{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_57592/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_57592","id":"gutenberg_57592","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57592","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Gender & Sexuality Studies","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Marriage"],"text":"Produced by Turgut Dincer and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was\nproduced from images made available by the HathiTrust\nDigital Library.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  Love and Marriage\n\n\n  By\n\n  Ellen Key\n\n  Author of \u201cThe Century of the Child,\u201d etc.\n\n\n  Translated from the Swedish by\n\n  Arthur G. Chater\n\n\n  With a Critical and Biographical Introduction by\n\n  Havelock Ellis\n\n  G. P. Putnam\u2019s Sons\n  New York and London\n\n  The Knickerbocker Press\n\n  COPYRIGHT, 1911\n\n  BY\n\n  G. P. PUTNAM\u2019S SONS\n\n  Ninth Printing\n\n  The Knickerbocker Press. New York\n\n\n\n\nPUBLISHERS\u2019 NOTE\n\n\nIn this treatise, the veteran Swedish reformer attacks problems the\nmost vital to the welfare of the human race, problems which have\nthroughout the centuries engaged the attention of leaders of thought.\n\nThe writers who have given attention to the complex subject of the\nrelations of the sexes, of the obligations of the state in the control\nof these relations, and of the organisation of the family as the\nfoundation of society, include such authors as Plato, Goethe, Richter,\nRousseau, Mary Wollstonecraft, Fourier, Comte, Mrs. Browning, Mill,\nIbsen, Westermarck, Charlotte Gilman, Havelock Ellis, and many others.\n\nThese problems are complex, and the difficulties presented by them\nmost serious. No writer has ever yet presented solutions that could\nbe accepted as finally satisfactory. Ellen Key writes with a profound\nantagonism to the philistinism and hypocrisy which have characterised\nmuch of the consideration given by the community to the subjects. She\npoints out (as has, of course, been emphasised by many earlier writers)\nthat the ignoring of an evil does not dispose of it, and that so far\nfrom preserving society from its influence, the burying of an evil\nmerely tends to increase its corrupting and demoralising results.\n\nWhether or not the reader be prepared to accept the conclusions and\nrecommendations of the Swedish thinker, he must recognise that these\nconclusions represent the result of painstaking and scholarly thought\nand investigation. Daring and iconoclastic as they may be, the views of\nEllen Key are presented with a calmness and philosophy of method that\nis absolutely free from any trace of sensationalism. The book, which is\nbeing distributed in half a dozen languages to a world\u2019s public, must\nbe accepted as a most important contribution to philosophic thought.\n\nThe introduction by Havelock Ellis, himself an authority on social\nproblems, will help to make clear its purpose and character.\n\n\nNEW YORK, January, 1911.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                        PAGE\n\n  INTRODUCTION BY HAVELOCK ELLIS                         vii\n\n  CHAPTER\n\n      I. THE COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT OF SEXUAL MORALITY      1\n\n     II. THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE                            57\n\n    III. LOVE\u2019S FREEDOM                                  107\n\n     IV. LOVE\u2019S SELECTION                                140\n\n      V. THE RIGHT OF MOTHERHOOD                         169\n\n     VI. EXEMPTION FROM MOTHERHOOD                       200\n\n    VII. COLLECTIVE MOTHERLINESS                         246\n\n   VIII. FREE DIVORCE                                    287\n\n     IX. A NEW MARRIAGE LAW                              359\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nEllen Key, whose most important book is here for the first time\npresented in English, is no stranger in the English-speaking world.\nHer _Century of the Child_ has already found many appreciative readers\nin America as well as in England. Ellen Key is descended from a Scotch\nHighlander, Colonel M\u2019Key (probably of the famous MacKay clan) who\nfought under Gustavus Adolphus, and she attaches no little significance\nto this ancestry. She has always interested herself in English matters,\nand is well acquainted with the life and literature of Great Britain;\nbut she belongs first and foremost to Scandinavia.\n\nShe was born in 1849 in the Swedish province of Smaland, on a country\nestate of her father. He had played a distinguished part in the Swedish\nparliament as an avowed radical, but his wife was a representative of\nan old and noble family. Ellen, their eldest child, was marked from an\nearly age by her love of nature and of natural things. This devotion\nto nature may be considered hereditary, for her great-grandfather was\nan ardent disciple of Rousseau, and a special admirer of Rousseau\u2019s\nfamous treatise on Education. He gave to his son the name of \u00c9mile,\nwhich was handed down to Ellen Key\u2019s father. It was perhaps owing\nto the Rousseau tradition that the young girl was initiated from\nchildhood in swimming, rowing, riding, and other exercises then usually\nreserved for boys. At the same time, she loved music and devoured\nbooks including Scott\u2019s novels and Shakespeare\u2019s plays. An early\nenthusiasm was for Goethe\u2019s _Hermann and Dorothea_; it may be said,\nindeed, that the ideal of natural, beautiful, and harmonious living\nfor which that book stands has never left Ellen Key. She was educated\nfor the most part at home by German, French, and Swedish teachers,\nbut it may easily be believed that a girl of so much individuality of\ncharacter, so impetuous and so independent, proved a difficult child\nto manage and was often misunderstood. One may divine as much from\nthe sympathetic attitude towards children and the reverence for their\nhealthy instincts, which are revealed in _The Century of the Child_.\nFortunately young Ellen had a wise and discerning mother, to whom she\nowed much; with a fine intuition, this mother overlooked her daughter\u2019s\nindifference to domestic vocations and left her free to follow her own\ninstincts, at the same time exercising a judicious influence over her\ndevelopment. While still a young girl, the future author, inspired by\nBj\u00f6rnson and other Scandinavian writers, conceived the idea of devoting\nherself to the study of the condition of the people and wrote several\nnovels on peasant life. A remark of her mother\u2019s\u2014that her daughter\nsurely could not be meant to write novels, because the main questions\nfor her were \u201cthe questions of her own soul\u201d\u2014opened her eyes to the\ntruth that fiction could not be her vocation. But she was very far from\nknowing what her life\u2019s work was to be, and her dreams were of love and\nmotherhood, not of a career.\n\nWith Bj\u00f6rnson she was throughout in friendly relationship. He had\nrecognised her fine abilities before she even began to write, and\nshe on her side was full of admiration for his genius, strength, and\ngoodness. The other world-famous writer of Scandinavia Ellen Key\nlearned to know through his work at the age of eighteen, when her\nmother presented to her _Love\u2019s Comedy_, _Brand_, and _Peer Gynt_;\nthis also was an influential event in her life. Among writers to whom\nshe was later attracted were Elizabeth B. Browning, George Eliot, John\nStuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, and John Ruskin.\n\nAt the age of twenty-three, Ellen Key began those constant excursions\nto all the great centres of Europe, which may be said never since to\nhave ceased, at first in the company of her father, whose secretary,\nconfidant, and almost co-worker she had become, and she was thus\ngradually led to writing for journals. A love of art seems to have been\na primary inspiration of these early journeys, for at this time Ellen\nKey was fascinated by the art of painting as she has always been by\nthe greater art of living, and her wide knowledge of pictures has often\nhappily illuminated her later writings. After 1880, however, when her\nfather, as the result of an agricultural crisis, lost his property,\nshe was compelled, at the age of thirty, to choose a career and for a\ntime became a teacher in a girls\u2019 school. She had always been attracted\nto teaching and many years earlier, at the instigation of Bj\u00f6rnson,\nhad studied the school system of Denmark. At a later period she gave\ncourses of lectures in literature, history, and \u00e6sthetics. For twenty\nyears she occupied the Chair of History of Civilisation in Sweden at\nthe Popular University of Stockholm.\n\nThe early years of her career as a teacher seem to have been a period\nin Ellen Key\u2019s life of much struggle, hardship, and mental depression\ndue to personal sorrows. Amongst these were the deaths in rapid\nsuccession of several distinguished women with whom she was closely\nassociated, Sophie Kowalevsky, Anna Charlotte Leffler, and (by suicide)\nErnst Ahlgren. She had not yet reached full development nor found her\ntrue place in the world. Although her abilities, when she was still a\ngirl of twenty, had been discerned by a distinguished Swedish woman\u2019s\nrights advocate, Sophie Adlersparre, who encouraged her to write\nfor her journal, she has always been shy and diffident, with none\nof the self-confident qualities, which an outsider might be tempted\nto attribute to her, of an imposing Corinne. She published no book\ntill she had reached middle-age\u2014most of her best books belong to the\npresent century\u2014and though she had so far overcome her timidity as\nto discuss literary and \u00e6sthetic questions before a public audience,\nshe had yet scarcely touched openly on those dangerous and difficult\nquestions which arouse fierce antagonisms. It required some assault\non her most cherished convictions to arouse her latent courage. This\noccurred when an old Swedish law against heresy was revived in order to\nsend to prison some young men who had freely argued the consequences,\nas they conceived them, of the Darwinian doctrine in religion and\nsexual morals. There is nothing so sacred to Ellen Key as the right to\npersonal opinion and personal development; the sight of any injustice\nor oppression has always moved her profoundly, and on this occasion she\nsprang forward into the fray like a lioness in defence of her cubs. She\nis, in the opinion of Georg Brandes, \u201ca born orator,\u201d and she publicly\nbrought her eloquence to the service of the cause she had at heart.\nHer discussion of the question was marked by moderation, skill, and\nlearning, but her attitude on this occasion served to define publicly\nher real position. Thenceforward the conventionally respectable\nelements of Swedish society felt justified, according to the usual\nrule, in dealing out reckless and random abuse to the daring pioneer.\nShe, on her side, retained her serenity, remaining a true woman, with\nmuch of the mother in her and something of the child, but before\nlong her literary activities developed along her own native lines,\nand in full maturity she frankly approached the essential questions\nof life and the soul. A considerable series of volumes began rapidly\nto appear, often rather informal in method and personal in style, but\nfreely following the author\u2019s thought and feeling, full, not only of\nardent enthusiasm but of fine intuition and mellow wisdom. In 1903\nwas begun the publication of her most extensive work, _Lifslinjer_\n(Lines of Life), of which work the first two volumes constitute the\nbook here presented to the English reader. A few years later appeared\n_The Century of the Child_ and in 1909 _The Woman\u2019s Movement_, by many\nregarded as the best statement which has been made of that movement\nin its widest bearings. Ellen Key has also published a long series of\nessays on literary personalities\u2014C. J. L. Almquist, the Brownings,\nAnna Charlotte Leffler, Ernst Ahlgren, etc.\u2014who have appealed to her\nas illustrating some aspect of her own ideals. The latest of these is a\nlengthy study of Rahel Varnhagen.[1]\n\nEllen Key is a Scandinavian and may perhaps even be said to be a\ntypical figure of the country whose foremost woman she is. Moreover,\nshe loves her own land and is resolved to spend the rest of her life\nin a house she proposes to build in a beautiful part of the country,\nAlvastra, near Lake Wetter, close to the ruins of the first Swedish\nmonastery, a spot already sacred through its associations with the\ngreat Swedish saint, Brigitta. But the prophet is a prophet everywhere\nexcept in his own country. It is easy to find estimable Swedes who\nare far from anxious to claim the honour which Ellen Key reflects on\ntheir land. It is in Germany that her fame has been made. To-day the\nGermans, and not least the German women, awaking from a long period of\nquiescence, are inaugurating a new phase of the woman movement. The\nfirst phase of that movement dates from the eighteenth century, and its\nideals were chiefly moulded by a succession of distinguished English\nwomen who claimed for their sex the same human rights as for men: the\nsame right to be educated, the same right to adopt the occupation they\nwere fitted for, the same political rights. In the course of a century\nthese claims, although not yet completely realised, have gradually been\nmore and more generally conceded as reasonable.\n\nAt the same time, however, it began to be seen that these demands,\nimportant as they are, by no means cover the whole ground, while,\ntaken separately, they were liable to lead in a false direction; they\ntended to masculinise women and they ignored the claims of the race.\nIn their ardour for emancipation, women sometimes seemed anxious to\nbe emancipated from their sex. Thus it was not enough to claim woman\u2019s\nplace as a human being\u2014especially in an age when man was regarded\nas the human being _par excellence_\u2014but it also became necessary to\nclaim woman\u2019s place in the world as a woman. That was not, as it might\nat first seem, a narrower but a wider claim. For on the merely human\nbasis women were reduced to the level of competitive struggle with men,\nwere allowed to bring no contribution of their own to the solution of\ncommon problems, and, worst of all, their supreme position in the world\nas mothers of the race was altogether ignored. So that the assertion\nof the essential rights of women as women meant at the same time the\nassertion of the rights of society and the race to the best that women\nhave to give. It was certainly by no accident that the Germans, who\nonce before led the evolution of Europe by their triumphant assertion\nof the fundamental human impulses and have since been pioneers in\nsocial organisation, should take the leading part in the inauguration\nof this new phase of the woman movement.\n\nThe publication of Ellen Key\u2019s books corresponded in date with the\nrecent tendency of the Germans to bring to bear on the questions of sex\ntheir characteristic Teutonic thoroughness and practicality. It is not\nsurprising, therefore, that this Swedish woman, with her many-sided\nvision of the world, her daring yet serene statement of the secrets of\nhuman hearts, should be greeted as the natural leader of the movement\non its most womanly side. Love, as Ellen Key regards it, is at the core\nof the woman question, and these opening volumes of _Lifslinger_ are,\nabove all, a contribution to the woman question, a modern and more\nmature version of that _Vindication of the Rights of Woman_ which Mary\nWollstonecraft had set forth a century earlier.\n\nIn England, and the same may be said of America, we are yet but at\nthe beginning of this new phase of the woman movement. We have been\nmainly concerned with the rights of women to be like men; we are only\nnow beginning to understand the rights of women to be unlike men,\nrights which, as Ellen Key understands them, include, although they\ngo beyond, the rights embodied in the earlier claims. The dogmatic\nfanatics of every party, it is true, cannot endure Ellen Key; they\ncannot understand her, though she understands them, and even regards\nthem with a certain sympathetic tolerance, as we should expect from a\ndisciple of Montaigne and Shakespeare and Goethe. She is many-sided and\nis quite able to see and to accept both halves of a truth. In one of\nher earliest essays she showed how individualism and socialism, which\nsome people suppose to be incompatible, are really woven together,\nand in the same way she now shows that eugenics and love\u2014the social\nclaims of the race and the individual claims of the heart \u2014are not\nopposed but identical. Similarly, she declares that to build up, to\nhelp, to console is the greatest of women\u2019s rights; but, she adds,\nthey cannot adequately exercise that right unless they also possess\nthe right of citizenship\u2014so disconcerting the narrow partisan on each\nside. In matters of detail we may at many points reserve our opinion.\nEllen Key is, above all,\u2014like Olive Schreiner, to whom she is, in\nsome respects, akin\u2014the prophet of a movement which transcends merely\nisolated measures of reform. Her writings are the candid expression of\nher intimate self. In this book, especially, we feel that we are in the\ninspiring presence of a woman whose personality is one of the chief\nmoral forces of our time.\n\n  [Illustration: Signature of Havelock Ellis]\n\nLONDON, September, 1910.\n\n\nLove and Marriage\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT OF SEXUAL MORALITY\n\n\nAll thoughtful persons perceive that the ideas of the morality of\nsexual relations upheld by the religions and laws of the Western\nnations are in our time undergoing a radical transformation.\n\nLike all other such changes, this one is opposed by the distrust of\nthe guardians of society, a distrust which is based upon the view that\nhuman beings lack the power of themselves directing their development\non an upward course. According to these critics, this direction is the\nconcern of transcendental reason, which expresses itself in the real\nand thus causes the real to become rational. Marriage as it exists is a\nhistorically produced reality, and therefore also rational. Historical\ncontinuity\u2014as well as religious and ethical needs\u2014must entail the\npermanence of the actual institution of marriage as an indispensable\ncondition of the existence of society.\n\nThe reformers leave transcendental reason on one side. But they too\nacknowledge the connection between the real and the rational to this\nextent, that what has been real, has also been rational\u2014so long as\nin certain given sociological and psychological conditions it has\nanswered best the needs of humanity in some particular direction. They\nacknowledge the necessity of fixed laws and customs, since these alone\nintensify the feelings into sources of impulse, strong enough to be\ntranslated into action. They perceive that the conservative, tenacious\nemotions have the same importance for the soul as the skeleton for the\nbody.\n\nBut the historical necessity, on the other hand, according to which\nit is alleged that mankind awaits and surrenders itself to a fate\nover which it has no control, is to these reformers an absurdity.\nThe \u201chistorical necessity\u201d in every age is the realised will of the\nstrongest men, either in number or character, realised in the degree in\nwhich nature and history favour their exercise of power. The reformers\nknow that the Western institution of marriage has arisen partly from\nthe permanent, physico-psychological causes of the maintenance of the\nrace, partly from historical causes which were transitory, although\ntheir effects in this domain, as in many others, still continue.\nThey know that of all the fabrics of society marriage is the most\ncomplicated, the most delicate, and the most significant; they\nunderstand, therefore, that the majority must be seized with terror\nwhen the shrine of so many generations is threatened.\n\nBut they know also that all life is subject to transformation; that\neach transformation involves the death of once active realities, and\nthe formation of new ones. They know that this dying-off and replacing\nnever takes place uniformly; that laws and customs, which have become\na drag upon the lives of those in a better position, are still of\nadvantage to the majority, and therefore ought to continue in existence\nas long as they remain so. But they know at the same time that it is\nthrough the few in a better position\u2014those whose needs and powers are\nmost ennobled\u2014that a higher standard of existence will finally become\nthe portion also of the majority. The condition of all development is,\nnot to be content with the present, but to have the courage to ask how\neverything can be made better and the good fortune to find a right\nanswer to this question in thought or in action.\n\nIt is thus the dissatisfaction of the most cultured class with the\nexisting contradictions between its sexual needs and the form of\ntheir legitimate gratification which is now giving rise to attacks\non that institution of marriage which was still sufficient for their\nown grandparents, just as it is even now for a countless number of\ntheir contemporaries. These people know well enough that their\ndissatisfaction will not destroy marriage, so long as the psychological\nand social conditions which now maintain it continue to exist. But\nthey know at the same time that their will is destined gradually to\ntransform these psychological and social conditions. And they already\nsee on the hemisphere of the soul signs and wonders which portend that\nthe fulness of time is at hand.\n\nThe reformers do not believe that the inconsistencies and\ncontradictions which are indissolubly connected with the natural\nconditions of the maintenance of the race can be got rid of by any\nlegislation. And since they understand that complete freedom is an idea\nwhich only corresponds with perfected development, they are also aware\nthat new forms frequently entail hitherto unknown limitations, as well\nas extensions, of liberty.\n\nWhat they desire is such forms as, whether they limit or extend liberty\nof action, will promote a life-enhancing use of the sexual powers both\nfor the individual and for the race. They have no hope that the new\nform will arrive in a state of perfection, any more than they expect\nthat all mankind will be prepared for it. But they hope to foster the\nhigher needs, to awaken the richer powers, which are destined finally\nto render the new form necessary also to the majority. This hope\nkindles their calculated efforts, which are directed by the certainty\nthat personal love is life\u2019s highest value, as well directly for the\nindividual himself as indirectly for the new lives his love creates.\nAnd this certainty is spreading from day to day all over the world.\n\nUnless one believes in a superhuman reason which directs evolution,\none is bound to believe in a reason inherent in humanity, a motive\npower transcending that of each separate people, just as the power of\nthe organism transcends that of the organ. This reason increases in\nproportion as the unity of mankind becomes established. Less and less\nare the individual nations able to preserve their own peculiarities\nfrom the influence of their neighbours. And this is now becoming\nespecially plain with regard to sexual questions. While Scandinavian\nand Anglo-Saxon ideas on sexual morality appear here and there in\nthe literature of the Latin races, the Latin view of love has helped\nto shape the ideas which in Scandinavia go by the name of \u201cthe new\nimmorality.\u201d\n\nThus from one country to another fly the shuttles of gold and shuttles\nof steel, drawing the fine and many-coloured woof of contemporary\nconsciousness through thread after thread of the strong warp, made up\nof the laws and customs of various nations. What follows is in part\na drawing of the new pattern this weaving is fashioning, in part an\ninsertion into this pattern of certain new motives.\n\n\nThose who regard monogamy as the only standard of sexual morality and\nthe only legitimate form of personal love, do not mean the ostensible\nmonogamy now established by law but circumvented by custom. They mean\nreal monogamy: one man for one woman during that man\u2019s lifetime;\none woman for one man during that woman\u2019s lifetime, and beyond that\ncomplete abstinence. In the way of development, they acknowledge\nonly one gradual realisation of this ideal; in the tendency of the\npresent day to adopt several lines of development they see nothing but\ndecadence.\n\nAgain, those who profess the faith of Life regard the ideals of\nmankind as an expression of man\u2019s higher needs. Ideals which were\nonce incentives to development thus become a drag upon it, whenever\nlife\u2019s needs demand new forms that are not recognised by the prevailing\nidealism. Only he who believes in supersensuous, God-inspired ideals\nwill consider these fixed for all natures and all times. Evolution, on\nthe other hand, shows us that the same ideals never have been and never\ncan be accepted by all the beings we include in the single expression,\nthe human race, but which in reality belong to almost as many separate\nraces as the animal world. Evolutionists indeed rejoice that humanity\ncannot be equated under a single faith, a single code of custom, a\nsingle ideal, since in the diversity of life they see a great part of\nits worth. They think that this in itself is a sufficient reason for\ngradually granting to individuals of the same time and country that\nliberty which, from a historical point of view, is allowed to the same\nnation at different periods, and, from an ethnographical point of view,\nto different nations at the same period: namely, the liberty, within\ncertain limits, of choosing its own form of sexual life. And they\nwould be the more ready to do so, since the geographical, climatic,\nhistorical, and economic differences between individuals are just as\ngreat as those between nations and periods, and thus what is adequate\nto the needs and development of one cannot answer to those of the rest.\n\nFew propositions are so lacking in proof as that monogamy is the form\nof sexual life which is indispensable to the vitality and culture\nof nations. Neither history nor ethnography need be appealed to\nagainst an assertion which is sufficiently refuted by the fact that\n_monogamy_, according to our strict definition above, _has never\nyet been a reality even among the Christian nations_, except for a\nminority of individuals; that all the progress that is ascribed to\nChristian civilisation has taken place while monogamy was indeed the\nlaw but polygamy the custom. During the period which is rhetorically\nalluded to as that of \u201cvirtue and manliness,\u201d the days of heathenism\nin the North, those laws and customs prevailed which now\u2014after\na thousand years\u2019 further refinement of the emotional life under\nChristianity\u2014are regarded as involving the dissolution of society! Our\nexcellent forefathers, whose morals seem so greatly to have outshone\nour own, were all born in civil matrimony and brought up in homes\nwhere not infrequently the concubine lived by the same hearth as the\nwife, and where the latter was liable to be repudiated for reasons as\ntrivial as those for which she might herself obtain divorce. Indeed,\nthese ancestors were sometimes the offspring of a \u201cfree love\u201d which\nfound a home in the wilderness when the guardian had forbidden the\nlawful union of a loving couple. The introduction by the Catholic\nChurch of an indissoluble marriage tie did not prevent the people\nfrom narrowly escaping ruin in the Middle Ages. No one, again, will\ngive to eighteenth-century France the credit for monogamous morality.\nNevertheless, France retained vitality enough to determine the history\nof Europe by her economical, intellectual, and military power. And,\nin spite of its erotic \u201cimmorality,\u201d the heart of the French nation\nstill possesses a great reserve of health and tenacity, together with\nexcellent civic virtues and powers of work.\n\nThose who are so fond of asserting that monogamy and indissoluble\nmarriage determine the existence of nations, are either ignorant of the\npast history and present condition of the nations, or conceal their\nknowledge behind the prejudiced view that the white humanity of Europe\nis to be taken as the criterion for the morality as well as for the\nfaith of the whole race.\n\nOn the other hand, what can be proved is this: that the vitality of\na people depends first and foremost on the capacity and willingness\nof its women to bear and foster children fit to live, and on their\nhusbands\u2019 capacity and willingness to protect the national existence.\nIn the next place, it depends on the whole people\u2019s fondness for\nwork and ability in the achievement of prosperity for itself and of\nvalue for mankind at large, and finally on the will of the individual\nto sacrifice his own ends when the common weal demands it. What can\nfurther be proved is that, if a people wastes its strength in sexual\ndissipation, this will often prevent its fulfilling the conditions we\nhave mentioned as necessary to its progress, and will thus bring about\nits ruin.\n\nBut this does not involve any proof that a nation will be ruined if it\nalters the forms of sexual life according to a newly-acquired knowledge\nof the most reasonable sexual morality!\n\nMonogamy was victorious from many causes, above all from experience\nof its advantages. It minimised the struggle of the men for the women\nand thus economised forces for other ends; it provided an incentive\nto work for offspring; it developed modesty and tenderness within the\nsexual relationship and thus raised the position of the woman and with\nit her importance in the bringing-up of the children; it provided them\nand her with a protection against the arbitrary will of the husband;\nthrough home life it fostered self-command and co-operation; the need\nof the two for each other led to mutual kindness. The authority of\nthe husband was ennobled by the sense of responsibility and the joy\nof protection; the dependence of the wife by devotion and fidelity.\nThis last was strengthened by fear of the husband\u2019s proprietary\njealousy, by his craving for the certainty that his property would\nbe inherited by his own children; by religions, according to which\nthe admixture of foreign blood in the race was a sin; by the hope of\nChristianity for a life together beyond the grave; and by their common\nchildren, the feeling of tenderness for whom grew deeper as development\nproceeded. And monogamy still continues to exercise this cultivating\ninfluence on the morals and on the soul. It might, therefore, seem that\nthis admission of the value of even an imperfect monogamy rendered\nall further proof unnecessary for those who assert that the true\ndevelopment of sexual morality can only be secured through a gradually\nperfected monogamy. But they forget that monogamy, which was a custom\nlong before the introduction of Christianity, _became injurious as\nwell as beneficial to true sexual morality, from the moment the Church\nprescribed it as the only form of this morality_.\n\nThen, by a common trick of thought, the conclusion was drawn that the\nmighty development of culture which had taken place under monogamy\nwould have been impossible if this had not been the sole legitimate\nform of sexual relationship. And thus it was established as the\nindispensable condition of all higher culture!\n\nThe import of the moral controversies which now arise with increasing\nfrequency is _the examination of the relatively higher value for real\nsexual morality of marriage or love_.\n\nSo long as man believed that he had been created perfect, had then\nfallen and continued in everlasting strife between the spirit and the\nflesh, no doubt could arise of the absolute value of the Christian\nideal of morality. Even those who strove hardest to attain this\nideal, even those vanquished in the strife, confessed themselves\nsinners in so far as the flesh triumphed over the spirit. It was\nevolutionism that first gave man courage to wonder whether he may not\nalso be \u201csinning\u201d when the spirit triumphs over the flesh; to ask\nhimself whether perchance marriage did not exist for mankind, and\nnot mankind for marriage; to assert the right of the present time\nto more universal experience with regard to the sexual customs most\nfavourable to the development of the race. For \u201cthe idea of marriage\u201d\nis to them nothing else than to further this development. But universal\nexperience cannot be won so long as religion and law prescribe a\nsingle custom as certainly the right custom and all others are thus\ncondemned and obstructed\u2014as soon as they show themselves with serious\nfrankness\u2014while secret trespass against the monogamous ideal is\ncountenanced. It cannot be denied that the sanctioning of this ideal\nhas incited many to try to realise it; indeed, hypocrisy itself is an\nindirect tribute to its worth. But its fixity has now become a danger\nto continued evolution.\n\n\nOn the question of marriage, as in all other respects, Lutheranism is\na compromise, a bridge between two logical views of the universe: the\nCatholic-Christian and the Individualistic Monist. And bridges are made\nto go over, not to stand upon.\n\nNone of our \u201cimmoral\u201d authors has insisted more strongly than Luther\nand Olaus Petri on the power of the sexual life. Both regard modesty\nwithout marriage as unthinkable. Both see in marriage the means given\nby God to satisfy desire, just as food is the means given by God to\nsatisfy hunger. But man has as little right to satisfy the former by\nunchastity as he has to still the latter by theft. There would be\nnothing to object to in this if unchastity had not been made synonymous\nwith every form of sexual relation outside matrimony, while chastity\nbecame equivalent to every form of marriage.