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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/34267-h.zip b/34267-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a90ba01 --- /dev/null +++ b/34267-h.zip diff --git a/34267-h/34267-h.htm b/34267-h/34267-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c67f243 --- /dev/null +++ b/34267-h/34267-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2419 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Morality of Woman and Other Essays, by Ellen Key. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The Morality of Woman and Other Essays, by Ellen Key + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Morality of Woman and Other Essays + +Author: Ellen Key + +Translator: Mamah Bouton Borthwick + +Release Date: November 9, 2010 [EBook #34267] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MORALITY OF WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<h2>THE MORALITY OF WOMAN</h2> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h1>THE MORALITY OF<br /> +WOMAN<br /> +<br /> +<small>AND OTHER ESSAYS</small></h1> + +<h2><small>AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION FROM THE SWEDISH<br /> +<br /> +OF</small><br /> +<br /> +<big>ELLEN KEY</big><br /> +<br /> +<small>BY</small><br /> +<br /> +MAMAH BOUTON BORTHWICK</h2> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 292px;"> +<img src="images/ititle.jpg" width="292" height="448" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<h4>THE RALPH FLETCHER SEYMOUR CO.<br /> +FINE ARTS BUILDING<br /> +CHICAGO<br /> +</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h5> +COPYRIGHT, 1911<br /> +BY<br /> +THE RALPH FLETCHER SEYMOUR CO.<br /> +CHICAGO<br /> +</h5> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[ 3 ]</span></p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> +<tr><td align='left'>THE MORALITY OF WOMAN</td><td align='center'>page</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE WOMAN OF THE FUTURE</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE CONVENTIONAL WOMAN</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[ 4 ]</span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[ 5 ]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE MORALITY OF WOMAN</h2> + +<h4>(TRANSLATED FROM THE SWEDISH)</h4> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>"The law condemns to be hung those who +counterfeit banknotes; a measure necessary +for the public welfare. But he who counterfeits +love, that is to say: he who, for a +thousand other reasons but not for love, +unites himself to one whom he does not +love and creates thus a family circle +unworthy of that name—does not he +indeed commit a crime whose extent and +incalculable results in the present and in +the future, disseminate far more terrible +unhappiness than the counterfeiting of millions +of banknotes!"</i></p> + +<p style='text-align:right'><span class="smcap">C. J. L. Almquist.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The simplest formula for the +new conception of morality, +which is beginning to be +opposed to moral dogma still +esteemed by all society, but +especially by women, might be summed +up in these words:</p> + +<p>Love is moral even without legal marriage, +but marriage is immoral without +love.<span class='pagenum'>[ 6 ]</span></p> + +<p>The customary objection to this tenet +is that those who propose it forget all +other ethical duties and legitimate feelings +in order to make the sex relationship the +center of existence, and love the sole +decisive point of view in questions concerning +this relationship. But if we +except the struggle for existence—which +indeed must be called not a relationship of +life but a condition of life—what then +can be more central for man, than a condition +decreed by the laws of earthly life—the +cause of his own origin? Can one +imagine a moment which penetrates more +deeply his whole being?</p> + +<p>That many men live content without +the happiness of love, that others after +they attain it seek a new end for their +activity, proves nothing against the truth +of the experience that for men in general +the erotic relation between man and +woman becomes the deepest life determining +factor, whether negatively, because +they are deprived of this relation or +because they formed it unhappily; or positively, +because they have found therein the +fullness of life.<span class='pagenum'>[ 7 ]</span></p> + +<p>The depreciation for mankind of the +significance of the sex relation and of the +significance of love in the sex relation +brings into it all the immorality still +imposed by conventionalism as morality.</p> + +<p>We no longer consider, as in our +mother's youth, ignorance of the side of +life which concerns the propagation of the +race the essential condition of womanly +purity. But the conventional idea of +purity still maintains that the untouched +condition of the senses belongs to this conception. +And it would be right, if the +distinction were made between purity and +chastity. Purity is the new-fallen snow +which can be melted or sullied; chastity is +steel tempered in the fire by white heat. +For chastity is only developed together +with complete love; this not only excludes +equally all partition among several but +also makes a separation between the demands +of the heart and the senses impossible. +The essence of chastity is, according +to George Sand's profound words: "to +be able never to betray the soul with the +senses nor the senses with the soul" ("de<span class='pagenum'>[ 8 ]</span> +ne pouvoir jamais tromper ni l'ame avec +les sens ni les sens avec l'ame"). And as +absolute consecration is its distinctive +mark, so is it also its demand. This alone +is the chastity which must characterize +the family life and form in the future the +basis of foundation for the happiness of +the people.</p> + +<p>Literature was, therefore, wholly justified +when in the name of nature it +attacked the hyperidealistic subtlety +which raised the love of the heart to the +highest rank and made that of the senses +the lowest; and when it desired that the +woman should not only know what complete +love was but that she should also +when she loved desire that completeness.</p> + +<p>Because from time to time powerful +voices were raised, like George Sand's or +Almquist's, calling without consideration +not only that marriage immoral which was +consummated without mutual love but also +that marriage immoral which was continued +without mutual love—a purer consciousness +has awakened in questions +regarding the conditions of the genesis<span class='pagenum'>[ 9 ]</span> +of the unborn race and elevated the conditions +of the personal dignity of man and +woman. So eventually it will come to +pass that no finely sensitive woman will +become a mother except through mutual +love; that this motherhood sanctioned +legally or not so sanctioned shall be considered +the only true motherhood, and +every other motherhood untrue. Thus +will mankind awaken to such a feeling of +the "Sanctity of the generation," and to +such an understanding of the conditions of +the health, strength and beauty of the +race, that every marriage which has its +source in worldly or merely sensual +motives, or in reasons of prudence or in a +feeling of duty shall be considered as Almquist +calls it: "A criminal counterfeiting +of the highest values of life." And the +same criminal counterfeit obtains in every +married life which is continued under the +compulsion, the distaste or the resignation +of one of the two. Man will be penetrated +with the consciousness that the whole +ethical conception which now in and with +marriage gives to a husband or a wife<span class='pagenum'>[ 10 ]</span> +rights over the personality of the other, +is a crude survival of the lower periods of +culture; that everything which is exchanged +between husband and wife in +their life together, can only be the free gift +of love, can never be demanded by one or +the other as a right. Man will understand +that when one can no longer continue the +life in love then this life must cease; that +all vows binding forever the life of feeling +are a violence of one's personality, since +one cannot be held accountable for the +transformation of one's feeling. Even +though this new moral ideal should in the +beginning dissolve many untrue marriages +and thus cause much suffering, yet +all this suffering is necessary. It belongs +to the attainment of the new erotic ethics +which will uplift man and woman in that +sphere where now the spirit of slavery and +of obtuseness under a holy name degrade +them; where social convention sanctions +prostitution alongside monogamy, and +vouchsafes to the seducer but not to the +seduced, social esteem, calling the unmarried +woman ruined who in love has<span class='pagenum'>[ 11 ]</span> +become a mother, but the married woman +respectable who without love gives children +to the man who has bought her!</p> + +<p>The erotic-ethical consciousness of mankind +cannot be uplifted until the new idea +of morality with all its consequences is +clearly established.</p> + +<p>This ideal has two types of adversary. +One is the adherent of the conventional +morality; the other the supporter of the +transitory union to which the name of +"free love" is erroneously applied.</p> + +<p>Those of the first type demand quite the +same morality for the man as for the +woman. They assert that celibacy for +either sex brings with it serious difficulties. +They maintain that the social feeling +of duty, not mutual love, must be the +ground of conjugal fidelity. They call +"pure love" love untouched by all that +which they call "sensuality."</p> + +<p>These same moral dogmas in recent +years have manifested themselves in the +effort to quench all fire, whiten all burning +red coals, and drape all nudity in literature +and art. The supporters of this dogma<span class='pagenum'>[ 12 ]</span> +certainly understand—since, to begin at +the beginning they have surely glanced +into the Bible and Homer—that the +undertaking would be too vast were it to +extend to classic literature. But all the +more ardently they have directed their +zeal against modern literature and art. +And if they do not encounter energetic +opposition the fig leaf will soon among us +also attest the fall of taste and of the soul.</p> + +<p>"Free love" has also its fanatics who are +guilty of quite as crass excess. They have +no conception of soulful and true devotion, +which they consider an absurdity or a conventionality +under which human nature +cannot bow without hypocrisy. For since +experience shows that lifelong love is frequently +an illusion, so, they say, one must +not begin by expecting it! The so-called +Bohemians have shown as great monomania +in their rotation around this one +point, the right of the senses, as have the +zealots of traditional morality in their +rotation around their point, the suppression +of the senses. The extreme result of +both would be retrogression to a lower<span class='pagenum'>[ 13 ]</span> +degree of culture; in one case to the asceticism +of the Middle Ages, in the other to +the promiscuity of the savage. Both forget +the reality of life. On the one side +they ignore this reality in their absolute +demands without consideration of temperament +or circumstances; in their assertion +of the unqualified moral superiority of +woman and in depreciation of the significance +of love for the full harmony of man +and woman. On the other side they ignore +this reality when they try to make woman +as unrestrained morally as man has hitherto +been; when they forget all the suffering +of the new generation born and reared +in such an unrestrained existence; when +they learn nothing of the nature of woman +from the many younger and older women +who live solitary and yet sound and useful +lives in the deep conviction that, since +they have not found the great, mutual +love, which decides existence, any union +with a man would be degrading and +unhappy. Development has, because of +multifarious influences made entirety and +continuity in love a greater life necessity<span class='pagenum'>[ 14 ]</span> +for the woman of culture in general than +for the man of the same intellectual level. +A man, therefore, ordinarily dissolves an +erotic relation without bitterness when he +has ceased to love, while a woman, even +after her love has ceased, often suffers +because the relationship has not endured +a lifetime.</p> + +<p>It is this ever increasing peremptory +demand for erotic completeness of the +woman of developed individuality of the +present time, which causes her always to +wish to more fervently cherish the personality +of the man as entirely as it is her +happiness and her pride to be able to give +her own. It is this demand for entirety +which, among Germanic peoples, at least, +makes woman neither desirous nor psychologically +fitted for the so-called "free +love." This is evidently to be concluded +from the vicissitudes of those who have +tried it.</p> + +<p>"Free love" is moreover quite as senseless +an expression as "legal love." Because +no external command can call love into +being or repress it; it is in this sense<span class='pagenum'>[ 15 ]</span> +always free, yet as are all feelings, it is +bound by certain psychological laws. If +not, then it does not deserve the name of +love. It is with love as with the human +face: though the individual varieties are +infinite, yet there are certain general characteristic +features which make all these +different faces human faces, all these different +feelings human love. And in every +time there is a type for both, which is recognized +as nobler than the others.</p> + +<p>This noblest type of love has been portrayed +by a Danish writer,<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> who endeavored +to show that a conception of life +founded upon evolution need not lead to +laxity in sexual relations. He shows how +the erotic feeling, as all other feelings, has +been developed from an incoherent, indeterminate +and indefinite condition to one +more coherent, determinate and differentiated, +and so from a simple instinct for +reproduction of the species has been finally +<span class='pagenum'>[ 16 ]</span>transformed to an entirely personal, inner +love. The highest type of this love is that +which exists between a man and a woman +of the same moral and intellectual level; +which demands of necessity reciprocal +love in order to be perfected, and can +therefore be contented with no other kind +of reciprocal love than a corresponding +erotic love. This perfect love includes the +yearning desire of both lovers to become +entirely one being, to free each other and +to develop each other to the greatest perfection. +If love is perfected and consummated +thus by the life together, then can +it be given to only one and only once in a +lifetime. This thought of the Danish +writer is expressed with the concise brevity +of the poet, by Bjornson, when he says +of the sensation "feeling oneself doubled" +in the beloved one: "<i>That</i> is love, all else +is not love." This feeling which liberates, +conserves and deepens the personality, +which is the inspiration to noble deeds and +works of genius, is the opposite of the +ephemeral, merely sensual love, which +enslaves, dissipates and lessens the personality.<span class='pagenum'>[ 17 ]</span></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> See Viggo Drewsen: "En Livsanskuelse grundet +paa Elskow" ("A Conception of Life Founded upon +Love") and "Forholdet mellem Maud og Kvinde belyst +gjennem Udviklingshypothesen." ("The Relation between +Man and Woman in the Light of the Hypothesis +of Evolution.")</p></div> + +<p>It is only the great love which has a +higher right than all other feelings and +which can establish its right in a life.</p> + +<p>He who considers this love decisive for +the morality of such an erotic union cannot +believe that external ties are necessary +to give ethical value to this union. Social +considerations, prudence and feeling for +others can indeed in certain cases make +the legal bond desirable. But it can just +as little give increased consecration to real +love, as it can give any consecration whatever +to a relation in which this content is +lacking. And even if it would be too dogmatic +to establish just the highest type of +love as ethical norm for all relations +between man and woman, since life proves +that the highest love is still as rare as the +highest beauty, yet it is on the contrary +not premature to assert that this love, +legally sanctioned or not, is moral, and +that where it is lacking on either side, a +moral ground is furnished for the dissolution +of the relationship. The ever clearer +consciousness that love can dispense with +marriage yet marriage cannot dispense<span class='pagenum'>[ 18 ]</span> +with love, is already partially recognized +in modern society, by the facility of +divorce. And it is only a question of time +when the law which gives to one person +the power to constrain the other to remain +with him against his will, will be abrogated, +so contrary is this possibility to +that developed conception of the freedom +of love—which is not at all the same as +so-called "free love!"