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diff --git a/34267.txt b/34267.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..994eb38 --- /dev/null +++ b/34267.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1608 @@ +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: 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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