\n\nLuther showed some knowledge of nature when he taught that, though\nit may be possible for human beings to repress their actions outside\nwedlock, they cannot repress their feelings and desires. On the other\nhand he knew nothing of that creation of culture, love, and therefore\nhe failed to see that exactly the same sentence which he used to\nconfute celibacy may also be employed to confute marriage, for the\nvow of fidelity no more entails real faithfulness than the vow of\nchastity is the cause of true purity. Real fidelity can only arise when\nlove and marriage become equivalent terms. The substance of Luther\u2019s\ncontroversy on marriage was not a higher conception of matrimony than\nthat of the Catholic Church, it was merely the restoration of marriage\nto churchmen and monastic communities. We have to thank Luther for\nthe Lutheran parsonage and with it for a great contribution to the\npoetry of country life, to popular culture, to the production of many\ngreat minds, and\u2014indirectly\u2014to the moulding of many passionate\nfree-thinkers. The Lutheran doctrine of marriage, on the other hand,\ndeserves no thanks, since\u2014like Protestantism as a whole\u2014it stopped\nshort in an insoluble contradiction. Instead of upholding, in the\nspirit of the Catholic Church and of Christ, the indissolubility of\nmarriage and demanding the suppression of sensuality when the peace\nof the soul required it, Luther, by his insistence on the strength of\nnatural inclinations, was forced into concessions, which\u2014quite in\naccordance with the teachings of the Bible\u2014went so far as to approve\nof bigamy. To the gross apprehension of the Reformation period the\nchoice of a personal love meant nothing. With marriage possible from\na natural point of view alone, it might be contracted with any one;\nindeed, to the genuinely pious it seemed a higher thing to enter into\nmatrimony without any earthly love, which interfered with the love of\nGod. The Lutheran doctrine of marriage made God \u201cindulgent\u201d towards all\nthe impurity that the sexual life shut up within the whited sepulchre\nof lawful wedlock. He has shut his eyes to all the wife-murders that\nthe command of fecundity involved; to all the worthless children\nproduced by ill-matched and impure marriages. He has \u201cblessed\u201d all\nunions entered into, even though from the lowest motives, under the\nmost unnatural circumstances: between a sick person and a healthy\none, an old and a young, a willing and an unwilling or two unwilling\nones, coupled together by their families. To-day, countless women\nare still being sacrificed to this doctrine of marriage, or to its\nunconscious effects; their exhausted wombs are a poor soil for the new\ngeneration; their crushed souls a broken support for the growth of\nnew wills. For one woman who defends herself with the resolution lent\nby horror, there are thousands who have conceived and still conceive\nchildren in loathing. For one wife who is met with the modest prayer\nof love, there are thousands who with a feeling of humiliation concede\nto their proprietors the right inculcated by the Lutheran doctrine\nof matrimony. But the signs of the times are visible even within the\nLutheran Church. There are to be found younger men who maintain that\nlove\u2014not merely the formula about love in the marriage-service\u2014must\nbe present if the marriage is to be regarded as a moral one. And\nprobably these neo-Lutheran prophets of love use their influence to\nprevent a number of repulsive marriages. But it does not occur either\nto them or to their congregation to treat with contempt a couple who\nhave been married for the most despicable reasons. On the other hand,\nif two young and healthy people, united only by their love, should\nlive together and fulfil the command of fruitfulness, then indeed\nthis couple would be made to feel, through shameful treatment\u2014if\nnot by the young clergyman himself, then by his flock\u2014that a sexual\nconnection sanctioned by law is the only one that is respected, and\nthat, therefore, it is not the seriousness of personal love in itself,\nbut primarily society\u2019s official stamp that makes it pass as a moral\nground for the cohabitation of two human beings. And if a person who is\nunhappy in a loveless marriage frees himself and establishes a new home\non \u201cpersonal love, the moral ground of marriage,\u201d then the churchmen\nhasten to substitute for \u201cthe moral ground of marriage\u201d that of duty.\n\nThe doctrine that love is the moral ground of sexual relations is thus\nas yet only an unendorsed sequence of words. The attempt to realise it\nwas for a long time a punishable crime in Lutheran countries, and will\nprobably be still treated about the year 2000 as a culpable error.\n\nThus the marriage doctrine of Lutheranism\u2014like that of Christianity\nin general\u2014has ended, according to the moral ideas of the religion of\nLife, in immorality, since it no more protects the right of the race to\nthe best conditions of life than it admits the right of the individual\nto realise his love according to the needs of his personal morality.\nThe object of the Lutheran marriage was to unite man and woman, with\nor without love, as a means to securing their mutual morality, to\nmake them breeders of children for society, and in addition to retain\nthe husband as breadwinner. By relentlessly pursuing this object, the\nchurch has succeeded in damming up but not in purifying sensuality,\nin developing the sense of responsibility but not of love. It has\nthus merely rough-planed the material for a higher morality. This\nrough-planed material may still be the most suitable for general use,\nbut more and more people will now require finer instruments.\n\nThe new conception of morality grows out of the hope of the gradual\nascent of the race towards greater perfection. Those forms of sexual\nlife which best serve this progress must therefore become the standards\nof the new morality. But as the nature of a relation can only be\ndetermined by its results, those who hold the faith of Life will _apply\na conditional judgment also in the case of sexual affairs_. Only\ncohabitation can decide the morality of a particular case\u2014in other\nwords, its power to enhance the life of the individuals who are living\ntogether and that of the race. _Thus sanction can never be granted in\nadvance_ nor\u2014with certain exceptions relating to children\u2014_can it be\ndenied to any matrimonial relationship. Each fresh couple_, whatever\nform they may choose for their cohabitation, _must themselves prove its\nmoral claim_.\n\nThis is the new morality, which is now called immoral by the same type\nof souls as condemned Luther on his appearance as immoral,\u2014a judgment\nwhich is repeated in the Catholic world, where to-day the same abuse\nis heaped upon \u201cthe unchaste monk\u201d as is poured upon the adherents of\n\u201cfree love\u201d within the Lutheran communities. The question for Luther\u2019s\npresent-day \u201cliberal\u201d followers, both in this matter and in that of\nfaith, is whether they shall turn back or go forward; back to the firm\nground of absolute authority, or over the bridge of free experiment\ninto the untrodden country of an entirely personal faith; back to\nindissoluble marriage or over the bridge of coercion to the rights\nof love. The right course of a consistent thought admits of no third\npossibility.\n\nThe neo-Protestant doctrine of marriage is already much less logical\nthan Luther\u2019s. They agree with him in admitting the right of the\nsensual side of love, and with their contemporaries in granting to love\nits share in human life. But when they proceed to draw limits for both,\nthey bring themselves into an untenable position.\n\nThey bring themselves into an untenable position not because they\ninsist upon self-control within as well as outside of matrimony (all\npreparation for a final enhancement of life involves temporary checks\nupon life) but because the self-control they demand is so comprehensive\nthat it will be in a high degree obstructive to life without the\ncompensation of a final enhancement, for they limit the sexual part of\nlove to the task of continuing the species, and the part of love in\nhuman life to a single relationship. Those couples who are unable or\nunwilling to take upon themselves the responsibility for a new life are\nthus condemned to celibacy in marriage. Those couples who have once\nfounded their marriage on love must maintain the relationship even\nwithout love.\n\nThese demands are more ruthless to human nature than those opposed by\nLuther. Complete celibacy is easier than married celibacy. The needs\nof the soul are stronger than those of the senses. This ought not,\nhowever, to prevent the setting up of the strict demands if these were\nreally conducive to a higher existence from the sexual point of view.\nBut only one who disregards life\u2019s reality (and the Christian is often\nsuch a one) can at the same time set up personal love as the ground of\nsexual morality and limit its rights within certain bounds of morality.\n\nPersonal love, as now developed by civilisation, has become so\ncomplicated, comprehensive, and involved that _not only does it\nconstitute in itself_ (independently of its mission to the race) _a\ngreat asset in life, but it also raises or lowers the value of all\nelse_. It has acquired a new significance besides its original one:\nthat of bearing the flame of life from generation to generation. No\none calls him immoral who\u2014disappointed in his love\u2014abstains from\ncontinuing the race in his marriage; nor would the couple be called\nimmoral who continue in a marriage made happy by love, although it has\nshown itself to be childless. But in both these cases, the parties\nconcerned _follow their subjective feelings at the cost of the race and\ntreat their love as an end in itself_. The right already granted to the\nindividuals in these cases at the cost of the race will in future be\nextended more and more in proportion as the significance of love grows.\nOn the other hand, the new morality will demand of love an ever greater\n_voluntary limitation of its rights, during the times that a new life\nclaims it, as well as voluntary or compulsory renunciation of the right\nto produce new lives, under conditions which would render them of less\nvalue_.\n\nThe marriage doctrine of neo-Protestantism, like that of Tolstoy,\nrests finally on the ascetic distrust of the sexual life. Neither\ndoctrine supposes that the sensual side can be ennobled otherwise than\nby being placed exclusively at the service of the race. It is this\npoint of view which is finally decisive in all Christian conceptions\nof morality. Christianity is sustained by the knowledge that the\nobject of man\u2019s life on earth is his development as an eternal being.\nTherefore none of his expressions of life can be an end in itself, but\nmust serve a higher purpose than the earthly life and happiness of the\nindividual\u2014or even than that of the race.\n\nWhen the foundation of sexual morality was laid in an existence\nbeyond this world, it lost its connection with the continuation of\nthe race and thus was brought into contradiction with itself. This is\nthe reason why Christianity, while it has indirectly done much for\nthe spiritualisation of love, has yet never succeeded in combining\nthe needs of the individual with those of the race, the cravings of\nthe soul with those of the senses. That moral standard will alone be\nall-embracing which is determined by the belief that the meaning of\nlife is its development through individuals towards higher and higher\nforms of life for the whole race. This standard will not regard any\nasceticism as moral which contemplates the freeing of the soul from the\nbonds of sensuality, as is the great aspiration of Eastern asceticism.\nIt only recognises the claim of such self-discipline as brings about an\never-increasing unity between the soul and the will of the body. Such\na self-discipline, indeed, renounces the nearer and lesser good for\nthe more distant and greater. But it finds this good, in the domain of\nlove as in everything else, _in an increasingly soulful sensuousness,\nor in an increasingly sensuous soulfulness_, not in the spirituality\nof asceticism, more and more freed from the senses. To the chapel\nof this spirituality a mountain path leads, which\u2014however arduous\nevery step may be\u2014yet goes straight to the goal. The soulful-sensual\nexistence again is a cell to which a labyrinth leads. Here each step\nis less difficult, but the whole journey involves infinitely greater\ndangers and excitement. It may be for this reason that as yet it only\nattracts the strongest\u2014those who never renounce pleasure, since they\nfind pleasure even in renunciation. For him who seeks the latter goal\na single standard of morality will appear inapplicable\u2014simply because\nhuman nature is manifold. Sexual abstinence in youth, for instance,\nmay strengthen nine out of ten young men. The tenth it may change into\na man of bestial impulses, who, although before marriage he has been\nchaste, may show, when married, a coarseness or depravity which drags\ndown the wife to his level or opens an abyss between them. Purely\nsensual unions may in nine cases out of ten deteriorate both the man\nand the woman. In the tenth case such a connection may deepen into a\nfeeling that determines the course of two lives, and the resulting\nmarriage offers better prospects of happiness than that of many a\nyoung couple who have entered upon married life according to the rule\nwhich is regarded as the only one to give security of happiness. Thus\nit is possible in one case out of ten that the love for which a young\nman has kept himself pure until marriage really is personal love.\nIn the other nine cases it is not so, but on the contrary the most\nimpersonal of all love. Thus in nine cases out of ten, it is possible\nthat such disappointments can be borne through a sense of duty, so that\npersonality grows beneath them. In the tenth, again, persistence in the\nmistake will be the ruin of personality.\n\nThose who make\u2014and rightly\u2014complete purity before marriage and\npersonal love in the married state the standard of morality, ought, on\naccount of innumerable similar experiences, to make up their minds to\nlet every one decide for himself how this purity can best be attained,\nbefore as well as after marriage, and what personal love shall be held\nto imply. Either it must mean nothing for or against the sanctity of\nmarriage; or, if it is to mean sanctity at the outset of married life,\nthen it must also mean the same during its continuance. But only the\nindividual himself knows how long his marriage remains sanctified by\npersonal love or when it ceased to be so. No one can be burdened with\nthe duty of remaining in an unhallowed relation, and neo-Protestantism\nmust therefore either declare personal love to be the moral ground\nof marriage or unconditional fidelity to be the expression of moral\npersonality.\n\nThe monist in these questions does not ask whether a sexual\nrelationship is the first and only one, before he acknowledges its\nmorality. He only wishes to know whether it was such that it did not\nexclude the personalities of the lovers; whether it was _a union in\nwhich_ \u201c_neither the soul betrayed the senses nor the senses the\nsoul_.\u201d\n\nIn these words George Sand gave the idea of the new chastity.\n\n\nThe claims of the new sexual morality show curious similarities and\ndissimilarities to those to which the age of chivalry gave rise in the\nsame sphere. Thus the Courts of Love held the principle that marriage\nand love are mutually exclusive. On the other hand, the conception\nof personality has given rise to a desire for unity which makes it\nrepulsive to many people to live in matrimony unless there is a longing\nof the soul and of the senses for one\u2019s partner in marriage. The age\nof chivalry in its idea of love ignored the new generation whereas the\nhope of the present day is through love to perfect the race just as\nmuch as the lovers themselves.\n\nNor does the new morality deny to the many, who have not even been\ncapable of dreaming of personal love, the right to contract a marriage,\nwhich will at least contribute to their poor existence the interest of\nhome and the joy of parentage. But it will be severe with those who,\nhaving had experience or intuition of love, have entered without it\ninto a marriage which will certainly impoverish and perhaps ruin more\nlives than their own. Prudence may counsel leniency of judgment in the\nindividual case, since the majority of human beings learn to know their\nhearts late in life, if at all. Once more, _as a guiding principle of\nmorality, the unity of marriage and love must be maintained_. By his\npower of creating ideals, and the ever-increasing demand for happiness\nwhich results, man has deepened his instinct of spiritual needs, and\nthe same power of idealisation is now ruthlessly withdrawing the\noutward supports of sexual morality and replacing them by the idea\nof unity. That the halt and the lame are thereby deprived of their\ncrutches will be no stumbling-block to him who looks beyond the halt\nand the lame to the finer and healthier men of the future.\n\nIt is true that the idea of unity involves the right of every person\nto shape his sexual life in accordance with his individual needs, but\nonly on condition that he does not prejudice unity or the rights of the\nbeings to whom his love gives life. _Love thus becomes more and more\na private affair of the individual, while children are more and more\nthe business of society_, and from this it follows that the two lowest\nexpressions of sexual division (dualism) sanctioned by society, namely,\n_coercive marriage and prostitution, will by degrees become impossible,\nsince after the triumph of the idea of unity they will no longer answer\nto the needs of humanity_.\n\nBy coercive marriage is meant that under which not only are the\nmorality of cohabitation and the rights of the children dependent on\nthe form of cohabitation, but the possibility of divorce for one of\nthe parties is also dependent on the other\u2019s will. By prostitution is\nmeant all trading with one\u2019s sex, whether this traffic is carried on\nby women or by men, who from necessity or inclination sell themselves\nwith or without marriage. Both these things occur under grosser and\nunder milder forms. There is a scale of degrees for loveless marriage,\nas there is for loveless\u2014\u201clove.\u201d The distance is great between, for\ninstance, \u201cLa Dame aux Cam\u00e9lias\u201d or Raskolnikoff\u2019s \u201cSonja\u201d on the one\nhand, and a prowler of the gutter on the other. So it is between a\nwoman who contracts a marriage from the longing for motherhood and one\nwho does it from love of luxury; between a man who seeks a partner\nin his work and one who only wants a wife to console his creditors.\nBut whether one, with part of one\u2019s person, buys one\u2019s self free from\nhunger or from debts, loneliness or desire; however great in itself the\nvalue one gains may be, still the transaction remains, for buyer as\nwell as for seller, a humiliation from the point of view of the sexual\nmorality which sees things as a whole.\n\nThe development of the consciousness of erotic personality is at\npresent hindered in an equal degree by the \u201cmorality\u201d settled by\nsociety, and by the \u201cimmorality\u201d regulated by society. Whether it is\na question of maintaining the former or of excusing the latter, we\nare told that idealism must make way for \u201cthe needs of real life.\u201d\nThe same men who with reason are afraid of the dissolution of society\nif the right of the hungry to steal were preached in the name of \u201cthe\nneeds of real life,\u201d consider themselves wise when, in a far more\nimportant sphere than that of property, they proclaim the necessity of\nstealing, in the form of prostitution.\n\nReal life has certainly its claims: in the one case, that all who are\nhungry for food should have work, at such a rate of pay that they can\neat; in the other, that all who are of marriageable age should have\nthe possibility of contracting marriage at the right time. But the\nchanges that must take place before this can come to pass will fail to\nappear so long as society\u2014under the assumption that prostitution is\na necessary evil\u2014superintends its results and thus gives itself the\nillusion that its dangers can be provided against. For thus society\nescapes the search for expedients which would better provide for the\ntwo fundamental needs\u2014love and hunger\u2014for the satisfaction of which\nprostitution at present provides the only means for many men and women.\n\nBut these changes will also fail to appear so long as society\u2014under\nthe assumption that marriage is a necessary good\u2014retains this as the\nsole mark of morality in sexual relations.\n\nFor this state of things, those preachers of morality are to blame\nwho persuade themselves that the only cure for the evil is a still\nstricter maintenance of the claims of monogamy. They are afraid of\nany mention of the wealth of varied experience, of the longing for\nhappiness, or the joy of life. They proclaim nothing but the sense\nof duty, responsibility for one\u2019s individual soul, and obligations\nto society. But this has been constantly preached from the dawn of\nChristianity, and yet the standard of sexual morality as a whole is\nno higher than it was. This gives food for reflection. The more so\nwhen this dread of love is carried as far as Tolstoy\u2019s\u2014or rather, the\nOriental world\u2019s\u2014detestation of the senses; when marriage is regarded\nsolely as a palliative for a hereditary disease, which ought rather to\nbe stamped out so as to render the remedy unnecessary.\n\n\nWhen psychical phenomena have been as much investigated as physical,\nlove will also receive its cumatology\u2014that is, its science of waves.\nWe shall follow the curves of the emotions through the ages, their\nmovement of rise and fall, the oppositions and side-influences by\nwhich they have been determined. Such a rising wave in our time is the\ngrowing detestation of young men for socially protected immorality,\ntheir longing for singleness in love. An opposing influence, again, is\nthe disinclination of many young women for love. They are not content,\nlike the neo-Protestant clergymen, with demanding that carnality\nshall be sanctified by marriage: they want to kill it. They do not\nmerely hate\u2014and with reason\u2014desire apart from love: they depreciate\nlove itself, even when it appears as the unity of soul and senses.\nAccording to them, marriage ought to be merely the highest form of\nsympathetic friendship, in conjunction with a sense of duty directed\nto the procreation and rearing of children. When marriage is freed\nfrom feelings of carnal pleasure as well as from claims of personal\nhappiness, when it is the union of two friends in the duty and joy of\nliving entirely for their children\u2014then alone will it become \u201cmoral\u201d!\n\nOn the other hand, love, treated as a synthesis of spiritual sympathy\nand the life of the race, as the vital force through which a human\nbeing\u2019s existence is enhanced and beautified, is to them worthless; and\nthe idea of a distinction between the nature of woman and of man is\nto them meaningless. They demand of both complete abstinence outside\nmarriage, and within it they permit only certain few exceptions,\nwhich nature\u2019s yet imperfect arrangements render necessary for the\ncontinuance of the race. With the advance of science, they hope that\nchemistry and biology will set humanity free from its degradation in\nlove, just as Werner von Heidenstam expects his \u201cfood-powder\u201d to bring\nfreedom from degradation by hunger. Possibly they will both be right.\nBut with these possibilities the people of the twentieth century have\nnothing to do. What we rather require at present is more love\u2014and more\nfood\u2014not less.\n\nIt is therefore not likely that the line we have just touched upon will\nbe that followed by the development of sexual morality, for even now an\nincreasing proportion of mankind shows itself too exacting in erotic\nquestions to allow of the realisation of the above-mentioned ideal of\npurity. No thought of the end will to their minds sanctify a means\nwhich when deprived of love appears to them ugly.\n\nThe children begotten under a sense of duty would moreover be deprived\nof a number of essential conditions of life; among others that of\nfinding in their parents beings full of life and radiating happiness,\nwhich constitutes the chief spiritual nourishment of children\u2014and it\nmay be added that parents who \u201clive entirely for their children\u201d are\nseldom good company for them.\n\nThe programme of morality here alluded to is explicable from\na justified hatred of socially protected immorality and\na\u2014partly\u2014justified resentment against the love which leaves the child\nout of account. But its solution of love\u2019s deepest conflict\u2014that\nbetween the claims of the individual and those of the race\u2014is\nprejudicial to the will of nature as well as to the conditions of\ncivilisation. Independently of both factors, these zealots believe\nthey can attain that white world of purity which attracts their minds,\nafflicted as they are by the impurity and misery with which sexual\nrelations still load existence. They forget that above the snow-line\nonly the poorest forms of life can flourish. But human development\ntends towards the production of an ever richer and stronger series of\nforms. Any attempt to separate morality from sensuousness will not\naccelerate development but only retard it, since the transplantation\nof sexual emotion to a soil other than that of the senses is an\nimpossibility in our present earthly conditions.\n\nThe demand for purity which aims at non-sensuousness\u2014or\nsupersensuousness\u2014may perhaps provide protection from minor dangers.\nIn great ones it will be as futile as a hedge against a forest\nfire. No obstructing of appetites, but only their release in other\ndirections, can really purify them. Passions can be curbed only by\nmeans of stronger passions. In the same appetite and the same passion\nin which the danger lies, in the instinct of love itself, we have the\ntrue starting-point for its ennobling. He to whom the destruction of\nthis instinct is a passionate desire possesses in this passion itself\na prospect of attaining his unnatural end. He, again, who does not\nwish to kill, but only to control the sexual instinct, will become,\nin his struggle against this desire\u2014still immeasurably stimulated\nthrough heredity and social custom\u2014a strong and proud conqueror only\nwhen he imagines and finally experiences unity in love. Assuredly also\nsecondary expedients are to be found. Before all, that of acquiring\nthe instinct of chastity from parents; of being strengthened and\nprotected from childhood against the dangers of callousness as well as\nthose of softness; of being instructed in a refined and gentle way of\nthe great purpose and great dangers of sexual destiny; of receiving\nimpressions through public opinion of the possibility of self-control\nand its importance to the happiness of the individual himself and of\nthe race; of avoiding the abuse of means of enjoyment, especially of\nintoxicating liquors, which both directly and indirectly weaken the\nwill-power in the case of sexual, as of all other kinds of, temptation.\nIt is beyond question that noble sport, dancing, and games\u2014and they\nare only noble when practised finely and worthily, with the mind\nas well as the body\u2014are a means of replacing and controlling the\nsexual instinct. Equally certain is it that bodily and mental labour,\nwhether undertaken independently or as a participation in some form of\nsocial endeavour, is important as occupying and consuming the sexual\npowers in a substituted form. All genuine artistic enjoyment is in\nthe highest degree important for the ennobling of sexual life. But\nall this self-discipline, all these aids from the world of beauty and\nlabour, all this cultivation of the body to strength and beauty, will\nbe as lines without a centre so long as they do not all lead in the\ndirection of love\u2014love, which certain preachers of morality would\nleave altogether outside the question, as though even it were a danger\nand a temptation. No one would venture to deny that healthy habits\nof life and strict self-control may be elevating for the individual,\neven if love means nothing in his life. But life in its entirety gains\nnothing by the production of hardened or harassed ascetic types, which\nby exhausting bodily exercise, by reading that leaves the imagination\narid, and by art that smothers nudity, have succeeded in lulling\nto sleep the sensuousness which, nevertheless, will perhaps some\nday awake. Life has as little joy of these harsh guardians of their\n\u201chigher\u201d nature as they themselves have of life. We have not gained\nmuch if we are to have a youth which attains sexual abstinence at the\ncost of other excellent qualities equally necessary to the race. A\nyouth, with large blinkers, shunning the delights of the senses, the\nvaried joy of life, the mobility of the fancy; a youth devoid of all\nspiritual adventure\u2014such, with all its \u201cpurity,\u201d would be a dead asset\nin life.\n\nThose on the other hand who preserve but control the wealth of\nsuggestion of the sexual life will be\u2014even though their control has\nnot always been complete\u2014of infinitely greater service to existence.\n\nThe prejudice originally fostered by Christianity, that sexual purity\nis in itself so great an asset in life that it outweighs the sacrifice\nof all others\u2014this prejudice must be overcome. A person is estimable\nfor sexual purity only to the extent to which it fits him to fulfil\nthe purpose of life for himself and for the race: that of leading an\never higher life. His purity is too dearly won if it costs him, and\nthrough him the race, irreparable losses of vital joy, courage, and\npower.\n\nAnd for the present\u2014until many generations of marriage and bringing-up\nhave arrived at a transformation of present-day human, and especially\nmen\u2019s, nature\u2014the demand for purity will not admit of realisation\nwithout such losses; that is, if this demand takes the shape of the\nneo-Protestant formula, or, even more, that of Tolstoy.\n\n\nThose ascetics who recommend only self-control as a remedy for the\nmastery of the sexual instinct, even when such control becomes merely\nobstructive to life, are like the physician who tried only to drive the\nfever out of his patient: it was nothing to him that the sick man died\nof the cure.\n\nBut these ascetics may have arrived at their fanaticism by two\ndifferent paths. One group\u2014which includes most of the female\nascetics\u2014hates Cupid because he has never shown to them any favour.\nThe other group\u2014embracing the majority of male ascetics\u2014curse him\nbecause he never leaves them in peace. Meanwhile, those who put a\ntremendous emphasis on purity and those who rave about pleasure,\nmeet on the common ground of distrust of love\u2019s possibilities of\ndevelopment. Love to them means desire and nothing else; if the soul\nenters into it, it becomes friendship and that alone. They have never\nexperienced a love which is creative in the fullest sense of the word.\nSterility\u2014of the soul or the body or both\u2014is the mark of the only\nlove these two groups are acquainted with. The slaves of eroticism are\nadmirably characterised by Lord Chesterfield\u2019s confession that he had\nmade violent love to at least twenty women, all of whom personally were\nentirely indifferent to him. They know nothing of the soul\u2019s desire\nfor one single person, from among an unlimited selection; a desire\nwhich\u2014when it is deeply rooted\u2014is met by the desire of the other.\nThey do not know that the elective affinity of sympathy causes the one\nto gather from the other\u2019s eyes an all-mastering, liberating force. For\nthey themselves experience in the violence of desire only prostration\nand humiliation of their higher being. An otherwise sensitive man may\nfeel unnerved by eroticism to such a degree that now he will wish all\nwomen dead, to be thus freed from his thraldom; now he will desire,\nas Caligula did of the Romans, that they had but a single neck\u2014but\nnot to sever it. The hatred of these men for eroticism is that of the\nsavage for the hideous gods on whom he believes himself dependent,\nand whom he knows to be making sport of his destiny. And nothing is\nmore certain than that love, thus conceived, makes men degraded and\nridiculous. Even he who in his innermost soul loves tragedy and hates\nfarce, is made, under the attraction of this love, to halt between the\ntwo and to turn his life into a tragi-comedy; for in order to attain to\nthe true tragic greatness a man must be prepared to surrender himself\nunconditionally to, and to suffer through what is greatest in, his\nnature, his innermost ego. But the tragic destiny is apt to pass a man\nby against his innermost will, and then arises the impure form of the\ntragic that we have just mentioned. Thus men and women, who have only\nsought fresh stimulants in eroticism, at last come across a person who\ndoes not understand love in that way, and who ends the game for ever.\nOr perchance they themselves are gripped by a great emotion, but their\npast destroys the hope of its now being granted to them to worship in\nany holy grove the divinity to whom hitherto they have only burned\npaper lanterns in the turmoil of a fair. In most cases the tragi-comedy\ntakes the same form as with the drunkard: satisfaction becomes more and\nmore impossible; the insatiable one is continually forced to fly to\ngrosser means in order to quench his desire in some degree, to indulge\nwith increasing frequency, but with diminishing festival gladness.\nHe who has sunk to this kind of intoxication becomes by degrees as\nweak-willed, as heartless, as devoid of character and conscience as\nthe dipsomaniac, and equally incapable of selection and appreciation\nwithin the sphere of his appetites. The most sublime woman\u2019s love will\nat last leave him as insusceptible as is the drunkard to the liquid\ntopaz of Rhenish wine, its bouquet and dewy freshness. \u201cLove\u2019s freedom\u201d\nwill finally mean to him nothing but freedom from responsibility,\nfrom consideration, from danger, and from expense. In comparison with\nthis kind of \u201cfree love,\u201d prostitution is doubtless more dangerous to\nhealth, but far less injurious to personality. Prostitution detracts\nfrom personality by a cleaving which excludes the soul; but it does not\nconsume the personality in the same way as the \u201clove\u201d with which a man\nbuys women who are not venal. If they expect him to redeem his bonds in\ntrue coin, they will be disappointed. Love may possess, according to\nhis belief, no sterling value: he regards it as always a forged note\nwith which nature obtains the co-operation of human beings\u2014especially\nof women\u2014to her ends.\n\nThis love knows no atmosphere but that of the alcoves where it has\npursued its bought or stolen pleasure. It has never breathed the air of\nthe wilds, the air which quivers with sunshine and shakes with storms;\nthe air through which murmurs all life\u2019s longing for renewal, all the\nwistful intuition of eternity born of a hunger for happiness, which\nraises generation above generation towards unknown goals; an air which\nimmeasurably enhances and eternally absorbs vitality; the air of the\nwide expanses, where ferocity and madness are not yet extinct, where\nman and woman fight their eternal battles and suffer their eternal\npains; pains whose source even Lucretius knew to be dualism.\n\nBut that only unity is capable of sealing up this source\u2014that was\nknown to none before our own time.\n\nIn literature it is sometimes from the alcoves, sometimes from these\nwilds that the complaint arises of the mastery of the sexual instinct.\n\nIn the works of not a few of the writers on morality one fails to\nfind even a suspicion of these wildernesses of human life. These\nteachers betray their ignorance in a boundless narrow-mindedness, a\nnarrow-mindedness which includes the most far-reaching questions of\nhumanity among\u2014gymnastic and bath apparatus! To their short-sighted\nview, immorality has revealed itself not only as venal but in the shape\nof \u201cfree love.\u201d They do not suspect that free love as well as marriage\nincludes many degrees of morality and immorality, rising above or\nsinking below the ethical zero, at which both the free love and the\nmarriage of the majority are to be found.\n\nBetween the free or lawful love which becomes ugly, revengeful, or\nmurderous and the love which may perhaps take its own life but never\nthat of the loved one, the distance is therefore great. From the\npoint of view of enhancement of life there will be nevertheless a\ngreat difference between the free\u2014or lawful\u2014love which is devoted,\ncourageous, self-sacrificing, faithful, and that which leaves all the\nbest human qualities unemployed. In the same way, the distance is\ngreat between the sterile erotic \u201cadventures\u201d of a paltry vanity, a\nsordid hunger for sensation, and the passion through which a human\nbeing attains to new creative power. The concession to the storm of\npassion is in one case the pennant, in the other the sail.\n\nThe artistic temperament often expresses itself in the demand for\nerotic renewal. But while some thus increase their strength and health,\nothers grow ever poorer and uglier. Goethe was one of the former sort,\nGeorge Sand likewise. Natures of this type contain a wonderful power\nof renewal. They can love several times without becoming erotically\ndepreciated. Their souls, like the volcanic soils of the South, can\nbear three crops without being exhausted. But this is not the spiritual\nsoil or climate of humanity at large. And even such Olympian gods\nand goddesses suspect that love may have some secret kept from them.\nGoethe, who prayed of fate that he might only be required to love once\nin another existence, may have known less of love than Dante, to whom\nwas vouchsafed the marvellous vision described in the wonderful words\n\n  _Vede il cuor tuo_ ...