</p> + +<p>It is not historically true that it was, as +has been asserted, some certain conception +of morality, some certain form of concluding +or dissolving marriage which, in the +last analysis, has been a decisive factor in +the progress or decadence of peoples. +Among the Jews as among the Greeks, +among the Romans as among our Germanic +forefathers, at the most flourishing +period, there existed many laws and customs +which were considered moral that +the present time considers immoral. The +decisive thing for the sound life of these +peoples was, that that which they considered +right had sovereign power to bind +them: the faithfulness to the conception of<span class='pagenum'>[ 19 ]</span> +duty more than the content of conception +determines the moral soundness of a people. +Society is in danger, not when the +ideals are raised but when they are lost. +But a very highly developed historical +sense is necessary to see at the same time +the connection and the difference between +dissolution and reorganization. Moreover +it is necessary to have the large view +of the essentials of life which distinguishes +the true poet, the view which Sophocles +possessed when he let his Antigone follow +the higher law of affection and commit a +violation of the law which—according to +the conception of that time—would lead +to general license if it remained unpunished. +The new ideal of marriage is now +being formed in and through all the many +literary and personal dissensions in which +it constitutes the theme. Yes, it is formed +also in the midst of all the conflicts of life +for which marriage gives so much occasion. +It is true there are now married people +who separate because from the very beginning +they considered fidelity impossible +and so did not even strive for it. But<span class='pagenum'>[ 20 ]</span> +many other divorces have far more complex, +psychological reasons. When two +people are married young, personal development +takes often entirely opposite +directions; if they have married in more +mature years, then their individual differences, +already strongly marked from the +beginning, make the problem of common +life together difficult of solution. The +strongly developed sensibility of the modern +individual to disposition, nuances, +variations of humor, makes a lack of sympathy +still more unendurable; a true sympathy +a far greater source of joy. The +whole multiplicity of psycho-physical +influences and impressions which the +members of a family exercise upon one +another for pleasure and displeasure, sympathy +and variance, harmony and discord, +are now in all relationships, but above all +in marriage, felt with greatest intensity. It +is in those natures most individually developed, +most refined, for whom the nuances +of the married life, not its simple primal +colors, signify happiness or unhappiness.</p> + +<p>To this general delicacy of feeling there<span class='pagenum'>[ 21 ]</span> +is added especially the heightened sensibility +of woman to the discord between +that which she expected in marriage and +that which in reality it offered her, because +the union often lacked the freedom, the +understanding which her sympathetic +feeling now craves. This lack of harmony +is inevitable since the forms of marriage +have not even approximately undergone +the transformation which would correspond +to the individual development of the +two beings, of the woman especially, +whom it unites. But while all these reasons, +cursorily indicated here, contribute +their part in the increased number of +divorces, the life of finer feeling creates, +on the other hand, an ever more intimate +married life. There are married people +who have pledged each other at marriage +full freedom to dissolve the union when +either of them so wished, and others who +have never given legal form to their marriage +yet realize fully and richly love in +"sorrow and in joy," in sympathetic work +together, in reciprocal, true devotion. +There have been, on the other hand, cham<span class='pagenum'>[ 22 ]</span>pions +of so-called "free love" who were +themselves by nature such pronounced +believers in only one marriage that their +life was wrecked when the one to whom +they had bound themselves applied to their +own case their own theories. It is always +the character which ultimately decides. +Character can make the radical theorist a +moral paragon and the pillar of society +resting upon conservative ground a reed +of passion; it can make the advocate of +egoism sublimely devoted and the apostle +of Christianity deeply egoistic in his love.</p> + +<p>So many men, so many souls; so many +souls, so many destinies. And to wish to +apply to this whole, complex, manifold, +incalculable erotic life, with its unfathomable +depths, an immutable ethical standard, +when judging the relationship +between man and woman, and to make +this standard decisive also for the ethical +value of the personality in other respects—is +quite as naive as the attempt of a +child to draw up in his little bucket the +wonderful depth of the vast storm-driven +sea.<span class='pagenum'>[ 23 ]</span></p> + +<p>Love, as life, will fortunately remain an +eternal mystery which no science will be +able to penetrate and which reason cannot +rule. Our only hope for the future is that +man, endowed with a more delicate sense, +will listen to the secrets of his own life. A +more highly developed and differentiated +soul life will give him a surer instinct or a +keener power of analysis which will prevent +him from confounding a passing sentiment +of sympathy, need of tenderness or +satisfaction of vanity with a love which +decides existence. Now, on the contrary, +many believe that a wave of admiration, of +gratitude, or of pity is the whole sea; that +the reflection of the fire of another is the +holy fire itself!</p> + +<p>No one can with certainty predict the +final result of the profound revolution of +the feeling and of the customs which is +now taking place. But one thing appears +certain: the danger to the future of mankind +can scarcely be that the new ideal will +result in general license. Rather it will +lead to so individual, differentiated and +refined love that erotic happiness will be<span class='pagenum'>[ 24 ]</span> +increasingly difficult to find and the idealists +of love will more frequently prefer +celibacy to a compromise with their +greater demands for sympathetic love.</p> + +<p>The occasional experience, often only +the dream of such a love, sensible to the +finest shades of the soul, to the most delicate +vibrations of the senses—of a love +which is an all comprehensive tenderness, +an all embracing intimacy—has already +raised the erotic demands and the erotic +existence of thousands of men and women +to a sphere of more infinite longing, more +fervid chastity than that of their contemporaries. +It is this experience or this +dream which has already begun to assume +form in the art and literature of the present +time. It is true the extreme discord +between the peculiar character of man and +of woman has long been the favorite +theme, especially in modern literature. +But among the wild, discordant tones a +new leitmotiv resounds which will swell +and rise and fill the void with a harmony, +still but faintly divined.</p> + +<p>One of the conditions that this harmony<span class='pagenum'>[ 25 ]</span> +become as perfect as possible is that +woman in life as in literature shall begin +to be more honest and man more eager to +listen when she reveals to him something +of her own nature. Men have desired and +justly that women should learn from their +confessions in regard to the conflict +between man and woman. But woman +because of the conventional conception of +womanly purity has been intimidated +from conceding to man a deep insight +into her erotic life experiences.</p> + +<p>Only when women begin to tell the +truth about themselves will literature universally +illuminate the still unknown +depths of woman's erotic temperament. +To the present time it has been almost +exclusively men poets who have made +revelations about women. The nearer +these poets have approached life, the more +surely have they seen the highest expression +of the eternal feminine as the great +women poets also saw it: in erotic love +and in mother love. And it was the completeness +of her consecration which was +in their eyes a woman's supreme chastity.<span class='pagenum'>[ 26 ]</span></p> + +<p>It is the great poets who have taught +and have continued to teach youth to +revere the "all powerful Eros."</p> + +<p>This is the only "morality" which has a +future. Only by conforming to this shall +we gradually succeed in preventing the +erotic feeling from appearing sometimes +as a brutal instinct or marriage from being +founded upon a fleeting attraction.</p> + +<p>An ideal of negative purity—even +incarnated in the person of Jesus—cannot +inflame youth and therefore cannot in +the long run protect him. That alone +which has the power not only to restrain +but also to transform the brutal instinct +is a conception of the existence of a higher +feeling which belongs to the same sphere +of life as the instinct itself.</p> + +<p>To burn the ideal of a great love into +the soul of youth in letters of fire—that is +to give him a real moral strength. Thus +there springs up in man the ineradicable, +invincible instinct that an erotic relation +can exist only as the expression of a reciprocal +all comprehensive love. Thus will +youth learn to consider the love-marriage<span class='pagenum'>[ 27 ]</span> +as the central life relation, the center of +life, and he will be inflamed with the desire +to develop and to conserve body and soul +for the entrance into this most holy thing +in nature, wherein man and woman find +their happiness in creating a new race for +happiness. Thus will young men and +women in increasing numbers understand +that their own happiness, as well as that +of the coming generation will be the +greater the more completely they can give +their personality to love. Boys and girls, +young men and maidens, men and women +by coeducation, by joint labor and comradeship +will develop in one another that +mutual understanding which will remove +the enmity between the sexes, in which +modern individualization—and the therewith +increasing demands of the personality—has +so far found its expression.</p> + +<p>The usages of individual homes will +be differentiated, instead of as now maintaining +the same conventional forms for +all families. After some generations so +educated, under the influence of relationships +thus arranged, we shall see mar<span class='pagenum'>[ 28 ]</span>riages +such as even now not a few are seen, +in which not observation of a duty but liberty +itself is the pledge that assures fidelity. +Then will love be cherished as the +most delicate, most precious thing in life; +then will egoism and unselfishness attain +a perfect harmony, because the husband +and wife find happiness only in assuring +the happiness of the other. That is the +union which the Norwegian poet defines +when he calls true marriage "a yearning +quest after each other, an energetic cultivation, +assertion of the personality, in +order to be able to give one's personality; +an ever increasing intimacy of understanding +of each other; a union which the +whole course of life will make more profound."</p> + +<p>So prepared, the absolute human ideal +will become perhaps a living reality; not +as an isolated man, not as an isolated +woman, but as a man and a woman who +shall give to mankind a new religion—that +of happiness.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Many indeed still doubt that marriage<span class='pagenum'>[ 29 ]</span> +can become this highest form of existence +in life, in which the surrender of the ego +and the self-seeking of the ego reach a perfect +harmony. It is asserted that this ideal +condition can be attained perhaps by +exceptional people, but never by ordinary +people, and that the morality of the latter +can be kept sound only by legal and social +restraint.</p> + +<p>My belief, however, is that, just as the +Children of Israel followed the pillar of +fire, so ordinary men follow at a distance +exceptional men, and in this way mankind +as a whole advances. Ordinary men are +just now determined upon certain conceptions +which at the end of the previous century +were not conclusive even for exceptional +people. The marriage of reason, +for example, is already considered ignoble +by many. The authority of the parents +is very seldom in evidence either to coerce +the children into a marriage without love +or to restrain them from it. Even the +superficial erotic emotion of our day is +serious in comparison with the shallow +and frivolous or vulgar and cruel gallantry<span class='pagenum'>[ 30 ]</span> +of the eighteenth century. In the geological +deposits of legislation and still more +in those of literature we can study these +risings of the levels of the erotic sentiments. +So we are thereby convinced that +the demands and conflicts of the exceptional +men become gradually those of the +ordinary men also, even though the ordinary +men are always some generations +behind the men who are stirred by new +emotions, new conflicts, when the many +have reached the problems which some +decades before occupied only the few.</p> + +<p>Certainly it may, under present imperfect +conditions, often be a duty not to +destroy the outward form of marriage for +the sake of the children. But by no means +can this duty be preached as universally +binding. Only the individual himself can +in each separate case determine the dissolution +best, both for the children and for +the married couple themselves, of a marriage +which has fallen asunder within. +When we consider the development in its +entirety, the sooner people cease to sanction +the present marriage the more fortu<span class='pagenum'>[ 31 ]</span>nate +it will be; for the sooner will the +transformation be forced upon us by +which marriage will maintain its permanence +only from within. Only then will +man be wholly able to have the experiences +and to find the new, delicate means +by which fidelity can be strengthened and +happiness assured. But man will not seek +this expedient so long as he can rely upon +the power of legal right and social opinion +to hold together that which love does not +unify.</p> + +<p>The ever increasing individualization of +love indicates that mono-marriage will +doubtless remain the form of erotic union +between man and woman. But this rule +will have, in the future, as in the past, +many exceptions, since the feelings can +change. The conflicts which will thus +arise will bring suffering as a consequence, +but not the bitterness nor the contention +which the property sense in marriage now +so often occasions. The deep consciousness +that love belongs not to the sphere of +duty but only to that of freedom will cause +the one who has lost the love of the other<span class='pagenum'>[ 32 ]</span> +to feel the same resignation before the +inevitable, as if he were separated from +the other by death.</p> + +<p>And in cases where the individual is not +capable of this resignation, then the law as +well as custom shall make it impossible +for the one to hold back the other against +his will. Each of the twain shall be master +of his own person and of his property, +of his work and of his mode of life; the +union shall in each especial case be +arranged by the agreement of the individuals, +and the law shall decide only the +rights and duties of the husband and wife +in regard to the children.</p> + +<p>When in this way it shall come to pass +that neither the husband nor wife shall +have in outward sense, in external things, +anything to gain or to lose by the consummation +or dissolution of marriage, then +only the erotic problem appears in all its +seriousness.</p> + +<p>Many mistakes, many caricatures, many +tragic failures will naturally be the result +of freedom. Great waves have great +combers. A new principle cannot be put<span class='pagenum'>[ 33 ]</span> +into effect without bringing with it new +mistakes. But we may, however, be convinced +that the laws of life—to which +belongs the law that suffering follows the +misuse of freedom—will finally be able +to bring everything within its right limits. +Nothing indeed has occasioned more suffering +as an indirect consequence than +Christianity, and although Jesus knew +that, yet he did not hesitate to give to +mankind this new creative force which +destroyed in order to create. But it is +above all His ideality which His present +followers lack, the great ideality which +dares to believe in the might of the spirit +rather than that of the form.</p> + +<p>It is, therefore, quite natural that these +Christians, the upholders of society, +oppose the new ideal of morality with vain +apprehensions. They believe that a +woman whose conscious aim is "Self-assertion +in self-surrender" will forfeit the +immediate, fresh originality in this surrender. +They believe marriage must be +destroyed when the support of its development +is no longer bond and injunction,<span class='pagenum'>[ 34 ]</span> +but is its own vital force. They believe +morality will lose in the struggle if youth +learns to consider the love between man +and woman as the central condition of +life. These, and a hundred similar apprehensions +have all one and the same source.</p> + +<p>This source is the Christian conception +of life which has displaced the great, +sound, strong conviction of antiquity of +the holiness of nature. Mary was the +"Virgin Mother;" Jesus, celibate. Paul +regarded marriage as the lesser of two +evils. Thus man first learned to regard +the unmarried state as the higher and the +married as the lower state. The result of +the Christian conception of life then was +that the sex relation was regarded in and +for itself as unholy, human nature in and +for itself as base and the earthly demand +for happiness as the greatest egotism.</p> + +<p>Therefore the Christian conception of +life is now, since it has accomplished its +great task of culture, the development of +altruism—an obstacle to the unified conception +out of which the happiness of mankind +will finally develop.<span class='pagenum'>[ 35 ]</span></p> + +<p>No one who thinks or feels deeply +dreams that this happiness can be easily +achieved. The consistent belief of monism +in human nature can only gradually +leaven life. And until then suffering will +be for the majority the first result of freedom. +Even for the few, to whom the relationships +have already given happiness, +must this be incomplete in the measure in +which they feel sympathy with all the suffering +about them. But above all is happiness +rare because the genius for happiness +is still so rare, is indeed on the whole +the rarest genius. To possess it means to +approach life with the humility of a beggar, +but to treat it with the proud generosity +of a prince; to bring to its totality +the deep understanding of a great poet +and to each of its moments the abandonment +and ingenuousness of a child; it +means to be able to enjoy wholly each +present, immediate, joy and yet to be able +to give up the incidental joy for the enduring +one.</p> + +<p>Happiness lies so far from man; but he +must begin by daring to will it. It is this<span class='pagenum'>[ 36 ]</span> +courage which Christianity broke down +when it directed the soul from the earth to +eternity and gave to renunciation the +highest place among ethical values. +Through the <i>Revaluation of all Values</i>, +which is now going on, happiness will +receive this Place.