will prevail there, new millions of people will be needed to raise those
large and fertile lands to a higher grade of civilization.

In order to be able to reach materially higher rungs on the ladder of
civilization we shall, for a long time to come, have in Europe, not a
superfluity, but a dearth of people. Under such circumstances, it is an
absurdity to yield to the fear of over-population. It must ever be kept
in mind that the utilization of existing sources of food, by the
application of science and labor, knows no limit: every day brings new
discoveries and inventions which increase the yield of the sources of
food.

If we pass from Europe to the other parts of the earth, the lack of
people and the excess of soil is still more glaring. The most luxuriant
and fruitful lands of the earth still lie wholly or almost wholly idle:
the work of bringing them under cultivation and turning them to use can
not be undertaken with a few hundred or thousand people: it demands mass
colonizations of many millions in order to be able to bring the
but-too-luxuriant Nature under human control. Under this head belong,
among others, Central and South America--a territory of hundreds of
thousands of square miles. Argentina, for instance, had in 1892 about
5,000,000 hectares under cultivation, the country has, however,
96,000,000 hectares at its disposal. The soil of South America, fit for
the cultivation of corn and lying fallow, is estimated at 200,000,000
hectares, at least. The United States, Austria-Hungary, Great Britain
and Ireland, Germany and France have all together only about 105,000,000
hectares devoted to cereals. Carey maintains that the 360-mile long
valley of the Orinoco alone could furnish enough food to supply the
whole present human race. Let us halve the estimate, and there is still
an abundance. At any rate, South America alone could feed the majority
of the population now extant on earth. The nutritive value of a field
planted with banana trees and one of equal size planted with wheat
stands as 133 to 1. While our wheat yields in favorable soil 12 to 20
times its seed, rice in its home yields 80 to 100, maize 250 to 300
times as much. In many regions, the Philippine Islands among them, the
productivity of rice is estimated at 400 times as much. The question
with all these articles of food is to render them as nourishing as
possible by the manner in which they are prepared. Chemistry has in this
a boundless field for development.

Central and South America, especially Brazil, which alone is almost as
large as all Europe--Brazil has 152,000 square miles with about
15,000,000 inhabitants, as against Europe's 178,000 square miles and
about 340,000,000 inhabitants--are big with a luxuriance and fertility
that stir the astonishment and wonderment of all travelers, besides
being inexhaustibly rich in minerals. Nevertheless, until now they are
almost closed to the world because their population is indolent and
stands, both in point of numbers and of culture, too low to overmaster
the power of Nature. How matters look in Africa we have been enlightened
on by the discoveries of recent years. Even if a good part of Central
Africa never be fit for European agriculture, there are other regions of
vast size that can be put to good use the moment rational principles of
colonization are applied. On the other hand, there are in Asia not only
vast and fertile territories, able to feed thousands of millions of
people, but the past has also shown how in places that are there now
sterile and almost desert, the mild climate once conjured up an
abundance of food from the soil, provided only man knows how to lead to
it the blessing-bestowing water. What with the destruction of the
marvelous aqueducts and contrivances for irrigation in Asia Minor and in
the regions of the Tigris and the Euphrates, with vandalic wars of
conquest and the insane oppression of the people by the conquerors,
fields, thousands of square miles wide, have been transformed into sandy
deserts. Likewise in Northern Africa, Spain, Mexico and Peru. Let there
be produced millions of civilized human beings, and inexhaustible
sources of food will be unlocked. The fruit of the date tree thrives
marvelously in Asia and Africa, and it takes up so little room that 200
trees can go on one acre of land. The durria bears in Egypt more than
3,000 fold, and yet the country is poor--not by reason of excessive
population, but as the result of a robber system that accomplishes the
feat of spreading the desert ever further from decade to decade. The
marvelous results attainable in all these countries by the agriculture
and horticulture of middle Europe is a matter that eludes all
calculation.

With the present state of agriculture, the United States could easily
feed fifteen and twenty times its present population (63,000,000)--that
is, 1,200,000,000 people. Under the same conditions, Canada could feed,
instead of 5,000,000 people, 100,000,000 people. Then there are
Australia, the numerous and in some instances large and extraordinarily
fertile islands of the great Indian Ocean, etc. "Multiply!"--such, and
not "Reduce your numbers!"--is the call that in the name of civilization
reaches the human race.