\n\nGeorge Sand, who implored of the gods the flame of a great love,\nwas never so thoroughly fired thereby as her sister poet, Elizabeth\nBarrett Browning, who gave witness of her sympathy for her in the\nperfect lines which begin,\n\n  _Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man_ ...\n\nBut great love, like great genius, can never be a duty: both are\nlife\u2019s gracious gifts to its elect. _There can be no other standard\nof morality for him who loves more than once than for him who loves\nonce only: that of the enhancement of life._ He who in a new love\nhears the singing of dried-up springs, feels the sap rising in dead\nboughs, the renewal of life\u2019s creative forces; he who is prompted anew\nto magnanimity and truth, to gentleness and generosity, he who finds\nstrength as well as intoxication in his new love, nourishment as well\nas a feast\u2014that man has a right to the experience. Those on the other\nhand\u2014and they are the majority\u2014whom every new love makes poorer in\nthe qualities common to humanity and in personal sense of power, weaker\nin will, less efficient in work, have, from the point of view of the\nreligion of Life, no right to such self-deterioration. By its fruits\nlove is known. Nothing is truer than that \u201cthere is no such thing as\nlocal demoralisation.\u201d A person who in all his other doings is healthy\nand genuine; who continues strong and sound in his work, is in most\ncases moral also in sexual matters according to his conscience\u2014even if\nthis does not harmonise with the doctrine of monogamy. He, on the other\nhand, who shows himself a cheat or a wretch in his other dealings will\nprobably be the same in the affairs of love, whether his morals are\nthose of monogamy or polygamy; and it is therefore more unreasonable to\njudge of a man\u2019s morality in other matters from his sexual code than\nit is to judge of his sexual morality from his ethical standpoint in\nother questions. Nor does the latter afford an infallible criterion,\nfor these are people who reach the summit of their natures in a great\nlove, but remain below it in the rest of their affairs. Others again\nnever succeed in raising their erotic dealings to the level of the\nrest of their personality. But in regard to the accuracy of the result\nthe latter standard is nevertheless as superior to the former as a\nchemist\u2019s scales are to an old-fashioned steelyard. It may often be\nthe case that a person\u2019s other manifestations are in a certain sense\ngreater or less than himself, but his love, on the other hand, will\nin a thousand cases to one be his inmost self. Great or mean, rich or\npoor, pure or impure as he is in that, so will one also find him in\nthe other important relations of life. Of all summary characteristics\nof a person, therefore, none is more sure than this that, as a man has\nloved, so he is.\n\n\nAlthough in this way a follower of the religion of Life regards the\nTolstoy code of sexual morality as profoundly immoral, he recognises\nthat it has a purer as well as a less pure origin.\n\nThe former is the case with those who have suffered deeply from the\npassions which they now advise others to uproot for the sake of their\npeace; also with those who are in the early spring of their age, when\nlife is still asleep and nature appears to wear the hues of autumn.\n\nThe latter is the case with those for whom life has been all autumn,\nsince they were born withered; women and men who have been seized\nwith a hatred of the conditions of procreation because they have been\nthe victims of those vices and sufferings which still make of erotics\nthe _Divina Commedia_ of earthly life; but not as in that of Dante an\narchitectonic arrangement of hell, heaven, and purgatory, giving them\na definite sequence in space and time, but a drama wherein the three\nstates break in upon one another like waves on the shore. But whether\nthe haters of sexual life belong to the exhausted or to the excluded,\nto the sterile or to the immature, the withered or the poisoned, they\nmay doubtless be entitled individually to more or less leniency; their\ndoctrine of morality, however, must for the reasons we have given, be\nrejected as entirely worthless.\n\nThe same holds good of those who solve the sexual problem as though\nit were one with the claim of individual liberty, irrespective of any\nconsideration for the race.\n\nThese latter are in the habit of comparing the right to satisfy sexual\ndesire with the right to satisfy hunger. The former, on the other\nhand, reject this comparison as untenable, since, of course, a person\ncan live healthily in lifelong sexual abstinence. Instead of it they\ncompare the erotic passion with other passions, such as gambling and\ndrunkenness, in which popular opinion recommends self-control and the\nwill is capable of it.\n\nBoth regard the question in an equally superficial way. To compare the\nfundamental conditions of natural life, the motive forces of civilised\nlife, love and hunger, with any other passion than each other,\nfalsifies the whole statement of the problem. The instinct of love, as\nthat of hunger, may to a certain extent be suppressed; in both cases an\nincrease of strength in a certain direction may incidentally be gained.\nBut both needs must be satisfied in the right way if the individual\nbeing and the human race are to live and fulfil the intention of life\nin a higher development. Fasting men in the question of love are of as\nlittle value to the enhancement of life as they are in other fields.\n\nChristianity has so accustomed us to treat sexual purity as a question\nof the individual that, whether we regard it from the point of view\nof the enthusiast for chastity or from that of the enthusiast for\nliberty, we do not perceive that, while one satisfies hunger to prolong\none\u2019s own life, one produces children to prolong that of the race.\nThis renders the ascetic talk about the innocuousness of abstinence as\nsuperficial as the alleged right to satisfy sexual desire with the\nsame freedom as hunger.\n\nIf the individual remains without food, he himself loses his life;\n_but if he remains without the right of procreation, the race loses\nthe life he might have given to it_. Again, if the individual dies of\novereating, he is the only one who suffers; _if the sexual instinct is\nabused through excess, it is the race that suffers_.\n\nThe existing immorality involves an uninterrupted blood-poisoning of\nthe organism of humanity. The existing order of society and morality\nstarves this organism. It is not only with the melancholy their own\ninevitable fate inspires in them, but also with indignation against\nunnecessary suffering, that innumerable excellent men and women know\nthat they are condemned to die without having given their blood, their\nsouls, as an inheritance to a new generation of beings.\n\nIt is beyond all question that the instinct of the individual to\ncontinue his existence in the race must be controlled, if it is to be\nan enhancement, and not an obstruction, to life. _But this, in the\nmost literal sense, is the vital question for the individual and for\nthe race_: HOW _and_ WHY _and_ TO WHAT EXTENT _this control is to be\nexercised_.\n\nThus both the life of the individual and that of the race are enhanced\nwhen young people live in abstinence till they have reached full\nmaturity. The development of the race gains when the lives less\nworthy to survive are not reproduced in offspring; but the life of the\nindividual and of the race suffers when young people, mature and in\nevery way fit, are not in a position to produce and rear offspring.\n\nAt a low stage of development, hunger as well as celibacy has been an\nennobling force. Man has gradually learned to limit the quantity of\nhis food while improving its quality and regulating the supply. He now\nknows that the value of food depends to a large extent on the enjoyment\nit provides and the gratification with which it is associated; that\nwhat is unappetising does not fulfil its purpose. He knows too that the\norganism cannot be nourished by a diet accurately calculated for every\nage or for every class of work, but that only a certain superfluity\nreally gives the necessary satisfaction. Experience has shown that\ntoo great economy is as injurious as excess and that personal needs\nmust within certain limits be the deciding criterion in a full and\nlife-enhancing system of diet. Our understanding of this subject is now\nfar in advance of the ability of the bulk of mankind to follow it. In\nthe question of the racial instinct, on the other hand, we are still a\nlong way from knowledge of the conditions of equilibrium, and we have\nmuch farther still to go before we actually arrive at that equilibrium\nbetween the starvation and excess in the satisfaction of this need\nwhich are at present characteristic of our Western communities.\n\nIt was natural that Luther should put an end to fasting as well as\ncelibacy. Both were expressions of the Oriental longing to attain the\nideal condition of freedom from desire; both had been necessary factors\nin the education of the Germanic peoples. But at the same time it\nwas unfortunately inevitable that Luther\u2019s work of liberation should\nbe inconclusive; that he was incapable of adopting the belief of the\nancients in the divinity of humanity, the rights of nature; that he\ncontinually sought the sanctification of human nature by means exterior\nto itself. Someone has said that the courage of Luther the monk in\nmarrying a nun was worth more than all his doctrine. That is a true\nsaying. Filippo Lippi certainly did the same. The world gained thereby\nsome magnificent madonnas and\u2014Filippino Lippi. But neither Fra Filippo\nnor any other vow-breaking monk brought about a revolution: that was\nthe achievement of Luther alone, who asserted his divine and natural\nright to his action.\n\nThe problem of the present day is to follow up the consequences of this\ndeclaration of natural rights.\n\nBut nature is no more infallible than she is perfect, no more\nreasonable than unreasonable, no more consistent than contrary in her\npurposes; since she is all these. She may be transformed\u2014ennobled or\ndebased\u2014by culture, and therefore a natural declaration of rights\nimplies only _the right of man consciously to cultivate nature_, so\nthat in a certain direction she may fulfil her own purpose with a\ngradual approach to perfection; or, in other words, that the needs\ncreated by nature in and with human beings may by them be satisfied in\na more beautiful and healthy way. But this culture of the erotic nature\ncannot find its moral criterion in any divine command or transcendental\nidea. _It can only find it in the same mysterious longing for\nperfection, which in the course of evolution has raised instinct into\npassion, passion into love, and which is now striving to raise love\nitself to an even greater love._\n\nThere are some who think that love should therefore advance a claim to\na glory of its own, which is incompatible with its \u201cnatural\u201d mission,\nnamely the perpetuation of the race.\n\nEvery one knows, however, that evolution brings about a more\ncomplicated, heterogeneous state than the original one; and in this\nrespect love is the most conspicuous example. Love\u2014as we have already\nshown\u2014has now become a great spiritual power, a form of genius\ncomparable with any other creative force in the domain of culture,\nand its production in that region is just as important as in the\nso-called natural field. Just as we now recognise the right of the\nartist to shape his work, or of the scientific man to carry out his\ninvestigations as it seems good to him, so must we allow to love the\nright to employ its creative force in its own way provided only that in\none way or another it finally conduces to the general good.\n\nFrom this point of view, then, we cannot extend the proposition\nthat love is an end in itself so far as to say that _it may remain\nunfruitful_. It must give life; if not new living beings then new\nvalues; it must enrich the lovers themselves and through them mankind.\nHere as everywhere the truth which gives faith in life and creates\nmorality is to be found included in the experience which creates\nhappiness; and the most serious charge against certain forms of \u201cfree\nlove\u201d is that it is unhappy love; for there is no unhappy love but the\nunfruitful.\n\nThe capacity of mankind for forgetting is more wonderful than its\ncapacity for learning. If this were not so, there would be no necessity\nto recall again and again that every band of apostles includes a Judas;\nnay, that the truth can only be accepted by disciples in the hands\nof its enemies. One is reminded by this that every reformation has\nits visionaries who arrest the blow when the reformers have put their\naxe to the root of the tree; and one is not surprised that with every\nspring flood not only the ice but the earth itself is washed away.\n\nMankind seems determined not to remember. They must therefore be\nreminded once more that the new morality\u2019s band of combatants, ever\nmore closely united and more rapidly increasing, are distinguished\nfrom their scattered followers and from their light advance-guard\nby the knowledge that _love is subject to the same law as every\nother creative force; the law of dependence on the whole for its own\nenhancement to its highest possible value_. Love, indeed, whose origin\nis the very instinct of the race, must be more deeply bound up with the\nrace than any other emotion. And experience shows too that it cannot\npreserve and promote its vital force if it lacks any connection with,\nand does not stand in some relation, either of giving or receiving,\nto the race. It is therefore an indisputable necessity that every\nlove entirely detached from the rest of humanity must die for want of\nnourishment.\n\nBut the band which attaches it to humanity may be woven of several\nmaterials; the gift to the race may express itself in various ways. In\none case a great emotion may bring about a tragic fate, which opens the\neyes of humanity to the red abysses it contains within itself. Another\ntime it may create a great happiness, which sheds a radiance around the\nhappy ones, illuminating all who come near them. In many cases love\ntranslates itself into intellectual achievements, or useful social\nwork; in most it results in two more perfect human beings, and new\ncreatures, still more perfect than themselves.\n\nThose couples, on the other hand, who have shed no radiance either in\ntheir life or in their death; who have not taken one step on the golden\nladder to a higher humanity, and who have only found in each other the\nlust of the beasts\u2014without their readiness to sacrifice themselves for\noffspring \u2014these are immoral, since their love has not served the\nascending development of life. Whether this lifeless love has taken the\nform of a light and irregular or of a lifelong and lawful connection,\nit has in no respect enriched the life of the couple, much less\ntherefore that of the race.\n\nWith the enhancement of life as love\u2019s standard of morality, it is thus\nimpossible, as we maintained at the beginning, to decide in advance\nwhether either a free or a married love, an interrupted or a continued\nmarriage, voluntary childlessness or parentage, is moral or immoral;\nfor the result depends in each individual case on the will, the choice,\nwhich lies behind it, and _only the development of events can decide\nthe nature of this will and this choice_.\n\nIt is true enough that human beings are often weaker in execution\nthan in resolve. But then they must content themselves with enlarging\nold ideas of morality, for such as they are not called to make new\nmorals. And it is true that life occasionally lends an unexpected hand\nin the correction of a mistake; but as a rule the consequences are as\nthe cause. A woman who for purely selfish reasons shuns motherhood\nwill thus usually show herself to be a mistress without affection; a\nwife who breaks loose from a marriage before she has tried to extract\nfrom it its possibilities of happiness will probably throw away her\nchances in the same way in a new one. No relation can be better\nthan the persons who compose it. This law is so inflexible that the\nadministration of moral justice might confidently be left to time.\nThis does not imply that love, more than any other expression of life,\ncan be withdrawn from human arbitration, but it implies that _such\narbitration will be faulty when it is decided by the forms of a union\ninstead of by its results_. Here we are on the watershed between the\nold and the new morality. The course of the former is determined by\ndoubts of, and that of the latter by belief in, the resources of the\npower in human nature. The doubts of the former lead to the obligation\nof the individual to submit himself to the claims of society; the\nbelief of the latter leads to the liberty of the individual to choose\nhis own duty to society. On account of the weakness of human nature,\nand of consequent care for the well-being of society, the conservatives\nclaim that the individual must convince society in advance of his\nwillingness to serve its ends in his love, by renouncing a part of\nhis easily misused liberty. On account of the richness of human\nnature and the claims of development, the reformers demand for the\nindividual the right of _serving the community with his love according\nto his own choice, and of using the freedom of his love under his own\nresponsibility_.\n\nHe who does not allow his eye to be caught by the light straws that\nfloat and are lost upon the stream of time will soon become aware that\nthe new morality is growing deeper and deeper with fresh tributaries.\n\n\nChristian morality starts from the conception of human nature as\ncomplete in its constitution though not in its culture, and of a human\nbeing divided into body and soul. The soul is of divine origin, but\nfallen, and must be raised again by a process of culture determined\nby religion, the object of which is that mankind may attain the ideal\nprovided by religion, that is, Christ.\n\nThere is another morality which rests\u2014or which rested\u2014upon the belief\nin the inborn divinity of human nature and the equality of all men;\nthis belief ended in the efforts of the eighteenth century towards\nuniversal welfare, and in the expectation that liberty, equality, and\nfraternity could be realised even with the existing human material.\n\nThe new morality, on the other hand, adopts humanism in the form of\nevolutionism. It is determined by a monistic belief in the soul and\nbody as two forms of the same existence; by the belief of evolutionism\nthat man\u2019s psycho-physical being is neither fallen nor perfect, but\ncapable of perfection; _that it is susceptible of modification for the\nvery reason that it is not constitutively completed_. Both utilitarian\nand Christian humanism saw \u201cculture,\u201d \u201cprogress,\u201d and \u201cdevelopment\u201d in\nman\u2019s improvement of material and non-material resources within and\nwithout himself. But evolutionism knows that all this has only been\nthe preparation for a development which is to _improve and ennoble the\nvery material of mankind, hitherto, so to speak, only experimentally\nproduced_.\n\nOur present \u201cnature\u201d means only what, at this stage of development,\nis psychologically and physiologically necessary that we may exist as\npeople of a certain time, a certain race, a certain nation. Hairiness\nwas once \u201cnature,\u201d as nakedness is now. Marriage by capture was once\n\u201cnatural,\u201d as courtship is now. What new transformations the race is\ndestined to undergo; what losses and gains, at present unsuspected, of\norgans and senses, faculties and properties of the soul, await it\u2014this\nis the secret of the future. But the more mankind is convinced of its\npower of intervening in its own development, the more necessary does\na conscious purpose become. We must understand what obstructions we\nwill root out, what roads we will block up, and what sacrifices we will\nimpose upon ourselves.\n\nThe new morality is in the stage of enquiry on many questions\u2014such as\nlabour, crime, and education\u2014but above all on the sexual life. Even on\nthis question it no longer accepts commandments from the mountains of\nSinai or Galilee; here as everywhere else evolutionism can only regard\n_continuous experience as revelation_. Evolutionism does not reject the\nresults of historical experience, nor the fruits of Christian-human\ncivilisation\u2014even if it were possible to \u201creject\u201d what has become\nsoul and blood in humanity. But it regards the course of historical\ncivilisation that lies behind us as a battle-field of mutually\nconflicting ideas and purposes, with no more conscious plan than\nthe warfare of savages. Not until humanity chooses its ends and its\nmeans\u2014and makes its more immediate end the enhancement of all that is\nat present characteristic of humanity\u2014not until it begins to measure\nall its other gains and losses by the degree in which they further or\nretard that enhancement, will it also adopt the right attitude towards\nits inheritance from former ages. Then it will reject what hinders and\nselect what assists _its struggle for the strengthening of its position\nas humanity and its elevation to super-humanity_.\n\nWe stand on the verge of a stage of culture which will be that of the\ndepths, not, as hitherto, of the surface alone; a stage which will not\nbe merely a culture _through_ mankind, but culture _of_ mankind. For\nthe first time, the great fashioners of culture will be able to work\nin marble, instead of, as hitherto, being forced to work in snow. The\ntrue relation between the rights of the individual and those of the\nrace will become in the field of love as important as the relation\nbetween the rights of the individual and those of society in the field\nof labour. The conditions of labour raise or lower the value of the\npresent as well as of the future generation. The same holds good\u2014and\nin an even higher degree\u2014of the conditions of love.\n\nHow the boundary will finally be defined\u2014in the one case as in the\nother\u2014we cannot know at present. It is true that there is here and\nthere a glimmer of light which already shows the way; but until these\ngleams become more frequent, mankind can only grope and stumble along\nthe path by which perhaps it will one day march in full daylight.\n\nMany who regard sexual morality from the point of view of evolutionism\nhave never enquired whether monogamy\u2014and an increasingly perfect\nmonogamy\u2014is really the best means of human development. These\nevolutionists unite with the champions of Christian idealism in\ncondemnation of \u201cthe immorality of the present day,\u201d which declares\nitself in sexual matters in the form of free connections outside\nmatrimony; of an increase of divorce among those married; of\ndisinclination for parentage and of the claim of unmarried women to the\nright of motherhood. Other evolutionists think that all this is the\nearliest announcement of the awakening which will assign to love its\nfull importance, not only for the perpetuation, but for the progress\nof the race. With the will of active, effective life they attack the\ncurrent standard of morality and the rights of the family. The object\nof the conflict is not itself new; what is new is only the boldness,\nfostered, consciously or unconsciously, by the evolutionary idea, of\nthus asserting the rights of love against those of society, the code of\nthe future against that of the past.\n\nThe new morality knows that in a wide sense civilisation will only\nattain lasting power over nature when it combines higher emotions\nof happiness with the ends in the pursuit of which harsh means may\nbe demanded. That creed of life which makes the mission of the race\nco-operate with personal happiness in love, will also demand of the\nlatter the sacrifices which the former renders necessary. But it must\nnot augment these requirements by ascetic demands for purity which\nare meaningless for the racial mission. The followers of this creed\nwill take love as the criterion of the individual\u2019s sexual emotions\nand actions, above all because they believe that _the happiness of the\nindividual is the most important condition also for the enhancement of\nthe race_.\n\nThey desire to fill the earth with hungerers for happiness, since they\nknow that only thus will earthly life attain its inmost purpose, that\nof forming\u2014in an altogether new sense\u2014creatures of eternity.\n\nThe word, which through Eros became flesh and dwells among us, is the\nprofoundest of all: _Joy is perfection._\n\nIf we accept this dictum of Spinoza as the highest revelation of\nlife\u2019s meaning, our eyes are at the same time opened to the harmony\nof existence. We perceive that the more perfect race will be in the\nfullest sense of the word _created by love_. But this will not take\nplace until love has become a religion, the highest expression of the\nfear of life\u2014not the fear of God;\u2014when faith in life has scattered\nthe superstition and unbelief which still disfigure love. When the\neldest of the gods has no other god before him, then will the monsters\nwho now fill the murky deeps over which the spirit of the god moves\nperish in the light of the new day of creation.\n\n\nFor the sake of clearness, it has been necessary to sum up here the\nmain ideas of the following exposition. In some measure it will\ntherefore be also necessary to return to them during the following\ntreatment of the movements which have the deepest influence on sexual\nmorality: _the evolution of love_, its _freedom_ and its _selection_;\nthe claims of a _right to_ and an _exemption from motherhood_; of\n_collective motherhood_, of _free divorce_, and of a _new marriage\nlaw_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE EVOLUTION OF LOVE\n\n\nJust as the Swedes, in comparison with some other of the Germanic\npeoples, are behindhand in their view of _l\u2019amour passion_, so are the\nGermanic races as a whole behindhand as compared with the foremost\nLatin peoples. The Gallic counterpart of the Lutheran doctrine of\nmarriage is to be found in another monk, Luther\u2019s contemporary,\nRabelais, with his joyous project of a new kind of convent, where\nevery monk should have his nun, with the power of separating after a\nyear of probation; a plan which perhaps would not have been a much\nmore roundabout way of educating mankind to love than was the Lutheran\ndoctrine of marriage. Nothing is farther from the truth than that the\nReformation increased respect for love and woman. It raised the esteem\nfor the married state as compared with the unmarried, but it enhanced\nneither the position of woman in matrimony nor the importance of love\nin regard to marriage. Even in the Middle Ages, the Latin nations\nrender a homage to woman which to-day is still almost incomprehensible\nto the man of a Germanic race. And if, on the one hand, this homage\ntook the form of the cult of Venus, which is born in the Latin blood,\non the other, it expressed through the cult of Mary its reverence for\nwhat is deepest in woman, motherhood. Even to-day, the Frenchwoman is\nesteemed not according to her age but according to her qualities. It\nis not only the mothers who worship their sons, but also the latter\ntheir mothers; and not only the mother, but besides her every admirable\nelderly woman receives attention in social life as in the family from\nmen of all ages. The middle-class wife\u2014though indeed at the cost of\nthe children\u2014co-operates in her husband\u2019s calling with a seriousness\nunknown in the Germanic middle-class. In France as in Italy, family\nlife has a kind of warm intimacy which the German does not understand;\nsince the Latin temperament lacks that geniality which sheds its light\nover the frequently rough lines and harsh colours of the landscape of\nthe Germanic soul. It is rather the coldness of his disposition than\nthe strength of his soul that makes the German so much less erotic than\nthe Southerner; it is more indifference to woman than respect for her\nthat expresses itself in the distinction between the erotic customs of\nNorth and South. But when all this has been admitted for the sake of\njustice, we may fairly lay stress upon the influence of the Germanic\nspirit in the struggle to put an end to that cleavage between love and\nmarriage which has prevailed among the Southern nations ever since the\ndays of the Courts of Love. For the peculiarity of the Gallic spirit\nis to discriminate. This gives it the power of following out an idea\nto its uttermost conclusions, but at the same time renders it liable\nin actual life to split itself up among superficialities. The strength\nof the German, on the other hand, is his desire of unity. This makes\nhim inconsistent as a thinker, since he must include everything, but\nagainst this it makes him strive after consistency in life. The same\ndeep sense of personality which created Protestantism has in the\nGermanic world sought to make love as well as faith the affair of the\nindividual and to make marriage one with love. Among the educated\nclasses in the North, marriages of convenience or those arranged by\nthe family are now things of the past, while in the Latin world they\nare still the rule, though with increasingly frequent exceptions.\nBut in most cases it is still in free connections, before and during\nmarriage, that the Frenchman engages his erotic feelings; and the\nFrench wife has abundantly shown the emptiness of the assertion that\n\u201ca woman always loves the father of her child,\u201d the most dangerous\nof the false doctrines which have led women into marriage and thence\ninto adultery. In Shakespeare, on the other hand, we already find the\nwife and the mistress united in the same person, and it is always in\nEnglish literature that we meet with the highest expression of the\nGermanic feeling for unity in love. Since the medi\u00e6val minnesingers\nceased to sing, the literature of Germany and Scandinavia, dominated\nby Lutheranism, bears witness chiefly of \u201cthe lust of the flesh.\u201d\nWomen are esteemed according as they fulfil their destiny as bearers\nof children and housewives. The abolition of the cloister and celibacy\nhas, however, brought about the good result of the transmission of\nspiritual forces which formerly died with the individual. And it may\nwell have been through some of those who formerly took refuge with\ntheir idealism in a cloister, that the longing for a great love has\nbeen left as an inheritance to sons and daughters.\n\nIn Germany, the leading poet of the \u201cage of enlightenment,\u201d Gottsched,\nasserts woman\u2019s right to culture; in America, during the War of\nIndependence, the women gave evidence of their sense of citizenship;\nand it was during a more recent struggle for liberty, that against\nslavery, that the woman\u2019s question came to the front in that country.\n\nIn France, the eighteenth century, more than any other period of\nhistory, is \u201cthe century of woman.\u201d The salons are the focussing\npoint of all ideas; the most eminent men write for women, who become\nelectric batteries from which the ideas of the time send out kindling\nsparks in all directions. Thus the women of France help to prepare the\nFrench Revolution. During the Revolution, Olympe de Gouges writes\nher \u201cdeclaration of the rights of woman,\u201d as a counterpart to that of\nthe rights of man, and Condorcet speaks in support of woman\u2019s claims.\nThe same spirit of a new age confronts us in Mary Wollstonecraft\u2019s _A\nVindication of the Rights of Woman_ (1792), as also in Hippel\u2019s _Ueber\ndie b\u00fcrgerliche Verbesserung der Weiber_, published the same year,\nand in the Swede Thorild\u2019s contemporary treatise _Om kvinnok\u00f6nets\nnaturliga h\u00f6ghet_ (\u201cOn the Natural Greatness of Women\u201d). Each in its\nway was a remarkable sign of the time which already included the whole\n\u201cemancipation\u201d programme of equality of position: the same rights for\nwoman as for man as regards education, labour, a share in legislation,\nand an equality of position under the law and in marriage.\n\nIsolated instances of emancipated women were nothing new. In Greece,\nthe type was common enough to be employed in comedy; in Rome,\nself-supporting women were to be found; during the Middle Ages not\nonly Bridget but many another woman\u2014in the quality of abbess or\nregent\u2014exercised a great and often beneficial activity. The days of\nantiquity, of the Middle Ages, and of the Renaissance all possessed\nfemale scholars, physicians, and artists. But it is not until the\ncentury of the great Revolution that we find among women themselves\nas well as among certain men a persistent and conscious striving to\nelevate the education and to secure the rights of women.\n\nAnd wherever this striving has been profound, it has been united with\nthe desire to reform the position of woman in love and in marriage.\n\n\nIt is a very common but erroneous opinion that monogamy has given rise\nto love. Love appears already among animals, and with them, as in the\nworld of men, has shown itself independent of monogamy.\n\nThe origin of the latter in human society was the relation of\nproprietorship, religious ideas, considerations of collective utility,\nbut not perception of the importance of love\u2019s selection. On the\ncontrary, love has been in perpetual strife with monogamy, and it is\ntherefore a profound mistake to suppose that the higher view of love\nhas been formed solely through monogamy. The idea of love has been\ndeveloped in as great a degree by attacks on marriage as in association\nwith marriage itself.\n\nWhile, in spite of the accumulation of evidence to the contrary,\nChristianity\u2019s share in the origin of human love is constantly\nexaggerated, sufficient stress has not been laid upon its indirect\ninfluence on the development of sexual love. It is true that all over\nthe world\u2014from Iceland to Japan\u2014songs and legends are to be found\nwhich give glorious evidence of the power of love in the heart of man\nin all ages. But the sexual emotion, nevertheless, held a subordinate\nposition in the life of the human soul until Christianity granted to\nwoman also a soul to save\u2014in other words, a personality to cultivate.\nChristianity, moreover commended the womanly rather than the manly\nvirtues, and although Christ himself ignored woman, love, and the\nfamily life, his ethics became thus in an indirect form a glorification\nof woman. The importance attached by Christianity to the value of\nthe individual as a soul\u2014in contradistinction to the insistence by\npaganism on his value as a citizen\u2014was likewise one of the unseen\ncontributary causes which during the Middle Ages made love a life-power.\n\nIn antiquity, marriage was a duty to society; friendship, on the\nother hand, was the free expression of sympathy. Not until man\u2019s\nconsciousness admitted a soul in woman, could personal love arise. But\nso mysterious are the influences through which the soul of mankind\ngrows, that the youthful love of the ancients indirectly developed the\nneed of sympathy also between grown men and women; and the suppression\nof the sexual instinct by Catholic asceticism indirectly furthered the\nintrospective, soulful emotion of love which rises above sensuality.\n\nThe modern view of love as the most lofty state of the soul had already\ntaken shape in the time of the Crusades sufficiently to bring into\nexistence at this period the Courts of Love in the south of France.\nWoman, the knight, and the singer together intensify and refine love,\nin part by laying stress upon its incompatibility with marriage!\n\nStudents have shown how the refined expression of love in poetry\ncorresponds with the forms of the sexual life of the upper classes,\nsince monogamy became the law and a secret polygamy the custom. This\ndual division of the erotic feelings has on the one side brought\nabout such fine and lofty, and on the other such coarse and debased\nmanifestations that neither one nor the other has any counterpart\namong the nations\u2014or classes within a nation\u2014where this division is\nunknown, since there the freedom of sexual choice is undisputed.