</p> + +<p>He who contends for the deepest of all +ideas, Spinosa's idea, that "Joy is perfection," +contends with certainty of victory, +however solitary he may stand, however +much of his heart's blood may be shed in +the strife.</p> + +<p>We live still in our inmost soul only +by that for which we die. And all for +which we have died will live when the time +shall come in which all we ourselves have +suffered signifies nothing for us, yet that +for which we have suffered signifies everything +for others.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[ 37 ]</span></p> +<h3>THE WOMAN OF THE FUTURE</h3> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[ 38 ]</span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[ 39 ]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE WOMAN OF THE FUTURE</h2> + + +<p>There are phrases which +charm like a song, and one of +these phrases is: "The Woman +of the Future."</p> + +<p>This sings for me in the +verse of a poet and a seer, whose name +now shines with the radiance of the morning +star, although during his lifetime it +was sullied with defamation as that of an +atheist and destroyer of society—because +the luminous path of his thoughts appeared +to the prejudices of his contemporaries as +a blinding flash of lightning. His poet's +vision revealed to him a new time in which +women would be</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"... frank, beautiful and kind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the free heaven, which rains fresh light and dew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the wide earth<span class='pagenum'>[ 40 ]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">From custom's evil taint exempt and pure;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Speaking the wisdom once they could not think,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Looking emotions once they feared to feel,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And changed to all which once they dared not be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet being now, made earth like heaven."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This beautiful profile of the woman of +the future, which Shelley has traced, floats +before me when I attempt here to draw +her portrait in more precise outlines.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The storm and stress period of woman +and the new social and psychological formations +thereby entailed must, indeed, +extend far into the twentieth century. +This period of conflict will cease only +when woman within and out of marriage +shall have received legal equality with +man. It will cease when such a transformation +of society shall have come to pass +that the present rivalry between the sexes +shall be ended in a manner advantageous +to both and when finally the work of earning +a livelihood as well as care of the +household shall have received such form<span class='pagenum'>[ 41 ]</span> +that it will weigh less heavily than now +upon the woman.</p> + +<p>Toward the end of the twentieth century +only could the type of the nineteenth +century woman have reached its culmination +and a new type of woman begin to +appear.</p> + +<p>My ideal picture of the woman of the +future, and when one paints an ideal one +does not need to limit one's imagination, is +that she will be a being of profound contrasts +which have attained harmony. She +will appear as a great multiplicity and a +complete unity; a rich plenitude and a perfect +simplicity; a thoroughly educated +creature of culture and an original spontaneous +nature; a strongly marked human +individuality and a complete manifestation +of most profound womanliness. This +woman will understand the spirit of a +scientific work, of an exact search after +truth, of free, independent thought, of +artistic creation. She will comprehend +the necessity of the laws of nature and of +the progress of evolution; she will possess +the feeling of solidarity and regard for the<span class='pagenum'>[ 42 ]</span> +interests of society. Because she will +know more and think more clearly than +the woman of the present, she will be more +just; because she will be stronger, she will +be better; because she will be wiser, she +will be also more gentle. She will be able +to see things in the ensemble and in their +connection with each other; she will lose +thereby certain prejudices which are still +called virtues. Nevertheless she will +remain the one who forms customs. But +she will not seek her support in social convention; +she will find it in the laws of her +own being. She will have the courage to +think her own thoughts and to investigate +the new thoughts of her time. She will +dare to experience and to acknowledge feelings +which she now suppresses or conceals. +Her full liberty of action and the +complete development of her personality +will render possible intrepid efforts for +life, an energetic striving after an existence +which shall conform to her own ego. +And such an existence she will be able also +to find with surer instinct than now. She +will understand how to work with more<span class='pagenum'>[ 43 ]</span> +intensity, to rest with more intensity and +with more intensity to delight in all immediate, +simple sources of joy than the +woman of the present is able to do. Thus +in the new woman the feeling of life will +be enhanced, her experience will be more +profound; her soul life, her demands for +beauty, her senses will be more developed +and refined. She will be more sensitive, +more delicately vibratory; she will therefore +be able to be more profoundly happy +and also to suffer more keenly than the +woman of our time.</p> + +<p>Thus the woman of the twentieth century +will give new value to the life of +society and to art, to science and to literature. +But her greatest cultural significance +remains, however, by means of the +enigmatic, the instinctive, the intuitive +and the impulsive in her own being to protect +mankind from the dangers of excessive +culture. In face of knowledge she will +maintain the rights of the unknowable; in +face of logic, feeling; in face of reality, +possibilities; and in face of analysis, intuition. +Woman will above all further the<span class='pagenum'>[ 44 ]</span> +growth of the soul, man that of the intelligence; +she will extend the sphere of intuition, +he that of reason; she will realize +tenderness, he justice; she will triumph by +audacity, he by courage.</p> + +<p>The woman of the future will not only +have learned much, she will also have forgotten +much—especially the feminine as +well as anti-feminine follies of the present +time.</p> + +<p>With her whole being she will desire the +happiness of love. She will be chaste, not +because she is cold, but because she is passionate. +She will be reserved, not because +she is bloodless but because she is full +blooded. She will be soulful and therefore +she will be sensuous; she will be proud and +therefore she will be true. She will demand +a great love, because she herself can give +a still greater. The erotic problem, because +of her refined idealism, will be extremely +complicated and often almost insoluble. +Therefore the happiness which she will +give and experience will be richer, more +profound and enduring than anything +which up to the present time has been<span class='pagenum'>[ 45 ]</span> +called happiness. Many traits which +belong to the wife and mother of today +will probably be lacking in the woman of +the future. She will remain always the +beloved, the sweetheart, and only so will +she become a mother. She will devote +her finest and strongest forces to the difficult +and beautiful art of being at the same +time the beloved and the mother; her +religious cult will be to create the supreme +happiness of life. Because she will know +and value the psychical and physical conditions +of health and beauty she will +choose the father of her children with +clearer vision and deeper feeling of responsibility +than at present; she will bear and +rear sound and beautiful beings and she +herself will possess greater attraction and +longer youth than the woman of the present. +She will charm all her life, because she +will always beautify existence. But she +will please only because, at every age, she +will be wholly herself; and her imperishable +youth, her most perfect beauty, she +will reveal solely to him whom she loves. +She will know that the charm of the soul<span class='pagenum'>[ 46 ]</span> +is the most profound; and out of the plenitude +of her being she will create the eternal +renewal of this charm, always unexpected +and in infinitely nuanced expressions +of her personal grace. By her mere +presence she will remove the constraint +of form and custom and will create varying +expressions, elevated by her own +nobility, for the family life, the public life +and for society. She will probably speak +less than the woman of the present time, +but her silence and her smile will be more +eloquent. She will give herself always +directly and always with moderation, different +and always constant, spontaneous +and always exquisite. Her being will pour +forth, brimming free and fresh, like the +surge of the mountain torrent, but like +this, dominated by a certain inner rhythm. +However far she allows herself to go—in +ecstasy of joy, in passion of tenderness, in +delirium of happiness or in the frenzy of +grief—yet she will never lose herself. +She will be a multiplicity of women and +yet always one, whether she plays and +smiles or suffers and smiles; whether she +beams with health or bleeds with mortal<span class='pagenum'>[ 47 ]</span> +wounds; whether she be imbued with and +radiate repose or nervous intensity, joy or +tears, sun or night, coolness or ardor.</p> + +<p>The woman of the future exists already +in man's dreams of women, and woman +fashions herself according to the dreams +of man. The modern man's ideal of +woman is not the masculine woman, but +the revelation of the "eternal feminine" +developed in all directions. This new type +of woman has already gleamed forth here +and there, not only in our time but in centuries +passed. In the Middle Ages she +wrote the letters of Heloise; in the Renaissance, +Leonardo painted her as Mona +Lisa; and in the eighteenth century she +held the salon of Mlle. Lespinasse. In our +century she wrote the love sonnets of +Elizabeth Barrett Browning; she appeared +upon the stage as Eleonora Duse—and +as in a precious stone her being is crystallized +by the poet's words with which +Rahel's personality was epitomized: "calm +yet emotionally vivid."<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> +Footnote from French translation:—The reference +here is to Rahel de Varnhagen. The citation is taken +from the "Hyperion" of Holderlin, a German poet of +whom mention is made apropos of Nietzsche, upon +whom he had great influence.</p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[ 48 ]</span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[ 49 ]</span></p> +<h3>THE CONVENTIONAL WOMAN</h3> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[ 50 ]</span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[ 51 ]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE CONVENTIONAL WOMAN</h2> + + +<p>Conventionality is the +tacit agreement to set appearance +before reality, form +before content, subordination +before principal. Its +field in certain measure is "vogue" changing +according to the idea of beauty of each +new season. In deeper sense, however, a +part of the sphere of conventionality coincides +always with that of law and custom, +and with the conception of the amount of +self-control and self-sacrifice which every +individual must impose upon himself for +the common life with others. The further +the evolution of humanity advances, the +fewer are the fields to which the power of +society over the thought, belief, mode of +life and manner of work of the individual +is restricted. More and more prevalent<span class='pagenum'>[ 52 ]</span> +becomes the conviction that all those +forms of expression of the individual +which do not interfere with the rights of +others must be free. A great part of the +work of culture of each new generation +has consisted and still consists in clearing +away great masses of conceptions of +right dried up into conventionalism, dead +rubbish which prevents the new germs +from sprouting. In every period strong +voices are heard which desire freedom +from the prevailing customs, and right +of choice for the individual conscience +and temperament. In this ever-continuous +struggle it is important to distinguish +what are really still living conceptions of +right from factitious conceptions, which +form only a conventional obstacle to a +more beautiful freedom, a deeper truth, a +greater originality, a richer life content.</p> + +<p>Yet it is not only old conventionalism +which needs to be rooted out. In every +faction, in every social circle are soon +formed lifeless collections of prejudices, +paltry motives, dependent customs. It is +always the women among whom conven<span class='pagenum'>[ 53 ]</span>tionalism +reaches its acme. For conservatism, +that deep significant instinct of +woman, becomes also often a prop of conventionality. +Women are as yet seldom +sufficiently developed personally to distinguish, +in that which they wish to cherish, +the appearance from the reality, the +form from the content; or if they do distinguish, +they have as yet rarely the courage +to choose the content and reality if +the majority have declared for form and +appearance!</p> + +<p>In the literature of the last ten years and +in part also among women there prevails, +however, a strong opposition to conventionality. +This opposition has been directed +especially against the archaic ideal +of woman, according to which renunciation +is still considered the highest attribute +of woman; and against the antiquated +conception of morality which regarded +love without marriage as immoral, but any +marriage, even without love, as moral.</p> + +<p>The women who adopted the new ideal—which +a Norwegian poet strikingly defined +as "Self-assertion in self-surrender." +<span class='pagenum'>[ 54 ]</span>"Affirmation of self in giving of self"—encounter +now on the part of the modern +woman's-rights advocates the same kind +of conventional objection as in the fifties +and sixties was directed against the then +new ideal of the earlier woman movement.</p> + +<p>The older emancipation movement advanced +along the first line in the effort to +establish the right of woman as a human +being; that is, to give to woman the same +rights as to man. The present movement +purposes to assert the right of woman as +an individuality; the absolute right to believe, +to feel, to think and to act in her own +way, if it does not interfere with the rights +of others. Since the first end was a general +one, the movement could in great +part be made effective by collective work +in attaining that end; the exposition of +the independence of the individuality of +woman, on the contrary, must be the personal +concern of each single individual. +This those women do not understand who +still are working ever for the first end—the +rights of woman as a human being. +They do not understand that every woman<span class='pagenum'>[ 55 ]</span> +must receive, not merely her universal +rights, as a member of the body politic, +but also her entire individual rights as the +possessor of a definite personality. The +right to establish an ego independent of, +and perhaps entirely at variance with, theories +and ideals is at heart the point of +struggle between the one or the other individual +woman and the women representatives +of the earlier era of the woman question.</p> + +<p>The discovery that each personality is +a new world—which in Shakespeare +found its Columbus, a Columbus after +whom new mariners immediately undertook +new conquests—this discovery of +literature has as yet only partially penetrated +the universal consciousness, as a +truth of experience. But the fact that it +has made a beginning, that the conventional, +inflexible conception of the nature +of man and of the problems resulting +therefrom is giving place to a relative and +individual conception—this is above all +to be ascribed to the thinkers and poets, +in whom the conventional has its deadliest<span class='pagenum'>[ 56 ]</span> +foe; the recreative poets whose characteristic +is deep appreciation of all primal +forces of existence, of all essential elements +of life. For although conventionalism +in the form of the echo springs up +also around genius, yet the creative genius +itself is always a protest against conventionality +in which any selfjustified life or +art—conception has perished.</p> + +<p>The poet who here in the North shattered +with a blow the archaic conventional +ideal of woman who sacrificed herself in +all circumstances, was Ibsen when he sent +Nora out away from her husband and +children in order to fulfill the duties +toward herself; when by means of +"Ghosts" he etched into the moral consciousness +the idea that a woman's fidelity +to her own personality is more significant +for the welfare of others as well as of herself +than her fidelity to conventional conceptions +of morality.</p> + +<p>And Ibsen has always been the annunciator +of the freedom under one's own responsibility +which is the key to individualism. +Long has man listened, only in<span class='pagenum'>[ 57 ]</span> +part has he understood. And no consciousness +is in this respect more hermetically +sealed than that of certain woman's +rights advocates! That all women should +have the same rights as men, this is all +that they mean in their talk about the freeing +of the woman's personality. They +forget that the right to be what she wishes +entails often for the woman, as for the +man, the obligation to suppress that which +she really is by nature and feeling. They +forget that the personality has deeper +claims than the right to work. They overlook +the infinite variety of shades of feeling, +thought and character which caused +the demand of solidarity in opinions and +actions, among the women active in the +woman question, to degenerate into suppression +of woman's individuality. Certainly +it is true that united action is still +necessary in order that woman may obtain +the rights which she still lacks. But +all compulsory mobilized action is here +more dangerous than elsewhere; because +for the advance of the woman question in +the deepest sense it is essential precisely<span class='pagenum'>[ 58 ]</span> +that the different feminine individualities +show their useful faculties as freely as +possible in the different fields of activity.