Everywhere, it is the social conditions--the existing method of
production and distribution--that bring on privation and misery, not the
number of people. A few rich crops in succession lower the prices of
food in such manner that a considerable number of our cultivators of the
soil are ruined. Instead of the condition of the cultivator being
improved, it declines. A large number of farmers to-day look upon a good
crop as a misfortune: it lowers prices so that the cost of production is
barely covered. And this is called a rational state of things! With the
view of keeping far away from us the abundance of the harvests of other
countries, high duties are placed on grain: thus the entry of foreign
grain is made difficult and the price of the domestic article is raised.
We have no scarcity but a superabundance of food, the same as of
industrial products. The same as millions of people need the yield of
the factories, but can not satisfy their wants under the existing system
of property and production, so are millions in want of food, being
unable to pay for it, although the prices are low and the necessaries of
life abundant. We ask again, Can this be called a rational state of
things? The craziness and insanity of it all is obvious. Our speculators
in corn often, when the crops are good, deliberately allow a large part
to perish: they know the prices rise in the measure that the products
are scarce. And yet we are told to look out for overpopulation! In
Russia, southern Europe and many other countries of the world, hundreds
of thousands of loads of grain perish yearly for want of proper storage
and transportation. Many millions of hundredweights of food are yearly
squandered because the provisions for gathering in the crops are
inadequate, or there is a scarcity of hands at the right time. Many a
corn field, many a filled barn, whole agricultural establishments are
burned down, because the insurance fetches higher gains. Food and goods
are destroyed for the same reason that ships are caused to go to the
bottom with their whole crews.[234] A large part of the crops is yearly
ruined by our military manoeuvres; the costs of manoeuvres that last
only a few days run up to hundreds of thousands of marks; and there are
many of them every year. Moreover, as stated before, large fields are
taken from cultivation for these purposes.

Nor must it be forgotten that there is the sea yet to be added to the
means for increasing the volume of food. The area of water is as 18 to 7
to that of land,--two and a half times as large. Its enormous wealth of
food still awaits a rational system of exploitation. The future opens a
prospect to mankind, wholly different from the gloomy picture drawn by
our Malthusians.

Who can say where the line is to be drawn to our chemical, physical,
physiologic knowledge? Who would venture to predict what giant
undertakings--so considered from our modern standpoint--the people of
future centuries will execute with the object in view of introducing
material changes in the climates of the nations and in the methods of
exploiting their soil?

We see to-day, under the capitalist social system, undertakings executed
that were thought impossible or insane a century ago. Wide isthmuses are
cut through; tunnels, miles long and bored into the bowels of the earth,
join peoples whom towering mountains separate; others are dug under the
beds of seas to shorten distances, and avoid disturbances and dangers
that otherwise the countries thus separated are exposed to. Where is the
spot at which could be said: "So far and no farther?"

If all these improvements were to be undertaken simultaneously, we would
be found to have, not too many but too few people. The race must
multiply considerably if it is to do justice to all the tasks that are
waiting for it. Neither is the soil under cultivation utilized as it
should be, nor are there people enough to cultivate three-fourths of its
face. Our relative over-production, continuously produced by the
capitalist system to the injury of the workingman and of society, will,
at a higher grade of civilization, prove itself a benefit. Moreover, a
population as large as possible is, even to-day, not an impediment to
but a promoter of progress--on the same principle that the existing
over-production of goods and food, the destruction of the family by the
enlisting of women and children in the factories, and the expropriation
of the handicrafts and the peasantry by capital have all shown
themselves to be conditions precedent for a higher state of
civilization.

We now come to the other side of the question: Do people multiply
indefinitely, and is that a necessity of their being?

With the view of proving this great reproductive power of man, the
Malthusians usually refer to the abnormal instances of exceptional
families and peoples. Nothing is proven by that. As against these
instances there are others where, under favorable conditions, complete
sterility shortly sets in. The quickness with which often well situated
families die out is surprising. Although the United States offer more
favorable conditions than any other country for the increase of
population, and yearly hundreds of thousands of people immigrate at the
most vigorous age, its population doubles only every thirty years. There
are nowhere instances on a large scale of the assertion concerning a
doubling period of twelve or twenty years.

As indicated by the quotations from Marx and Virchow, which may be
considered to state the rule, population increases fastest where it is
poorest because, as Virchow justly claims, next to drunkenness, sexual
intercourse is their only enjoyment. When Gregory VII. forced celibacy
upon the clergy, the priests of lower rank in the diocese of Mainz
complained, as stated before, that differently from the upper prelates,
they did not have all possible pleasures, and the only enjoyment left
them was their wives. A lack of varying occupation may be the reason why
the marriages of the rural clergy are, as a rule, so fruitful of
children. It is also undeniable that our poorest districts in
Germany--the Silesian Eulengebirge, the Lausitz, the Erzgebirge and
Fichtelgebirge, the Thuringian Forest, the Harz, etc.,--are the centers
of densest population, whose chief food are potatoes. It is also certain
that sexual cravings are strong with consumptives, and these often beget
children at a state of physical decline when such a thing would seem
impossible.