\n\nAnd this is natural; for there the sexual life preserves its\ninnocence of \u201cparadise,\u201d one of simple animality perturbed by no\nhigher consciousness. This innocence can only be replaced on a higher\nplane after a long period of development. The way thither is by the\ncleavage which \u201cthe division of labour\u201d involves even in regard to the\ndevelopment of the feelings.\n\nThe Middle Ages were thus only capable of dividing love from marriage.\nThis is witnessed by the greatest singers of love and by the greatest\nlove stories. Tristan and Isolde in the world of poetry, Abelard and\nHelo\u00efse in that of reality, are the highest types of the new age, even\nthen dawning, which is finally to bring about the declaration of\nrights of human emotion as of human thought. These lovers, united in\nlife and death, are the highest testimony of the Middle Ages to that\nfree love which makes its own laws and abolishes all others; to that\ngreat love which is the sense of eternity of great souls, in opposition\nto the ephemeral inclination of small ones.\n\nScholasticism, ever extending introspective psychology; mysticism,\never refining the life of the soul devoted to God, unconsciously pour\noil upon the red flame of love as upon the white flame of faith.\nThe _Vita Nuova_ of love breaks out in the fire of poetry, whose\nmost aspiring flame was Dante. It lived on in the souls of the elect\namong Latin peoples. The Platonism of the Renaissance refined the\nmedi\u00e6val conception of love as the most excellent means of bringing to\nperfection the highest human qualities. And thus was established the\nright of lovers to independence of the customs of society.\n\nIt is significant that, at the medi\u00e6val Courts of Love as at the courts\nof the Renaissance and in the contests of wit of the seventeenth\ncentury, women are granted not only the same right of sentiment as\nmen but also the same liberty of using their spiritual gifts; for\nevery intensifying of love is connected, openly or otherwise, with the\naugmentation of woman\u2019s spiritual life and with man\u2019s thus enhanced\nestimation of the value of her personality. Instead of being to him\n\u201cthe sex,\u201d the means of enjoyment, woman becomes the mistress, when\nlove has come to mean an exclusive desire for one woman, who is only to\nbe won by devoted service. Whenever woman has taken the lead in erotic\nmatters, man\u2019s love has been ennobled. In Shakespeare, we find the\nwhole of the preceding spiritual culture summed up. All his best women\nare chaste in the same degree as they are devoted, but they are also in\nthe same degree spiritually rich and complete personalities. Therefore\nthey are also leaders through their clear-sightedness and promptness in\nthe moment of action. And although Shakespeare, like every other great\npoet, formed his women more of the material of dreams than of reality;\nalthough the foremost men of the Italian Renaissance probably had more\noften a Boccaccio\u2019s than a Petrarch\u2019s experience of love; although\nthe age of baroque turned _le Pays du tendre_ into a stiff garden\nsurrounding decorative figures, nevertheless life itself, especially\nthe life of the Latin peoples\u2014as well as their best literature\u2014can\nalways show proud and beautiful examples of loving couples and\nsacrifices for love, even in that century whose male \u201cphilosophers\u201d\ndeprived woman of the lead, when love became \u201cgalanterie,\u201d gay and ugly\nby turns.\n\nAt the time when Rousseau appeared, love was equally degraded through\nLatin-Epicurean immorality and through Germanic-Lutheran \u201cmorality.\u201d\n\nWhat he did for love was the same that he would have done for the\nlungs, if in one of the boudoirs of those days, stuffy with perfumes\nand wax candles, he had thrown open the windows to the summer night,\nwith its scent of productive earth and blossoming plants, dark masses\nof foliage and the star-sown sky.\n\nBut Rousseau did not follow out the ideas that lay nearest to his\nown: that only love ought to constitute marriage; that only the\ndevelopment of the woman\u2019s personality deepens love. Even Goethe,\nwho after Rousseau carried the gleaming trail farther, by showing\nlove as the mysterious fateful power of elective affinity, saw the\nhappiness of love rather in the directness of woman\u2019s nature than\nin its development. The French Revolution drew the consequences of\nRousseau\u2019s propositions also in the questions of love and woman; it\nmade marriage civil and divorce free, but it did not give to woman the\nfranchise; indeed, it did not even preserve the form of it which she\nhad previously possessed. All the spirits influenced by Rousseau and\nthe Revolution have since, in literature and in life, followed out\nlove\u2019s declaration of rights.\n\nIn the nineteenth century as in the Middle Ages, it was women, poets,\nand knights\u2014the last under the name of social utopians\u2014who took\nthe lead in this. In Germany, it was first the romantic school, then\n\u201cYoung Germany,\u201d which went foremost; in England, Shelley, Byron,\nBrowning, and a number of other thinkers; in Norway, Camilla Collet\nand some great poets among the men. In France,\u2014in the midst of\nthe reaction which reintroduced indissoluble marriage,\u2014Madame de\nSta\u00ebl attacks this in _Delphine_. In the country of literary salons,\nit is attempted to prevent woman\u2019s genius from acting as a social\nforce\u2014and through _Corinne_ and Coppet, Mme. de Sta\u00ebl makes it a\nuniversal force. Her confidence that honour for a woman can signify\nonly a means of winning love; her complaint that life denies to the\nwoman of genius the fulfilment of her most beautiful dream, love in\nmarriage, were the prologue to innumerable tragedies during woman\u2019s\ncentury. After her, came the followers of St. Simon and the rest of the\nsocial revolutionaries, and above all another of Rousseau\u2019s spiritual\ndaughters, the woman in whose veins all the blood was mingled which\nthe Revolution had poured out on the scaffold and on the battle-field:\nblood of the mob, blood of the bourgeois, noble blood, royal blood!\nThe courage of her nation to follow truth to its utmost consequences,\nthe fervent faith of her childhood, the wistfulness of her blood,\nher soul\u2019s longing for eternity, the volcanic ardour and ashes of\nher experiences\u2014all this George Sand hurls forth in her indictment\nof the marriage upheld by Church and State, which to her was \u201clawful\nravishing\u201d and \u201cprostitution under vows.\u201d Long before her time, the\nrights of love had been asserted in the case of exceptional natures.\nGeorge Sand\u2019s new courage was shown in demanding this right for all; in\nbranding it upon the conscience of her time that, when two human beings\nwish to be together, no bond is needed to hold them together; that,\nwhen they do not wish it, to hold them together by force is a violation\nof their human rights and of their human dignity.\n\nFrom this moment the battle was transferred from Olympus to the earth.\nAnd since then all \u201csaviours of society\u201d have sought to quench, and all\n\u201cenemies of society\u201d have striven to spread, its flames.\n\nThe love which a George Sand herself sought in vain on paths from which\nshe returned with feet wounded, and sometimes soiled; the love a Rahel\nVarnhagen suffered from and lived on, a Camilla Collet implored, and an\nElizabeth Browning realised\u2014this is the love of which the woman of the\nnew age is also dreaming.\n\nGeorge Sand\u2014like the followers of St. Simon, and like the modern\nfeminists\u2014looked upon freedom in love as the central point in the\nwoman\u2019s question. Like George Sand, the feminism of the present day\nasserts the right of free thought against the creed of authority in\nevery field; the solidarity of mankind and the cause of peace against\nthe patriotism of militarism; social reform against the existing\nrelations of society. The American-English-Scandinavian woman\u2019s\nquestion\u2014whose supreme confession of faith is still J. S. Mill\u2019s\nbook, published in 1854, on _The Subjection of Women_\u2014has, on the\nother hand, overlooked to a great extent erotic, religious, and social\nemancipation, and asserted only woman\u2019s rights as a citizen. Thus,\nespecially in Scandinavia, the new gospel of love has had to encounter\nfrom the leaders of emancipation, now indifference, now resentment.\n\nRidicule and resentment from men have also fallen to the lot of the\nwomen\u2019s demand for a new love. With arguments, for which Schopenhauer\nand Hartmann once provided the philosophical formul\u00e6, it has been shown\nthat soulful love is an illusion of nature, and that the unity in love,\nwhich woman now claims of man, demands sacrifices which are opposed to\nhis physiological and psychological nature.\n\nUndisturbed by ridicule and resentment, however, the women of the new\nage have continued to preach the love of their dreams\u2014which is also\nthat of the dreams of poets.\n\nFor thousands of years, poetry has been picturing love as a mysterious\nand tragic power. But when anyone says the same thing in plain prose,\nand adds that life would be colourless and poor without the great\npassions, then this is called immorality! Century after century, poetry\nsets forth the loftiness of love. But if anyone in everyday prose\nventures to say that love may become an ever loftier emotion, then this\nis called extravagance; for it does not occur to the people of the\npresent day to regard poetry as prophetic.\n\nThe new love is still the natural attraction of man and woman to each\nother for the continuance of the race. It is still the desire of the\nactive human being to relieve through comradeship the hardships of\nanother and of himself at the same time. But above this eternal nature\nof love, beyond this primeval cause of marriage, another longing has\ngrown with increasing strength. This is not directed towards the\ncontinuance of the race. It has sprung from man\u2019s sense of loneliness\nwithin his race, a loneliness which is ever greater in proportion as\nhis soul is exceptional. It is the pining for that human soul which\nis to release our own from this torment of solitude; a torment which\nwas formerly allayed by repose in God, but which now seeks its rest\nwith an equal, with a soul that has itself lain wakeful with eyelids\nheated from the same longing; a soul empowered by love to the miracle\nof redeeming our soul\u2014as itself by ours is redeemed\u2014from the sense of\nbeing a stranger upon earth; a soul before whose warmth our own lets\nfall the covering that the world\u2019s coldness has imposed upon it and\nshows its secrets and its glories without shame. Richard Dehmel has\nsummed this up in two immortal lines:\n\n  _Liebe ist die Freiheit der Gestalt\n   Vom Wahn der Welt, vom Bann der eignen Seele._\n\nThe same feeling has possessed many a man before our time. One of them\nwas Eug\u00e8ne Delacroix, who speaks in his journal of the pain of only\nbeing able to show to each of his friends the aspect of himself which\nthat friend understood, and of thus being obliged to become another\nfor each of them, without ever feeling himself completely understood;\na suffering for which he only knew one remedy, _une \u00e9pouse qui est de\nvotre force_.\n\nBut what is new about it is that this sentiment has become diffused and\nhas taken shape in the consciousness of the many; that it is beginning\nto set its stamp upon the whole spirit of the age.\n\nMeanwhile, mankind continues to be guided by erotic impulses which lie\ndeep below its conscious erotic needs. Man\u2019s senses are spurred by a\ndesire which thrusts aside that of the soul. The culture of the idea of\nlove is far in advance of the instincts of love. And thus our time is\nbrimful of love-conflicts.\n\nTo this must be added that the increased sensibility of modern man\nhas rendered him more and more inclined to wear masks, protective\ndisguises, artistically decorated armour. Protection is indispensable,\nsince no one would be able to endure life if he were hourly seeing the\nill-bound or still open wounds of others, or feeling his own touched by\nanyone. Existence would lose much of its excitement without secrets,\nsuspected or unsuspected, in the destinies and souls of men. But at\nthe same time this protection renders love\u2019s struggle to penetrate\nappearances more and more difficult. Therefore a certain form of\n\u201cflirtation\u201d serves as the attempt of awakening love to tear off the\nmask, to outwit the protective disguise, a game of fence which aims at\nthe joints of the tight-fitting armour.\n\nBut the attempts are often unsuccessful and life is more and more\ncrowded with destinies that have miscarried, while more and more people\nwring their hands in solitude over what might have been! Man feels more\ndeeply than ever before that life gave him a poor portion, when his\nlove has been nothing but sinking in an embrace. An ever greater number\nknow that love is absorption into that spirit, in which one\u2019s own finds\nits foothold without losing its freedom; the nearness of that heart\nwhich stills the disquiet in our own; that attentive ear which catches\nwhat is unspoken and unspeakable; the clear sight of those eyes which\nsee the realisation of our best possibilities; the touch of those hands\nwhich, dying, we would feel closed on our own.\n\nWhen two souls have joys which the senses share, and when the senses\nhave delights which the souls ennoble, then the result is neither\ndesire nor friendship. Both have been absorbed in a new feeling,\nnot to be compared with either taken by itself, just as the air is\nincomparable with its component elements. Nitrogen is not air, nor is\noxygen; sensuousness is not love, nor is sympathy. In combination they\nare the air of life and love. If either of the component elements is\nin the wrong proportion to the other, then love\u2014like air\u2014becomes\ntoo heavy or too rarefied. But as the proportions between oxygen and\nnitrogen may within a wide limit vary without disadvantage, so also\nmay the components of love. Affinity of soul is doubtless the most\nenduring element in love, but not therefore the only valuable one; the\nlove that fills life with intoxication is separated from even the most\nlofty friendship by an ocean as deep as that which divides the India of\nlegend from utilitarian America\u2014a lifetime in which will not equal a\nsingle day in the other!\n\nGreat love arises only when desire of a being of the other sex\ncoalesces with the longing for a soul of one\u2019s own kind. It is like\nfire, the hotter it is, the purer; and differs from the ardour of\ndesire as the white heat of a smelting-furnace differs from the ruddy,\nsmoking flames of a torch carried along the streets.\n\n\nThe constantly increased importance of sympathy in the life of the soul\nfinds expression, however, at the present time within the feminine\nworld in an over-estimation of friendship, both between one woman and\nanother and in relation to love. A passionate worship between persons\nof the same age\u2014or of an elder by a younger member of the same sex\u2014is\namong women as among men the customary and beautiful morning glow of\nlove, which always pales after sunrise. An entirely personal, great\nfriendship is, on the other hand, as rare as a great love, and equally\nrare among women as among men. Those who expect to find the complement\nof their being in friendship have therefore no greater prospect of\nattaining the essential in this sphere, and moreover they run the risk\nof missing it in the sphere of love, through shutting themselves off\nfrom or impoverishing themselves of love\u2019s emotions. The women of older\ntimes also cultivated friendship. But they did not content themselves\nwith it in the place of love. And if women were once seriously to do\nthis, then winter would have come upon the world. The way of evolution\nis to demand of love all that friendship affords\u2014and infinitely more!\nBut the rich spiritual intercourse between female fellow-workers and\nfellow-students, as also between comrades of different sexes, is now\npreparing the third historical stage of development, that of individual\nsympathy. It is true that great love has been individually sympathetic\nin all ages. What is new is that an ever greater number of spirits\nare guided by the same need; that the possibility of great love has\nbecome apparent to many, not only to a chosen few. Just as we have been\nable to gauge the revival of love by the diminution of marriages of\nconvenience, by the recognition of young people\u2019s liberty of choice,\nand by the popular condemnation of marriages for money, so can we now\nmeasure the strength of the new revival by other, equally significant\nphenomena; those, namely, called \u201cthe new immorality.\u201d It has been said\nwith truth that love as it now is\u2014the great psychological reality with\nwhich one has to reckon\u2014in its present complicated, manifold, and\nrefined condition, is the result of all the progress of human activity:\nof the victory of intelligence and sentiment over crude force, of\nthe transformation in the relations between man and woman which new\neconomic, religious, and ethical ideas have brought about; of the\ngrowing desire for inward and outward beauty, of the will to ennoble\nthe race, and other causes. But among these we have not named the most\nimportant, that in which many now see a sign of degeneration, but which\nis really one of development, the cause on which rests the hope of the\nfinal abolition of erotic dualism: the conciliation of the excessive\nopposition of sex.\n\nSo long as man and woman are so divided in their erotic needs as is\nat present often the case, love will be the \u201ceverlasting conflict\u201d\ndescribed by those poets and thinkers who see only the immediate\npresent, without faith in the development of love or mankind\u2019s\neducation in loving; for in the midst of the age of evolutionism men\nneither think nor feel according to its doctrines. To him, however,\nwho does so feel, nothing is more certain than that \u201cthe everlasting\nconflict\u201d will one day end in the conclusion of peace.\n\nThe sceptics just referred to smile ambiguously at the mention of\nfriendship between women, as at that of the refinement and craving\nfor sympathy in woman\u2019s love. It is not until a mistress or a wife,\nmisunderstood in the depths of her being, leaves him, that such a man\ndiscovers that the being he believed himself to be making entirely\nhappy, has not even had her senses satisfied\u2014since the soul received\nnothing from the senses and gave them nothing.\n\nThose men\u2014for the rest often men of fine culture\u2014of whom this is\ntrue, are generally verging on middle age. Among men comparatively\nyoung, on the other hand, the erotic longing is often as refined and\ncraves as much for sympathy, as with women, although it is still rare\nfor the man to possess that balance between soul and senses which\nhis equal in the other sex has attained. That women now venture to\nacknowledge that they possess erotic senses, while men are beginning to\ndiscover erotically that they have souls; that woman demands feelings\nin a man and he ideas in her\u2014this is the great and happy sign of the\ntimes. Sensitive young men of the present day suffer perhaps as much\nas their sisters when loved only for their sex, not personally and\non account of their personality. They for their part love just that\nwomanly individuality for which they provide freedom of movement,\ninstead of\u2014as their own fathers did\u2014trying to assimilate it to their\nown.\n\nOn the highest plane\u2014as on the lowest\u2014the similarities between man\u2019s\nlove and woman\u2019s are already greater than the dissimilarities; and\nthere may be more danger to love in the growing likeness between the\nsexes than in continued unlikeness. Man becomes a human being\u2014and\nwoman likewise\u2014at the cost of his secondary sexual characters. There\nare already some who think that the close of psychical development will\npresent the same phenomenon as the beginning of physical development,\nnamely, that the embryo at a certain stage is neither male nor female\nbut includes both possibilities!\n\nThe romanticists, F. Schlegel in particular, lay stress upon the\ndistinction that, while the ancients put greatness of heart, nobility\nof mind, and strength of soul above the purely sexual qualities, the\nmoderns have made woman one-sidedly feminine and man one-sidedly\nmasculine, and assert that this extreme view on both sides must be got\nrid of in order to arrive at morality, beauty, and harmony in sexual\nrelations; a view which was also that of Schleiermacher. And if we\nwill see a deeper meaning in the tale of Aristophanes of the cloven\nhuman being, it will be the same that an apocryphal tradition ascribes\nto Jesus, in the saying that \u201cthe kingdom of God is at hand when the\ntwo again become one.\u201d That Plato already emphasises the sufferings\nimposed on both halves of the being by the \u201ccleavage,\u201d is evidence\nof the commencement of development of love; for this development has\nprogressed through the increasing opposition of the sexes, with the\npassion and the pain it has caused. Now at last the moment has arrived\nwhen the divided sections again converge towards a higher unity.\n\nIn reality, this desirable conciliation of sexual opposition is\nproceeding with such rapidity that there might be a fear of its\nbecoming a danger to love in a near future, if the psychical opposition\nof sex were not always dependent finally on the physical, and if the\nmodern man and woman were not becoming simultaneously more and more\nindividualised.\n\nAnd it is in this circumstance that the future possibilities of great\nlove lie. Individualisation is already so powerful that a thoughtful\nperson is ever more inclined to check himself when the abstract\nexpressions \u201cman\u201d and \u201cwoman\u201d escape his lips. For already men and\nwomen respectively differ among themselves almost as much as the two\nsexes from each other. And as a compensation for the enfeebling through\nconciliation of universal erotic attraction, we have the charm of\nindividual contrasts. Love\u2019s spiritual longing\u2014to be resolved together\nwith another soul into a higher harmony\u2014will not be enfeebled, but, on\nthe contrary, will be enhanced in proportion as this contrast is more\npersonal.\n\nA. Rodin\u2014who like every great Frenchman understands great love\u2014has\nglorified it in his statue of a pair of lovers, who have through\neach other become more perfect beings than either could have been\nalone. Rodin makes the man thoroughly masculine, the woman thoroughly\nfeminine, while each line in their two figures shows primitive force\nennobled into spiritual power, and love as the consummation of the\nhuman man and the human woman.\n\nWhen life from time to time shows us this proud and beautiful vision,\nthen we are in the presence of a happiness which is overpoweringly\ngreat. For as an economical housewife shuts out the sunlight, so life\noften lets fall the curtain of death when happiness shines; or indeed\nmen kill their own happiness through instincts surviving from a lower\nstage.\n\nChief of these is that instinct which makes the force of primitive\nanimality still erotically attractive even to the spiritually\nsensitive. Men and women with this power of elementary passion,\nintoxicate because they are themselves intoxicated, because, without\nbeing checked by any consideration or held back by the soul, they give\nthemselves up wholly and hotly to the moment. It is as superficial a\npsychology to say that Don Juan\u2019s reputation makes him irresistible\nas that conquest of Cleopatra is tempting because it is also conquest\nover C\u00e6sar. No, the power of these natures lies in their undivided,\nunscrupulous will to use all the resources of their being to attain\ntheir end. And only that by which one\u2019s whole being is held at the\nmoment has the power of holding others. Thus the question is answered\n\n  _Comment fais-tu les grands amours,\n   Petite ligne de la bouche?_\n\nSoulful people, especially women, have hitherto only loved partially.\nBut when sensuousness\u2014in alliance with the mission of the\nrace\u2014regains its ancient dignity, then the power of giving erotic\nrapture will not be the monopoly of him who is inhuman in his love. The\nwise virgins\u2019 deadly sin against love is that they disdained to learn\nof the foolish ones the secret of fascination; that they would know\nnone of the thousand things that bind a man\u2019s senses or lay hold on his\nsoul; that they regarded the power to please as equivalent to the will\nto betray. When all women who can love are also able to make goodness\nfascinating and completeness of personality intoxicating, then Imogen\nwill conquer Cleopatra.\n\nAs yet the charming ones are not always good, the good not always\ncharming, and the majority neither good nor charming. During this\ntransition between an old and a new womanliness it is natural that she\nshould be strongest who unites in herself\n\n  _\u00c8ve, Joconde, et Delila._\n\nFrom observation of love\u2019s realisation in marriage\u2014as it is still\nrealised in the majority of cases\u2014young women have been more and more\npossessed by a disinclination to wed. They wish for the love of their\ndreams or none at all. A lower claim, a poorer gift of love has for\nthem no value which can be compared with their free personal life. To\nthe man who only seeks her lips but does not listen to the words from\nthem, who longs for her embrace but smiles or frowns when she reveals\nthe nature of her soul, such a woman has nothing to give. Her love is\nnow filled with the whole nourishing force of her human nature, replete\nwith the whole sap of her woman\u2019s nature, and she desires that the\nsacrament she thus dispenses shall be received with devotion.\n\nShe will no longer be captured like a fortress or hunted like a quarry;\nnor will she like a placid lake await the stream that seeks its way\nto her embrace. A stream herself, she will go her own way to meet the\nother stream.\n\n\nWe live in a period of spiritual reformation of immense importance\nin the history of the world. Every human being who himself has soul\nis being more and more penetrated by the sense of the mysterious\neffects of elective affinities; of sympathetic and antipathetic\ninfluences; of subconscious powers, above all in the erotic sphere.\nSensations of the erotically d\u00e6monic are not new. But they were\nformerly condemned to as great an extent as they are now recognised and\nindeed sometimes assisted. It is this exquisite sensitiveness, these\nvibrating nerves, these changing moods, this irritability of sensation\nthat the woman\u2014like the man\u2014of the present day has acquired as her\nsuperiority, her gain through culture, her right of precedence before\nany other generation. But this new wealth involves innumerable new\nconflicts. The senses go their own way and are attracted where the soul\nis estranged, or repelled although the heart is filled with tenderness.\nUntil the physiology and psychology of loathing are understood, we\nshall not have gone far towards the solution of the erotic problem.\nEvery day\u2014and night\u2014these innumerable influences, conscious or\nunconscious, are at work transforming the feelings of married people\nand lovers. And although our time is becoming increasingly conscious of\nthis, it does not yet understand either how to counteract the dangerous\nor encourage the favourable influence of the important trifles of\nmarried life.\n\nOnly the foremost of women with a genius for love have arrived at that\ndegree of sensitiveness which makes it impossible for them to give or\nreceive anything in love without the feeling which one of Charlotte\nBront\u00eb\u2019s women expresses in the words: _You fit me into the finest\nfibre of my being._\n\nEvery developed modern woman wishes to be loved not _en m\u00e2le_ but _en\nartiste_. Only a man whom she feels to possess an artist\u2019s joy in her,\nand who shows this joy in discreet and delicate contact with her soul\nas with her body, can retain the love of the modern woman. She will\nbelong only to a man who longs for her always, even when he holds her\nin his arms. And when such a woman exclaims: \u201cYou desire me, but you\ncannot caress, you cannot listen ...\u201d then that man is doomed.\n\nModern woman\u2019s love differs from that of older times by, amongst other\nthings, the insatiability of its demand for completeness and perfection\nin itself, and for corresponding completeness and perfection in the\nfeeling of the man.\n\nOur soul is doubtless often deeper, but occasionally also shallower,\nthan our conscious existence and will. Therefore it may happen that the\nnew love in all its force exists in a woman who is unconscious of her\nown erotic greatness, while, on the other hand, another, who desires\nit with all her will, perhaps may lack the depth of feeling, the\ninstinctive sureness of choice.\n\nThe women of the present day learn everything and arrive at much, even\nat the finest ideas of love. But, full of insight as they are into\nthe _ars amandi_, have modern women indeed learned how with all their\nsoul, all their strength, and all their mind to love? Their mothers and\ngrandmothers\u2014on a much lower plane of conscious erotic idealism\u2014knew\nof only one object: that of making their husbands happy. This\nthen meant that the wife ought to submit to everything and ask for\nnothing; to serve her husband\u2019s ends untiringly, even when she did\nnot understand them, and to receive with gratitude any crumbs of his\npersonality that might fall to her from the table to which his friends\nwere bidden to feast. But what watchful tenderness, what dignified\ndesire to please, what fair gladness could not the finest of these\nspiritually ignored women develop!\n\nThe new man lives in a dream of the new woman, and she, in a dream of\nthe new man. But when they actually find one another it frequently\nresults that two highly developed brains together analyse love, or that\ntwo worn-out nervous systems fight out a disintegrating battle over\nlove. The whole thing usually ends in each of them seeking peace with\nsome surviving incarnation of the old Adam and the eternal Eve. But not\nwith a clear conscience; for they are continually aware that they were\nintended for the new experience, although their powers of loving were\nsmall while their ideas of love were great.\n\nNot until the spring rain of the new ideas has fallen sufficiently to\npenetrate the roots and rise as sap in the tree of life, will a greater\nhappiness grow from the new love, which is not to be blamed because men\nhave dreamed it greater than they themselves are at present.\n\nIndividualism has made love deeper and at the same time increased\nits difficulties. It has called forth an enhanced consciousness\nof our own nature, our own moods; it has created new spiritual\nconditions and\u2014as already pointed out\u2014set in vibration innumerable\nformerly latent feelings of pleasure and aversion. But our personal\nirritable sensitiveness has not yet been developed to the point of a\ncorresponding delicacy of feeling for the equally sensitive spiritual\nlife of others. The capacity for giving and sacrificing has not grown\nat an equal pace with that of accepting and demanding. Of love\u2019s double\nheart-beat\u2014the finding one\u2019s self, and the forgetting one\u2019s self in\nanother\u2014the first is now considerably more advanced than the second.\nNot until those women who are absorbed in self-analysis combine their\nown personal store of life\u2019s riches, their individual diversity, their\nunique spirituality with the sunny, healthy peace, the self-sacrificing\ndevotion of older times, will their new development render them more\npowerful than the women who preceded them. It is a healthy sign that\nmen and women exchange experiences and ideas on these subjects with\na frankness that was never known before; that they are much less\naffected before marriage, as women indeed have ceased to be so after\nmarriage. There was a heroic kind of affectation, of which Mrs. Carlyle\nwas the typical example, but in itself it was borrowed from man\u2019s\nethical development. Nevertheless one would often wish that the young\nwives of the present day possessed more of the old-fashioned gift of\nconceding the desires of the beloved with a happy smile, instead of\ninsisting on their own. The modern woman will not feign anything for\nthe sake of occasional peace or understanding. And she is right\u2014when\nanything of real importance in the domain of ideas or will is at\nstake; she is doubly right in holding that all the lies and ruses\nwhich married \u201chappiness\u201d enforced on the wives of an older time were\ndegrading to both parties; that what was thus gained was no real gain.\nNothing is more true than that the souls which are parted by a lack of\nperfect frankness never belonged to one another; that complete mutual\nconfidence is the true sign of union. Nothing could be wiser than the\nmodern woman\u2019s desire to see life with her own eyes, not\u2014as was the\ncase with the women who went before her\u2014only with those of a husband.\nBut has she also retained the power of seeing everything with the\nthought of what the loved one\u2019s eyes will find in it?\n\n\nUpon the answer to these questions of conscience will depend the\nsuccess of the new woman in guiding the development of love in the\ndirection of her will. For only by herself loving better will she\ngradually humanise man\u2019s passion and liberate it from the blind force\nof the blood, which makes of the capercailzie\u2019s play or the rivalry of\nstags a spectacle beautiful in its animality, but, on the other hand,\nrenders man\u2019s love bestial. Those who think that the healthy strength\nof nature will be thereby enfeebled are as foolish as those who try to\nprove that the artistic instinct in the woodcock\u2019s note is healthier\nand stronger than that which created Beethoven\u2019s symphonies.\n\nBut it is not sufficient that woman should take the lead and appoint\nthe goal. She must herself be developed for the task, and that not only\nin the direction just mentioned. Her soul is as yet no sure guide to\nher senses, nor her senses to her soul. So much the less can she then\nbe a guide to man\u2019s soul or senses, which moreover she frequently fails\nto understand and therefore unhesitatingly condemns\u2014for the sins to\nwhich she herself has not unfrequently seduced him!\n\nThe new woman demands purity of man. But has she any suspicion as to\nhow her treatment, on the one hand, of the awkward and uncertain youth,\non the other, of the experienced and confident \u201clady-killer\u201d type, acts\nupon the former, who is perhaps striving after erotic purity in the\nhope of being rewarded by the happy smile of a woman, but who sees that\nwoman treat him with haughty commiseration while, on the other hand,\nshe regards the leopard\u2019s spots of his rival with admiration? One may\nask whether all young women who now express their detestation of the\nimpurity in man\u2019s sexual habits are themselves guided only by a soft\nand noble joy in giving pleasure. Do they never permit themselves the\nmost despicable of hypocrisies, that of love?\n\nSo long as \u201cpure\u201d women take pleasure in the cruel sport of the cat;\nso long as with the facile changes of mood of the serpentine dancer\nthey evade the responsibilities of their flirtations; so long as they\ndelight in provoking jealousy as a homage to themselves, so long will\nthey be helping to brew the hell-broth around which men will celebrate\nthe witches\u2019 sabbath in the company of the bat-winged bevies of the\nnight.\n\nThere are more men led astray by \u201cpure\u201d than by \u201cimpure\u201d women.