</p> + +<p>The conventionality which is a menace +in the woman question betrays itself, not +only in exaggerated demands for solidarity, +but also in the mode of treating the +objections of the opposition. It reveals +itself in the lack of comprehension of the +fact that the woman question, particularly +in what concerns the labor field, now intersects +on all sides the path of the social +question. It especially evinces itself in the +inability to understand how the woman +question, as it advances in its evolution, +becomes more complex, and how thereby, +ever greater difficulties arise in taking an +absolute position in the questions connected +with it.</p> + +<p>It is necessary that woman's opportunities +for culture be multiplied. But do +all these measures of culture develop also +the personality? Have we not met the +finest, most original, most charming +natures among unlettered dames of seventy +and eighty years, or among such<span class='pagenum'>[ 59 ]</span> +women as never had a systematic education? +It is right that the wages of women +should be increased; but will the labor +value of women increase in proportion? +Can we even desire that the majority of +these women bent over their desks shall +devote a live interest to their work, when +their sole essential being would first find +expression only when bent over a cradle? +It is well also for girls of wealth to wish +to have a vocation. But is it also good if +they, because they can be satisfied with a +smaller wage, take away the work from +poor girls and men, often more competent, +who have to live entirely by the +fruits of their work, and must therefore +demand larger wages?</p> + +<p>So long as these and many other questions +remain unanswered, there is today +quite as much that is conventional in rejoicing +unreservedly over the many girls +who become students or leave the home, +where they are very much needed, for outside +work, as there was in our grandmother's +time in wishing to limit the province +of woman to the kitchen, the nursery and +the drawing room.<span class='pagenum'>[ 60 ]</span></p> + +<p>It is not yet known whether woman, +through the competition for bread, will +develop physiologically and psychologically +to greater health and harmony. +Woman is a new subject for research, and +only centuries of full freedom in choice +of labor and in personal development can +furnish material for well grounded conclusions. +Many signs, however, point to +this:—that an ineffaceable, deep-rooted +psychological difference due to physical +peculiarities will always exist between +man and woman, which probably will always +keep her by preference active in the +sphere of the family, while he probably +will remain active in other spheres of culture. +But with a perfect equality with +man and a full personal development, +woman can have a significance for culture +in its entirety and for the direction of society +which we can still scarcely divine.</p> + +<p>The conventional points of view, just +mentioned in considering the woman +question, retard the development of +woman's individuality above all because +they overlook the diversity of nature and<span class='pagenum'>[ 61 ]</span> +the complexity of the problem. The conventional +conception of self-renunciation +as the highest expression of womanhood +is still continually the greatest obstacle to +the achievement of woman's personality. +To be able to perish for a loved being with +joy is one of the beautiful inalienable priviliges +of woman nature. But by considering +this under all circumstances as ideal, +woman has thus retarded not only her +own development but also that of man. +If we compare marriages of older generations +with those of the younger, the men +of the latter show great advance in regard +to considerate tenderness and sympathetic +understanding toward their wives—wives +who have on the other hand a personal +life more complete and with other +demands than formerly. Both have thus +gained since women have begun to practice +the self-renunciation of self-assertion! +Because for every self-sacrificing woman +nature it is infinitely harder to take her +due than to sacrifice it.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Conventional womanhood will ever<span class='pagenum'>[ 62 ]</span> +have its strongest support in education.</p> + +<p>The individuality of a child is seldom +repressed in the inconsiderate and brutal +manner of former times. But by attrition +it is effaced. In the olden times the children +enjoyed a certain freedom in the +nursery where the expression of life, manifestation +of joy, pleasure and displeasure, +sympathy and antipathy of the growing +personality was not continually moderated. +Now the children are continually +with the parents and these accustom them +to a certain exacting restraint. The children +wish to be entertained; they cannot +play of their own initiative, for they lose +the desire that originates in the freedom +of the creative phantasy. Neither children +nor parents possess themselves in +peace. In the continual association the +children are worn out by commands so +varied and numerous that obedience cannot +be maintained. They do not, therefore, +learn the discipline necessary for the +development of their personality—to +subordinate the unessential life expressions +to the essential and to dominate even<span class='pagenum'>[ 63 ]</span> +over these last—a culture of the fallow +child ground which must begin early in +order to become a second nature.</p> + +<p>And this happens only when the educator +knows clearly what he will adhere +to as essential in the development of the +child, and when according to that he establishes +his commands and prohibitions, +which must be few in number but as immutable +as the laws of nature, and if +violated must bring upon the child, not +artificial punishment, but the inevitable +results of the act itself. So can man by +fixed practice form the child of nature into +a man of culture, who out of consideration +for himself and for others curbs his tendencies +which are inimical to society, +without, however, suppressing his personality. +For outside the field of immutable +laws, children ought not to be constrained +or coerced against their nature and their +disposition, against their healthy egoism +and against their especial tastes.</p> + +<p>Now many mothers by their own effacement +of self develop an unjustified egoism +of the child, but desire in other respects a<span class='pagenum'>[ 64 ]</span> +self-control, a circumspection, a moderation +and discretion such as a whole life +has not ordinarily been able to inculcate +in the mother herself. Out of this soft +clay, which is material for an individuality, +parents, servants and teachers mold a +society being, sometimes a social being, +but never a human being.</p> + +<p>This modeling is called education. And +a part of the earliest education must, as I +have just shown, truly consist in that of +molding. But after the first years of life +the aim of education should be to prevent +all molding and on the contrary to assure +the freedom or development of the single +force which, considered in the light of the +whole, makes it significant for mankind +that new generations succeed those which +have disappeared—the force of a new +personality.</p> + +<p>Every child is a new world, a world into +which not even the tenderest love can +wholly penetrate. However openly the +clear eyes meet ours, however confidingly +the soft hand is laid in ours, this tender +being will perhaps one day deplore the<span class='pagenum'>[ 65 ]</span> +suffering of his childhood, because we +treated him according to the assumption +that children are replicas, not originals; +not new, wonderful personalities. It is +true the child in certain measure is a repetition +of the child nature of all times, but +at the same time, and this in a far higher +degree, an absolutely new synthesis of +soul qualities, with new possibilities for +sorrow and joy, strength and weakness.</p> + +<p>This new being will, upon his own responsibility, +at his own risk, live this terrifyingly +earnest life. What creative force, +new inceptions, he will be able to bring to +it; what elasticity he will possess under +the blows of destiny, what power to give +and to receive happiness—all depends, +outside of nature itself, in essential degree +upon the educator's method of treating +this individual child nature.</p> + +<p>Goethe long ago lamented that education +aspired to make Philistines out of +personalities. And this is now much +worse since education has become pedagogical, +without at the same time becoming +psychological.<span class='pagenum'>[ 66 ]</span></p> + +<p>Only he who treats the feelings, will +and rights of a child with quite the same +consideration as those of a grown person, +and who never allows the personality of a +child to feel other limitations than those +of nature itself, or the consideration, based +upon good grounds, for the child's own +welfare or that of others—only he possesses +the first requisite principle of real +education. Education must assuredly be +a liberating of the personality from the +domination of its own passions. But it +must never strive to exterminate passion +itself, which is the innermost power of the +personality and which cannot exist without +the coexisting danger of a corresponding +fault. To subdue the possible fault in +each spiritual inclination by eliciting +through love the corresponding good in +the same inclination—this alone is individual +education. It is an extremely slow +education, in which immediate interference +signifies little, the spiritual atmosphere +of the home, its mode of life and +its ideals signify on the contrary almost +everything. The educator must above all<span class='pagenum'>[ 67 ]</span> +understand how to wait: to reckon all effects +in the light of the future, not of the +present.</p> + +<p>The educator believes often that he +spares the child future suffering when he +"opposes his onesidedness," as it is called. +He does not reflect that in the effort to +force the child in a direction contrary to +that in which his personality evinces itself, +he merely succeeds in diminishing his nature; +yes, often merely in retaining the +weakness in the quality, not the corresponding +strength!</p> + +<p>But ordinarily it is indeed no such principle, +but only the old thoughtlessly maintained +ideal of self-renunciation which is +decisive. We repress the child's joy of +discovery and check the spirit of enterprise; +wound his extremely sensitive sense +of beauty; exercise force over his most +personal possessions, his tokens of tenderness; +combat his aversions and quench +his enthusiasm. Amid such attacks upon +their individual being, their feelings and +their inclinations most children, but especially +girls, grow up. It is therefore not<span class='pagenum'>[ 68 ]</span> +surprising that when grown they seldom +look back upon their childhood as a happy +time.</p> + +<p>An intense feeling of life, a sense of +plenitude, entirety, of the complete development +of the powers of the potentialities—this +constitutes happiness. Children +have more possibilities of happiness than +adults, for they can experience this feeling +of joy of life more undividedly and immediately. +They should utilize these possibilities +of happiness while the parents have +partial power over their life. Soon enough +must they on their own initiative attempt, +accomplish, bleed; and herein no one of +all the influences of education has even +approximately the significance of this: +that the individual be not overtrained, +that he have still strength enough to live. +That means: to suffer his own sorrow, to +enjoy his own happiness, to perform his +own work, to think his own thoughts, to +be able to devote himself absolutely and +entirely—the sole condition of being able +to work, to love and to die.</p> + +<p>It is a deep psychological truth that the<span class='pagenum'>[ 69 ]</span> +kingdom of heaven belongs to the children. +For no one attains the highest that +life offers in any other way than by simplicity, +unworldliness and the power of +devoting his whole being without reserve +to his object. This is the strength of the +child nature. If a mother by education +has preserved this holy strength and developed +it to a conscious power, then she +has given to mankind not only a new being +but a new personality.</p> + +<p>But the education in the family, just as +in the school, is tending in the opposite +direction. The destruction of the personality +is therefore the great evil of the time.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Yet man is fortunately a vigorous organism. +And those, whose personality +has been bowed or repressed by education, +could raise themselves again and create +freedom for their development if they +were aware of the value of this freedom.</p> + +<p>Few beings and so likewise few women +can be exceptional. But if only a few are +destined for a great personality, yet nevertheless +most can, in spite of the errors<span class='pagenum'>[ 70 ]</span> +of education, develop a certain degree of +personality, if they are deeply, earnestly +concerned in it.</p> + +<p>For everything is interrelated. No one +lives unpunished by a second hand. We +cannot advance intellectually by borrowing, +without becoming also morally less +scrupulous. We are today unjust to a +book, a picture, a drama, because we pronounce +judgment upon it according to the +words of others, or because we do not dare +to show the pleasure it gives us, in case +the critic has not granted us permission to +be pleased, or because we feign indignation +we do not feel, but which others require +of us in the name of taste or morality. +Tomorrow, in the same way, we shall +be unjust or dishonest to man, or to our +own feeling—an injustice or a dishonesty +which can have influence over the destiny +of a whole life.</p> + +<p>The sum of spiritual riches, of spiritual +utilities, is thereby diminished if we do +not cede to the whole what is most essentially +ours. That which is really our own +may be great or small, rich or insignificant<span class='pagenum'>[ 71 ]</span>—if +we ourselves have felt or thought it, +it is more significant to others than that +which we merely repeat, even if our authority +be the highest. And in those cases +where we must rely upon authorities, we +still can put a certain personality into our +choice and honesty in acknowledging our +indebtedness, by confessing that we have +borrowed our judgment we can put honesty +and originality into this dependence.</p> + +<p>It is possible for no one to acquire more +than a limited amount of the results of +culture, to form an entirely original judgment +oftener than in a few isolated cases. +But each one can learn to understand that +it is a mark of culture not to pronounce +judgment upon questions with which he +is not conversant. Good taste prescribes +that just as one refuses to wear false jewels +if one possesses no real ones, so one +should refrain from pronouncing judgment +upon persons or questions upon +which one has not formed an opinion +through one's own impressions. When +this honesty begins to be considered a +mark of spiritual refinement, then will the<span class='pagenum'>[ 72 ]</span> +culture of woman have made quite as +great advance as when she learned to read. +For next to the power to form decisions +for one's self stands in culture value the +ability to understand what opinions one +does not possess and the courage to recognize +one's delicacy.</p> + +<p>Courage and truth—that is what +women lack above all. And these are the +qualities which they must cultivate if the +feminine personality is to grow. This +does not result because women devote +themselves to study, be it ever so thorough, +or to social tasks, be they ever so +responsible. Both further the development +of woman's personality in the measure +only in which her own investigations, +her own choice, make her means of culture +and her work an organic part of herself. +To develop woman's personality from +within—that is the great woman question. +To free woman from conventionality—that +is the great aim of the emancipation +of woman.</p> + +<p>Such a conception of the woman question +is for me the ideal conception of this<span class='pagenum'>[ 73 ]</span> +present great movement. And ideality +does not mean to adopt as the conception +of life that which the majority considers +ideal. Ideality means to live for the ideal, +which has inflamed our consciousness and +not to violate this consciousness by adapting +it to such ideals as we feel with our +whole soul are lower.</p> + +<p>If it is true that "the lack of genius is +the lack of courage," so then is it still more +true in regard to the lack of personality. +Here lies one of the reasons why individuality +is less often found among women +than among men. A man is more fully inflamed +with his idea, the object of his +work; he is more intense in that which he +knows and which he wills. He becomes +thus often—just as the child—more onesided, +almost always more egoistic, but +much more absolute than a woman in like +position. She is rarely, except in love, +wholly penetrated by that which occupies +her. It is then easier for her to be considerate, +to look about continuously upon all +sides. She is more mobile, more quickly +sensitive, more manysided and more sup<span class='pagenum'>[ 74 ]</span>ple +than man, and therein lies her +strength. But just as that of man, it is +bought at the price of corresponding +weakness. For equipoise is still so difficult +in human nature that a good quality is +often not the product of a multiplication, +but is the remainder after a subtraction.</p> + +<p>The man becomes thus especially creative +through his greater courage to dare, +his more intense power to will; the woman +becomes the often anxious conservator. +She cherishes with fidelity, not only the +customs and memories of the home, but +also society's traditional sentiments and +conceptions of right. But this very conspicuous +conservatism of the woman is +exactly that which has obstructed the development +of exceptional femininity.