It is a law of Nature--hinted at in the quotations made from Herbert
Spencer and Laing--that she supplies in quantity what she loses in
quality. The animals of highest grade and strength--lions, elephants,
camels, etc., our domestic animals such as mares, asses, cows,--bring
few young ones into the world; while animals of lower organization
increase in inverse ratio--all insects, most fishes, etc., the smaller
mammals, such as hares, rats, mice, etc. Furthermore, Darwin established
that certain wild animals, so soon as tamed, forfeit their fecundity.
The elephant is an illustration. This proves that altered conditions of
life, together with the consequent change in the mode of life, are the
determining factors in reproductive powers.

It happens, however, that it is the Darwinians who lead in the fear of
over-population, and upon whom our modern Malthusians bank. Our
Darwinians are everywhere infelicitous the moment they apply their
theories to human conditions: their method then becomes roughly
empirical, and they forget that, while man is the highest organic
animal, he, being in contradistinction to animals acquainted with the
laws of nature is able to direct and utilize these.

The theory of the struggle for existence, the doctrine that the germs
of new life exist in much larger numbers than are maintainable with the
existing means of existence, would be wholly applicable to man if man,
instead of straining his brains and enlisting the services of technical
arts for exploiting air, land and water, grazed like cattle, or like
monkeys indulged his sexual impulses with cynic shamelessness,--in
short, if he reverted to the monkey order. In passing be it observed
that the fact that, besides man, monkeys are the only beings with whom
the sexual impulse is not fixed to certain periods, is a striking proof
of the relationship between the two. But though closely related, they
are not identical, and are not to be placed on one level and measured by
one standard,--a fact that we commend to Ziegler, who, in his book
herein frequently referred to, holds up the two together.

The circumstance that, under the conditions of ownership and production
that have hitherto prevailed, the struggle for existence existed and
continues to exist for man also and many fail to find the conditions for
life, is perfectly true. But these failed, not because of the scarcity
of the means of existence, but because, due to social conditions, the
means of existence, though in greatest abundance, were kept from them.
False also is the conclusion that, because such has hitherto been the
state of things, it is unchangeable and will ever be so. It is here that
the Darwinians slide and fall: they study natural science and
anthropology, but not sociology, and thoughtlessly fall in line with our
bourgeois ideologists. Hence they drop into their false conclusions.

The sexual instinct is perennial in man; it is his strongest instinct
and demands satisfaction, lest his health suffer. Moreover, as a rule,
this instinct is strong in proportion to man's health and normal
development--just as a good appetite and a good digestion bespeak a
healthy stomach, and are the first prerequisites for a healthy body. But
gratification of the sexual instinct and begetting and conceiving are
not the same thing. The most varied theories have been set up on the
fecundity of the human race. On the whole, we are still groping in the
dark on this important field, mainly because for a couple of thousand
years a senseless shyness has stood in the way of man's occupying
himself freely and naturally with the laws of his own origin, and to
study thoroughly the laws of human procreation. That is gradually
changing and must change much more.

On one side the theory is set up that higher mental development and
strenuous mental exertion, in short, higher nervous activity, exert a
repressing influence upon the sexual impulse and weaken the procreative
power. This is disputed by the other side. The fact is pointed to that
the better situated classes have, on an average, fewer children and
that this is not to be ascribed solely to preventive measures.
Undoubtedly, intense mental occupation has a depressing influence upon
the sexual impulse, but that such occupation is indulged in by the
majority of our property classes is not so certain. On the other hand,
an excess of physical labor also has a repressing influence. But all
excessive effort is harmful, and therefore objectionable.

Others, again, claim that the manner of life, especially the food eaten,
coupled with certain physical conditions on the part of the woman,
determine the power to beget and to conceive. The nature of food more
than any other cause, this side argues, determines, as experience shows
in the instance of animals also, the effectiveness of the act of
procreation. Possibly, this is in fact, the determining factor. The
influence of the nature of nourishment on the organism of certain
animals manifests itself surprisingly with bees: they produce at will a
queen by the administering of special food. Bees, accordingly, are
further advanced in the knowledge of sexual development than men. They
have not, probably, been sermonized for two thousand years that it is
"indecent" and "immoral" to concern themselves with sexual matters.

It is also known that plants raised on good soil and well manured,
thrive luxuriantly, but yield no seed. That the nature of the food has
its influence upon the composition of the male sperm, and upon the
fecundity of the female egg with human beings also, is hardly to be
doubted. Thus mayhap the procreative power of the population depends in
a high degree upon the nature of the food it lives on. Other factors,
whose nature is still but little understood, also play a role. It is a
striking circumstance that a young couple may have no children after
long years of married life, yet, having separated, and each having mated
again, both new marriages are followed by healthy children.