\n\nAnd not even those women who are pure in the true sense of the word\nare free from blame in this. Woman\u2014for whom love is a life-and-death\nmatter in a much deeper sense than for man\u2014experiences on the approach\nof love those tremblings that follow a sunrise for which one has\nlain awake and waited. Her physico-psychical timidity takes on by\nturns the expressions, incomprehensible to the man who loves, of dumb\navoidance, of abrupt change, of empty girlish giggling, of sullen\nmisunderstanding. And all that is contradictory\u2014not that which is\nmysterious\u2014in woman stirs the unrest in a man\u2019s blood.\n\n\nThe modern woman\u2019s great distress has been the discovery of the\ndissimilarity between her own erotic nature and that of man; or\nrather, she has refused and still refuses to make this discovery and\nthinks that only the custom of society\u2014with its wholesome severity\ntowards her, its reckless leniency towards him\u2014has brought about the\ndifference which exists and which she would abolish. But while one\ngroup proposes to do so by demanding feminine chastity of the man, the\nother would claim masculine freedom for the woman.\n\nThe book world is now full of works on purity, written by men as well\nas women, of literary tone and otherwise. Now it is the story of a\nwoman who breaks with the man she loves when he confesses his past;\nnow that of a woman who forces her lover to marry another because the\nlatter has borne him a child; and so on to infinity. Finally there is\none who takes her life from grief over her husband\u2019s past, which she\nthinks will ruin their future. Literature is the roll of the drum which\nannounces the approach of the troop\u2014that army of strong women who are\nto educate men to chastity by denying them their love.\n\nBut will it really be the Amazons who will play the leading part in the\nstruggle against man\u2019s erotic dualism? Will not perhaps wisdom be found\nalso in this case in the hope of being able to conquer the evil with\nthe good, not the evil with the worse, by allowing a man awakened by\nlove to the desire of unity to turn again to disunion?\n\nWould not woman accomplish more in the renovation of morals if she\nstayed with the man she loves, so as with her whole being to let him\nlearn how a woman can suffer and be made happy through a man? The means\nof salvation for men suffering under erotic dualism may well be an\nincrease of tenderly chaste, delicately feeling, and kindly wise wives.\nEven such a mother, sister, or friend is a strength to a man. But only\nthe wife who remains a mistress can be sure of victory.\n\nIt is true that she cannot efface her husband\u2019s past. But she can\ncreate together with him a new and stronger generation. The man who\nknows what his beloved has suffered through his past; who has seen the\nwings of her courage lose something of their power, her confidence\nsomething of its smile, her joy something of its playfulness\u2014he will\nin time teach his sons that a man may certainly become once more\nstrong and healthy through happiness in love, but that he cannot win\nso beautiful and sure a happiness as self-control can prepare; such\nqueenly pride as his victory might have given the loved one, he will\nnever see in her. But if woman is to help man\u2019s struggle for purity,\nshe must for her share take another view of what has been degrading to\nman\u2019s nature and what has not.\n\nA woman who marries a widower has to go through a pain which will be\ndeep in proportion as her love is personal. She will then wish to be\nnot only her husband\u2019s last, but also his first love; she suffers from\nall the memories they have not in common. She would fain have sat by\nhis cradle and received his first smile; she longs to have played with\nhim as a sister, to have shared as a friend his troubles and his joys.\nShe envies all who have been able to see him at those stages of his\nlife and in those spiritual conditions that she has not seen. Above all\nshe envies the woman who first saw him made happy by the love she gave\nhim.\n\nBut all these sufferings do not bring her to regard the beloved as\nmorally sunken, because before her he has been the husband of another\nwoman. And the same must hold good of earlier relations of love. The\nman may have developed, through a former marriage or free connection,\nhis powers of giving a personal love, or he may, in the same way,\nhave lost them. If no baseness is connected with these earlier\nexperiences, if he has not degraded himself to voluntary division of\nhis erotic nature\u2014and bought love is always such a degradation\u2014or to\ncontemptible duplicity; if he has not treated any woman as a means, but\nreceived and given personality, then he does not enter \u201cimpure\u201d into\nhis marriage, even if he has not evidence of abstinence.\n\nAt present it is unfortunately often the case that men enter into\nmarriage with deep stains from earlier connections, and it is\nthis circumstance that gives the demand for purity its general\napplicability.\n\nDuring each new phase of the development of love women, probably\nearlier and certainly more consciously than men, have connected the\ndemand for unity with the idea of love. The sense of unity is quite\nanother and a far later phenomenon than monogamy. The enforced fidelity\nin monogamy, the voluntary fidelity in love, gave rise in woman\nfirst to control of desire, then to the weakening of desire through\ncontrol. Thus by degrees erotic unity became with many women an organic\ncondition, or, as is significantly said, a physical necessity. Not with\nall, not even with the majority, but still sufficiently frequently\nto enable us to call the unity of soul and senses in love\u2014as also\na lifelong fidelity in a single love\u2014the provision of nature for\ninnumerable women, while with men both are still exceptions so rarely\nto be met with that they are often called unnatural. But he who\nconcludes from this that one has only to demand the same of men for the\neffect to be the same, is attributing the same effect to two different\ncauses. For the erotic conditions of man and woman are and will remain\ndifferent causes. The purity which a man is capable of attaining must\nalways, therefore, to a certain degree be different from a woman\u2019s,\nbut not on that account of less worth. He will certainly remain more\npolygamous than she, but this does not involve a division of himself\nin the satisfaction of his erotic needs. Love possesses, nay, besets,\ndominates, and determines woman\u2019s whole being in an entirely different\nway from man\u2019s. He is more strongly possessed at rapidly passing\nmoments, by the erotic emotion, but at the same time he liberates\nhimself more quickly and completely. On the other hand, in the degree\nin which a woman is womanly, is she completely determined by love. This\ngives a unity, completeness, and equilibrium to her sensuousness which\nman lacks. When he is warm, he often believes woman is cool; when he\nsees her warm, he thinks that she is so in the same way as himself.\nWomen are undoubtedly to be found, shifting, like men, between sudden\nardour and abrupt chill, and these women are ever the most exciting\nerotically. With the majority of women, however, love is, for the\nreasons already given, a constant warmth, a never-quenched fervour. But\nthis makes the woman suffer through the man, who in the intervals of\nhis passion is so much more tranquil than she, so little capable of her\nunremitting tenderness. Therefore she seldom finds herself occupying\nhis thoughts and feelings so completely as he occupies hers.\n\nA woman has aptly said that \u201cit is precisely woman\u2019s greater\nsensuousness that makes her less sensuous than man: on account of\nmotherhood\u2014and all that it implies\u2014she is sensuous, so to speak,\nfrom head to foot and chronically, while man is so only acutely and\nlocally.\u201d If one transfers one\u2019s thoughts from erotics to motherhood,\nthe truth of this will at once be clear: the feeling of motherhood\nis the most thoroughly sensuous and therefore the most thoroughly\nsoulful of emotions; the same transport of the senses in which the\nmother exclaims that she could \u201ceat\u201d her child, expresses itself in the\naffection which would prompt her to die for it. But the author just\nquoted goes on to consider that even with men the erotic emotions could\nbe transposed or released in many ways besides the one which to most\nof them still represents the whole expression of \u201clove.\u201d What Rousseau\nrevealed to his unbelieving contemporaries will perhaps one day become\ntrue in a psycho-physical sense: that a look may fill a lover with\nvoluptuousness; that the great emotions are the chief conditions of\nlove\u2019s happiness; that the lightest touch of the loved one\u2019s hand gives\ngreater bliss than the possession of the most beautiful women without\nlove\u2014feelings which all great lovers in all times have confirmed, and\nas to which even the most contrary natures give the same testimony.\nThe peasant\u2019s love, which knows nothing of caresses, comes lower in\nthe scale of happiness than that of the cultivated person, who finds\nin love all the refined delights of the senses; and this again is far\nbelow the happiness of those who even in the encounter of two ideas or\ntwo moods can experience all the transport of love.\n\nThe conviction that sensuousness can only be controlled through being\nspiritualised is what directs those women who are now hoping to\nconvert men, not to the duty of monogamy, but to the joy of unity.\n\nBefore woman\u2019s will could thus become conscious, her long struggle\nfor liberation had to take place. Marriage had to cease to be a trade\namong the upper classes, as prostitution still is among the hungry\nlower classes. Love must have become free at least in the sense that\na woman had no choice but charity from her family or forced sale to\nher husband; her personality must have attained consideration, not\nonly for her value as a woman and dignity as a human being, but also\nindividually. Not until\u2014by her own labour and activity\u2014she no longer\nexclusively depended on a man\u2019s courtship for both her livelihood and\nher life\u2019s destiny, did woman\u2019s salvation come to be, not \u201cthat the\nman wills\u201d (Nietzsche), but that she herself can exercise her will.\nLanguage already reflects the change of custom. We seldom hear it asked\nnowadays of a woman: _Why has she not married?_ but it is all the more\nfrequently enquired: What has her love-story been, _since she has never\nmarried_?\n\nHere also the line of development is a zigzag. Women sometimes act as\nthough their whole liberation was of no avail. But in spite of much\nthat is contradictory, the evolution of love\u2014above all through the new\nwoman\u2019s claims of love\u2014is to him who stands high enough to have a full\nview of the situation, the most certain of realities.\n\nEvidence of this evolution can be found in life as well as in\nliterature, where it now takes every kind of form, from experiences\ntranslated into genuine poetry down to the productions which tempt one\nto think that these people have only loved to get \u201ccopy\u201d for a book.\nThe feminine fiction of the present day reminds one of a relief on a\nsacrificial altar in the Roman Forum, where the ox, the sheep, and the\npig proceed in file to meet the knife. Hecatombs of these animals\u2014in\nthe likeness of husbands or lovers\u2014are now sacrificed to Eros by\nthe new woman. It may not be very long before the vow of fidelity is\nexchanged for an oath of silence and the marriage contract contains a\nprovision that in case of a rupture love-letters are not to be used as\nliterature.\n\nNo doubt it will ever remain true that a living book on love is never\nwritten with other ink than blood. But such books are not those\nwhich resemble a trial in which the prosecutor, witness, judge, and\nexecutioner are united in one person.\n\nBut whether powerful or weak, discreet or audacious, noble or\nignoble\u2014the new woman\u2019s books are always instructive to those who seek\nto follow the course of love\u2019s evolution.\n\n\nThe great danger to this evolution is that women never take sufficient\naccount of sensuousness, nor men of spirituality. And it is especially\nwoman who now one-sidedly applies her own erotic nature\u2014with its warm\npenetration, its completeness that frees it from temptation\u2014as the\nethical and erotic standard for that of man with its sudden heat, its\ndangerous incompleteness.\n\nIt is without doubt a feminine exaggeration to say that a \u201cpure\u201d\nwoman only feels the force of her sex\u2019s need when she loves. But the\nenormous difference between her and man is that she cannot obey this\nneed without loving. It is doubtless true that besides her love a\nwoman may have a calling in life. But the profound distinction between\nher and man is at present this: that he more often gives of his best\nas a creator than as a lover\u2014while for her the reverse is nearly\nalways the case. And while thus man is appraised by himself and others\naccording to his work, woman in her heart values herself\u2014and wishes to\nbe valued\u2014according to her love. Not until this is fully appreciated\nand working for happiness does she feel her own worth. It is no doubt\ntrue that woman also wishes to be made happy by man through her senses.\nBut while this longing in her not unfrequently awakes long after she\nalready loves a man so that she could give her life for him, with man\nthe desire to possess a woman often awakes before he even loves her\nenough to give his little finger for her. That with women love usually\nproceeds from the soul to the senses and sometimes does not reach so\nfar; that with man it usually proceeds from the senses to the soul\nand sometimes never completes the journey\u2014this is for both the most\npainful of the existing distinctions between man and woman. It is quite\ncertain that both man and woman are humbled by their great love, and\nthat the knowledge of having awakened reciprocal love turns even the\nfreethinker into a believer in miracles. But man often conceals his\nhumility behind a security which wounds the woman; she, on the other\nhand, hides hers in an uncertainty which wounds the man. And from this\ndifference of instinct arises a new kind of complication, when man also\nhas begun to desire an unspoken understanding on the part of woman;\nwhen he becomes convinced of her love only when she has guessed this\nand loved his reticence itself. But against this conscious and refined\nwill of the modern man stands his hereditary instinct of a conqueror.\nAnd no woman is more sure of all the older as well as all the newer\nsufferings of love than she who really acts according to the words of\nher lover: that he will accept love only from a woman who herself has\nthe courage to declare it to him. For, on the other side, the primitive\ndesire of being captured survives in woman. And therefore also her\nstrongest instincts come into conflict with her newly acquired courage\nin action.\n\nFor all these reasons it is difficult for a person of the present day\nto believe himself loved or to know that he is loved.\n\nAnd it is this which will preserve to love its excitement, even\nwhen the animal habits\u2014with pursuit on one side and flight on the\nother\u2014have gradually ceased. Conflict and the intoxication of victory\nwill always form a part of the vital stimulation and pleasurable\nemotion of love,\u2014but they will be removed to a higher plane. Man\u2019s\nforward rush to win a woman who perhaps would not otherwise have\nremarked him; woman\u2019s turning aside to egg the man on, or else to\ndefend in some measure the independent decision of her feelings, will\nbe transformed by the desire of each to wait until the other has\nchosen. The erotic tension will then be released in the contest for the\nmost refined expressions of sympathy, the most convincing assurances\nof comprehension, the most rapidly vibrating sensitiveness to the\nother\u2019s moods, the fullest communication of confidence. Victory will\nmean a constantly deeper penetration into the other\u2019s nature, an ever\nricher fulness and joy in the communication of one\u2019s own; a constantly\ngrowing faith as regards what is mysterious, and a like gratitude for\nwhat is revealed. The stimulation will be renewed daily in moods the\ntransitions of which are as imperceptible as those of the evening sky\nfrom the reddest gold to the purest white; in the border lines of\nsympathy and antipathy, now fine as a straw, now broad as a river. It\nwill be renewed through the test of innumerable uniting and repellent\nemotions, as rapidly and irrevocably decisive as the fall of a star in\nspace, or of a silver piece in the river.\n\nAnd this tension of married life will not be relaxed as now by the\npuffed-up arrogance of proprietorship on the part of the man or by\ndull complaisance on that of the woman. Since all sense of happiness\nis connected with the exertion of force to attain an end and with\nthe equilibrium that results from its attainment, it has been the\nmisfortune of love that courtship has absorbed all the tension, and\nmarried life the subsequent equilibrium. Only the sense of impending\nloss\u2014through life or through death\u2014has, as a rule, evoked a new\nspiritual tension. This, for reasons mentioned above, has especially\nconcerned the husband. Wives have often suffered long from the\nself-satisfied comfort of the daily life of marriage before they have\nresigned the peace of consummation, the equilibrium without movement,\nwhich was their dream of happiness.\n\nBut now women will no longer resign, nor allow themselves to be cheated\nof life. More and more their demand for a new love becomes one with the\ndemand for a new marriage, the chief value of which will not, as now,\nconsist in \u201csecurity and calm.\u201d\n\nWoman knows\u2014and man still more\u2014that it is in periods of calm, when\nall vital stimulation is wanting, that the temptation comes to seek it\nin new relations. But at the same time they are beginning to see that\nwhen one and the same feeling affords an unceasing excitement\u2014through\nthe desire of constantly attaining higher conditions of that\nfeeling\u2014then such temptation becomes of necessity less and less\ndangerous, simply because the human soul can only with great difficulty\ntransfer the spiritual wealth it has accumulated in one place. Love\nin its impersonal form is movable capital, easily realised. In its\npersonal form, on the other hand, it is fixed property, which increases\nin value the more one sinks in it, and which, owing to its very nature,\nis difficult to disperse.\n\nWhenever a woman has captivated a man with a lifelong fascination, the\nsecret has been that he has never exhausted her; that she \u201chas not\nbeen one, but a thousand\u201d (G. Heiberg); not a more or less beautiful\nvariation on the eternal theme of the female sex, but a music in\nwhich he has found the wealth of inexhaustibility, the enticement of\nimpenetrability, while she has given him an incomparable happiness\nof the senses. The more the modern woman acquires courage for a\nlove as rich in the senses as in the soul, the more complicated and\nself-inclosed her personality becomes, the more will she obtain that\npower which is now only the fortunate advantage of the exceptional.\n\nMan tells woman that her new way of love is opposed not only to man\u2019s\nnature but to the welfare of the new generation.\n\nShe answers that great love doubtless betrays a childish lack of\nunderstanding in all departments of worldly wisdom, but that in its own\nsphere\u2014with all its riddles and problems\u2014it is godlike wisdom, the\ngift of divining, the power of working miracles; that the only thing\nneedful in order that love may re-create the race is that it shall\nbecome an even greater vital force, through mankind investing it with\nmore and more of its spiritual power.\n\n\nEven at the present day couples are to be found who are inspired by\ngreat love. They show an insatiable desire for all the riches of life,\nso as to have the means of being regally lavish towards each other.\nNeither defrauds the other of so much as a dewdrop. The fervour they\ngive one another, the freedom they possess through one another, make\nthe space that surrounds them warm and ample. Love is constantly giving\nthem new impulses, new powers and new employment for their powers,\nwhether these are directed inwards to home life or outwards to that of\nsociety. And thus the happiness, which for themselves is the source of\nlife, becomes also a tributary stream by which the happiness of all\nis raised. The power of great love to enhance a person\u2019s value for\nmankind can only be compared with the glow of religious faith or the\ncreative joy of genius, but surpasses both in universal life-enhancing\nproperties. Sorrow may sometimes make a person more tender towards the\nsufferings of others, more actively benevolent than happiness with its\nconcentration upon self. But sorrow never led the soul to those heights\nand depths, to those inspirations and revelations of universal life, to\nthat kneeling gratitude before the mystery of life, to which the piety\nof great love leads it.\n\nLike faith, this piety sanctifies all things. It gives significance to\nattention bestowed on one\u2019s self, since\n\n  _... If I am dear to some one else\n   Then must I be to myself more dear._\n\nIt combines the most trifling things of life into an intelligent whole.\nHe who is loved and loves in this way bears the same stamp as the\nChristian mystic, who grows ever clearer and yet more rich in mystery;\never fuller of life and yet calmer; ever more introspective and yet\nmore radiant.\n\nThere are some who think that this state is visionary and unnatural.\n\nBut the truth\u2014for everyone who has beheld it\u2014is that _le vrai amour\nest simple comme un bas relief antique_. Such a relief, which before\nall others corresponds to the image, is to be found in the Naples\nmuseum. It shows a man and a woman, standing still on either side of\na tree. An artist of antiquity may have already foreseen all the\nsignificance that a son of our time interpreted, when he placed a youth\nand a maiden beneath the tree of life with a cloven apple in their\nhands: _they divided the apple of life and ate it together_....\n\nFor a couple who share it thus, everyday life will scintillate with\nlittle delights as a wheat-field at midsummer with cornflowers; and\nthe high days will be white with joy as a spring garden with fruit\nblossoms. A couple who live thus will be able to play so that beyond\ntheir sport will always be the calm of tenderness; to smile so that\nbehind their smiles will always lie an easily-aroused seriousness.\nUnless death interrupts them they will thus build up their life\ntogether as the Gothic cathedrals were built: buttress upon buttress,\narch above arch, ornament within ornament, until finally the gilding of\nthe topmost spire catches the last rays of the sunset.\n\n\nThus great love already gives to two human beings what only completed\ndevelopment can give to mankind as a whole: unity between senses and\nsoul, desire and duty, self-assertion and self-devotion, between the\nindividual and the race, the present moment and the future.\n\nThis condition\u2014in which every advantage gained becomes a gift and\nevery gift a profit; in which are united a continual emotion and a\ncalm peace\u2014is even now that which dreamers await as that of the third\nkingdom.[2]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nLOVE\u2019S FREEDOM\n\n\nThe most delicate test of a person\u2019s sense of morality is his power of\ninterpreting ambiguous signs of the times in the ethical sphere; for\nonly the profoundly moral can discover the dividing line, sharp as the\nedge of a sword, between new morality and old immorality.\n\nIn our time ethical obtuseness betrays itself first and foremost\nby the condemnation of those young couples who freely unite their\ndestinies. The majority does not perceive the advance in morality which\nthis implies in comparison with the code of so many men, who without\nresponsibility\u2014and without apparent risk\u2014purchase the repose of their\nsenses.\n\nThose young men who choose \u201cfree love\u201d know that bought love may\ndestroy their finest instruments of mental activity; that it may result\nin injury to the wife as well as in the danger either of degeneracy on\nthe part of the children, or of childishness, and may finally bring\nabout their own premature downfall.\n\nBut they also know that these results may not occur and that, on the\nother hand, they may suffer spiritually by curbing their personality\nand ruining their possibilities of single-hearted love. At the same\ntime they despise their fathers\u2019 less dangerous, but for that reason\nmore unprincipled, expedient for sexual satisfaction, the seduction\nof women of the people, women with whom they never had any thought of\ncommunity of life.\n\n\u201cFree love,\u201d on the other hand, gives them an enhancement of life which\nthey consider that they gain without injuring anyone. It answers to\ntheir idea of love\u2019s chastity, an idea which is justly offended by the\nincompleteness of the period of engagement with all its losses in the\nfreshness and frankness of emotion. When their soul has found another\nsoul, when the senses of both have met in a common longing, then they\nconsider that they have a right to the full unity of love, although\ncompelled to secrecy, since the conditions of society render early\nmarriage impossible. They are thus freed from a wasteful struggle,\nwhich would neither give them peace nor inner purity and which would be\ndoubly hard for them, since they have attained the end\u2014love\u2014for the\nsake of which self-control would have been imposed.\n\n\nWhen in this connection we speak of youth, we can mean only the young\nmen and girls of the upper classes. For among the rest of society the\nfree union of love has long been the custom. Our working classes\u2014as\nthose of many European countries\u2014simply use the same freedom which the\ncustom of society allows to many extra-European peoples. Ethnographical\nresearch shows that this is no new degraded habit, but, on the\ncontrary, a relic of primitive customs. Among certain extra-European\npeoples\u2014for example, one in north Burmah\u2014this custom was accompanied\nby definite guarantees for the possible children. Young people may\nwithout hindrance unite freely, and separate if they do not find their\nfeeling deep enough for continued life together. In the contrary case,\nthey marry, and after marriage infidelity is as good as unknown. If the\ngirl becomes a mother, without a marriage following, the man is obliged\nto secure the child through a sum paid to the girl\u2019s father, who is\nthen answerable for it.\n\nIt is from similar sexual customs that the majority of our Swedish\npeople derive theirs\u2014that people which in royal and academic speeches\nhas gained the character of being \u201cthe most law-abiding and loyal\u201d\nin the world. Failing a deeper love or a sense of responsibility,\nthese customs involve the abandonment of the woman, infanticide, and\nsometimes the prostitution of the woman, when she has passed from one\nman to another; finally the encumbrance of society with the children\nof different fathers to whom she has given life, besides the neglect\nof the children. And the custom leads\u2014even in those cases where both\nlove and responsibility are present, but where the lovers are too\nyoung\u2014to the enfeebling of themselves and of the children, and to the\ngreat mortality of the latter. Not only hard labour and scanty food,\nbut also a premature sexual life, contribute to hinder the full bodily\ndevelopment of the lower classes and to hasten their growing old.\n\nBut by the side of these evil effects there are good ones. In most\ncases, a young couple\u2019s prospect of parentage leads their relatives to\nmake their marriage possible. When this cannot take place immediately,\nthe daughter and her child stay with the parents of one of them, or\nshe leaves the child with them, while she on her side, and the young\nman on his, work for the future. Even when the man has not always\nbeen disposed for marriage, their common life of work and the sense\nof parentage soon show a uniting force. Such couples who have come\ntogether in youth probably have better prospects for their life\ntogether than an upper-class couple, worn out by a long engagement, in\nwhich the bride has a full right to her orange-flowers\u2014to say nothing\nof the health contributed by the man of the people in comparison\nwith the majority of men of the upper class, who have bought their\ninjurious substitute for marriage while waiting for the promotion which\nshould make marriage possible. One thing at any rate is certain: that\nmatrimonial fidelity among the people is as great as freedom before\nmarriage is unlimited. That the free love of the peasant and working\nclass ends, as a rule, in marriage, often depends on the fact that\npublic opinion supports this as a point of morality. But\u2014in those\ncases where love itself does not bring about community of life\u2014the\nsense of parentage and the need of a helpmate are as decisive as\npublic opinion; for even among the erotically undeveloped the need of\ncohabitation makes itself felt for other purposes than the instinct\nof the race. It is the desire for such community of life\u2014with its\nsharing of pleasure and hardship, sorrow and attention\u2014which makes it\nreally uniting. Where no such desire exists, the relationship becomes\nimmoral from the point of view of life-enhancement. If this standard\nof morality be not adhered to, free love among the upper class\u2014as\namong the lower class\u2014will, it is true, contribute to the abolition of\nprostitution, but not to the exaltation of mankind through a greater\nlove, a higher morality.\n\nFor if, on the one hand, the sexual customs of the lower class allow\nmore right than those of the upper class to the direct claims of\nnature, on the other hand, the customs of the latter still provide the\nsame opportunities for the elevation into love of the instinct which,\nfrom an historical and ethnographical point of view, has everywhere\nbeen provided by self-control. Among those nations with which sexual\nconnections begin early, morals are, as a rule, loose, and where morals\nare loose, the emotion of love has small importance. The control of\nsensuality develops the deeper feelings of love. We need not go to\nthe nations of the past, or to existing extra-European peoples, but\nonly to the town and country labourers of our own and other European\nlands, to see how the feelings become lax and feeble, the senses coarse\nand greedy, when they have acquired the habit of satisfying physical\nhunger before that of the soul has awakened. The miserable conditions\nof dwelling among the lower classes are enough by themselves to rob\nsexual life of its discretion; immature age or the tie of blood is\nfrequently no hindrance to unchastity, and its consequences\u2014coarseness\nand lack of responsibility towards one another as well as towards the\noffspring\u2014at times take hideous forms. The first condition therefore\nfor love\u2019s freedom is that the freedom shall concern love, the most\nuniversal sign of which is the desire of continued community of life.\nAs this sign is, as a rule, to be found among young people of the\neducated class who now claim love\u2019s freedom, they are thus far within\ntheir rights, as also are the young people of the lower class when they\nuse the same freedom and as a result form many excellent connubial\nunions. We could with every reason\u2014and with more reason\u2014draw the same\nconclusions with regard to the upper class, if it were not the case\nthat among these love has become a so much more penetrating force.\nWhile the majority of the working class\u2014for even there a minority\nwith more refined erotic feelings is to be found,\u2014in addition to the\nsatisfaction of its instincts, contents itself with a capable and\ndevoted comrade to bear its burden, the developed man or woman of\nthe present day has deeper erotic needs. It is the satisfaction of\nthese that is often missed by a youthful decision in life; for even\nwhen youthful love is soulful\u2014and nearly all youthful love can so be\ndescribed\u2014it is nevertheless in most cases a longing for love rather\nthan love, a craving for experience rather than the new life itself.\nAnd therefore the erotic feelings of early youth are founded upon the\nillusions which make a Romeo lament the harshness of Rosalind a moment\nbefore meeting Juliet, and a Titania to fondle Bottom\u2019s ass\u2019s ears.\nNever in after life has the world such a marvellous glamour as when the\nfirst dream of love has swathed all contours in its opalescent mists\nof sunrise, but\u2014never do we so easily go astray. It may happen that\nthe lifting of the mists will disclose the most beautiful landscape.\nBut there are more chances that the course one has steered in the fog\nwill end in one of many shipwrecks. Therefore the \u201c\u2019teens\u201d should be\nthe age of the erotic prologue, not of the drama. For this reason also,\nthat no one can decide to what degree the transient may injure the\nfinal relations of life; nor to what degree great love may be missed\nor spoiled, when accidental love has anticipated its rights, even\nthough this happened in the full and frank belief that the accident was\ndestiny.\n\nNo part of the art of living is more important for youth than\ndeveloping in one\u2019s self the knowledge of a predestined fellowship\nwhich permits of waiting. People curse the hazards which separate\nlovers. But it is less the hazards which separate than those which\nunite at the wrong time, that ought to be cursed. First youth seldom\nloses in love anything but what is unimportant; the reality shows\nitself\u2014when both are free\u2014as what cannot be lost. Those who belong\nto each other come together in the end; those whom chance parts, never\nbelonged to each other. A man may fail of happiness by finding out\ntoo late what is real in himself or others; not by abstaining from\naction before this discovery. Therefore youth should wait before making\ndecisive plunges into its own and others\u2019 destinies, since great love\nmay resemble the Japanese divinity, to pray to whom more than once is a\ncrime, since it answers prayer only once.\n\n\nBut even when a young couple has the profoundest mutual sense of the\npermanence of their feeling, it does not follow that their love ought\nimmediately to involve the rights and the accompanying responsibilities\nof a later age. For young trees break or bend under too heavy a weight\nof fruit, nor does the fruit attain its full value on trees that are\ntoo young. Here nature herself is the opponent of youthful marriages.\nLet us leave on one side the possibility of people being unwillingly\nbound together through the consequences of an over-hasty union, and\ndeal only with the certainty that the young people in a profound\nsense continue to belong to each other. They will nevertheless as\nsurely suffer through the possible or probable consequence of their\naction, the child. Their consciousness of not being able to bear this\nconsequence will doubtless make them try to avoid it. But this is an\nugly beginning to a life of love. Many consider that it also involves\ndangers. For those who have already given to the race their tribute\nof new life, or who ought never thus to give, the choice must be free\nbetween the two dangers. But for the opening of a life in common this\nresource may be equally unsafe and unwholesome, since the racial\ninstinct as a whole is left unaccomplished. And thus love is robbed\nof a part of its spiritual meaning, and sensuousness of its natural\nrestraint. But even if these consequences do not follow, \u201cfailure\u201d may\nyet be the most fortunate occurrence in these cases\u2014and also the most\nusual. How then does it appear in reality?