</p> + +<p>The personal independence of man is +hampered because he must work ordinarily +in close association with others; +whereby he is bound by party discipline +and party spirit, by considerations for +preferment or other interests.</p> + +<p>The personality of woman on the other +hand is more fettered by conventional con<span class='pagenum'>[ 75 ]</span>ceptions +of morality and a conventional +ideal of woman. She will not distinguish +the self-sacrifice which is of value from +that which from all points of view is valueless. +She does not rely upon her own instinct +for right if this instinct deviates +only a hair's breadth from the generally +accepted idea. She pardons the one who +sins against established conceptions of +right, provided only he recognizes their +validity; but she condemns the one who +has acted contrary to this conception in +sincere conviction, because his idea of +right differs from that of the majority! +She confounds in her judgment temperament +and opinions, doctrine and life—a +confusion which is the origin of all spiritual +tyranny, of all social intolerance. +Especially does this obtain in questions +which concern the relation of the sexes. +Every one who expresses an opinion at +variance with the conventional ideal of +morality has then incurred intrusive conclusions +and blasting defamation of his +private life. On the part of women then—if +it is a question concerning a woman—it<span class='pagenum'>[ 76 ]</span> +must all the more be accepted that it +requires not only a glowing red belief but +also a snow-white conscience to dare defy +society in its most sensitive prejudices.</p> + +<p>Conventionality of the woman attains +its culminating point in the thoughtless +and conscienceless repetition of others' +words by which most women lower their +spiritual level, distort, disfigure their character +and eventually stultify their personality.</p> + +<p>A woman who makes any pretensions +to fineness, evinces this among other +things, by avoiding all borrowed or sham +luxury. She scorns spurious effects, tinsel, +and disdains therefore in her dress +and her home all artificial ornamentation.</p> + +<p>But this same woman utters boldly +counterfeited opinions and spurious judgments +as her own. Even if she possesses +it she dare not express a fresh, original +opinion, a warm direct feeling. And her +forgeries are then transmitted by other +plagarists from circle to circle. Thus +"Public Opinion" is formed upon the most +delicate life problems, the most serious<span class='pagenum'>[ 77 ]</span> +life work. Thus the most noble actions +become dubious and the vilest calumnies +positive authentic truths. Thus the air +becomes congested with the grains of +sand, under which a man's works of honor +are buried.</p> + +<p>But a work or a renown which has been +interred can be exhumed. It is the blind +re-echoers of others' words, themselves, +who must at length disappear forever.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Morality of Woman and Other Essays, by +Ellen Key + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MORALITY OF WOMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 34267-h.htm or 34267-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/2/6/34267/ + +Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Morality of Woman and Other Essays + +Author: Ellen Key + +Translator: Mamah Bouton Borthwick + +Release Date: November 9, 2010 [EBook #34267] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MORALITY OF WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + THE MORALITY OF WOMAN + AND OTHER ESSAYS + + AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION FROM THE SWEDISH + OF + ELLEN KEY + BY + MAMAH BOUTON BORTHWICK + + [Illustration] + + THE RALPH FLETCHER SEYMOUR CO. + FINE ARTS BUILDING + CHICAGO + + + COPYRIGHT, 1911 + BY + THE RALPH FLETCHER SEYMOUR CO. + CHICAGO + + + + + CONTENTS + + + THE MORALITY OF WOMAN page 5 + THE WOMAN OF THE FUTURE " 39 + THE CONVENTIONAL WOMAN " 51 + + + + +THE MORALITY OF WOMAN + +(TRANSLATED FROM THE SWEDISH) + + + "The law condemns to be hung those who counterfeit banknotes; + a measure necessary for the public welfare. But he who + counterfeits love, that is to say: he who, for a thousand + other reasons but not for love, unites himself to one whom + he does not love and creates thus a family circle unworthy + of that name--does not he indeed commit a crime whose extent + and incalculable results in the present and in the future, + disseminate far more terrible unhappiness than the + counterfeiting of millions of banknotes!" + + C. J. L. ALMQUIST. + +The simplest formula for the new conception of morality, which is +beginning to be opposed to moral dogma still esteemed by all society, +but especially by women, might be summed up in these words: + +Love is moral even without legal marriage, but marriage is immoral +without love. + +The customary objection to this tenet is that those who propose it +forget all other ethical duties and legitimate feelings in order to make +the sex relationship the center of existence, and love the sole decisive +point of view in questions concerning this relationship. But if we +except the struggle for existence--which indeed must be called not a +relationship of life but a condition of life--what then can be more +central for man, than a condition decreed by the laws of earthly +life--the cause of his own origin? Can one imagine a moment which +penetrates more deeply his whole being? + +That many men live content without the happiness of love, that others +after they attain it seek a new end for their activity, proves nothing +against the truth of the experience that for men in general the erotic +relation between man and woman becomes the deepest life determining +factor, whether negatively, because they are deprived of this relation +or because they formed it unhappily; or positively, because they have +found therein the fullness of life. + +The depreciation for mankind of the significance of the sex relation and +of the significance of love in the sex relation brings into it all the +immorality still imposed by conventionalism as morality. + +We no longer consider, as in our mother's youth, ignorance of the side +of life which concerns the propagation of the race the essential +condition of womanly purity. But the conventional idea of purity still +maintains that the untouched condition of the senses belongs to this +conception. And it would be right, if the distinction were made between +purity and chastity. Purity is the new-fallen snow which can be melted +or sullied; chastity is steel tempered in the fire by white heat. For +chastity is only developed together with complete love; this not only +excludes equally all partition among several but also makes a separation +between the demands of the heart and the senses impossible. The essence +of chastity is, according to George Sand's profound words: "to be able +never to betray the soul with the senses nor the senses with the soul" +("de ne pouvoir jamais tromper ni l'ame avec les sens ni les sens avec +l'ame"). And as absolute consecration is its distinctive mark, so is it +also its demand. This alone is the chastity which must characterize the +family life and form in the future the basis of foundation for the +happiness of the people. + +Literature was, therefore, wholly justified when in the name of nature +it attacked the hyperidealistic subtlety which raised the love of the +heart to the highest rank and made that of the senses the lowest; and +when it desired that the woman should not only know what complete love +was but that she should also when she loved desire that completeness. + +Because from time to time powerful voices were raised, like George +Sand's or Almquist's, calling without consideration not only that +marriage immoral which was consummated without mutual love but also that +marriage immoral which was continued without mutual love--a purer +consciousness has awakened in questions regarding the conditions of the +genesis of the unborn race and elevated the conditions of the personal +dignity of man and woman. So eventually it will come to pass that no +finely sensitive woman will become a mother except through mutual love; +that this motherhood sanctioned legally or not so sanctioned shall be +considered the only true motherhood, and every other motherhood untrue. +Thus will mankind awaken to such a feeling of the "Sanctity of the +generation," and to such an understanding of the conditions of the +health, strength and beauty of the race, that every marriage which has +its source in worldly or merely sensual motives, or in reasons of +prudence or in a feeling of duty shall be considered as Almquist calls +it: "A criminal counterfeiting of the highest values of life." And the +same criminal counterfeit obtains in every married life which is +continued under the compulsion, the distaste or the resignation of one +of the two. Man will be penetrated with the consciousness that the whole +ethical conception which now in and with marriage gives to a husband or +a wife rights over the personality of the other, is a crude survival of +the lower periods of culture; that everything which is exchanged between +husband and wife in their life together, can only be the free gift of +love, can never be demanded by one or the other as a right. Man will +understand that when one can no longer continue the life in love then +this life must cease; that all vows binding forever the life of feeling +are a violence of one's personality, since one cannot be held +accountable for the transformation of one's feeling. Even though this +new moral ideal should in the beginning dissolve many untrue marriages +and thus cause much suffering, yet all this suffering is necessary. It +belongs to the attainment of the new erotic ethics which will uplift man +and woman in that sphere where now the spirit of slavery and of +obtuseness under a holy name degrade them; where social convention +sanctions prostitution alongside monogamy, and vouchsafes to the seducer +but not to the seduced, social esteem, calling the unmarried woman +ruined who in love has become a mother, but the married woman +respectable who without love gives children to the man who has bought +her! + +The erotic-ethical consciousness of mankind cannot be uplifted until the +new idea of morality with all its consequences is clearly established. + +This ideal has two types of adversary. One is the adherent of the +conventional morality; the other the supporter of the transitory union +to which the name of "free love" is erroneously applied. + +Those of the first type demand quite the same morality for the man as +for the woman. They assert that celibacy for either sex brings with it +serious difficulties. They maintain that the social feeling of duty, not +mutual love, must be the ground of conjugal fidelity. They call "pure +love" love untouched by all that which they call "sensuality." + +These same moral dogmas in recent years have manifested themselves in +the effort to quench all fire, whiten all burning red coals, and drape +all nudity in literature and art. The supporters of this dogma +certainly understand--since, to begin at the beginning they have surely +glanced into the Bible and Homer--that the undertaking would be too vast +were it to extend to classic literature. But all the more ardently they +have directed their zeal against modern literature and art. And if they +do not encounter energetic opposition the fig leaf will soon among us +also attest the fall of taste and of the soul. + +"Free love" has also its fanatics who are guilty of quite as crass +excess. They have no conception of soulful and true devotion, which they +consider an absurdity or a conventionality under which human nature +cannot bow without hypocrisy. For since experience shows that lifelong +love is frequently an illusion, so, they say, one must not begin by +expecting it! The so-called Bohemians have shown as great monomania in +their rotation around this one point, the right of the senses, as have +the zealots of traditional morality in their rotation around their +point, the suppression of the senses. The extreme result of both would +be retrogression to a lower degree of culture; in one case to the +asceticism of the Middle Ages, in the other to the promiscuity of the +savage. Both forget the reality of life. On the one side they ignore +this reality in their absolute demands without consideration of +temperament or circumstances; in their assertion of the unqualified +moral superiority of woman and in depreciation of the significance of +love for the full harmony of man and woman. On the other side they +ignore this reality when they try to make woman as unrestrained morally +as man has hitherto been; when they forget all the suffering of the new +generation born and reared in such an unrestrained existence; when they +learn nothing of the nature of woman from the many younger and older +women who live solitary and yet sound and useful lives in the deep +conviction that, since they have not found the great, mutual love, which +decides existence, any union with a man would be degrading and unhappy. +Development has, because of multifarious influences made entirety and +continuity in love a greater life necessity for the woman of culture in +general than for the man of the same intellectual level. A man, +therefore, ordinarily dissolves an erotic relation without bitterness +when he has ceased to love, while a woman, even after her love has +ceased, often suffers because the relationship has not endured a +lifetime. + +It is this ever increasing peremptory demand for erotic completeness of +the woman of developed individuality of the present time, which causes +her always to wish to more fervently cherish the personality of the man +as entirely as it is her happiness and her pride to be able to give her +own. It is this demand for entirety which, among Germanic peoples, at +least, makes woman neither desirous nor psychologically fitted for the +so-called "free love." This is evidently to be concluded from the +vicissitudes of those who have tried it. + +"Free love" is moreover quite as senseless an expression as "legal +love." Because no external command can call love into being or repress +it; it is in this sense always free, yet as are all feelings, it is +bound by certain psychological laws. If not, then it does not deserve +the name of love. It is with love as with the human face: though the +individual varieties are infinite, yet there are certain general +characteristic features which make all these different faces human +faces, all these different feelings human love. And in every time there +is a type for both, which is recognized as nobler than the others. + +This noblest type of love has been portrayed by a Danish writer,[A] who +endeavored to show that a conception of life founded upon evolution need +not lead to laxity in sexual relations. He shows how the erotic feeling, +as all other feelings, has been developed from an incoherent, +indeterminate and indefinite condition to one more coherent, determinate +and differentiated, and so from a simple instinct for reproduction of +the species has been finally transformed to an entirely personal, inner +love. The highest type of this love is that which exists between a man +and a woman of the same moral and intellectual level; which demands of +necessity reciprocal love in order to be perfected, and can therefore be +contented with no other kind of reciprocal love than a corresponding +erotic love. This perfect love includes the yearning desire of both +lovers to become entirely one being, to free each other and to develop +each other to the greatest perfection. If love is perfected and +consummated thus by the life together, then can it be given to only one +and only once in a lifetime. This thought of the Danish writer is +expressed with the concise brevity of the poet, by Bjornson, when he +says of the sensation "feeling oneself doubled" in the beloved one: +"_That_ is love, all else is not love." This feeling which liberates, +conserves and deepens the personality, which is the inspiration to noble +deeds and works of genius, is the opposite of the ephemeral, merely +sensual love, which enslaves, dissipates and lessens the personality. + + [A] See Viggo Drewsen: "En Livsanskuelse grundet paa Elskow" ("A + Conception of Life Founded upon Love") and "Forholdet mellem + Maud og Kvinde belyst gjennem Udviklingshypothesen." ("The + Relation between Man and Woman in the Light of the Hypothesis + of Evolution.") + +It is only the great love which has a higher right than all other +feelings and which can establish its right in a life. + +He who considers this love decisive for the morality of such an erotic +union cannot believe that external ties are necessary to give ethical +value to this union. Social considerations, prudence and feeling for +others can indeed in certain cases make the legal bond desirable. But it +can just as little give increased consecration to real love, as it can +give any consecration whatever to a relation in which this content is +lacking. And even if it would be too dogmatic to establish just the +highest type of love as ethical norm for all relations between man and +woman, since life proves that the highest love is still as rare as the +highest beauty, yet it is on the contrary not premature to assert that +this love, legally sanctioned or not, is moral, and that where it is +lacking on either side, a moral ground is furnished for the dissolution +of the relationship. The ever clearer consciousness that love can +dispense with marriage yet marriage cannot dispense with love, is +already partially recognized in modern society, by the facility of +divorce. And it is only a question of time when the law which gives to +one person the power to constrain the other to remain with him against +his will, will be abrogated, so contrary is this possibility to that +developed conception of the freedom of love--which is not at all the +same as so-called "free love!" + +It is not historically true that it was, as has been asserted, some +certain conception of morality, some certain form of concluding or +dissolving marriage which, in the last analysis, has been a decisive +factor in the progress or decadence of peoples. Among the Jews as among +the Greeks, among the Romans as among our Germanic forefathers, at the +most flourishing period, there existed many laws and customs which were +considered moral that the