One factor is of leading importance in the question of population in the
future--_the higher, freer position which all women will then occupy_.
Leaving exceptions aside, intelligent and energetic women are not as a
rule inclined to give life to a large number of children as "the gift of
God," and to spend the best years of their own lives in pregnancy, or
with a child at their breasts. This disinclination for numerous
children, which even now is entertained by most women, may--all the
solicitude notwithstanding that a Socialist society will bestow upon
pregnant women and mothers--be rather strengthened than weakened. In our
opinion, there lies in this the great probability that the increase of
population will proceed slower than in bourgeois society.

Our Malthusians need really not break their heads on the future of the
human race. Until now nations have gone down through the decline, never
through the increase of their population. In the last analysis, the
number of population is regulated without harmful abstinence and without
unnatural preventives, in a society that lives according to the laws of
Nature. On this head also the future will vindicate Karl Marx. His
theory also that every period of economic development carries with it
its own law of population will prove true under the rule of Socialism.

The author of the work "Die kuenstliche Beschraenkung der Kinderzahl"
(The Artificial Limitation of Progeny)[235] claims that Socialism is
playing a tricky manoeuvre by its opposition to Malthusianism: a rapid
increase of population promotes mass proletarianization, and this, in
turn, promotes discontent: if over-population is successfully checked,
the spread of Socialism would be done for, and its Socialist State,
together with all its glory, buried for all time. Thus we see one more
weapon added to the arsenal to kill Socialism with--Malthusianism. The
grandiose ignorance of the Socialist-killer Ferdy on Socialism,
transpires strongest from the following sentence, which he perpetrates
on page 40 of his work:

"Socialism will go further than the Neo-Malthusians in its demands. It
will demand that the minimum wage be so fixed that every workingman
shall be able to produce as many children as possible under given social
facilities for the acquisition of food.... The moment the ultimate
deductions of Socialism are drawn, and private property is abolished,
even the dullest will then say to himself: 'Why should I have to work
long and hard for the simple reason that it pleases my neighbors to
shove a dozen new members into society?'" It should seem that a critic
should first acquaint himself with the A B C of Socialism before
presuming to write upon the subject, and such preposterous stuff at
that!

In Socialist society, where alone mankind will be truly free and planted
on its natural basis, it will direct its own development knowingly along
the line of natural law. In all epochs hitherto, society handled the
questions of production and distribution, as well as of the increase of
population without the knowledge of the laws that underlie them,--hence,
unconsciously. In the new social order, equipped with the knowledge of
the laws of its own development, society will proceed consciously and
planfully.


    SOCIALISM IS SCIENCE, APPLIED WITH FULL UNDERSTANDING
             TO ALL THE FIELDS OF HUMAN ACTIVITY.


FOOTNOTES:

[229] That Darwin and others also became devotees of Malthus only proves
how the lack of economic knowledge leads to one-sided views.

[230] Fred. Freiligrath sings in his fervid poem "Ireland":


    Thus naught the Irish landlord cares,
      While hart and ox by peasant's toil
    For him are raised--he leaves undried
      Great bogs and swamps on Erin's soil--

    Extensive mirelands unreclaimed,
      Where sheaf by sheaf rich crops could wave;
    He vilely leaves--a wanton waste--
      Where water-fowl and wild ducks lave.

        Four million acres feels his rod;
        A wilderness accursed of God.


[231] "Two millions of acres ... totally laid waste, embracing within
their area some of the most fertile lands of Scotland. The natural grass
of Glen Tilt was among the most nutritive in the county of Perth. The
deer forest of Ben Aulder was by far the best grazing ground in the wide
district of Badenoch; a part of the Black Mount forest was the best
pasture for black-faced sheep in Scotland. Some idea of the ground laid
waste for purely sporting purposes in Scotland may be formed from the
fact that it embraced an area larger than the whole county of Perth. The
resources of the forest of Ben Aulder might give some idea of the loss
sustained from the forced desolations. The ground would pasture 15,000
sheep, and as it was not more than one-thirtieth part of the old forest
ground in Scotland.... It might, &c.... All that forest land is as
totally unproductive.... It might thus as well have been submerged under
the waters of the German Ocean."--From the London "Economist," July 2,
1866, cited by Karl Marx in "Capital," p. 757, edition Swan-Sonnenschein
& Co., London, 1896.

[232] Rau's "Lehrbuch der Politischen Oekonomie," p. 367.

[233] Rodbertus: "Zur Beleuchtung der sozialen Frage."