\n\nIn most cases young people have entered into their free union because\nthey have seen no possibility of an open marriage. They are the less\nable to support a child, as they themselves are supported by others,\nin so far as they are not keeping themselves by running into debt or\nby badly-paid labour. In the latter case, the child means a further\nhindrance to life, the more so as it must involve for the woman\na diminution, perhaps a total loss, of her powers of work. It is\ntherefore the young people\u2019s relatives who have to help. And, when\nthis is possible, the form it takes is that the lovers are obliged to\nmarry and receive the help that the parents can afford. In the case of\nthe poorer classes, this is comparatively slight, as the newly-married\npair frequently stay with the parents of one of them. But in the upper\nclasses, on the other hand, they prefer, with full reason, to form\ntheir own home, and then there ensue the inevitable cares of child\nand housekeeping, however simple the latter may be. But these will be\na hindrance to their studies, their freedom of movement, and general\ndevelopment. They become cage-birds, at best fed by their parents;\nbound by duties during the years which should have been wholly devoted\nto their self-development.\n\nThus premature marriages, whether lawful or unlawful in form, may\narrest in their growth countless excellent forces, and ruin the full\npossibilities of happiness in later years. It is true that the early\nunion will have stilled a powerful longing in the young people\u2019s being.\nBut they soon find out that it has at the same time rendered difficult,\nperhaps impossible, the satisfaction of their desire of knowledge,\nthe taste for research, the creative power, and freedom of action in\nother, more or less important, directions; for example, in the love of\ntravel which is felt by all young people of spirit, and in the love of\npleasure in a wholesome sense. The young mother\u2019s beauty probably never\nattains the fulness designed by nature, and she is destined to grow\nold before her time. And even when her children are not weaklings\u2014as\nis most frequently the case\u2014they do not afford her the happiness they\nmight have brought if they had been longed for; if she had not had\nto sacrifice to them her youthful joy, the fulness of her strength\nand beauty, but, on the contrary, had felt this enhanced through\nmotherhood. Above all, the children do not receive the bringing-up\nwhich the mother might give them at a somewhat maturer age.\n\nEven if a pair of lovers are themselves willing to be subject to the\nhindrances imposed in most cases by a premature union, this must be\ntheir own affair; but for the child there must be loss.\n\nIn order that the child may enjoy the full possibility of favourable\nconditions of life\u2014in birth as well as in bringing-up\u2014in northern\nEurope the age of the woman at marriage should be at least twenty, that\nof the man about twenty-five. This is the period of full maturity, and\nuntil this age is reached youth itself gains by complete abstinence, in\norder by its marriage at the proper age, in the words of Tacitus, to\n\u201clet the children witness to their parents\u2019 strength.\u201d In the opinion\nof most younger men of science it is less and less probable that\nacquired qualities are inherited. Others, again, who have defended or\nstill hold this view, have maintained with more or less force\u2014as a\ncondition of the progress of the race\u2014that procreation should not take\nplace until the activity and surroundings of the parents have acquired\na definite character. Acute psychologists who have given attention to\nwoman\u2019s nature, consider that it does not attain its full spiritual\nmaturity before about the age of thirty, while she then still possesses\nher youthfulness unimpaired; that until then her countenance does not\nacquire its true completeness of expression; that her individuality,\nintellectual powers, and passion are then for the first time fully\nawake; that only these properties can inspire deep love, and that thus\nwoman gains everything by a later marriage, whereas the result of early\nmarriages, where the husband has to \u201ceducate\u201d his wife, is frequently,\nas a witty lady has remarked, that he is destined instead to educate a\nwife for someone else.\n\nNor is it only narrow-viewed preachers of morality, but men of science\nwith the broadest outlook in these matters, who declare ever more\npositively that abstinence until the age of maturity is in a high\ndegree favourable to the physico-psychical strength and elasticity of\nboth sexes, and that such favourable effect may sometimes extend beyond\nthis age.\n\nTo this direct gain must also be added the indirect one: that all\nself-control for a greater and gladdening end\u2014and what end can be\ngreater than this one?\u2014gives to the will that force and to the\npersonality that joy in its strength which will later be all-important\nin every other department of life.\n\nSuch an advancement of the age of marriage will probably not be opposed\nby many women. Young girls have learned by the experience of others,\nand now there is scarcely to be found a woman married before the age of\ntwenty who has not discovered that it was premature before she reaches\ntwenty-five. Moreover it is seldom the woman\u2019s desire that hurries on a\nsecret union; for, in the absence of any admixture of Southern blood,\nit is a long time, many years indeed in some cases, before the senses\nof the Northern woman are consciously awakened.\n\nBut the young girl loves and wishes to satisfy the longing from which\nshe sees her lover suffer, the more so when she comes to know that\nthe demonstrations of affection which have satisfied her needs have\nincreased his suffering. And therefore she silences her own innermost\nconsciousness, which adjures her to wait.\n\nThis silencing of the inner voice not infrequently has for its result\nthat the two souls are never fully united, since the senses have stood\nin their way; or in Nietzsche\u2019s words: _Die Sinnlichkeit \u00fcbereilt oft\ndas Wachsthum der Liebe so dass die Wurzeln schwach bleiben und leicht\nauszureissen sind._ In every pure feeling of morality, a young woman\nwho thus surrenders herself in love stands immeasurably above the\nengaged girl of good family who allows the man she says she loves to\ntoil alone during the best years of his young manhood, so as at last\nto prepare for her the position which her own ideas of life, or those\nof her family, demand. But higher than either stands the young woman\nwho has known how to preserve the freshness of love\u2019s springtime. And\nwhen women\u2019s own claims of happiness have become more refined, when\ntheir insight into nature is more profound, when they thus become fit\nto take the lead in erotic development\u2014which in Scandinavia during\nthe last generation has unfortunately been in man\u2019s hands,\u2014then they\nwill also understand this. They must prolong the happy time when love\nis unspoken, unfettered by promises, full of expectation and intuition.\nAnd they need not on this account give up the comradeship in sport,\nin walks, and studies, which is wholesome in itself, cheerful and\npreparatory to happiness, but which now leads to premature unions.\nWomen will come to understand when they ought to be on their guard, in\norder that the sufferings of the period of waiting may be minimised.\nThey will shorten the secret engagement, and they will do away with the\npublic engagement, with the dangers both involve of attenuation of the\nfeelings, and with the latter\u2019s profanation of love\u2019s privacy.\n\nIf the youth of the North does not feel its soul in harmony with this\nmood, its life will have lost its springtime\u2014without receiving in\nexchange a longer summer; for premature warmth has its revenge in life\nas in nature. To experience fully the peculiar beauty of each season\nof life is the attribute of a profounder comprehension of life\u2019s\nmeaning\u2014and this truth is not less true because a Juliet was only\nfourteen. What Shakespeare has revealed in her is not the force of\nearly love, incomparable with any other power; rather does he show the\nlove, instantaneous, fatal, overcoming all obstacles, which\u2014equally\npowerful at every age\u2014yet shows its force most unmistakably when\nit drives two human beings to death just at the time when the yet\nunlived life they have before them makes the thought of death most full\nof horror. Only such an exception can anticipate in springtime the\nflowering of summer. It is therefore not from the whole necessity of\ntheir nature, but from attaching too much importance to one side of it,\nthat many young people now have the idea that love loses its fire and\nits purity by waiting until the organism can bear its fruits. Nothing\nis more certain than that the chastity of perfect love is conditioned\ntowards unity by the will of the soul and the senses. But this chaste\nwill may be found before or after the possibility of its realisation.\nAnd love\u2019s chastity may then show itself as well in waiting for\ncomplete unity as in altogether renouncing the same.\n\nIt is true that a young man will not experience the intoxication of\nlove at twenty-five as he experienced it some years earlier. But if he\nfeels it for the first time at about twenty-five, then\u2014according to\nall the laws of physico-psychical sensations of pleasure\u2014just at the\nheight of his sexual existence, and after years of self-control and\nlabour for happiness, he ought to be able to experience a richer vital\nintoxication than he would have been capable of in the earlier years of\nhis youth.\n\nIt is incontestable that premature erotic claims are less the result of\nthe needs of the organism than of the influence of the imagination upon\nit. Only a new healthiness and beauty in the method of treating erotic\nquestions will gradually refashion the now over-excited imagination,\ncalm erotic curiosity, and strengthen the sense of responsibility\ntowards self and towards the new generation, so that premature sexual\nlife may lose its attraction for the young.\n\n\nAll this however concerns only immature youth.\n\nWhen, on the other hand, a pair of lovers have reached the age referred\nto as that of full maturity, and their complete union can only further\ntheir own life-enhancement and that of the race, then they commit a sin\nagainst themselves and the race if they do not enter into union.\n\nBut not even in such a case is secret love desirable, in which\nthe woman goes in constant uneasiness for the possible child, and\nyet\u2014after the first period of happiness\u2014in a growing desire not only\nfor it but for all the other conditions of life which might give sun\nand fresh air to her feeling, confined, as it were, in forcing-house or\ncellar.\n\nIn most cases it is only a question of time how soon this secret\nhappiness will languish, since the risk is almost entirely on the\nwoman\u2019s side and the man is too much in the position of one who\nreceives. For human nature is such that this makes one hard; and love\nis such that this makes one weak. If the man is not hardened thereby,\nit is because he is extremely sensitive. And again, if he is so, then\nthe secret union, in which the woman gives most, becomes just as\nhumiliating to the man as a marriage in which the wife keeps him by her\nfortune or her work. The woman, on her side, will be the more difficult\nto please, will make higher claims upon the love which is to compensate\nher for the home and for the child, the two interests through which she\nwould first have felt her powers developed in every direction, or, in\nother words, would have gained complete happiness.\n\nFor a woman\u2019s best qualities, even as a mistress, are inseparably bound\nup with the motherhood in her nature.\n\nThere has been and is an infinity of talk about the degradation of\nwoman by her complete surrender without marriage; that the man thus\ndepreciates his loved one in his own eyes and himself in hers; that he\nis selfish in proposing a union which injures the virtue and modesty of\nlove; that he \u201csacrifices\u201d the woman to his desire; and so on without\nend. All this talk is worthless, simply because a woman who loves feels\nherself degraded neither in her own eyes nor in those of the man;\nbecause she has no idea of a \u201csacrifice,\u201d but of giving and receiving.\nFor she desires the completeness of love with a much profounder will\nthan man, since her erotic needs are stronger\u2014although calmer\u2014than\nhis. But she is frequently\u2014and often for a long time\u2014unconscious\nthat her profound desire to be made happy at any price through love\nnevertheless refers at bottom to the child. The man sees only the\nwoman\u2019s longing and his happy smile not unfrequently tells of an easy\nvictory. But he does not know\u2014for a long time she does not know\nherself\u2014when her love becomes a sacrifice; when she begins to feel\nher position as a degrading one. The man does not see what her smile\nconceals; he does not understand her when she is silent, and perhaps\nhe does not listen when she speaks. He thus believes her to be still\nsatisfied, when she has begun to hunger for more.\n\nWoman\u2019s need of living and suffering for the race gives her love a\npurer glow, a higher flame, a profounder will, a more tireless fidelity\nthan man\u2019s. The unsatisfied longing for motherhood is released in an\never warmer, ever more self-sacrificing affection for the loved one.\nMan, on the other hand, who has less and less opportunity of giving,\nthereby comes to love less and less. When the woman discovers this, she\nbegins to remember what she has given. And then strife, sin, sorrow,\nand their wages\u2014death\u2014have entered into what was perhaps at the\nbeginning a genuine love; a love which might have had a full and fair\nlife, if it had had the unifying and purifying influence of a common\nend, a great purpose.\n\nWhen love possesses nothing of this kind, its power of motion is\ndirected against itself. The feelings of both parties then become the\nobject of a game like that of _parfiler_, which was the rage in the\neighteenth century, and which consisted in drawing the threads out of\nworn-out cloth of gold. The feelings are torn up, ripped open, tied\ntogether; tangled, disentangled, and wound up. But feelings are roots,\nnot threads\u2014not even gold threads. It is in the great, wholesome\nrealities of life that the creative force of love, like that of art,\nfinds the productive earth for its growth. Torn out of this earth,\nlove, as surely as art, is like a tree blown down by a spring storm,\nwhich may indeed put forth leaves this spring\u2014though all its roots are\nexposed to the air\u2014but which will not live through the summer.\n\nClandestine love is in this respect like an upper-class marriage\nwithout children and without common pursuits, although the\nself-sacrificing, self-supporting, clandestine mistress stands far\nabove the kept wife, fashionable and full of pretension.\n\nThus it is not abstract ideas of duty, but real selfishness, which is\none with real morality, that will teach youth to understand the meaning\nof Spinoza\u2019s profound thought, made still more profound by the doctrine\nof evolution: that \u201cthe sexual love which has its origin in what is\nexternal and accidental, may easily be turned to hate, a kind of\nmadness that is nourished on discord; but that love, on the other hand,\nis lasting, _which has its cause in freedom of soul and in the will to\nbear and bring up children_.\u201d\n\nThrough the religion of life and its countless influences, through\ngradual, scarcely perceptible transformations, will love\u2019s freedom more\nand more come to mean freedom for enduring love.\n\nThe spirit of the age, working through the standards of literature\nand public opinion, transforms with infallible certainty thoughts and\nfeelings in the direction in which the strongest lead them.\n\nIt now rests with the young to be these strong ones.\n\nWith the growing desire for a many-sided enhancement of life, parentage\nwill also become an ever more important condition of this enhancement.\nYoung people will be no more willing to depreciate by a premature\nsexual life the value of those years which ought to be devoted to\nfurthering their individual growth, than they will be to diminish\ntheir joy of parentage by putting a weak and unwelcome child into the\nworld. For they will wish to possess all happiness fully and frankly.\nThe expected child ought to give them beautiful dreams, not tormenting\nuneasiness; it must be carried in rejoicing, not in unwilling, arms,\nand must have received life from the fulness of happiness\u2014not from a\nmischance.\n\nHere as everywhere, what is the most genuine and lasting happiness for\nthe individual is also for the moral enhancement the race.\n\nWhen two lovers have this desire and have reached that maturity, when\nthe will has a right to realisation, and is in full agreement with the\nhealth and beauty of themselves, of the new generation, and of society,\nit is right that they should come together, even though it may not be\npossible for their pure desire of common life and common work to take\nthe form of marriage.\n\nFor him who has ears to hear, these figures will speak: they show that\nthe average age of unlawful unions is the right age appointed by nature\nfor marriage. Thus the statistics of Sweden for 1900 show that 6340\n\u201cillegitimate\u201d children were born of mothers between 20 and 25 years\nold, while those born of mothers under 20 were 2028, and of mothers\nbetween 25 and 30, 3857. Another eloquent fact is that, even before\nthe extension of compulsory military service, the highest figures of\nemigration, for men as well as women, occur among the unmarried within\na year or two on either side of twenty.\n\nBy unlawful unions, the race is often defrauded of the children\u2019s\nfitness for life, which is ruined by the unfavourable conditions in\nwhich the children are brought up; and by emigration the best blood of\nthe country is drained away. And even if the latter is occasioned by\na variety of causes, no thoughtful person could omit to reckon among\nthem the difficulty of marrying at the right time. Another equally\neloquent circumstance fully supported by statistical evidence is this:\nthat prostitution increases in direct proportion as the general social\nconditions and the economical situation are unfavourable to marriage,\nand that it decreases as marriage is facilitated. And the majority of\nprostitutes\u2014as of unmarried mothers\u2014are of the right age for marriage.\n\nThe youth of the upper classes ought not, however, in their struggle\nagainst actual conditions, to descend to the irresponsibility of the\nlower classes. Educated young people must set an example to the rest,\nnot only by entering into their matrimonial alliances at the right\ntime, but also in a way that is unimpeachable as regards the claims\nof the race and of society. The young have a perfect right\u2014like\ntheir contemporaries among the people\u2014to assume the responsibility\nof founding a home, which may be denied to them, before the child is\nexpected. But they have only a right to this kind of defiance if they\nare willing, as soon as they are able, themselves to provide for the\nnew creatures who will one day replace them in the race. But above all\nthings, educated young people must also take part in the social reform\nwhich\u2014speaking broadly\u2014will be the only solution of the marriage\nquestion.\n\nInstead of defending \u201cfree love,\u201d which is a much-abused term capable\nof many interpretations, we ought to strive for the freedom of love;\nfor while the former has come to imply freedom for any sort of love,\nthe latter must only mean freedom for a feeling which is worthy the\nname of love.\n\nThis feeling, it may be hoped, will gradually win for itself the same\nfreedom in life as it already possesses in poetry. The flowering, as\nwell as the budding of love will then be a secret between the lovers,\nand only its fruit will be a matter between them and society. As\nalways, poetry has pointed out the way to development. A great poet has\nseldom sung of lawfully-wedded happiness, but often of free and secret\nlove; and in this respect too the time is coming when there will no\nlonger be one standard of morality for poetry and another for life.\nEven the poet of Sakuntala calls that love the most beautiful which\ngives itself freely in the \u201cGandoarva marriage,\u201d sanctified only by the\nfulness of emotion. But even then the danger was recognised of\n\n  ... _unknown heart closing against unknown heart_.\n\nEven then it was uneasiness about the fate of the child which coupled\nresponsibility to society with love\u2019s freedom.\n\nThe new moral consciousness is thus an old thing. But it must\nnevertheless be called new, since it is only beginning to be\nwide-spread. It is becoming plain to more and more people that a man\nor woman\u2014whether married or free\u2014does wrong to the nobility of self\nby giving himself or herself to one who is at heart a stranger; it is\nmore and more becoming intuitively felt that it is the sense of home in\nanother soul which gives devotion its sanctity.\n\nThe suitor who\u2014dressed for the occasion\u2014went first to the father to\ndeclare his feelings for the daughter is already such an old-fashioned\ntype that it is past ridicule. The brilliant wedding festival will\nsoon come to be regarded as ridiculous, then unbecoming, and finally\nimmoral. And\u2014like other survivals of the time when marriage was the\naffair of the family\u2014it has already begun to disappear, in the same\ndegree as love has developed. Lovers are less and less inclined to\ntolerate a spying upon their finest feelings; they are increasingly\nanxious to rescue these from the prying fingers of society, of family,\nand of friends. More and more is love venerated as part of nature\u2019s\nmysticism, whose course no outsider can determine, whose sensitive\nmanifestations and uncertain possibilities no one may disturb, a\nmysticism within whose sphere a fixed timetable would be out of place.\n\nHow can Love, one of the great lords of life, take its freedom from the\nhands of society any more than Death, the other, can do so? \u201cLove and\nDeath, which meet like the two sides of a mountain-ridge, whose highest\npoints are ever where they come together\u201d (G. Rodenbach); Love and\nDeath, which\u2014one with the wings of the dawn, the other with those of\nthe night sky\u2014overshadow the portals between earthly life and the two\ngreat darknesses which enclose it\u2014only these two powers are comparable\nin majesty.\n\nBut while there is only one death, there are many sorts of love. Death\nnever plays. When all love becomes equally serious, it will also\npossess death\u2019s right to choose its own time.\n\n\nIn the springtime of love, parents can be of significance to their\nchildren only when they feel reverence for the marvel which is\naccomplished in their presence. But it seldom happens that parents have\npreviously been so sensitive that their children then treat them as\nperfect friends. The period of youth is commonly full of strife, which\nis brought about partly by the parents\u2019 desire of remodelling their\nchildren according to their own ideas\u2014against which children are only\nnow venturing to defend themselves,\u2014partly by the children\u2019s desire to\nassert their own ideals, which are always different from those of the\nparents, for otherwise \u201cthe new generation would own no title to exist\u201d\n(G. Brandes). Parents might save for themselves and for their children\nendless suffering, if they understood from the beginning that children\nare significant exclusively as new personalities, with new gods and\nnew aims; with the right to protect their own nature, with the duty of\nfinding out new paths, without forfeiting the right of being respected\nby their parents in the same degree as the latter on their side retain\nthe right of being venerated by their children\u2014for the best of what\nthey are or have been, what they will or have willed. The only right\nthat parents ought never to renounce in dealing with their grown-up\nchildren is that of giving to them the benefit of their own experience.\nBut in so doing they must remember what a poor loving heart forgets\neasiest of all: that not even their own most bitter experience will be\nable to save their children from making sad discoveries for themselves.\nThey will probably avoid their parents\u2019 mistakes, but only to make\nothers of their own! The only real power a father or mother possesses\nover the child\u2019s fate\u2014but indeed this is an immense one\u2014is to fill\nthe home with his or her strong and beautiful personality; with love\nand joy, with work and culture; and thus to make the atmosphere so rich\nand so pure that the children may calmly delay their choice and have a\nhigh standard to choose by.\n\nBut if parents see that in spite of this their children are tempted to\nconfuse accident with destiny, then they are called upon to show an\nalmost godlike wisdom in order to divert the danger. In most cases,\nparents consciously or unconsciously play into the hands of the\naccidental, while they raise obstacles against what is predestined.\nTheir warnings are not directed against what is silent and has nothing\nto give; no, they advance mean and paltry reasons which the young\noppose with all that is best in their nature. Thus they silence their\nown uneasy intuitions, which their parents might have induced them to\nfollow if they themselves had had a clearer perception of what was\nessential.\n\nEven in homes where there is most affection, the children, in their\nstormy period of springtime, are as riddles which their parents often\ntry in vain to solve. A young soul never suffers so much as during\nthe solution of its own riddle. But only such a father or mother as\nhas succeeded in becoming renewed and rejuvenated through his or her\nchildren will be able to help them in the solution. Otherwise the\nresult will only be that the parents on their side will bring stones to\nthe wall which the children on theirs are building ever higher.\n\nEven parents who have not grown into crabbed working-machines; who\ndo not use their authority because they have the means of power, but\nonly because they possess spiritual superiority; who in their home let\ntheir children have not only freedom for gladness but also the joy of\nfreedom, will nevertheless many a time fall short in the endeavour\nto render their superiority serviceable to the children, or by their\nbroad-mindedness to liberate them from the one-sidedness of youth. And\nin that case they must give up the struggle; for it will not improve\nthe difficulties of the present, but only destroy future chances of\nunderstanding.\n\nIn the three greatest decisions to be taken in life\u2014those of the\nfundamental view of life, of one\u2019s life work, and of love\u2014each soul\nmust be its own counsel. In these matters, parents must restrict their\nauthority to saving their children from vital dangers; but they must\nalso be able to discover such dangers, and to differentiate profound\nfrom superficial needs, the high-road from the by-road. If their\nparents are not capable of this, then the children must perform their\nduty to themselves and to life, by\u2014sooner or later\u2014going their own\nway.\n\nIf, like a young couple in a similar case, the children can \u201csmile and\nbe silent,\u201d while showing their seriousness in their actions, then they\nwill probably be capable of educating their parents. In that case, it\nwill frequently be apparent that the heart of a father or mother was\nstronger, their soul greater than either child or parents had believed\nbefore the test was made. If, on the other hand, it should prove that\nthe faults and prejudices of the parents were the sole cause of the\nconflict, then these faults and prejudices are not entitled to any more\nrespect because they are those of a father or mother.\n\nBut even if it should be the case that the parents have no souls\ncapable of profound feeling, but only hearts which can bleed\u2014it is\nnevertheless the duty of the child towards itself, and towards past\nand future generations, to give to its own nature the highest possible\nperfection through love. Parents are only a link in the infinite chain\nof the race: it is the blood of hundreds of thousands that the parents\nhave transmitted to their children, who now in their turn are to pass\nit on. Children have higher duties towards all these dead and unborn\nbeings than they have towards the single couple who became their father\nand mother. It behooves the young to let all these dead ones live\nagain as fully as possible through the development of their own being\nand in the blood of their children. A human being may owe a greater\ndebt of gratitude for his own nature to his grandmother\u2019s heart or to\nhis grandfather\u2019s imagination than to his own narrow-hearted mother\nor unintelligent father. So far is it from being an invariable duty\nto bring joy to the parents, that it may be one\u2019s duty to bring them\nsorrow\u2014in order to bring joy to one\u2019s successors. It is a good thing\nto honour one\u2019s father and mother; but the commandment which Moses\nforgot is more important still: to honour one\u2019s son and daughter even\nbefore they are born.\n\nWhen the sense of the dead and of the unborn becomes a conscious motive\nof human action, through being a force in human emotion, then the claim\nof the parents to decide their children\u2019s life\u2014as well as the claim\nof the latter to decide that of their parents\u2014will gradually fall to\npieces before the majesty of the past and of the future.\n\n\nIt results from the foregoing that any doctrine of morality is of\nlittle worth which does not involve the need of providing the means of\nmarriage for healthy persons between the ages of twenty and thirty;\na possibility which was possessed without exception by the Germanic\nancestors whose example of abstinence is now appealed to.\n\nSo long as increasingly difficult examinations, the scale of pay in\ngovernment departments, the division of profits in business, and the\ngeneral rate of living, stand in the way of young people\u2019s chances of\nmarriage, things will remain as they are, in spite of an increasing\nminority of men who, for their own personality\u2019s sake or for that of\ntheir love, maintain abstinence until marriage or remain celibate.\n\nThe abolition of this sacrifice to the state of society and\ncivilisation is a matter of sufficient importance to the individual,\nbut of infinitely greater importance to society, whose forces are now\nbeing wasted by the effects of immorality and checked by those of\nmorality: society, whose strength depends to such a great degree upon\nyoung and healthy parents for the new generation.\n\nEven under actual conditions, the chances of marriage for young people\nmight be increased by a judicious realisation of the \u201cown home\u201d idea\nin country districts; by a shortening of the university course; by the\nraising of salaries in the lower ratings (they appear at present to be\ncalculated upon the satisfaction of sexual needs through prostitution);\nby the granting of pensions at an earlier age, so that the higher rates\nof pay may be reached in middle age\u2014when the burden of educating\nchildren is heaviest;\u2014and by increased exemption from taxation for men\nand women who have to provide for a family.\n\nIn addition, a thorough change in social pretensions and habits of life\nis necessary, above all in the large towns, where building societies\nfor the erection of small flats with common kitchen, offices for\nproviding domestic help, paid by the hour, and co-operative societies\nfor the cheaper supply of the necessaries of life, might considerably\nassist young people in establishing their homes. It is, however, not\nonly this, but also communal employment that must be promoted, if\nmen of about twenty-five are to be ready to enter upon their various\noccupations and\u2014after thirty-five years in the service of the\nState\u2014to be entitled to their pensions, but at the same time under the\nobligation to retire, except in the rare cases where special talent\nrenders a person indispensable in some leading position. The experience\na man has gained, and the strength that is left to him, would find full\nemployment in other social affairs or in personal interests.\n\nIt is not against immoral literature, but against the Treasury, the\nBudget Committee and against private employers of labour that moral\nreformers should draw up their resolutions. So long as a business man\nis able to make two or three millions a year net profit while of those\nemployed in his office scarcely two or three are so paid that they can\nthink of marriage before the age of thirty; so long as the head of\na government department can reply, to the application of a class of\nofficials for an increase of salary in order to facilitate marriage,\nby a gracious promise of more frequent leave to go to town; or an\nemployer refuse a female employee\u2019s demand for a raise of salary with\na gallant reference to the ease with which\u2014 with her advantages of\nappearance\u2014she might increase her income; so long will the marriage\nquestion remain unsolved.\n\n\nAll preaching of morality to youth which does not at the same time\ncondemn the state of society that favours immorality, but makes the\nrealisation of youthful love an impossibility, is more than stupidity,\nit is a crime.\n\nSo long as the present low rates of pay and uncertain conditions of\nemployment continue, the blood of men will continue more and more to\nbe corrupted, and that of women to be impoverished, while waiting for\nthe marriage which might have given to society excellent children born\nof healthy and happy parents. So long as societies thus fatuously\nsacrifice their highest values will every other kind of social reform\nbe nothing but a work of Penelope, of which the night will undo what\nthe day has done.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nLOVE\u2019S SELECTION\n\n\nIn the foregoing chapter it was insisted that love\u2019s freedom in the\nprocreation of new life must have a downward limit, in that this\nfreedom can only be allowed to those who have attained the age of\nsexual maturity. But it ought also to have an upward limit, since a\ngreat difference in age between father and mother\u2014like the advanced\nage of one of them\u2014offers unfavourable conditions for the health,\nstrength, and upbringing of the children. And as, for reasons given in\nthe last chapter, the lawful age of marriage for both sexes must be put\nat twenty-one, a difference in age of twenty-five years should be the\nhighest the law ought to allow in one or the other case.\n\nNo one who sees the meaning of life in its advance towards higher forms\nwould dispute nowadays the obvious duty of not transmitting serious\ndiseases the hereditariness of which is already ascertained by science.\nBut as this has only been ascertained in a few cases, legal hindrances\nas regards the many doubtful cases would be not only a\u2014perhaps\nmeaningless\u2014interference with the life of the individual, but also an\nunfavourable circumstance for continued research in the most important\nbranch of biology.\n\nWhat ought to be insisted upon even now is that each party before\nmarriage should possess full knowledge of its possible dangers,\nbut that the choice should thereupon be left to their own sense of\nresponsibility. No one\u2014at least not yet\u2014can ask the individual\nto sacrifice his happiness for contested possibilities; but in the\ninterests of the individual, as of that of the race, we can, on the\nother hand, demand that no one shall make his choice in love in\nignorance. And the more the sense of racial community approaches its\nrenaissance under the influence of evolutionism, the more natural will\nall safeguards appear with which that choice may be surrounded to the\nadvantage of posterity. Even now it is considered quite natural that\na medical examination should precede life insurance. In the future it\nmay be equally obvious that before marriage the woman should ascertain\nfrom a female doctor and the man from a male doctor whether they are\ncapable of fulfilling their duty to the race. And it is not only a\nquestion of insuring the new lives, but also of assuring the couple\nthemselves that they have no organic defects which in some instances\nmight make marriage impossible, which in others are easily avoidable,\nbut ignorance regarding which would in each case entail unnecessary\nsuffering.