present time considers immoral. The decisive +thing for the sound life of these peoples was, that that which they +considered right had sovereign power to bind them: the faithfulness to +the conception of duty more than the content of conception determines +the moral soundness of a people. Society is in danger, not when the +ideals are raised but when they are lost. But a very highly developed +historical sense is necessary to see at the same time the connection and +the difference between dissolution and reorganization. Moreover it is +necessary to have the large view of the essentials of life which +distinguishes the true poet, the view which Sophocles possessed when he +let his Antigone follow the higher law of affection and commit a +violation of the law which--according to the conception of that +time--would lead to general license if it remained unpunished. The new +ideal of marriage is now being formed in and through all the many +literary and personal dissensions in which it constitutes the theme. +Yes, it is formed also in the midst of all the conflicts of life for +which marriage gives so much occasion. It is true there are now married +people who separate because from the very beginning they considered +fidelity impossible and so did not even strive for it. But many other +divorces have far more complex, psychological reasons. When two people +are married young, personal development takes often entirely opposite +directions; if they have married in more mature years, then their +individual differences, already strongly marked from the beginning, make +the problem of common life together difficult of solution. The strongly +developed sensibility of the modern individual to disposition, nuances, +variations of humor, makes a lack of sympathy still more unendurable; a +true sympathy a far greater source of joy. The whole multiplicity of +psycho-physical influences and impressions which the members of a family +exercise upon one another for pleasure and displeasure, sympathy and +variance, harmony and discord, are now in all relationships, but above +all in marriage, felt with greatest intensity. It is in those natures +most individually developed, most refined, for whom the nuances of the +married life, not its simple primal colors, signify happiness or +unhappiness. + +To this general delicacy of feeling there is added especially the +heightened sensibility of woman to the discord between that which she +expected in marriage and that which in reality it offered her, because +the union often lacked the freedom, the understanding which her +sympathetic feeling now craves. This lack of harmony is inevitable since +the forms of marriage have not even approximately undergone the +transformation which would correspond to the individual development of +the two beings, of the woman especially, whom it unites. But while all +these reasons, cursorily indicated here, contribute their part in the +increased number of divorces, the life of finer feeling creates, on the +other hand, an ever more intimate married life. There are married people +who have pledged each other at marriage full freedom to dissolve the +union when either of them so wished, and others who have never given +legal form to their marriage yet realize fully and richly love in +"sorrow and in joy," in sympathetic work together, in reciprocal, true +devotion. There have been, on the other hand, champions of so-called +"free love" who were themselves by nature such pronounced believers in +only one marriage that their life was wrecked when the one to whom they +had bound themselves applied to their own case their own theories. It is +always the character which ultimately decides. Character can make the +radical theorist a moral paragon and the pillar of society resting upon +conservative ground a reed of passion; it can make the advocate of +egoism sublimely devoted and the apostle of Christianity deeply egoistic +in his love. + +So many men, so many souls; so many souls, so many destinies. And to +wish to apply to this whole, complex, manifold, incalculable erotic +life, with its unfathomable depths, an immutable ethical standard, when +judging the relationship between man and woman, and to make this +standard decisive also for the ethical value of the personality in other +respects--is quite as naive as the attempt of a child to draw up in his +little bucket the wonderful depth of the vast storm-driven sea. + +Love, as life, will fortunately remain an eternal mystery which no +science will be able to penetrate and which reason cannot rule. Our only +hope for the future is that man, endowed with a more delicate sense, +will listen to the secrets of his own life. A more highly developed and +differentiated soul life will give him a surer instinct or a keener +power of analysis which will prevent him from confounding a passing +sentiment of sympathy, need of tenderness or satisfaction of vanity with +a love which decides existence. Now, on the contrary, many believe that +a wave of admiration, of gratitude, or of pity is the whole sea; that +the reflection of the fire of another is the holy fire itself! + +No one can with certainty predict the final result of the profound +revolution of the feeling and of the customs which is now taking place. +But one thing appears certain: the danger to the future of mankind can +scarcely be that the new ideal will result in general license. Rather it +will lead to so individual, differentiated and refined love that erotic +happiness will be increasingly difficult to find and the idealists of +love will more frequently prefer celibacy to a compromise with their +greater demands for sympathetic love. + +The occasional experience, often only the dream of such a love, sensible +to the finest shades of the soul, to the most delicate vibrations of the +senses--of a love which is an all comprehensive tenderness, an all +embracing intimacy--has already raised the erotic demands and the erotic +existence of thousands of men and women to a sphere of more infinite +longing, more fervid chastity than that of their contemporaries. It is +this experience or this dream which has already begun to assume form in +the art and literature of the present time. It is true the extreme +discord between the peculiar character of man and of woman has long been +the favorite theme, especially in modern literature. But among the wild, +discordant tones a new leitmotiv resounds which will swell and rise and +fill the void with a harmony, still but faintly divined. + +One of the conditions that this harmony become as perfect as possible +is that woman in life as in literature shall begin to be more honest and +man more eager to listen when she reveals to him something of her own +nature. Men have desired and justly that women should learn from their +confessions in regard to the conflict between man and woman. But woman +because of the conventional conception of womanly purity has been +intimidated from conceding to man a deep insight into her erotic life +experiences. + +Only when women begin to tell the truth about themselves will literature +universally illuminate the still unknown depths of woman's erotic +temperament. To the present time it has been almost exclusively men +poets who have made revelations about women. The nearer these poets have +approached life, the more surely have they seen the highest expression +of the eternal feminine as the great women poets also saw it: in erotic +love and in mother love. And it was the completeness of her consecration +which was in their eyes a woman's supreme chastity. + +It is the great poets who have taught and have continued to teach youth +to revere the "all powerful Eros." + +This is the only "morality" which has a future. Only by conforming to +this shall we gradually succeed in preventing the erotic feeling from +appearing sometimes as a brutal instinct or marriage from being founded +upon a fleeting attraction. + +An ideal of negative purity--even incarnated in the person of +Jesus--cannot inflame youth and therefore cannot in the long run protect +him. That alone which has the power not only to restrain but also to +transform the brutal instinct is a conception of the existence of a +higher feeling which belongs to the same sphere of life as the instinct +itself. + +To burn the ideal of a great love into the soul of youth in letters of +fire--that is to give him a real moral strength. Thus there springs up +in man the ineradicable, invincible instinct that an erotic relation can +exist only as the expression of a reciprocal all comprehensive love. +Thus will youth learn to consider the love-marriage as the central life +relation, the center of life, and he will be inflamed with the desire to +develop and to conserve body and soul for the entrance into this most +holy thing in nature, wherein man and woman find their happiness in +creating a new race for happiness. Thus will young men and women in +increasing numbers understand that their own happiness, as well as that +of the coming generation will be the greater the more completely they +can give their personality to love. Boys and girls, young men and +maidens, men and women by coeducation, by joint labor and comradeship +will develop in one another that mutual understanding which will remove +the enmity between the sexes, in which modern individualization--and the +therewith increasing demands of the personality--has so far found its +expression. + +The usages of individual homes will be differentiated, instead of as now +maintaining the same conventional forms for all families. After some +generations so educated, under the influence of relationships thus +arranged, we shall see marriages such as even now not a few are seen, +in which not observation of a duty but liberty itself is the pledge that +assures fidelity. Then will love be cherished as the most delicate, most +precious thing in life; then will egoism and unselfishness attain a +perfect harmony, because the husband and wife find happiness only in +assuring the happiness of the other. That is the union which the +Norwegian poet defines when he calls true marriage "a yearning quest +after each other, an energetic cultivation, assertion of the +personality, in order to be able to give one's personality; an ever +increasing intimacy of understanding of each other; a union which the +whole course of life will make more profound." + +So prepared, the absolute human ideal will become perhaps a living +reality; not as an isolated man, not as an isolated woman, but as a man +and a woman who shall give to mankind a new religion--that of happiness. + + * * * * * + +Many indeed still doubt that marriage can become this highest form of +existence in life, in which the surrender of the ego and the +self-seeking of the ego reach a perfect harmony. It is asserted that +this ideal condition can be attained perhaps by exceptional people, but +never by ordinary people, and that the morality of the latter can be +kept sound only by legal and social restraint. + +My belief, however, is that, just as the Children of Israel followed the +pillar of fire, so ordinary men follow at a distance exceptional men, +and in this way mankind as a whole advances. Ordinary men are just now +determined upon certain conceptions which at the end of the previous +century were not conclusive even for exceptional people. The marriage of +reason, for example, is already considered ignoble by many. The +authority of the parents is very seldom in evidence either to coerce the +children into a marriage without love or to restrain them from it. Even +the superficial erotic emotion of our day is serious in comparison with +the shallow and frivolous or vulgar and cruel gallantry of the +eighteenth century. In the geological deposits of legislation and still +more in those of literature we can study these risings of the levels of +the erotic sentiments. So we are thereby convinced that the demands and +conflicts of the exceptional men become gradually those of the ordinary +men also, even though the ordinary men are always some generations +behind the men who are stirred by new emotions, new conflicts, when the +many have reached the problems which some decades before occupied only +the few. + +Certainly it may, under present imperfect conditions, often be a duty +not to destroy the outward form of marriage for the sake of the +children. But by no means can this duty be preached as universally +binding. Only the individual himself can in each separate case determine +the dissolution best, both for the children and for the married couple +themselves, of a marriage which has fallen asunder within. When we +consider the development in its entirety, the sooner people cease to +sanction the present marriage the more fortunate it will be; for the +sooner will the transformation be forced upon us by which marriage will +maintain its permanence only from within. Only then will man be wholly +able to have the experiences and to find the new, delicate means by +which fidelity can be strengthened and happiness assured. But man will +not seek this expedient so long as he can rely upon the power of legal +right and social opinion to hold together that which love does not +unify. + +The ever increasing individualization of love indicates that +mono-marriage will doubtless remain the form of erotic union between man +and woman. But this rule will have, in the future, as in the past, many +exceptions, since the feelings can change. The conflicts which will thus +arise will bring suffering as a consequence, but not the bitterness nor +the contention which the property sense in marriage now so often +occasions. The deep consciousness that love belongs not to the sphere of +duty but only to that of freedom will cause the one who has lost the +love of the other to feel the same resignation before the inevitable, +as if he were separated from the other by death. + +And in cases where the individual is not capable of this resignation, +then the law as well as custom shall make it impossible for the one to +hold back the other against his will. Each of the twain shall be master +of his own person and of his property, of his work and of his mode of +life; the union shall in each especial case be arranged by the agreement +of the individuals, and the law shall decide only the rights and duties +of the husband and wife in regard to the children. + +When in this way it shall come to pass that neither the husband nor wife +shall have in outward sense, in external things, anything to gain or to +lose by the consummation or dissolution of marriage, then only the +erotic problem appears in all its seriousness. + +Many mistakes, many caricatures, many tragic failures will naturally be +the result of freedom. Great waves have great combers. A new principle +cannot be put into effect without bringing with it new mistakes. But we +may, however, be convinced that the laws of life--to which belongs the +law that suffering follows the misuse of freedom--will finally be able +to bring everything within its right limits. Nothing indeed has +occasioned more suffering as an indirect consequence than Christianity, +and although Jesus knew that, yet he did not hesitate to give to mankind +this new creative force which destroyed in order to create. But it is +above all His ideality which His present followers lack, the great +ideality which dares to believe in the might of the spirit rather than +that of the form. + +It is, therefore, quite natural that these Christians, the upholders of +society, oppose the new ideal of morality with vain apprehensions. They +believe that a woman whose conscious aim is "Self-assertion in +self-surrender" will forfeit the immediate, fresh originality in this +surrender. They believe marriage must be destroyed when the support of +its development is no longer bond and injunction, but is its own vital +force. They believe morality will lose in the struggle if youth learns +to consider the love between man and woman as the central condition of +life. These, and a hundred similar apprehensions have all one and the +same source. + +This source is the Christian conception of life which has displaced the +great, sound, strong conviction of antiquity of the holiness of nature. +Mary was the "Virgin Mother;" Jesus, celibate. Paul regarded marriage as +the lesser of two evils. Thus man first learned to regard the unmarried +state as the higher and the married as the lower state. The result of +the Christian conception of life then was that the sex relation was +regarded in and for itself as unholy, human nature in and for itself as +base and the earthly demand for happiness as the greatest egotism. + +Therefore the Christian conception of life is now, since it has +accomplished its great task of culture, the development of altruism--an +obstacle to the unified conception out of which the happiness of mankind +will finally develop. + +No one who thinks or feels deeply dreams that this happiness can be +easily achieved. The consistent belief of monism in human nature can +only gradually leaven life. And until then suffering will be for the +majority the first result of freedom. Even for the few, to whom the +relationships have already given happiness, must this be incomplete in +the measure in which they feel sympathy with all the suffering about +them. But above all is happiness rare because the genius for happiness +is still so rare, is indeed on the whole the rarest genius. To possess +it means to approach life with the humility of a beggar, but to treat it +with the proud generosity of a prince; to bring to its totality the deep +understanding of a great poet and to each of its moments the abandonment +and ingenuousness of a child; it means to be able to enjoy wholly each +present, immediate, joy and yet to be able to give up the incidental joy +for the enduring one. + +Happiness lies so far from man; but he must begin by daring to will it. +It is this courage which Christianity broke down when it directed the +soul from the earth to eternity and gave to renunciation the highest +place among ethical values. Through the _Revaluation of all Values_, +which is now going on, happiness will receive this Place. + +He who contends for the deepest of all ideas, Spinosa's idea, that "Joy +is perfection," contends with certainty of victory, however solitary he +may stand, however much of his heart's blood may be shed in the strife. + +We live still in our inmost soul only by that for which we die. And all +for which we have died will live when the time shall come in which all +we ourselves have suffered signifies nothing for us, yet that for which +we have suffered signifies everything for others. + + + + +THE WOMAN OF THE FUTURE + + +There are phrases which charm like a song, and one of these phrases is: +"The Woman of the Future." + +This sings for me in the verse of a poet and a seer, whose name now +shines with the radiance of the morning star, although during his +lifetime it was sullied with defamation as that of an atheist and +destroyer of society--because the luminous path of his thoughts appeared +to the prejudices of his contemporaries as a blinding flash of +lightning. His poet's vision revealed to him a new time in which women +would be + + "... frank, beautiful and kind + As the free heaven, which rains fresh light and dew + On the wide earth + From custom's evil taint exempt and pure; + Speaking the wisdom once they could not think, + Looking emotions once they feared to feel, + And changed to all which once they dared not be + Yet being now, made earth like heaven." + +This beautiful profile of the woman of the future, which Shelley has +traced, floats before me when I attempt here to draw her portrait in +more precise outlines. + + * * * * * + +The storm and stress period of woman and the new social and +psychological formations thereby entailed must, indeed, extend far into +the twentieth century. This period of conflict will cease only when +woman within and out of marriage shall have received legal equality with +man. It will cease when such a transformation of society shall have come +to pass that the present rivalry between the sexes shall be ended in a +manner advantageous to both and when finally the work of earning a +livelihood as well as care of the household shall have received such +form that it will weigh less heavily than now upon the woman. + +Toward the end of the twentieth century only could the type of the +nineteenth century woman have reached its culmination and a new type of +woman begin to appear. + +My ideal picture of the woman of the future, and when one paints an +ideal one does not need to limit one's imagination, is that she will be +a being of profound contrasts which have attained harmony. She will +appear as a great multiplicity and a complete unity; a rich plenitude +and a perfect simplicity; a thoroughly educated creature of culture and +an original spontaneous nature; a strongly marked human individuality +and a complete manifestation of most profound womanliness. This woman +will understand the spirit of a scientific work, of an exact search +after truth, of free, independent thought, of artistic creation. She +will comprehend the necessity of the laws of nature and of the progress +of evolution; she will possess the feeling of solidarity and regard for +the interests of society. Because she will know more and think more +clearly than the woman of the present, she will be more just; because +she will be stronger, she will be better; because she will be wiser, she +will be also more gentle. She will be able to see things in the ensemble +and in their connection with each other; she will lose thereby certain +prejudices which are still called virtues. Nevertheless she will remain +the one who forms customs. But she will not seek her support in social +convention; she will find it in the laws of her own being. She will have +the courage to think her own thoughts and to investigate the new +thoughts of her time. She will dare to experience and to acknowledge +feelings which she now suppresses or conceals. Her full liberty of +action and the complete development of her personality will render +possible intrepid efforts for life, an energetic striving after an +existence which shall conform to her own ego. And such an existence she +will be able also to find with surer instinct than now. She will +understand how to work with more intensity, to rest with more intensity +and with more intensity to delight in all immediate, simple sources of +joy than the woman of the present is able to do. Thus in the new woman +the feeling of life will be enhanced, her experience will be more +profound; her soul life, her demands for beauty, her senses will be more +developed and refined. She will be more sensitive, more delicately +vibratory; she will therefore be able to be more profoundly happy and +also to suffer more keenly than the woman of our time. + +Thus the woman of the twentieth century will give new value to the life +of society and to art, to science and to literature. But her greatest +cultural significance remains, however, by means of the enigmatic, the +instinctive, the intuitive and the impulsive in her own being to protect +mankind from the dangers of excessive culture. In face of knowledge she +will maintain the rights of the unknowable; in face of logic, feeling; +in face of reality, possibilities; and in face of analysis, intuition. +Woman will above all further the growth of the soul, man that of the +intelligence; she will extend the sphere of intuition, he that of +reason; she will realize tenderness, he justice; she will triumph by +audacity, he by courage. + +The woman of the future will not only have learned much, she will also +have forgotten much--especially the feminine as well as anti-feminine +follies of the present time. + +With her whole being she will desire the happiness of love. She will be +chaste, not because she is cold, but because she is passionate. She will +be reserved, not because she is bloodless but because she is full +blooded. She will be soulful and therefore she will be sensuous; she +will be proud and therefore she will be true. She will demand a great +love, because she herself can give a still greater. The erotic problem, +because of her refined idealism, will be extremely complicated and often +almost insoluble. Therefore the happiness which she will give and +experience will be richer, more profound and enduring than anything +which up to the present time has been called happiness. Many traits +which belong to the wife and mother of today will probably be lacking in +the woman of the future. She will remain always the beloved, the +sweetheart, and only so will she become a mother. She will devote her +finest and strongest forces to the difficult and beautiful art of being +at the same time the beloved and the mother; her religious cult will be +to create the supreme happiness of life. Because she will know and value +the psychical and physical conditions of health and beauty she will +choose the father of her children with clearer vision and deeper feeling +of responsibility than at present; she will bear and rear sound and +beautiful beings and she herself will possess greater attraction and +longer youth than the woman of the present. She will charm all her life, +because she will always beautify existence. But she will please only +because, at every age, she will be wholly herself; and her imperishable +youth, her most perfect beauty, she will reveal solely to him whom she +loves. She will know that the charm of the soul is the most profound; +and out of the plenitude of her being she will create the eternal +renewal of this charm, always unexpected and in infinitely nuanced +expressions of her personal grace. By her mere presence she will remove +the constraint of form and custom and will create varying expressions, +elevated by her own nobility, for the family life, the public life and +for society. She will probably speak less than the woman of the present +time, but her silence and her smile will be more eloquent. She will give +herself always directly and always with moderation, different and always +constant, spontaneous and always exquisite. Her being will pour forth, +brimming free and fresh, like the surge of the mountain torrent, but +like this, dominated by a certain inner rhythm. However far she allows +herself to go--in ecstasy of joy, in passion of tenderness, in delirium +of happiness or in the frenzy of grief--yet she will never lose herself. +She will be a multiplicity of women and yet always one, whether she +plays and smiles or suffers and smiles; whether she beams with health or +bleeds with mortal wounds; whether she be imbued with and radiate +repose or nervous intensity, joy or tears, sun or night, coolness or +ardor. + +The woman of the future exists already in man's dreams of women, and +woman fashions herself according to the dreams of man. The modern man's +ideal of woman is not the masculine woman, but the revelation of the +"eternal feminine" developed in all directions. This new type of woman +has already gleamed forth here and there, not only in our time but in +centuries passed. In the Middle Ages she wrote the letters of Heloise; +in the Renaissance, Leonardo painted her as Mona Lisa; and in the +eighteenth century she held the salon of Mlle. Lespinasse. In our +century she wrote the love sonnets of Elizabeth Barrett Browning; she +appeared upon the stage as Eleonora Duse--and as in a precious stone her +being is crystallized by the poet's words with which Rahel's personality +was epitomized: "calm yet emotionally vivid."[B] + + [B] Footnote from French translation:--The reference here is to + Rahel de Varnhagen. The citation is taken from the "Hyperion" + of Holderlin, a German poet of whom mention is made apropos + of Nietzsche, upon whom he had great influence. + + + + +THE CONVENTIONAL WOMAN + + +Conventionality is the tacit agreement to set appearance before reality, +form before content, subordination before principal. Its field in +certain measure is "vogue" changing according to the idea of beauty of +each new season. In deeper sense, however, a part of the sphere of +conventionality coincides always with that of law and custom, and with +the conception of the amount of self-control and self-sacrifice which +every individual must impose upon himself for the common life with +others. The further the evolution of humanity advances, the fewer are +the fields to which the power of society over the thought, belief, mode +of life and manner of work of the individual is restricted. More and +more prevalent becomes the conviction that all those forms of +expression of the individual which do not interfere with the rights of +others must be free. A great part of the work of culture of each new +generation has consisted and still consists in clearing away great +masses of conceptions of right dried up into conventionalism, dead +rubbish which prevents the new germs from sprouting. In every period +strong voices are heard which desire freedom from the prevailing +customs, and right of choice for the individual conscience and +temperament. In this ever-continuous struggle it is important to +distinguish what are really still living conceptions of right from +factitious conceptions, which form only a conventional obstacle to a +more beautiful freedom, a deeper truth, a greater originality, a richer +life content. + +Yet it is not only old conventionalism which needs to be rooted out. In +every faction, in every social circle are soon formed lifeless +collections of prejudices, paltry motives, dependent customs. It is +always the women among whom conventionalism reaches its acme. For +conservatism, that deep significant instinct of woman, becomes also +often a prop of conventionality. Women are as yet seldom sufficiently +developed personally to distinguish, in that which they wish to cherish, +the appearance from the reality, the form from the content; or if they +do distinguish, they have as yet rarely the courage to choose the +content and reality if the majority have declared for form and +appearance! + +In the literature of the last ten years and in part also among women +there prevails, however, a strong opposition to conventionality. This +opposition has been directed especially against the archaic ideal of +woman, according to which renunciation is still considered the highest +attribute of woman; and against the antiquated conception of morality +which regarded love without marriage as immoral, but any marriage, even +without love, as moral. + +The women who adopted the new ideal--which a Norwegian poet strikingly +defined as "Self-assertion in self-surrender." "Affirmation of self in +giving of self"--encounter now on the part of the modern woman's-rights +advocates the same kind of conventional objection as in the fifties and +sixties was directed against the then new ideal of the earlier woman +movement. + +The older emancipation movement advanced along the first line in the +effort to establish the right of woman as a human being; that is, to +give to woman the same rights as to man. The present movement purposes +to assert the right of woman as an individuality; the absolute right to +believe, to feel, to think and to act in her own way, if it does not +interfere with the rights of others. Since the first end was a general +one, the movement could in great part be made effective by collective +work in attaining that end; the exposition of the independence of the +individuality of woman, on the contrary, must be the personal concern of +each single individual. This those women do not understand who still are +working ever for the first end--the rights of woman as a human being. +They do not understand that every woman must receive, not merely her +universal rights, as a member of the body politic, but also her entire +individual rights as the possessor of a definite personality. The right +to establish an ego independent of, and perhaps entirely at variance +with, theories and ideals is at heart the point of struggle between the +one or the other individual woman and the women representatives of the +earlier era of the woman question. + +The discovery that each personality is a new world--which in Shakespeare +found its Columbus, a Columbus after whom new mariners immediately +undertook new conquests--this discovery of literature has as yet only +partially penetrated the universal consciousness, as a truth of +experience. But the fact that it has made a beginning, that the +conventional, inflexible conception of the nature of man and of the +problems resulting therefrom is giving place to a relative and +individual conception--this is above all to be ascribed to the thinkers +and poets, in whom the conventional has its deadliest foe; the +recreative poets whose characteristic is deep appreciation of all primal +forces of existence, of all essential elements of life. For although +conventionalism in the form of the echo springs up also around genius, +yet the creative genius itself is always a protest against +conventionality in which any selfjustified life or art--conception has +perished. + +The poet who here in the North shattered with a blow the archaic +conventional ideal of woman who sacrificed herself in all circumstances, +was Ibsen when he sent Nora out away from her husband and children in +order to fulfill the duties toward herself; when by means of "Ghosts" he +etched into the moral consciousness the idea that a woman's fidelity to +her own personality is more significant for the welfare of others as +well as of herself than her fidelity to conventional conceptions of +morality. + +And Ibsen has always been the annunciator of the freedom under one's own +responsibility which is the key to individualism. Long has man listened, +only in part has he understood. And no consciousness is in this respect +more hermetically sealed than that of certain woman's rights advocates! +That all women should have the same rights as men, this is all that they +mean in their talk about the freeing of the woman's personality. They +forget that the right to be what she wishes entails often for the woman, +as for the man, the obligation to suppress that which she really is by +nature and feeling. They forget that the personality has deeper claims +than the right to work. They overlook the infinite variety of shades of +feeling, thought and character which caused the demand of solidarity in +opinions and actions, among the women active in the woman question, to +degenerate into suppression of woman's individuality. Certainly it is +true that united action is still necessary in order that woman may +obtain the rights which she still lacks. But all compulsory mobilized +action is here more dangerous than elsewhere; because for the advance of +the woman question in the deepest sense it is essential precisely that +the different feminine individualities show their useful faculties as +freely as possible in the different fields of activity. + +The conventionality which is a menace in the woman question betrays +itself, not only in exaggerated demands for solidarity, but also in the +mode of treating the objections of the opposition. It reveals itself in +the lack of comprehension of the fact that the woman question, +particularly in what concerns the labor field, now intersects on all +sides the path of the social question. It especially evinces itself in +the inability to understand how the woman question, as it advances in +its evolution, becomes more complex, and how thereby, ever greater +difficulties arise in taking an absolute position in the questions +connected with it. + +It is necessary that woman's opportunities for culture be multiplied. +But do all these measures of culture develop also the personality? Have +we not met the finest, most original, most charming natures among +unlettered dames of seventy and eighty years, or among such women as +never had a systematic education? It is right that the wages of women +should be increased; but will the labor value of women increase in +proportion? Can we even desire that the majority of these women bent +over their desks shall devote a live interest to their work, when their +sole essential being would first find expression only when bent over a +cradle? It is well also for girls of wealth to wish to have a vocation. +But is it also good if they, because they can be satisfied with a +smaller wage, take away the work from poor girls and men, often more +competent, who have to live entirely by the fruits of their work, and +must therefore demand larger wages? + +So long as these and many other questions remain unanswered, there is +today quite as much that is conventional in rejoicing unreservedly over +the many girls who become students or leave the home, where they are +very much needed, for outside work, as there was in our grandmother's +time in wishing to limit the province of woman to the