[234] Similar conditions must have existed at the time of St. Basil. He
calls out to the rich: "Wretches that you are, what answer will you make
to the divine Judge? You cover the nakedness of your walls with carpets,
but do not cover the nakedness of human beings! You ornament your horses
with costly and smooth coverlets, and you despise your brother who is
covered with rags. You allow your corn to rot and be devoured in your
barns and your fields, and you do not spare even a look for those who
have no bread." Moral homiletics have since old done precious little
good with the ruling class, and they will do no better in the future.
Let the social conditions be changed so that none can act unjustly
towards his fellowman; the world will then get along easy enough.

[235] Hans Ferdy.




PART VI

CONCLUSION




CONCLUSION.


Our arguments have shown that, with Socialism, the issue is not an
arbitrary tearing down and raising up, but a natural process of
development. All the factors active in the process of destruction, on
the one hand, and of construction, on the other, _are factors that
operate in the manner that they are bound to operate_. Neither
"statesmen of genius" nor "inflammatory demagogues" can direct events at
will. They may imagine they push; but are themselves pushed. But we are
near the time when "the hour has sounded."

Due to her own peculiar development, Germany, more than any other
country, seems designated as that which is to assume the leading _role_
in the pending revolution.[236]

In the course of this work we often spoke of an over-production of
goods, which brings on the crises. This is a phenomenon peculiar to the
capitalist world only; it was seen at no previous period of human
development.

But the capitalist world yields not merely an over-production of goods
and of men, it also yields _an over-production of intelligence_. Germany
is the classic land in which this over-production of intelligence, which
the bourgeois world no longer knows what to do with, is yielded on a
large scale. A circumstance, that for centuries was a misfortune to
Germany's development, has largely contributed to this state of things.
It consisted in the multiplicity of small States and the check exercised
by these political formations upon the development of upper capitalism.
The multiplicity of small States decentralized the intellectual life of
the nation: it raised numerous small centers of culture, and these
exercised their influence upon the whole. In comparison with a large
central government, the numerous small ones required an extraordinarily
large administrative apparatus, whose members needed a certain degree of
higher culture. Thus high schools and universities sprung up more
numerous than in any other country of Europe. The jealousy and ambition
of the several governments played in this no small _role_. The same
thing repeated itself when some governments began introducing compulsory
education for the people. The passion not to be left behind a
neighboring State had here its good effect. The demand for intelligence
rose when increasing culture, hand in hand with the material progress of
the bourgeoisie, quickened the longing for political activity, popular
representation and self-government on the part of municipalities. These
were small governmental bodies for small countries and circles,
nevertheless they contributed towards the general schooling, and caused
the sons of the bourgeoisie to covet seats in them and to adapt their
education accordingly.

As science, so did art fare.--No country of Europe has, relatively
speaking, so many painting and other art academies, technical schools,
museums and art collections, as Germany. Other countries may be able to
make better showings in their capitals, but none has such a distribution
over its whole territory as Germany. In point of art, Italy is the only
exception.

While the bourgeoisie of England had conquered a controlling power over
the State as early as the middle of the seventeenth, and the bourgeoisie
of France towards the end of the eighteenth century, the bourgeoisie of
Germany did not succeed until 1848 to secure for itself a comparatively
moderate influence over the government. That was the birth year of the
German bourgeoisie as a self-conscious class: it now stepped upon the
stage as an independent political party, in the trappings of
"liberalism." The peculiar development that Germany had undergone now
manifested itself. It was not manufacturers, merchants, men of commerce
and finance who came forward as leaders, but chiefly professors, squires
of liberal proclivities, writers, jurists and doctors of all academic
faculties. It was the German ideologists: And so was their work. After
1848 the German bourgeoisie was temporarily consigned to political
silence; but they utilized the period of the sepulchral silence of the
fifties in the promotion of their task. The breaking-out of the
Austro-Italian war and the commencement of the Regency of Prussia,
stirred the bourgeoisie anew to reach after political power. The
"National Verein" (National Union) movement began. The bourgeoisie was
now too far developed to tolerate within the numerous separate States
the many political barriers, that were at the same time
economic--barriers of taxation, barriers of communication. It assumed a
revolutionary air. Herr von Bismarck understood the situation and turned
it to account in his own manner so as to reconcile the interests of the
bourgeoisie with those of the Prussian Kingdom, towards which the
bourgeoisie never had been hostile, seeing it feared the revolution and
the masses. The barriers finally came down that had hampered its
material progress. Thanks to Germany's great wealth in coal and
minerals, together with an intelligent and easily satisfied working
class, the bourgeoisie made within few decades such gigantic progress as
was made by the bourgeoisie of no other country, the United States
excepted, within the same period. Thus did Germany reach the position of
the second industrial and commercial State in Europe; and she covets the
first.