\n\nIn most cases it is the anxiety of one\u2019s self contracting or\ntransmitting diseases to the other party and to the children that the\nphysician has to confirm or dispel. It is beyond all question that\nhealthy selfishness, which desires to preserve its own individuality,\nas well as the growing appreciation of a worthy offspring, will\nthen hinder many an unsuitable marriage. In other cases love might\ntriumph over these considerations for its own part, the married couple\nabstaining, however, from parentage. In those cases, again, where\nthe law would definitely forbid marriage, this would doubtless be no\nhindrance to diseased people having offspring outside wedlock. But\nthe same is true, of course, of all legal enactments: the best people\ndo not require them, the worst do not obey them, but through them the\nideas of justice of the majority are cultivated.\n\nOnly those who are ignorant of the laws of psychological transformation\ndoubt the possibility of the simultaneous enhancement of the feeling\nof love and the racial sense. Century after century the emotion of\nlove has been growing, while at the same time men have nevertheless\nsacrificed it to religious prejudices, superficial ideas of duty,\ntyrannical parental authority, and empty forms. Now, when the sacrifice\nis called for on behalf of the highest of possible gains\u2014the conquest\nof disease by health, the ennobling of the human body itself\u2014now,\nof all times, it is asserted that mankind would be incapable of\nthis sacrifice\u2014because in the course of time the power of love has\nincreased.\n\nOn the contrary, it is through the greatness of their feeling for\neach other that two married people can bear the loss of children,\nwhen\u2014knowing that neither of them thus deprives the race of a\nmaterial asset\u2014they enter upon their union with the resolve not to\nbecome parents. Through the same greatness in their love, the party on\nwhose side the danger lies may gain strength to sacrifice individual\nhappiness in order that the other may gain a happiness more significant\nto himself and to the race with some one else. Such sacrifices occur\neven now more frequently than is supposed.\n\nBut above all it is the extension of the instinct of love through\nthe racial sense which will secure the ennobling of the race without\nsacrificing individual happiness.\n\nThe point of view of racial ennobling found expression even in the\nMosaic marriage law. In ancient Greece also this ennobling was a\nconscious factor. But Christianity\u2019s insistence on the importance of\nthe individual and of humanity weakened the feeling of the individual\nfor the race, as did likewise the doctrine of souls supplied to the\nbodies from heaven and returning thither. It was only through the\nenhancement of man\u2019s spiritual force, by the mortification of his\nsinful body, that Christianity raised the quality of the race.\nThe doctrine of hereditary sin was its only\u2014half-rational and\nhalf-irrational\u2014insistence on our connection with our ancestors. Since\nChristianity regarded the human species as once for all determined\nby God\u2014though bungled by Adam\u2014restoration, not new creation, was,\nas already stated, its fundamental idea. In the very conditions of\nthe renewal of life Christianity saw the root and origin of sin in\nthe world. This way of viewing things must be entirely overcome; and\nfortunately the church has of necessity lost\u2014and will continue to\nlose\u2014in every conflict with love. But in this way the advance takes\nplace by a turning-aside from the direct line of development: the\nenhancement of the race. At the present time many symptoms show that\nlove and the racial sense are beginning to approach one another.\n\nWhenever abstract, logical thought confronts real life with a problem\nthat admits of only two solutions, the latter asserts its proud\ndetermination not to allow itself to be confined within definitions or\nruled by deductions. Life is movement, movement implies variability,\ntransformation, in other words, development in an upward or downward\ndirection. Never will the upward curve assume a more pronounced\nelevation than when the desire of procreation has reached the point at\nwhich it is directed by the selection of personal love, this selection\nagain being directed by a clear-sighted instinct tending to the\nennobling of the race.\n\nThat the choice of personal love at present appears often either to\nlack or to oppose this instinct, is no proof that it will always lack\nor oppose it. Love\u2019s selection has already in certain cases\u2014such\nas those of near blood-relations, different races, and certain\ndiseases\u2014become an instinct, since law and custom have influenced\nselection sufficiently long for this to have influenced feeling and\ninstinct. At the present time brother and sister\u2014since they are\naware of their relationship\u2014seldom have to suppress a mutual erotic\nfeeling, as such a thing does not arise. No prohibition, but only all\nthe impulses of her blood, hinder the American woman from marrying a\nnegro or a Chinese. The woman who is known to have epilepsy is excluded\nfrom marriage less by the law, in this case easily circumvented, than\nby the fact that no man wants her as his wife. On the other hand, it is\nknown that under conditions favourable to the cultivation of the beauty\nand strength of the human body, this has in a great degree influenced\nthe erotic selection of either sex\u2014so far as they otherwise possessed\nfreedom of choice. The law of inheritance, which makes it easy for\nthe degenerate to contract marriage, and women\u2019s need of maintenance\nhave, on the other hand, falsified the instinct of the latter in this\ndirection. The prevailing customs and ideas of morality have as a rule\ndeprived future mothers of their full freedom of choice and thus to a\ngreat extent neutralised the importance of womanly love\u2019s selection\nfor the spiritual and bodily improvement of the race. To this must be\nadded that the Christian doctrine of fraternity, the eighteenth-century\ndoctrine of equality, the transference of economical power to the\nthird estate\u2014in a word, the whole democratisation of society\u2014have\nbroken down the laws and customs which prevented the mixing of blood\nbetween different classes and races. This has certainly favoured the\nselection of personal love, but at the same time, to a greater extent\nthan formerly, it has favoured a selection governed by pecuniary\nconsiderations. In the marriages which were formerly a matter of family\narrangement, many other advantages, besides those of money, were taken\ninto consideration. But in this case also, as in that of the marriage\nof near relations, it was less and less a clear-sighted solicitude\nto preserve noble blood, more and more an empty pride of birth, a\nnarrow race-prejudice, that raised obstacles to marriage. It was thus\nnecessary for love\u2019s selection to conquer these obstructions, which\nin addition, even from the point of view of racial enhancement, were\noften of doubtful value. But all the more must we deplore the influence\nof money in determining matrimonial selection, above all when this\ninfluence makes itself felt at the cost of the inclination which love\nshows, in spite of everything, of making its choice by preference among\nequals; an inclination which\u2014besides other easily explicable causes\u2014\nmay also imply an instinct developed in the course of generations,\ntending to the preservation of the best peculiarities in a class or a\nrace.\n\nSince Christianity and the civilisation influenced by it\nmodestly veiled the natural mission of love and obscured it by\ntranscendentalism, mankind began to be ashamed even of self-examination\nor self-confession in this relation. We ought again to pay attention\nto family history, though not to such as used to be recorded in old\nfamily Bibles, with the dates of birth, marriage, and death, but such\na history as should include the circumstances which determined birth\nand death. We must resume the casting of horoscopes, but not so much\naccording to the signs in the heavens\u2014although perhaps these will\nregain something of their former importance\u2014as according to those\non earth; and not only from the signs at birth but from those long\nprevious to it. Just as alchemy became chemistry and astrology led to\nastronomy, it is possible that such a reading of signs might prepare\nthe way for what we may call\u2014while waiting for a word of more extended\nmeaning than Galton\u2019s eugenics or Haeckel\u2019s ontogony\u2014erotoplastics:\nthe doctrine of love as a consciously formative art, instead of a blind\ninstinct of procreation. It would be of infinitely greater significance\nfor humanity if the majority of the women, who now translate their\nexperiences into half-candid and wholly inartistic fiction, were to\nwrite down for the benefit of science entirely true family chronicles\nand perfectly frank confessions.\n\nIt is certain even now that the customs and ways of thought, the\nartistic and emotional tendencies, which make up the atmosphere of\nlove, unconsciously operate upon its selection to the advantage of the\nrace. This also involves the possibility of such influence becoming\nconscious, when once it is clearly seen in what direction it ought to\ngo, which are the spiritual and bodily properties that it is desired\nto eradicate or to enhance, and by what means the properties of the\nnew generation may depend upon the choice of parents. But above all,\nracial considerations will operate indirectly in the same direction,\nso that love will be less and less likely to arise under conditions\nunfavourable to the race. Man is not inwardly a logical creature: _les\nentrailles ne raisonnent pas, elles ne sont pas faites pour \u00e7a_ (George\nSand). But by degrees our nature becomes unconsciously transformed\nthrough reciprocal influences: the body together with the soul, the\nsoul together with the body; the desires through the thoughts, the\nthoughts through the desires. It is true that love\u2019s selection will\nalways remain a mystery\u2014from this among many other causes, equally\nor more important. But the individual and universal qualities which\nin the main act as an attraction will gradually be more clearly\nperceived, more sought after by both sexes, and will have more weight\nin determining their choice.\n\nWe have already seen that a displacement of motives, a division of\nmotive power, has during a certain period altered the character of\nlove. Thus, as pointed out above, the influence of the spirit of\nthe age was able during the age of chivalry, and again during the\neighteenth century, to separate love both from marriage and from the\nmission of the race. By the same psychic process a new spirit of\nthe age\u2014full of the aspirations of evolution and determined by the\nreligion of life\u2014may restore this connection and make it closer than\never before. Then will mankind look for a new Blake to glorify the\nfeeling of devotion which fills hearts and souls at the coinciding\nselection of personal love and of the racial sense, a coincidence which\nalone gives the certainty that\n\n  I am for you, and you are for me,\n  Not only for our own sake, but for others\u2019 sakes,\n  Envelop\u2019d in you deep greater heroes and bards,\n  They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me.[3]\n\nReligion, poetry, art, and social custom have collaborated to elevate\nthe racial feeling into love. They ought now to collaborate again to\nmake the racial feeling conscious in love. The altars that the ancients\nraised to the divinities of procreation must be rebuilt. Not for men\nand women to assemble around them in frenzied orgies, in the red\nglow of sunset, but in the golden light of the morning and the joy of\ncreative day.\n\nFamily feeling, ancestor-worship, pride of pure blood will regain, in a\nnew sense, their decisive power over emotions and actions.\n\nThus will love\u2019s freedom be limited\u2014but not through idealistic\nphilosophy\u2019s abstract conceptions of citizenship and duty, nor yet\nthrough the hard-and-fast breeding rules of a Spartan evolutionism.\n\n_Freedom for love\u2019s selection, under conditions favourable to the race;\nlimitation of the freedom, not of love, but of procreation, when the\nconditions are unfavourable to the race_\u2014this is the line of life.\n\nLove, like every other emotion, has its ebb and flow. Thus, even in the\ngreatest souls, it is not always at the same height. But the greater\nthe soul that the wave of erotic emotion inundates, the more surely\ndoes this wave quiver at its highest with the longing of eternity. The\nchild is the only true answer to this longing.\n\nThis does not mean that lovers in the moments of rapture divide their\nconsciousness between the present and the future, between their own\nbliss and the possible child. The life of the soul does not work\nso awkwardly as this. But the conscious conditions of the soul are\ndetermined by emotions\u2014reduced for the moment to unconsciousness;\nand motives, which are forgotten in the hour of fulfilment, have not\ntherefore been less decisive. The athlete in the moment of victory\ndoes not remember the training which preceded his race, but it was\nnevertheless that which decided the fate of that moment. The artist in\nthe hour of creation does not remember the toil of his student years,\nbut that nevertheless determines the perfection of his creation. The\nwill to ennoble the race need not be conscious in a pair of lovers,\nwho in each other forget time and existence, but without the emotions,\nwhich, consciously or unconsciously, have been influenced by that will,\nthey would not be united in an ecstasy of the soul and the senses.\n\n\nYoung men are becoming increasingly conscious that the thought of the\nchild influenced them in their choice of love; women are increasingly\naware that never was their longing for a child stronger than in the\nembrace of the man to whom they have been attracted by a great love.\nMore and more often do mothers search the features and souls of their\nchildren for evidence of their love. More and more often does one hear\nthe unmarried woman confess the hungry longing for motherhood, which a\nfew decades ago she concealed as a shame.\n\nEvery awakened soul perceives that the consciousness of the time\ncomprehends the mission of the race with a new intensity, although\ncenturies must pass before it can be proved what influence love\u2019s free\nselection has had upon the production of beings above the present\nstandard of humanity.\n\nEven from believers in the religion of life warnings are still heard\nagainst the love which is a matter of personal choice, which excludes\nall else, and which dissolves all former ties. Evolutionists thus admit\nthat this emotion certainly produces in the individual the highest\npossible development of force, the fullest richness of life, and that\nthis indirectly and in many ways is to the good of the whole. But\nat the same time they assert that love itself often consumes these\nenhanced powers; that it ought therefore only to occupy a brief period\nof human life and should not be allowed any decisive importance in\nshaping the course of life, since this would be to the detriment of\nthe new generation. Their special objection to love is, that just\nas monastic life and the celibacy of the clergy during the Middle\nAges and down to the present day have deprived the race of excellent\nqualities\u2014since the most gifted often choose the calm of the cloister\nor the call of the priesthood\u2014so now many of the best men and women\nare kept from marriage by the dream or by the loss of a great love\u2019s\nhappiness.\n\nFinally, from the point of view of evolutionary ethics, not only\nthe desire of great love, excluding all else, but monogamy itself\nhas been attacked. This purely scientific line of thought has at\npresent no conscious part in the utterances of what is called the \u201cnew\nimmorality,\u201d all the less as the scientific reasoning lays stress upon\nthe point that _if_ mankind is to abandon monogamy, which has possessed\nsuch enormous advantages, then this must be done with a conscious\npurpose, to further the development of the whole race, not the passions\nof individuals.\n\nBut if this evolutionistic reasoning be conceded, then it will result\nin a transformation of society\u2019s view of love\u2019s freedom of choice,\nboth in the direction of extension and of limitation. Much of what is\nnow called the \u201cnew immorality\u201d may then appear as the unconscious\nself-protection of the race against a degeneration forced upon it by\nthe customs and arrangements of society.\n\n\nAgainst the future claims of evolutionism, however, the conviction\nasserts itself that personal love, the great creation of culture,\nwill not disappear; and thereby the danger of polygamy is removed. It\nmust therefore continue to be love\u2019s selection which will occasion\nthe ethical \u201cadulteries\u201d just alluded to, but it will be a love\ndetermined by the point of view of the ennobling of the race. At\npresent the claims of evolution in this respect have scarcely begun\nto be perceived, still less have they succeeded in exercising a\ntransforming influence on moral opinion, which will perhaps one day\napply in this connection Plato\u2019s saying: that what is useful is fit,\nand what is hurtful is shameful. Where good reasons exist for not\noutwardly dissolving the marriage, the right may perhaps be admitted\nwhich even now a man or woman has here and there appropriated: that of\nbecoming a father by another woman, or a mother by another man, since\nthey themselves have a passionate longing for a child and are eminently\nsuited for parentage, but have been deprived of its joys because the\nwife or husband has been wanting in these possibilities.\n\nEven now people begin to perceive the psychological justification of\nthe oft-repeated experience that a man\u2014sometimes also a woman\u2014can\nat the same time and in a different way love more than one, since\nthe great love, the love which is one and indivisible and pervades\ntheir whole being for ever, has not been given to them. Even now such\nconflicts are solved in a new way\u2014there are examples of it known\nthroughout Europe\u2014not as Luther solved it for Philip of Hesse, who\nkept the wife that had just borne him a ninth child, while secretly\nwedding a new one, but as Goethe first intended to bring about the\nsolution in _Stella_: that the wife, without any open rupture, should\nstep aside; that the devotion, the tenderness of memories, which united\nher and her husband, should still render possible their meeting now and\nthen as friends, in a common care for their children, although the\nhusband had contracted a new matrimonial relation to another woman.\n\nFrom the children\u2019s point of view such a solution may come to be looked\nupon in the future as more desirable\u2014and more worthy of respect\u2014than\nit seems now.\n\n\nThe new sexual morality\u2014where the light, as in Correggio\u2019s _Night_,\nwill radiate from the child\u2014may, however, continue to uphold single\nlove as the ideal for the highest happiness and development both of the\nlovers and of the children. It has already been contended that this is\nthe direction in which the evolution of love is moving. But we must\nlikewise admit\u2014and always for the well-being of the race as well as\nof the individual\u2014that love may take lower as well as higher forms\nwithout our being obliged to regard the former as immoral. When the\npoint of view of the ennobling of the race has penetrated the ethical\nideas of mankind, the following may be described as immoral, with a\nforce at present unsuspected:\n\n_All parentage without love;_\n\n_All irresponsible parentage;_\n\n_All parentage of immature or degenerate persons;_\n\n_All voluntary sterility of married people fitted for the mission of the\nrace_; and finally\n\n_All such manifestations of sexual life as involve violence or\nseduction, and entail unwillingness or incapacity to fulfil the mission\nof the race._\n\nBut, on the other hand, society will admit, with a freedom wholly\ndifferent from that now existing, the union of people, not only in\ntheir best years, but also in their best feelings; it will perceive the\npresent hindrances to be an injustice which falls not only upon the\nindividuals but upon society itself\u2014since connubial unhappiness not\nonly interferes with the highest development of many people\u2019s powers\nfor the good of all, but it also deprives society of the children to\nwhom life might have been given by a new happiness.\n\nIt is through its view of the social importance of love\u2019s selection\nthat the new morality will be a transforming force.\n\nThat a pioneer of reform who puts his ideas into practice may be a\ndangerous example is certain. It is possible to be fully convinced\nof the future of, for instance, the art of flying, without therefore\ndenying the dangers of experiment or encouraging people to jump off\nchurch-towers with nothing but a pair of goose-wings on their shoulders.\n\nNo thorough reshaping of emotions and customs takes place according to\ndogmas and programmes; this one least of all. But no other motive power\nexists which will finally induce all\u2014the small and the great, the\nweak and the strong\u2014 to follow the line of development, except the\nincreased freedom of choice of personal love, with a correspondingly\nincreased certainty as regards the influence of that choice upon the\nwelfare of the race. For unless love continued to be the condition of\nmorality, the cause of selection, the new humanity would gradually\nlose advantages already gained. Neither the \u201cbreeding institute\u201d nor\n\u201cfreedom of pairing\u201d is capable of enhancing the spiritual and bodily\nresources of mankind in a universal, permanent, and organic way. Love\nalone can do this.\n\nIt is true that it has yet to be proved that love\u2014other conditions\nbeing equal\u2014produces the best children. But this will one day be\nproved.\n\nThis knowledge is for the present only intuition. But so are all\ntruths in the beginning. Moreover, possibilities of indirect proof\nare not wanting even now. First and foremost this, that love has not\nits origin in human life, and is not a product of civilisation, but\nshows itself already in the animal world. Among animals it is capable\nof resulting in death from sorrow at the loss of a mate, as also in\nother emotional phenomena of human life. It may even lead to monogamy,\nalthough with animals as with human beings monogamy is neither a\nnecessary result of love nor an indispensable condition of development.\nFor many of the higher species of animals are polygamous, while others,\nbelow them in the scale, are monogamous. If love did not involve any\ngreat advantage, it might doubtless have arisen, but would not have\npersisted, in the face of the hindrances which its personal selection\nappears to put in the way of the maintenance of the race. Mankind has\nthus already brought the emotion of love from its primitive animal stem\nand grafted it upon the tree of civilisation. It has gradually been\nennobled and exalted into one of the highest powers of human life. And\nhow would this growing importance of love be possible, if it enhanced\nonly the happiness of the individual, and not also the life of the race?\n\nThe evolution of human love has shown itself partly in an increasingly\ndefinite individualisation in selection, partly in a more complete\nadmission and enhancement of individual qualities.\n\nIn other words: personal characteristics have tended more and more\nto inspire love, and love has more and more developed personal\ncharacteristics. This again\u2014as already admitted\u2014has resulted in\nmore and more individuals failing to perform their duty to the race,\neither because their feeling, although reciprocated, could not lead\nto marriage, or because the feeling in some respect or other has been\ndisappointed. This passionate selection of a single one among the\nmany by whom\u2014from an objective point of view\u2014the duty to the race\nmight equally well have been performed, has thus in a sense become\nanti-social.\n\nBut such lives, wasted as they are from the immediate point of view\nof the ennobling of the race, have yet been able to serve the same end\nindirectly. Many of these persons, childless in an ordinary sense, have\nleft immortal offspring. Others have shed upon the battle-field, in\nwinning victories for humanity, the blood which they never saw flowing\nin the fine network of veins on a child\u2019s temples. By the greatness of\ntheir own ideals they have enlarged the hearts of their fellow-men; and\ntheir courage has not had to sink before the possibility of their own\nfailure to realise their ideals being cast in their teeth. They have\nbought their prophetic power at the highest possible price: that of\nnever having had a happiness to lose; and they bear without bitterness\nthe poverty which has made them richer in faith.\n\nThat many lives\u2014and worthy lives\u2014are wasted through love is only one\nmanifestation of life\u2019s impenetrable tendency to universal prodigality.\nIt is one with the great necessity, whose hand smites and wounds us so\nlong as we curse it, but caresses and supports as soon as we bless it.\n\nWe must not look at the victims\u2014even if we ourselves are among\nthem\u2014if we would see the meaning of life in life itself. We must fix\nour eyes upwards. And then it is certain\u2014since love continually and in\nspite of all is extending its power\u2014that individual love, with all its\nvictims and all its mistakes, nevertheless in the long run assists the\nelevation of the race.\n\n\nThe great Western prophet of pessimism argued that love was nothing but\na task imposed in this fashion upon the individual by _der Genius der\nGattung_; that only contradictions attract one another and that the\noffspring inherits the complementary qualities that each has sought in\nthe other. These contradictions\u2014through the hostility of which the\nparents afterwards make each other unhappy\u2014coalesce and neutralise\neach other in the child, so that the latter, at the expense of its\nparents, becomes a well-equipped, rich, or harmonious personality.\nCarried to an extreme, this saying of Schopenhauer\u2019s, like many other\nsuch pregnant thoughts, becomes an absurdity. But every one who has\nobserved love must have found\u2014long before he knows, or without ever\nknowing, that this experience is exalted into pessimism\u2014that all\npowerful love arises between opposed natures. The harmony that results\nfrom similarity is monotonous, poor, and moreover dangerous to the\ndevelopment of the individual, as well as that of the race. But what is\ncontrary is certainly not always conflicting, although it may prove so\nif the contrariness extends to views of life and its purpose, its value\nand conduct. Conflicting natures are\u2014in spite of Schopenhauer\u2014not\nunfrequently equally unfavourable for the child\u2019s disposition and for\nits bringing-up, and the will of the race often fails of its purpose\nthrough their very compulsion to unite in a love which is soon turned\nto hatred. Again, contrary natures often become conflicting, owing to\ntheir turning the wrong side of their qualities to each other after\nmarriage, while in the early period of love they had shown each other\nthe right side of these qualities. That such a marriage is unhappy is\nno evidence against love\u2019s selection, but a great one for mankind\u2019s\nlack of culture for marriage. That every sympathetic dissimilarity\nbetween persons has a limit, the overstepping of which leads further\nand further towards antipathetic dissimilarities, is a psychological\nlesson which is deeply inculcated by marriage.\n\nThe more, however, the art of living is developed, the more will human\nbeings be able to minimise their own loss of happiness through this\nselection of love to the advantage of the race; for married people will\ncome more and more to delight in and preserve each other\u2019s differences;\nto restrain the antipathetic contradictions in themselves; to make\nmore conscious use of the sympathetic dissimilarities in the other\nfor the completion of their own one-sidedness; to cease from the\nendeavour, so hostile to happiness, of reforming the other according\nto their own nature. Even now, moreover, the need of sympathy in\nlove is so awakened, so sensitive, that the blind passion aroused\nby external contradictions is less and less able to overmaster it.\nThe need of sympathy is now quickly warned when it encounters the\nirreconcilable contradictions which show that each is on a different\nplane of existence; that each belongs to a different psychological\nperiod or continent or race. This perception even now checks the\ndevelopment of love in many cases, where the contradiction really is a\nconflicting incompatibility, and not the elective affinity determined\nby nature into which enter both primary dissimilarities and secondary\nsimilarities. The latter results in the lovers\u2019 contradictions\nforming a rich harmony, both in their own life together and in the\npersonalities of their children. When this attraction of contradictions\nhas once missed its mark, one still often sees that it is one and the\nsame type that a person will love a second or third time, or even\noftener, with a persistence of selection which makes it true in a way\nthat the object of love has all the time been the same woman or man.\n\nThe relentless force of nature\u2019s uniting will shows itself not only\nin the way love brings together contradictions in marriage, but also\nin the rupture of marriage. A good wife, married to a good husband,\nloving and loved, is thus seized by a passion, incomprehensible to\nherself, for another man. Without reflection she gives herself up\nto her passion, to return again to the husband she has not ceased\nto love, but who never inspired in her the overmastering emotion\nwhose purpose\u2014according to the will of nature and of the woman\nherself\u2014ought to have been a child. The same will of nature manifests\nitself in a number of phenomena, incomprehensible to others. An\nintellectual man or woman is seized by a passion for a person far\ninferior. How often has not a \u201cgood-looking fellow\u201d vanquished the\nmost high-souled man in the affections of such a woman; how often\nhave not thoughtless beauty and empty gaiety won from a superior man\nwhat the personality of an exceptional woman could not secure! The\nwhole secret was nature\u2019s will to counterbalance cerebral and nervous\ngenius by healthy, sensuous strength, to the advantage of the race.\nAs sexual love has its origin in the fact that the sexual characters,\nwhich biologically are favourable to the race, are the most attractive,\nthis general attraction constantly operates side by side with the\nindividual; and it operates most strongly precisely in that kind of\nlove which is rightly called \u201cblind passion,\u201d the kind which thus\nbrings together to their misfortune conflicting contradictions.\n\nBut there is no reason to doubt that love\u2019s selection in this case\nwill be able to retain its instinctive sureness, although love is\ncontinually widening its instincts of psychical sympathy also. The\nconsequence of this is that the number of contradictions which may\nattract will become less, but on the other hand the fewer possibilities\nwill be more finely adapted; that the selection among contradictions\nwill thus become more and more difficult but at the same time more\nand more valuable. Love\u2019s selection now not infrequently has for\nits result that, of two contradictions, irresistibly united by the\naffinity of souls, one or both does not offer the best physical\nconditions for children. But to make up for this the selection may\nturn out excellently for the enhancement of a particular disposition,\nthe formation of a harmonious temperament, or the fostering of a great\nspiritual quality. It is not only by avoirdupois and yard-measure that\nthe advance of the race must be tested.\n\nSuch a race-enhancing selection may, for example, take place through\nthe tendency of young women of the present day to feel or retain love\nless and less for a man who is erotically divided, while, on the other\nhand, the men who have preserved unity in their love have more and\nmore prospect of being attractive to women. Thus, generation after\ngeneration, erotic unity may become more and more natural with men, as\nin the same way it has become so with women. Man\u2019s desire for woman\u2019s\npurity has determined his choice, and this choice has then through\nheredity further advanced the feelings of the next generation, until\nthese have become the strongest in his erotic instincts. The clearest\nconsciousness of the injustice of the different moral demands on man\nand woman; the most \u201cliberal\u201d view of woman\u2019s right to the same freedom\nas man, are in this case unable to vanquish his instincts. When a man\nlearns that the woman he loves has given herself to another before\nhim, or that he shares her with another, his feeling often becomes\ndiseased at its root: the will of sole possession that has grown up in\nhim through the love-selection of thousands of years, and has now been\nfurther heightened by the desire for unity of individual love.\n\nThese indications may be enough to show the superficiality of the\nconclusions about love\u2019s selection which are confined exclusively to\nphysical improvement, although naturally this also is of great value.\nBut that a pair of lovers can have a feeble-bodied child ought in\nitself to be no more used as evidence against love\u2019s selection than\nwould be the physically excellent children of an unhappy couple.\n\nEven if the erotic attraction of dissimilarities is thus the strongest\nproof of the probability of love\u2019s influence from the point of view of\nthe enhancement of the race, it is nevertheless far from being the only\none. Another is the astonishing excess of first-born or only children\namong distinguished personalities in different departments. A third\nis the proverbial ability of so-called \u201clove-children.\u201d A fourth,\nthe result, often favourable to the disposition of the children, of\nmarriages between people of different nationalities. In the first two\ncases we may suppose that the parents\u2019 happiness in love\u2014or at least\ntheir sensual passion\u2014was at the height of its freshness and strength\nat the conception of the child. In the case of \u201clove-children\u201d it\nis not unfrequently a healthy woman of the people who with genuine\ndevotion encounters the sensual desire of a man intellectually her\nsuperior. In the last case, again, it is usually a powerful love which\nhas conquered the obstructions raised by patriotism and traditions\nagainst the attraction by means of which the national contradictions\nare to be blended in the child into a happy unity.\n\nObservation in this connection is misled by innumerable side\ninfluences, counteractions, and contradictions as yet unsolved. So\nlong as any wreck of humanity is allowed by \u201cthe right of love\u201d to\nreproduce the species, the lines of conclusion in this subject will\ncontinue to intersect one another in all directions. _Not until cases\narise where the conditions are comparable in every other respect, shall\nwe begin to approach an objective demonstration in the question of\nchildren\u2019s decreasing physico-psychical vitality when they are born\nin unwillingness or indifference, and, on the other hand, of their\nincreasing vitality when they are born in love._ And it is not in the\ntender years of childhood, but when they have lived their life, that\nthe question can first be finally answered.