kitchen, the +nursery and the drawing room. + +It is not yet known whether woman, through the competition for bread, +will develop physiologically and psychologically to greater health and +harmony. Woman is a new subject for research, and only centuries of full +freedom in choice of labor and in personal development can furnish +material for well grounded conclusions. Many signs, however, point to +this:--that an ineffaceable, deep-rooted psychological difference due to +physical peculiarities will always exist between man and woman, which +probably will always keep her by preference active in the sphere of the +family, while he probably will remain active in other spheres of +culture. But with a perfect equality with man and a full personal +development, woman can have a significance for culture in its entirety +and for the direction of society which we can still scarcely divine. + +The conventional points of view, just mentioned in considering the woman +question, retard the development of woman's individuality above all +because they overlook the diversity of nature and the complexity of the +problem. The conventional conception of self-renunciation as the highest +expression of womanhood is still continually the greatest obstacle to +the achievement of woman's personality. To be able to perish for a loved +being with joy is one of the beautiful inalienable priviliges of woman +nature. But by considering this under all circumstances as ideal, woman +has thus retarded not only her own development but also that of man. If +we compare marriages of older generations with those of the younger, the +men of the latter show great advance in regard to considerate tenderness +and sympathetic understanding toward their wives--wives who have on the +other hand a personal life more complete and with other demands than +formerly. Both have thus gained since women have begun to practice the +self-renunciation of self-assertion! Because for every self-sacrificing +woman nature it is infinitely harder to take her due than to sacrifice +it. + + * * * * * + +Conventional womanhood will ever have its strongest support in +education. + +The individuality of a child is seldom repressed in the inconsiderate +and brutal manner of former times. But by attrition it is effaced. In +the olden times the children enjoyed a certain freedom in the nursery +where the expression of life, manifestation of joy, pleasure and +displeasure, sympathy and antipathy of the growing personality was not +continually moderated. Now the children are continually with the parents +and these accustom them to a certain exacting restraint. The children +wish to be entertained; they cannot play of their own initiative, for +they lose the desire that originates in the freedom of the creative +phantasy. Neither children nor parents possess themselves in peace. In +the continual association the children are worn out by commands so +varied and numerous that obedience cannot be maintained. They do not, +therefore, learn the discipline necessary for the development of their +personality--to subordinate the unessential life expressions to the +essential and to dominate even over these last--a culture of the fallow +child ground which must begin early in order to become a second nature. + +And this happens only when the educator knows clearly what he will +adhere to as essential in the development of the child, and when +according to that he establishes his commands and prohibitions, which +must be few in number but as immutable as the laws of nature, and if +violated must bring upon the child, not artificial punishment, but the +inevitable results of the act itself. So can man by fixed practice form +the child of nature into a man of culture, who out of consideration for +himself and for others curbs his tendencies which are inimical to +society, without, however, suppressing his personality. For outside the +field of immutable laws, children ought not to be constrained or coerced +against their nature and their disposition, against their healthy egoism +and against their especial tastes. + +Now many mothers by their own effacement of self develop an unjustified +egoism of the child, but desire in other respects a self-control, a +circumspection, a moderation and discretion such as a whole life has not +ordinarily been able to inculcate in the mother herself. Out of this +soft clay, which is material for an individuality, parents, servants and +teachers mold a society being, sometimes a social being, but never a +human being. + +This modeling is called education. And a part of the earliest education +must, as I have just shown, truly consist in that of molding. But after +the first years of life the aim of education should be to prevent all +molding and on the contrary to assure the freedom or development of the +single force which, considered in the light of the whole, makes it +significant for mankind that new generations succeed those which have +disappeared--the force of a new personality. + +Every child is a new world, a world into which not even the tenderest +love can wholly penetrate. However openly the clear eyes meet ours, +however confidingly the soft hand is laid in ours, this tender being +will perhaps one day deplore the suffering of his childhood, because we +treated him according to the assumption that children are replicas, not +originals; not new, wonderful personalities. It is true the child in +certain measure is a repetition of the child nature of all times, but at +the same time, and this in a far higher degree, an absolutely new +synthesis of soul qualities, with new possibilities for sorrow and joy, +strength and weakness. + +This new being will, upon his own responsibility, at his own risk, live +this terrifyingly earnest life. What creative force, new inceptions, he +will be able to bring to it; what elasticity he will possess under the +blows of destiny, what power to give and to receive happiness--all +depends, outside of nature itself, in essential degree upon the +educator's method of treating this individual child nature. + +Goethe long ago lamented that education aspired to make Philistines out +of personalities. And this is now much worse since education has become +pedagogical, without at the same time becoming psychological. + +Only he who treats the feelings, will and rights of a child with quite +the same consideration as those of a grown person, and who never allows +the personality of a child to feel other limitations than those of +nature itself, or the consideration, based upon good grounds, for the +child's own welfare or that of others--only he possesses the first +requisite principle of real education. Education must assuredly be a +liberating of the personality from the domination of its own passions. +But it must never strive to exterminate passion itself, which is the +innermost power of the personality and which cannot exist without the +coexisting danger of a corresponding fault. To subdue the possible fault +in each spiritual inclination by eliciting through love the +corresponding good in the same inclination--this alone is individual +education. It is an extremely slow education, in which immediate +interference signifies little, the spiritual atmosphere of the home, its +mode of life and its ideals signify on the contrary almost everything. +The educator must above all understand how to wait: to reckon all +effects in the light of the future, not of the present. + +The educator believes often that he spares the child future suffering +when he "opposes his onesidedness," as it is called. He does not reflect +that in the effort to force the child in a direction contrary to that in +which his personality evinces itself, he merely succeeds in diminishing +his nature; yes, often merely in retaining the weakness in the quality, +not the corresponding strength! + +But ordinarily it is indeed no such principle, but only the old +thoughtlessly maintained ideal of self-renunciation which is decisive. +We repress the child's joy of discovery and check the spirit of +enterprise; wound his extremely sensitive sense of beauty; exercise +force over his most personal possessions, his tokens of tenderness; +combat his aversions and quench his enthusiasm. Amid such attacks upon +their individual being, their feelings and their inclinations most +children, but especially girls, grow up. It is therefore not surprising +that when grown they seldom look back upon their childhood as a happy +time. + +An intense feeling of life, a sense of plenitude, entirety, of the +complete development of the powers of the potentialities--this +constitutes happiness. Children have more possibilities of happiness +than adults, for they can experience this feeling of joy of life more +undividedly and immediately. They should utilize these possibilities of +happiness while the parents have partial power over their life. Soon +enough must they on their own initiative attempt, accomplish, bleed; and +herein no one of all the influences of education has even approximately +the significance of this: that the individual be not overtrained, that +he have still strength enough to live. That means: to suffer his own +sorrow, to enjoy his own happiness, to perform his own work, to think +his own thoughts, to be able to devote himself absolutely and +entirely--the sole condition of being able to work, to love and to die. + +It is a deep psychological truth that the kingdom of heaven belongs to +the children. For no one attains the highest that life offers in any +other way than by simplicity, unworldliness and the power of devoting +his whole being without reserve to his object. This is the strength of +the child nature. If a mother by education has preserved this holy +strength and developed it to a conscious power, then she has given to +mankind not only a new being but a new personality. + +But the education in the family, just as in the school, is tending in +the opposite direction. The destruction of the personality is therefore +the great evil of the time. + + * * * * * + +Yet man is fortunately a vigorous organism. And those, whose personality +has been bowed or repressed by education, could raise themselves again +and create freedom for their development if they were aware of the value +of this freedom. + +Few beings and so likewise few women can be exceptional. But if only a +few are destined for a great personality, yet nevertheless most can, in +spite of the errors of education, develop a certain degree of +personality, if they are deeply, earnestly concerned in it. + +For everything is interrelated. No one lives unpunished by a second +hand. We cannot advance intellectually by borrowing, without becoming +also morally less scrupulous. We are today unjust to a book, a picture, +a drama, because we pronounce judgment upon it according to the words of +others, or because we do not dare to show the pleasure it gives us, in +case the critic has not granted us permission to be pleased, or because +we feign indignation we do not feel, but which others require of us in +the name of taste or morality. Tomorrow, in the same way, we shall be +unjust or dishonest to man, or to our own feeling--an injustice or a +dishonesty which can have influence over the destiny of a whole life. + +The sum of spiritual riches, of spiritual utilities, is thereby +diminished if we do not cede to the whole what is most essentially ours. +That which is really our own may be great or small, rich or +insignificant--if we ourselves have felt or thought it, it is more +significant to others than that which we merely repeat, even if our +authority be the highest. And in those cases where we must rely upon +authorities, we still can put a certain personality into our choice and +honesty in acknowledging our indebtedness, by confessing that we have +borrowed our judgment we can put honesty and originality into this +dependence. + +It is possible for no one to acquire more than a limited amount of the +results of culture, to form an entirely original judgment oftener than +in a few isolated cases. But each one can learn to understand that it is +a mark of culture not to pronounce judgment upon questions with which he +is not conversant. Good taste prescribes that just as one refuses to +wear false jewels if one possesses no real ones, so one should refrain +from pronouncing judgment upon persons or questions upon which one has +not formed an opinion through one's own impressions. When this honesty +begins to be considered a mark of spiritual refinement, then will the +culture of woman have made quite as great advance as when she learned to +read. For next to the power to form decisions for one's self stands in +culture value the ability to understand what opinions one does not +possess and the courage to recognize one's delicacy. + +Courage and truth--that is what women lack above all. And these are the +qualities which they must cultivate if the feminine personality is to +grow. This does not result because women devote themselves to study, be +it ever so thorough, or to social tasks, be they ever so responsible. +Both further the development of woman's personality in the measure only +in which her own investigations, her own choice, make her means of +culture and her work an organic part of herself. To develop woman's +personality from within--that is the great woman question. To free woman +from conventionality--that is the great aim of the emancipation of +woman. + +Such a conception of the woman question is for me the ideal conception +of this present great movement. And ideality does not mean to adopt as +the conception of life that which the majority considers ideal. Ideality +means to live for the ideal, which has inflamed our consciousness and +not to violate this consciousness by adapting it to such ideals as we +feel with our whole soul are lower. + +If it is true that "the lack of genius is the lack of courage," so then +is it still more true in regard to the lack of personality. Here lies +one of the reasons why individuality is less often found among women +than among men. A man is more fully inflamed with his idea, the object +of his work; he is more intense in that which he knows and which he +wills. He becomes thus often--just as the child--more onesided, almost +always more egoistic, but much more absolute than a woman in like +position. She is rarely, except in love, wholly penetrated by that which +occupies her. It is then easier for her to be considerate, to look about +continuously upon all sides. She is more mobile, more quickly sensitive, +more manysided and more supple than man, and therein lies her strength. +But just as that of man, it is bought at the price of corresponding +weakness. For equipoise is still so difficult in human nature that a +good quality is often not the product of a multiplication, but is the +remainder after a subtraction. + +The man becomes thus especially creative through his greater courage to +dare, his more intense power to will; the woman becomes the often +anxious conservator. She cherishes with fidelity, not only the customs +and memories of the home, but also society's traditional sentiments and +conceptions of right. But this very conspicuous conservatism of the +woman is exactly that which has obstructed the development of +exceptional femininity. + +The personal independence of man is hampered because he must work +ordinarily in close association with others; whereby he is bound by +party discipline and party spirit, by considerations for preferment or +other interests. + +The personality of woman on the other hand is more fettered by +conventional conceptions of morality and a conventional ideal of woman. +She will not distinguish the self-sacrifice which is of value from that +which from all points of view is valueless. She does not rely upon her +own instinct for right if this instinct deviates only a hair's breadth +from the generally accepted idea. She pardons the one who sins against +established conceptions of right, provided only he recognizes their +validity; but she condemns the one who has acted contrary to this +conception in sincere conviction, because his idea of right differs from +that of the majority! She confounds in her judgment temperament and +opinions, doctrine and life--a confusion which is the origin of all +spiritual tyranny, of all social intolerance. Especially does this +obtain in questions which concern the relation of the sexes. Every one +who expresses an opinion at variance with the conventional ideal of +morality has then incurred intrusive conclusions and blasting defamation +of his private life. On the part of women then--if it is a question +concerning a woman--it must all the more be accepted that it requires +not only a glowing red belief but also a snow-white conscience to dare +defy society in its most sensitive prejudices. + +Conventionality of the woman attains its culminating point in the +thoughtless and conscienceless repetition of others' words by which most +women lower their spiritual level, distort, disfigure their character +and eventually stultify their personality. + +A woman who makes any pretensions to fineness, evinces this among other +things, by avoiding all borrowed or sham luxury. She scorns spurious +effects, tinsel, and disdains therefore in her dress and her home all +artificial ornamentation. + +But this same woman utters boldly counterfeited opinions and spurious +judgments as her own. Even if she possesses it she dare not express a +fresh, original opinion, a warm direct feeling. And her forgeries are +then transmitted by other plagarists from circle to circle. Thus "Public +Opinion" is formed upon the most delicate life problems, the most +serious life work. Thus the most noble actions become dubious and the +vilest calumnies positive authentic truths. Thus the air becomes +congested with the grains of sand, under which a man's works of honor +are buried. + +But a work or a renown which has been interred can be exhumed. It is the +blind re-echoers of others' words, themselves, who must at length +disappear forever. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Morality of Woman and Other Essays, by +Ellen Key + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MORALITY OF WOMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 34267.txt or 34267.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/2/6/34267/ + +Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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