This rapid material development had its obverse. The system of mutual
exclusion, that existed between the German States up to the
establishment of German unity, had until then furnished a living to an
uncommonly numerous class of artisans and small peasants. With the
precipitous tearing down of all the protective barriers, these people
suddenly found themselves face to face with an unbridled process of
capitalist production and development. At first, the prosperity epoch of
the early seventies caused the danger to seem slighter, but it raged all
the more fearful when the crisis set in. The bourgeoisie had used the
prosperity period to make marvelous progress, and thus now caused the
distress to be felt ten-fold. From now on the chasm between the
property-holding and the propertyless classes widened rapidly. This
process of decomposition and of absorption, which--promoted by the
growth of material power on the one hand, and the declining power of
resistance on the other--proceeds with ever increasing rapidity, throws
whole classes of the population into ever more straitened circumstances.
They find themselves from day to day more powerfully threatened in their
position and their condition of life; and they see themselves doomed
with mathematical certainty.

In this desperate struggle many seek possible safety in a change of
profession. The old men can no longer make the change: only in the
rarest instances are they able to bequeath an independence to their
children: the last efforts are made, the last means applied towards
placing sons and daughters in positions with fixed salaries, which
require no capital to carry on. These are mainly the civil service
offices in the Empire, States or municipalities--teacherships, the Post
Office and railroad positions, and also the higher places in the service
of the bourgeoisie in the counting rooms, stores and factories as
managers, chemists, technical overseers, engineers, constructors, etc.;
finally the so-called liberal professions: law, medicine, theology,
journalism, art, architecture and lastly pedagogy.

Thousands upon thousands, who had previously taken up a trade, now--the
possibility of independence and of a tolerable livelihood having
vanished--seek for any position in the said offices. The pressure is
towards higher education and learning. High schools, gymnasiums,
polytechnics, etc., spring up like mushrooms, and those in existence are
filled to overflowing. In the same measure the number of students at the
universities, at the chemical and physical laboratories, at the art
schools, trade and commercial schools and the higher schools of all
sorts for women are on the increase. In all departments, without
exception, there is a tremendous overcrowding, and the stream still
swells: fresh demands are constantly raised for the establishment of
more gymnasiums and high schools to accommodate the large number of
pupils and students.[237] From official and private sources warnings
upon warnings are issued, now against the choice of one then against
that of another career. Even theology, that a few decades ago threatened
to dry up for want of candidates, now receives its spray from the
superabundance, and again sees its livings filled. "I am ready to preach
belief in ten thousand gods and devils, if required, only procure me a
position that may support me"--that is the song that re-echoes from all
corners. Occasionally, the corresponding Cabinet Minister refuses his
consent to the establishment of new institutions of higher education
"because those in existence amply supply the demand for candidates of
all professions."

This state of things is rendered all the more intolerable by the
circumstance that the competitive and mutually destructive struggle of
the bourgeoisie compels its own sons to seek for public places.
Furthermore, the ever increasing standing army with its swarms of
officers, whose promotion is seriously paralyzed after a long peace,
leads to the placing of large numbers of men in the best years of their
lives upon the pension lists, who thereupon, favored by the State, seek
all manner of appointments. Another swarm of lower grade in the army,
takes the bread from the mouths of the other stratas. Lastly, the still
larger swarm of children of the Imperial, State and municipal officials
of all degrees are and can not choose but be trained especially for such
positions in the civil service. Social standing, culture and
pretensions--all combine to keep the children of these classes away from
the so-called low occupations, which, however, as a result of the
capitalist system, are themselves overcrowded.

The system of One Year Volunteers, which allows the reduction of the
compulsory military service to one instead of two or three years for
those who have obtained a certain degree of education and can make the
material sacrifice, is another source from which the candidates for
public office is swollen. Many sons of well-to-do peasants, who do not
fancy a return to the village and to the pursuit of their fathers, come
under this category.

As a result of all these circumstances, Germany has an infinitely more
numerous proletariat of scholars and artists than any other country, as
also a strong proletariat in the so-called liberal professions. This
proletariat is steadily on the increase, and carries the fermentation
and discontent with existing conditions into the higher strata of
society. This youth are roused and spurred to the criticism of the
existing order, and they materially aid in hastening the general work of
dissolution. Thus the existing condition of things is attacked and
undermined from all sides.

All these circumstances have contributed to cause the German Social
Democratic party to take a hand in the leadership of the giant struggle
of the future. It was German Socialists who discovered the motor laws of
modern society, and who scientifically demonstrated Socialism to be the
social form of the future. First of all Karl Marx and Frederick Engels;
next to them and firing the masses with his agitation, Ferdinand
Lassalle. Finally German Socialists are the chief pioneers of Socialist
thought among the workingmen of all nations.

Almost half a century ago--grounded on his studies of the German mind
and culture--Buckle could say that, although Germany had a large number
of the greatest thinkers, there was no country in which the chasm
between the class of the scholars and the mass of the population was as
wide. This is no longer true. It was so only so long as knowledge was
confined to learned circles that stood aloof from practical life. Since
Germany has been economically revolutionized, science was compelled to
render itself useful to practical life. Science itself became practical.
It was felt that science attained its full worth only when it became
applicable to human life; and the development of large capitalist
production compelled it thereto. All the tranches of science have been,
accordingly, strongly democratized during the last decades. The large
number of young men, educated for the higher professions, contributed to
carry science among the people; then also the general schooling, higher
to-day in Germany than in most European countries, facilitated the
popular reception of a mass of intellectual products. But above all, the
Socialist Movement--with its literature, its press, its unions and
meetings, its parliamentary representation, and finally the incessant
criticism thereby promoted on all the fields of public life--materially
raised the mental level of the masses.

The exclusion law against the Social Democratic party did not check this
current. It somewhat hemmed in the Movement, and slightly reduced its
tempo. But, on the other hand, it caused the roots of the Movement to
sink deeper, and aroused an intense bitterness against the ruling
classes and the government. The final abandonment of the exclusion law
was but the consequence of the progress made by the Social Democratic
party under that very law, together with the economic development of the
nation. And thus the Movement goes marching onward, as march it must
under existing conditions.

As in Germany, the Socialist Movement has made unexpected progress in
all European civilized nations, a fact eloquently attested to by the
International Congresses of Labor, which, with intervals of two or three
years, gather with ever increased representations.

Thus with the close of the nineteenth century the great battle of minds
is on in all the countries of civilization, and is conducted with fiery
enthusiasm. Along with social science, the wide field of the natural
sciences, hygiene, the history of civilization and even philosophy are
the arsenals from which the weapons are drawn. The foundations of
existing society are being assailed from all sides; heavy blows are
being dealt to its props. Revolutionary ideas penetrate conservative
circles and throw the ranks of our enemies into disorder. Artisans and
scholars, farmers, and artists, merchants and government employes, here
and there, even manufacturers and bankers, in short, men of all
conditions, are joining the ranks of the workingmen, who constitute the
bulk of the army, who combat for victory, and who will win it. All
support and mutually supplement one another.

To woman also in general, and as a female proletarian in particular, the
summons goes out not to remain behind in this struggle in which her
redemption and emancipation are at stake. It is for her to prove that
she has comprehended her true place in the Movement and in the struggles
of the present for a better future; and that she is resolved to join. It
is the part of the men to aid her in ridding herself of all
superstitions, and to step forward in their ranks. Let none underrate
his own powers, and imagine that the issue does not depend upon him.
None, be he the weakest, can be spared in the struggle for the progress
of the human race. The unremitting dropping of little drops hollows in
the end the hardest stone. Many drops make a brook, brooks make rivers,
many rivers a stream, until finally no obstacle is strong enough to
check it in its majestic flow. Just so with the career of mankind.
Everywhere Nature is our instructress. If all who feel the call put
their whole strength in this struggle, ultimate victory can not fail.

And this victory will be all the greater the more zealously and
self-sacrificingly each pursues the marked-out path. None may allow
himself to be troubled with misgivings whether, despite all sacrifices,
labor and pains he will live to see the beginning of the new and fairer
period of civilization, whether he will yet taste the fruit of victory;
least of all may such misgivings hold him back. We can foresee neither
the duration nor the nature of the several phases of development that
this struggle for the highest aims may traverse until final
victory,--any more than we have any certainty on the duration of our own
lives. Nevertheless, just as the pleasure in life rules us, so may we
foster the hope of witnessing this victory. Are we not in an age that
rushes forward, so to speak, with seven-mile boots, and therefore causes
all the foes of a new and better world to tremble?

Every day furnishes fresh proof of the rapid growth and spread of the
ideas that we represent. On all fields there is tumult and push. The
dawn of a fair day is drawing nigh with mighty stride. Let us then ever
battle and strive forward, unconcerned as to "where" and "when" the
boundary-posts of the new and better day for mankind will be raised. And
if, in the course of this great battle for the emancipation of the human
race, we should fall, those now in the rear will step forward; we shall
fall with the consciousness of having done our duty as human beings, and
with the conviction that the goal will be reached, however the powers
hostile to humanity may struggle or strain in resistance.


    OURS IS THE WORLD, DESPITE ALL;--THAT IS, FOR THE
                   WORKER AND FOR WOMAN.

                           FINIS.

FOOTNOTES:

[236] [Aside from the contradiction implied between this sentence and
that other, on page 247, in which the internationally overshadowing
economic development of the United States is admitted, the forecast,
though cautiously advanced, that Germany may take the lead in the
accomplishment of the pending Social Revolution, is justified neither by
her economic nor her social development, least of all by her geographic
location.

As to her economic development, Germany has made rapid and long strides
during the last twenty years; so rapid and so long that the progress has
caused the Socialists of Germany, in more instances than one, to
realize--and to say so--that, what with her own progress, and with
outside circumstances, Germany was distancing England economically. This
is true. But the same reason that argues, and correctly argues, the
economic scepter off the hands of England places it, not in those of
Germany, but in the hands of the United States.

As to her social development, Germany is almost half a revolutionary
cycle behind. Her own bourgeois revolution was but half achieved.
Without entering upon a long list of specifications, it is enough to
indicate the fact that Germany is still quite extensively feudal in
order to suggest to the mind robust feudal boulders, left untouched by
the capitalist revolution, and strewing, aye, obstructing the path of
the Socialist Movement in that country. The social phenomenon has been
seen of an oppressed class skipping an intermediary stage of vassalage,
and entering, at one bound, upon one higher up. It happened, for
instance, with our negroes here in America. Without first stepping off
at serfdom, they leaped from chattel slavery to wage slavery. What
happened once may happen again. But in the instance cited and all the
others that we can call to mind, it happened through outside
intervention. Can Germany perform the same feat alone, unaided? Do
events point in that direction? Or do they rather point in the direction
that the work, now being realized there as demanding immediate
attention, and alone possible and practicable, is the completion of the
capitalist revolution, first of all?

But even discounting both these objections--granting that both in point
of economic and of social development Germany were ripe for the
Socialist Revolution--her geographic location prevents her leadership.
No one single State of the forty-four of the Union, not even the Empire
State of New York, however ripe herself, could lead in the overthrow of
capitalist rule in America unless the bulk of her sister States were
themselves up to a certain minimum of ripeness. Contrariwise, any
attempt by even such a State would be promptly smothered. What is true
of any single State of the Union is true of any one country of Europe.
It is, therefore, true of Germany. Whatever doubt there be as to
Germany's ripeness, there can be none as to the utter unripeness of all
the other European countries with the single exceptions of France and
Belgium,--and surely none as to Russia, that ominous cloud to the East,
well styled the modern Macedon to the modern Greek States of the nations
of Western Europe. Though there is no "District of Columbia" in Europe,
the masses would be mobilized from the surrounding hives of the
Cimmerian Darkness of feudo-capitalism, and they would be marched
convergently with as much precision and despatch upon the venturesome
leader. And what is true as to Germany on this head is true of any other
European country. Facts and their relations to one another must be ever
kept in sight. 'Tis the only way to escape illusions--and their train of
troubles.

For the rest, not the sordid competitive spirit of the bourgeois world,
but that noble and ennobling emulation, cited by the Author in a
quotation from John Stuart Mill, animates the nations of the world that
are now racing towards the overthrow of capitalist domination. Surely
none will begrudge laurels due that one that shall be the first to scale
the ramparts of the international burg of capitalism, strike the first
blow, and give the signal for the final emancipation of the human
race.--THE TRANSLATOR.]

[237] The number of students at the German universities averaged as
follows per six months:


                  Protestant Catholic
  Quarter.         Theology. Theology. Law. Medicine. Philosophy. Total.

  1841-42--1846       2117     1027    3467   1943       3072     11626
  1846-47--1851       1798     1297    4061   1827       3046     12029
  1851-52--1856       1751     1300    4169   2291       2840     12351
  1861-62--1866       2437     1153    2867   2435       4392     13284
  1866-67--1871       2154      982    3011   2838       4626     13611
  1871-72--1876       1780      836    4121   3491       5896     16124
  1876-77--1881       1961      682    5134   3734       8057     19568
  1881-82--1886       3880      952    5034   6869       9123     25838
  1886-87             4546     1178    5239   8450       8666     27828
  1887                4803     1232    5505   8685       8424     28455
  1887-88             4632     1137    4810   8435       8450     28480
  1888                4835     1174    6106   8915       8204     29275
  1888-89             4642     1207    6304   8886       8255     29294


During the summer six months of 1893--notably the weaker of the two
seasons--the total number of students, exclusive of the University of
Brunswick, of which we had no returns, had risen to 31,976.
Unfortunately we had no like classification of the students, and are
hence prevented from inserting it in the above table.

The table shows that from 1841-2 to 1871 the number of students
increased little, and less than the population. From that date on the
increase was by leaps and bounds, until 1886-7; from this date on the
increase is again slow. From 1871 to 1888-9 the number of students
increased more than 116 per cent. It is an interesting fact that the
study of theology decreased steadily until 1881, but increased thereupon
all the quicker until it reached high-water mark in 1888. The reason was
that the excess of the supply for all the other posts increased in such
measure that it was difficult to secure a place. People then turned to
theology which had been neglected during the previous ten years.





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