\n\nThat the development of children\u2019s inherited dispositions, their\nchildhood\u2019s happiness, and the future tenor of their life are\ndetermined to a great extent by their being brought up in a home bright\nwith happiness, by parents who co-operate in sympathetic understanding,\nthis need not be dwelt upon. Everyone knows how children from such\nhomes have received the gift of a faith in life and a feeling of\nsecurity, a courage and a joy in life which no subsequent sufferings\ncan wholly destroy. They have laid up enough warmth of sunshine to\nprevent their being frozen through even in the most severe winter.\nThose, on the other hand, who began with winter, sometimes freeze even\nunder the summer sun.\n\n\nIt is no more true with regard to love\u2019s selection than in any\nother respect that passion is opposed to duty otherwise than in the\nintermediary stage of development. In the state of innocence there is\nno division, since no other duty exists but blindly to follow instinct.\nWhen development is completed and \u201cthe second innocence\u201d attained, duty\nwill be abolished, since it will have become one with instinct.\n\nIt will then be seen that they were wrong who now think that\u2014while God\nwalked in Paradise and founded marriage\u2014the devil went about in the\nwilderness and instituted love. Dualism will be vanquished by monism\nwhen the circular course of development has brought the starting-point\nnear to the goal; when the natural instinct of the race meets the will\nto ennoble the race, born of culture; when the golden ring from either\nside encircles the gem with the sacred sign of life: the child. But\nthe treasure which is now regarded as the most precious, monogamy,\nis perhaps destined not to be encircled by the golden ring until\nafter many new spiral turns. _It will be so when love\u2019s selection has\nfinally made every man and woman well fitted to reproduce the race._\nNot till then can the desired ideal\u2014one man for one woman, one woman\nfor one man\u2014universally include the best vital conditions, for the\nindividual and for the race. And when we have come so far, the will of\nerotic choice may also be so delicately and firmly entwined with every\nfibre of the personality\u2019s physico-psychical material, that a man will\nonly be able to find, win, and keep a single woman, a woman a single\nman. Then it may be that many human beings will experience through\nlove\u2019s selection what is even now the fortune of a few: the highest\nenhancement of their individual personality, their highest form of life\nas members of the race, and their highest perception of eternal life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE RIGHT OF MOTHERHOOD\n\n\nEveryone knows that the methods of production of modern society tend\nmore and more to limit woman\u2019s domestic work to directing consumption,\nwhereas at earlier stages she used also to produce a great part of the\ncommodities consumed in the home. Everyone can see too that the most\nprofoundly influential cause of the woman\u2019s movement has thus not been\nthe assertion of woman\u2019s political-juridical rights as a human being,\nbut first and foremost the question of how she is to find employment\nfor her powers of work which are no longer required in the home, and\nbe enabled to find that self-maintenance outside the home which the\naltered conditions of production have rendered necessary.\n\nThrough the ever-increasing connection between the different parts of\nsociety, woman\u2019s work has had profound influence in other quarters\nthan those of the labour market. Competition between the sexes has\nproduced\u2014as regards manual labour\u2014for men and women those lower\nconditions of labour which are the usual result of an overcrowding of\nthe labour market, namely, low wages, long hours, and uncertainty of\nemployment. The possibility of marriage has become dependent on the\nbread-winning labour of both husband and wife. Those married women who\nare partly maintained by their husbands, have by their supplementary\nearnings reduced the wages of the self-supporting unmarried ones, and\nwhen these in their turn are married, they lack the desire and capacity\nto look after the home and waste through negligence more than they earn\nin the factory. The consequence of the outside employment of wives\u2014as\nof children\u2014has furthermore been sterility, a high infant mortality,\nand the degeneration of the surviving children, both physically and\npsychically; a debased domestic life with its consequences: discomfort,\ndrunkenness, and crime.\n\nAmong the middle classes, again, the competition between the sexes has\ndirectly reduced man\u2019s chances of marriage, and indirectly diminished\nthe desire of both sexes to contract matrimony.\n\nThe apparently inevitable law that one-sidedness alone gives strength\nhas made the champions of woman\u2019s rights left-handed in their treatment\nof all social questions connected with their \u201ccause.\u201d They have pressed\nforward woman\u2019s right to work, while overlooking both the conditions\nand the effects of her work. Women, actuated by the combined motive\npower of the spirit of the age and of necessity, have looked for\nemployment of any kind and at however low a wage. Among the middle\nclasses, the result has been that many girls, who were in no need of\nsupporting themselves entirely by work, have depressed the conditions\nof labour for those women who needed it. Thus the latter are held down\nto a minimum which is dangerous alike to health and to morality. Girls\nliving at home, on the other hand, have been able to satisfy their\nincreased demands, and this has made it still more difficult for a man\nto offer them acceptable conditions in marriage.\n\nIt has already been pointed out that the self-maintenance of women has\nhad and still has a profound influence on love in marriage. The Swedish\npoet Almquist indicated this when he wrote that only the woman who \u201c_in\nglad activity can provide all that is necessary for her living_\u201d makes\nit possible for the man to whom she gives herself \u201c_to say rightly to\nhimself, I am loved_.\u201d\n\nBut no one can calculate in advance how a new social force is going to\nwork in every respect; how even souls are changed with altered needs,\nso that new demands and forces arise. The erotic problem of the youth\nof the present day is one of the most illuminating pieces of evidence\nof this impossibility.\n\nWoman\u2019s competition with man in the field of labour has, in fact,\noccasioned a profound ill-feeling between the sexes. Women feel\nthemselves\u2014rightly or wrongly\u2014cheapened and underestimated, and men,\non the other hand, consider themselves thrust aside, when woman\u2019s lower\ndemands of wages decide the competition in her favour. But this is\nstill the external side of the matter.\n\nIt is the new woman\u2014the transformed type of soul\u2014that man objects to.\nThe mannish emancipated ladies will soon, however, have died out. We\ncan therefore pass them by and consider only the young women who have\npreserved or tried to preserve their possibilities of erotic attraction.\n\nThese have, however, lost the calm, the equilibrium, the receptivity,\nwhich formerly made of woman a beautiful, easily-comprehended\npiece of nature, like nature in her unconditional yielding. When a\nman came to the woman he loved with his worries, his fatigue, his\ndisappointments, he washed himself clean as in a cool wave, found\npeace as in a silent forest. Nowadays she meets him with her worries,\nher disquiet, her fatigues, her disappointments. _Her_ picture has\nbeen refused, _her_ book is misunderstood, _her_ work is abused, _her_\nexamination has to be prepared for ... always hers! All this makes the\nman think her disturbed, unapproachable, and apt to misunderstand.\nEven if she retains her affectionate attention for him, she has lost\nher elasticity. She does not choose the conditions of her work; she\nis obliged to overwork herself if she wishes to keep her work. But\nlove\u2014as has been aptly said\u2014requires peace, love will dream; it\ncannot live upon remnants of our time and our personality. And thus\nthe value of love\u2014like all other personal values\u2014sinks under modern\nconditions of work, which drain the vital forces and make people\nforget even the meaning of the idea of living. Thus the people of the\npresent day are excluded from love: not merely from the possibility\nof realising it in marriage, but also from the possibility of fully\nexperiencing it.\n\nNor have these over-tired young women a chance of preserving their\ncharm in outward appearance and manner. This is only done nowadays in\na conscious style by ladies of the highest society\u2014and by those of\nthe _demi-monde_\u2014who perform no other duty to the community than the\nmore elegant than worthy one of illustrating the parable of the lilies\nof the field. But even now few women can afford\u2014and fewer still feel\nthat they have the right to or the leisure for\u2014this worship of their\nown intoxicating and self-intoxicating loveliness. More and more have\nto take part in a life of work; while, moreover, women are becoming\nless attracted by the ideal of perfection of form, and more by that\nof formation of personality. But this movement involves uncertainty\nof form, until new forms have been created; and man loves in woman\nprecisely that sureness, lightness, and repose in her own sense of\npower which are generally wanting in the tentative young woman of the\npresent day. A new kind of young women is, however, already to be met\nwith, who will neither work nor charm exclusively, and who are solving\nthe problem of being at the same time active and beautiful.\n\nThus the deepest conflict of all lies herein, that young men feel young\nwomen to be independent of the love they offer; they feel themselves\nweighed and\u2014found wanting. Woman\u2019s capacity for making a living has\nthus undoubtedly resulted, as Almquist hoped, in giving man a greater\nchance of believing himself loved, but at the same time\u2014a smaller\nchance of being so.\n\nWe see two groups of the daughters of our time, as new manifestations\nof woman\u2019s primitive double nature.\n\nFor one group the child is not the immediate end of love, and still\nless can the child sanctify all the means for its attainment. If such\na woman has to choose between giving and inspiring a love as great as\nthat of her dreams, without motherhood, and becoming a mother through\na lesser love, then she will choose the former without hesitation. And\nif she becomes a mother, without having attained the full height of her\nbeing in love, she feels it as a degradation; for neither child nor\nmarriage nor love are enough for her, only great love satisfies her.\n\nThis is the most important step in advance that woman has taken since\nfrom the emotional sphere of the female animal she approached that of\nthe human woman. And\u2014however great may be the sufferings that this\nattitude of the soul may involve for the individual\u2014no one who sees\nsufficiently deeply can hesitate as to the certainty of this being the\ntrue line of life.\n\nThis, on the other hand, will not coincide with the path of those women\nwho are now demanding liberty for motherhood, not only without wedlock\nbut also without love.\n\nThose who hoped that woman\u2019s independence through work would assure\nman\u2019s knowledge of being loved, did not reckon for woman\u2019s dependence\non man in and for the tenor of her life. This dependence, created by\nnature and not by society, still drives many otherwise independent\nwomen into marriage without love; and it drives other women, who wish\nto preserve their independence by not contracting marriage, to the\ndesire of attaining a mother\u2019s happiness without it. The new woman\u2019s\nwill to live through herself, with herself, for herself, reaches its\nlimit when she begins to regard man merely as a means to the child.\nWoman could scarcely take a more complete revenge for having herself\nbeen treated for thousands of years as a means.\n\nWe must hope, however, that woman\u2019s lust for vengeance will not long\nretain this form. Woman\u2019s degradation to a means has retarded man\u2019s and\nher own development. But a similar degradation of man would have the\nsame effect, and the children might suffer just as much through woman\u2019s\nmisuse of man as through his of her.\n\nThe child must be an end in itself. It requires love as its origin;\nit requires in its mother love\u2019s understanding of the qualities it\nhas inherited from its father, not a surprised coldness or resentment\nof the unsuspected or unwelcome elements in its nature. The woman who\nhas never loved her child\u2019s father will infallibly injure that child\nin some way\u2014if in no other, then by her way of loving it. The child\nneeds the joy of brothers and sisters, and not even the tenderest\nmotherly love can take the place of this; and finally the child needs\nthe father as the father the child. That children, both in and out of\nwedlock, often lose their father or brother or sister through death or\nlife, belongs to the inevitable, in most cases at any rate. But that\na woman with full knowledge and purpose should deprive her child of\nthe right of gaining life through love, that she should exclude it in\nadvance from the possibility of a father\u2019s affection, is a piece of\nselfishness which must avenge itself. The right of motherhood without\nmarriage must not be equivalent to the right of motherhood without\nlove. It is equally degrading to surrender one\u2019s self without love in\na free relationship as in marriage. In both cases one can steal one\u2019s\nchild and thereby lose the right of one day proudly assuring it that\nit has enjoyed the best conditions for its entry into life. Love\u2014it\nmust be constantly repeated\u2014desires the future, not the moment; it\ndesires union, not only at the formation of a new being, but in order\nthat two persons through each other may care for a new and greater\nbeing than either of themselves. A woman may be mistaken in this love,\nas she may be in her suitability for marriage. But this she cannot\nknow in advance. She experiences these things first in loving. If she\nhas misplaced her devotion, then it will not save her to conceal the\nmistake in a marriage. But to receive her child from a man with whom\nshe knows in advance that she never intends to live, this is having\nan illegitimate child in the deepest sense of the word. But this is\nnevertheless the way in which a number of women now think that \u201cthe\nmadonna of the future\u201d is to win a mother\u2019s happiness.\n\n\nWork is always a development of force, and the more it exercises\nour individual powers, the greater happiness will it give. No part\nof the old catechism is more valuable than that which is omitted in\nthe new, on the blessings of labour. The path of every cherished and\nreasonable work might be marked by milestones, on which the good old\nwords should be carved: here \u201chealth,\u201d there \u201cwelfare\u201d; here \u201ccomfort\nand consolation in adversity,\u201d and there \u201cpreventing lapses into\nsin,\u201d\u2014above all, that of doubting the value of life.\n\nBut the man to whom work has given all this has all the more reason\nto curse the work of women, who are able neither to choose their\nlabour according to their talents nor to proportion their hours of work\naccording to their strength. Greater and greater are the multitudes\nwho move forward upon the road of toil, where the milestones bear the\ninscriptions: ill-health, uncertainty for the morrow as for the future,\njoylessness, lethargy of the soul, and the sins that thrive in the\nshadow, above all that of blaspheming life as meaningless.\n\nFor others again work has come to mean in our time drunkenness, vice,\nand superstition. It has made men and women unscrupulous, empty, hard,\nrestless. It has made them destroy for others the remaining treasures\nof life\u2014sorrow, love, the home, nature, beauty, books, peace\u2014peace\nabove all, since it is the condition of the full realisation of\nsuffering as of joy. The grand words about the liberty and the joy\nof labour mean in reality slavery and trouble over labour, the only\ntrouble our time fully experiences.\n\nWith thoughtless hymns of praise to this massacring labour, society\nallows one holy springtime after another to wither without having\nblossomed\u2014whereas thousands of years ago the cities of antiquity sent\ntheir \u201choly springs\u201d to open up new districts and build new dwellings\nfor men.\n\nJust as true as that the losses of the individual mean the poverty\nof all, when these losses involve a diminution of health and power;\njust as certain as that nothing becomes better without the desire to\nimprove it, so is it a healthy sign of the times that starvation wages\nfor conscientious drudgery no longer fill young women with heartfelt\ngratitude. They know, these young women, that their own nature also can\nbe outraged; that there are other suppressed forces in woman\u2019s being\nbesides only the desire of knowledge and the thirst for activity, and\nthat neither the right to work nor that of citizenship can compensate\nfor trampled possibilities of happiness.\n\nFar from its being the duty of any thoughtful person to lull to rest\nthis despondency of the young, we should render the best service to\nthem and to life by taking from them everyday contentment and the calm\nof resignation; for only the suffering which is kept awake, the longing\nwhich remains alive, can become forces in the revolt against that order\nof society which has added meaningless pangs, hostile to life, to those\nthat the laws of life and life\u2019s development still necessarily involve\nin the relations of sex.\n\n\nAll confined forces, which do not find employment, may degenerate; and\nour time, with its repression of the erotic forces, can show even among\nwomen such signs of degeneration.\n\nIt is therefore a necessary self-assertion when those who are excluded\nfrom love seek to preserve their health and enrich their life with the\nsources of joy which are at the disposal of every living person. Even\nhe who is chained to an uninteresting work can find some moments to\nfeel his way along some path which leads to a glimpse of the infinite\nspace of science. Almost every kind of work may bring with it an\nincrease of individual capacity, and therewith also of joy at feeling\none\u2019s value as a workman and one\u2019s dignity as a personality enhanced.\nThere is no day which may not bring with it a glimpse of delight\nin beauty. Finally there is no hour\u2014except the heaviest hours of\nsorrow\u2014in which a human being cannot feel the strength and greatness\nof his own soul; its independence of all external fortunes; its power\nof seeking itself, finding itself, enhancing itself through all and\nin spite of all. The words which Victor Hugo put to a young woman in\nsorrow:\n\n  _N\u2019avez-vous pas votre \u00e2me?_\n\nare addressed to all who have been badly treated by life.\n\nAnd whatever belief or unbelief a person may profess, it is in the last\nresort this consciousness of his own soul\u2019s worth which saves him when\nno other help is to be found\u2014and there is no other help.\n\nIn this sense it is doubtless true that the human being, woman as well\nas man, is an end in herself; that she has fulfilled her task if she\nhas not suffered injury to her soul, even if she has gained nothing\nelse from life; if she has increased the power of her soul, discovered\nher own individuality and realised it; for this alone is saving one\u2019s\nsoul. In this sense it is true that the \u201cmission\u201d of woman as of man\ncannot be the sexual mission, which does not depend upon our own will\nalone; nor, therefore, can he who has not fulfilled this be said to\nhave lived in vain. In this sense also there is at bottom a certain\nagreement between the feeling of self-glorification just described and\nthat of those who think that neither woman\u2019s nor man\u2019s highest destiny\ncan be love, but only the life of an eternal being above all earthly\nand social considerations; that the highest reality of every human\nbeing is within himself, and that his highest happiness can be only to\ngrow in holiness and godliness.\n\nBut for the shaping of life the difference is immeasurable. Here we\nare confronted once more by the dualist and monist views of life, the\nbelief in the soul as supersensuous, and the belief in the soul as\ndwelling in the senses; the belief that the soul can attain its highest\ndevelopment and happiness independently of\u2014instead of by means of\u2014its\nearthly conditions.\n\nAccording to the latter view man and woman are determined by their\nsexual life even in the greatest emotions of their soul. Sexual\nemotions pulsate in the age of puberty\u2019s dreams of heroic deeds and\nmartyrdom; they are the warm undercurrent in the religious needs\nwhich awaken at that time. Every woman who has afterwards performed\na brilliant achievement of love, who has become a great Christian\ncharacter\u2014like St. Bridget of Sweden, like St. Catherine of Siena, or\nlike St. Teresa\u2014has had the fire of great love in her soul; her blood\nhas been on fire with the longing to serve the race with body and soul.\nAnd therefore also her charity had warmth in it, while the victims of\nso much other benevolence freeze like shorn sheep.\n\nA woman\u2019s essential ego must be brought out by love before she can\ndo anything great for others or for herself. She whose existence has\nbeen erotically blank seldom finds the way to what is human in a\ngreat sense, while, on the other hand, she to whom life has denied\nthe opportunity of manifesting her erotic being in the usual sense,\ntransforms it into an Eros that embraces all life, the Eros of whom\nPlato had the intuition when he made Diotima proclaim him: a touch of\ninfinite delicacy; for may it not possibly be only woman who\u2014since\nher whole nature is erotic\u2014can thus satisfy her love-longing from the\nwhole of existence?\n\nBut this sense of oneness with the universe\u2014which the theosophist, the\nmystic, the pantheist, and the evolutionist express each in his own\nway, but which they all feel alike\u2014is, above all, the gift of a great\nhappiness in love. It is this way of loving of which it is especially\ntrue to say, that only he who loves knows God, the great word for\nunity in the all, in which we live and move and have our being. Not\nbecause God created mankind to increase and inhabit the earth, but\nbecause they were fruitful and filled the earth with beings and with\nwork, did they give the Creator\u2019s name to life and worshipped in the\nlikeness of gods their own creative power, on account of which they\nalso dreamed that they were eternal.\n\nBecause fruitfulness, the power of production in all its forms, is the\ndivine part of man, it is impossible for anyone without it to attain\n\u201choliness and communion with God\u201d in the meaning of the religion of\nlife, or, in other words, full humanity. Even in its limited form,\nthat of creating a family, it is the unerring means of extending the\nego beyond its own limits, the simplest condition for humanisation.\nIt can transform the egoist into a generous man, merely by giving him\nsomething to live for. For this reason love has taken the place of\nreligion with innumerable people, because it has the same power of\nmaking them good and great, but a hundredfold greater power of making\nthem happy. Therefore all great and beautiful resignation\u2014flowing with\nsweetness and benevolence\u2014is like a vineyard, made upon the slope of a\ncrater.\n\nBut therefore also it is true of all who have quenched the warmth\nof fruitfulness in themselves, that they have committed the one\nunpardonable sin, that against the holy spirit of life. These women\nhave received their condemnation in Lessing\u2019s fable of Hera, who sent\nIris to earth to seek out three virtuous, perfectly chaste maidens,\nunsoiled by any dreams of love. And Iris certainly found them, but\ndid not bring them back to Olympus; for Hades had already made Hermes\nfetch them for the infernal regions\u2014there to replace the superannuated\nFuries.\n\n\nBecause the means of life must never eclipse the meaning of life\u2014which\nis to live with one\u2019s whole being, and thus to be able to impart an\never greater fulness of life\u2014it is immoral to live solely either for\nsanctity or for work, fatherland or humanity, or even love, for man is\nto live by all these. His exclusion from one of these means of full\nhumanity can never be compensated by his participation in any of the\nothers, just as little as one of his senses can be replaced by another,\neven though the latter be perfected under the necessity of serving\nin the place of the lost one. And the resignation which prematurely\ncontents itself with part of the rights of its human nature instead of\naspiring to the whole, such resignation is a falling to sleep in the\nsnow. It is undeniably a calmer state than that of keeping one\u2019s soul\non the stretch for new experiences; for in that case one must also be\nprepared for new wounds; and he who keeps his suffering awake can be\nsure of more pain than he who puts it to sleep with an opiate. But\nno criterion is meaner than that of suffering or not suffering. The\nquestion is only what a man suffers from, and what he becomes\u2014for\nhimself and others\u2014or does not become as the result of his pain.\n\nLife holds in one hand the golden crown of happiness, in the other the\niron crown of suffering. To her favoured ones she hands them both. But\nonly he is an outcast whose temples have felt the weight of neither.\n\n\nA woman of feeling once said that, although love was acknowledged by\nthe majority as life\u2019s greatest treasure, mankind has not yet been able\nto prepare a place for love in life. Outside of marriage it is called\nsin; within it\u2014as marriage now is\u2014love can seldom live, and if it\narises for another than the partner in marriage, then for the sake of\nthe children it must be sacrificed.\n\nIt is this observation which made the new women all the more decided to\nprepare a place for love outside matrimony.\n\nWomen\u2014and men too\u2014have begun to examine the ideas of morality in\nwhich the small and the great values are mixed together like the\ncards in a shuffled pack. As far as woman is concerned, all morality\nhas become synonymous with sexual morality; all sexual morality\nsynonymous with the absence of sensuality and the existence of a\nmarriage certificate. In speech and in poetry woman\u2019s mission as \u201cwife\nand mother\u201d is glorified, but at the same time the mission is not\nconsidered honourable until it is attained, but, on the contrary,\ndishonourable so long as it is sought after with the healthy strength\nwhich is the condition of its complete fulfilment. A woman may be proud\nand strong, good and active, courageous and generous, honourable and\ntrustworthy, faithful and loyal\u2014in a word, she may possess all the\nvirtues prized by man\u2014and yet be called immoral if she gives a new\nlife to the race. On the other hand, a woman, irreproachable from the\npoint of view of sexual morality, may be as cowardly, slanderous, and\nuntruthful as she can be without being denied the respect of society.\n\nThis confusion of thought is to such an extent one with the feelings,\nthat it may take centuries for new ideas of justice to work a change.\n\nIn spite of all, however, it remains a truth that a woman\u2019s morality\nin other respects is more profoundly connected with her sexual\nmorality than is the case with a man. Nature herself established this\nconnection, when she made love and the child more closely bound up\nwith woman\u2019s existence than with man\u2019s. It must always be a matter of\nparamount importance to a woman\u2019s whole personality to abandon herself\nto the possibility of creating a new life; and therefore a woman\u2019s\nattitude, not with regard to marriage, but certainly with regard to\nmotherhood, will be decisive evidence of her moral development in other\nrespects and of her spiritual culture.\n\nThe same sexual freedom for woman as for man is to every profoundly\nwomanly woman a demand contrary to nature. But this does not mean\neither that man ought to continue to misuse his freedom or that woman\nmust continue to confine hers within \u201clawful\u201d bounds; nor yet does it\nmean that women ought to go on lying to themselves, to men, and to\neach other concerning their nature as sexual beings. It is true that\nmany women exist who have no feeling of this kind, and that other\nmarried women deny the claims of the senses\u2014because they have had\nthem satisfied before they became conscious. But when the development\nof love has introduced a purer and healthier view, neither women nor\nmen will consider it a merit or superiority in a woman to develop\nin herself the character of \u201cthe third sex.\u201d Then everyone will\nacknowledge that human life, to be in the fullest sense healthy and\nrich, must imply fulfilment of the sexual destiny, and that even if\na restriction of the vital forces in this respect does not entail\nphysical suffering, then it must involve profound psychical injury\nresulting in diminished powers. Nor will one then wilfully blink at\nthe fact that\u2014among many strong, well-balanced, active unmarried\nwomen\u2014others are to be found who are equally worthy of respect,\nalthough they cannot attain harmony without motherhood. And the cause\nis not want of self-discipline or seriousness in work, but simply\nthe fact already stated: that sexual life in a woman\u2014when it has\nbecome strong and healthy\u2014dominates her in a far more intimate way\nthan it does a man. She seldom suffers acutely, often unconsciously or\nhalf-consciously, from restriction in this direction; but to make up\nfor this she suffers in a far more radical way, which slowly exhausts\nher vital forces; and many cases of madness, hysteria, etc., are due to\nthis cause.\n\nEvery victim of this kind makes life the poorer; for it is often the\nwarmest feminine natures, the richest in goodness and in soul, the most\nfruitful in every sense, that go under in this way. And in them the\nrace loses not only directly, but also indirectly, in their children\nthat were never born.\n\nFor the present it can be only by an altered criterion of morality\nthat these losses can be avoided, at least so long as there is not one\nman for every woman. For we can look only for a very slow operation of\nthe measures which may restore the balance that nature seems to intend\nby an actual excess in the birth-rate of boys over girls; measures,\nthat is, for the better protection of the lives of male children and\nmen. A proposal which was put forward a few years ago in one of the\nleading civilised countries undoubtedly deserves consideration as an\nincidental remedy; namely, to arrange an organised and well-supervised\nemigration of capable women from the countries where they are in excess\nto others where the reverse is the case; for while their proficiency\nin work would make these women independent of marriage, they would thus\nbe afforded increased possibilities of marrying, as would the surplus\nmen\u2014at present, in the countries referred to, left to the alternatives\nof celibacy or prostitution.\n\nIn the main it is, however, only the awakening of the consciousness of\nsociety that can provide a remedy. But until youth itself awakens the\nconscience of the time with the tocsin of action, that remedy is likely\nto be long in coming.\n\nIn one respect young working men and women might take their destiny\nin their own hands, namely, in the purely external point of providing\nthemselves with the opportunities they lack\u2014which in the case of young\npeople of the student class now form the foundation of many a life\u2019s\nhappiness\u2014opportunities of getting to know each other under pleasant\nand worthy conditions of comradeship.\n\nIn those cases again where a woman\u2019s destiny from one cause or another\nhas rendered the realisation of love impossible, she ought\u2014like the\nwife in a childless marriage\u2014oftener than at present to enrich her\nlife and partly satisfy her motherly feeling by choosing one among\nthe destitute children, who are unfortunately still to be found in\nabundance, to provide for and love. Such grafts upon one\u2019s own stem\noften give splendid fruit. The lonely woman thereby avoids falling\na victim to that hardness and bitterness, which are not necessary\nconsequences of a checked sexual life, but are all the more so of a\nfrozen life of the heart.\n\nIn those cases where a woman suffers a lasting and unendurable clogging\nof her life through the want of motherhood, she must choose the lesser\nevil, that of becoming a mother even without love, in or out of\nwedlock. Necessity is its own law\u2014and he who steals to save his life\nought to go free. But she must not be made an example for others who\nare not placed in the same necessity.\n\nThe solution of the right of motherhood, therefore, ought not to be the\nencouragement of the majority of unmarried women to provide themselves\nwith children without love; not even the encouragement of the majority\nto obtain them through love when they know in advance that a continued\ncommunity of life with the child\u2019s father is impossible.\n\nBut, on the other hand, the unmarried woman, from her own point of view\nas well as from that of the race, has a right to motherhood, when she\npossesses so rich a human soul, so great a mother\u2019s heart, and so manly\na courage that she can bear an exceptional lot. She has all the riches\nof her own and her lover\u2019s nature to leave through the child as a\nheritage to the race; she has the whole development of her personality,\nher mental and bodily vital force, her independence won through labour,\nto give to the child\u2019s bringing-up. In her occupation she has had use\nonly for a part of her being: she desires to manifest it fully and\nwholly, before she resigns the gift of life. She therefore becomes a\nmother with the full approval of her conscience.\n\nAll this, however, seldom applies to a woman before she has reached\nor exceeded the limit of _la seconda primavera_; not till then will\nshe feel fully sure of her longing and her courage, nor will she have\nreason to know that life has no higher destiny for her. And even she\nmust not be taken as an example of a final solution of the problem.\nBut in times like ours, when the hindrances to life in this direction\nhave become unendurable, bold experiments are justified\u2014when they are\nsuccessful.\n\nIn order that such an experiment shall succeed, the woman must be not\nmerely as pure as snow, she must be as pure as fire in her certainty of\ngiving her own life a bright enhancement and a new treasure to the race\nin the child of her love.\n\nIf she is this\u2014then indeed there is a gulf, deep as the centre of the\nearth, fixed between this unmarried woman, who presents her child to\nthe race, and the unmarried woman, who \u201chas a child.\u201d\n\nBeyond all doubt the first-named would have considered it the ideal of\nhappiness to be able to bring up her child together with its father.\nThe circumstances which prevent her may be many. The man\u2019s liberty,\nfor instance, may be limited by earlier duties or feelings, which\nbind him, against his will or not. The conditions of life or of work\nof one of them may prevent a complete union. So may the experience\nthat the personality of one of them is fettered through marriage. Or\nagain, love itself was not what it had promised to be, and the woman\nwas proud enough not to consider herself fallen and in need of being\nrehabilitated by a marriage which, on the contrary, would under these\ncircumstances be a fall.\n\nFinally, there are exceptional cases, where a superior woman\u2014for it is\noften the best who are seized by the powerful desire of a child\u2014feels\nthat she cannot combine her motherhood with the claims of love and of\nintellectual production; that she can suffice for only two duties, and\ntherefore accepts from love the child but renounces marriage.\n\nBut there are also destinies entirely contrary to these, where a woman\nfor her own part wished to have a child but renounces it for the man\u2019s\nsake.\n\nIn most cases this is because she surrounds his work with such\naffection that, when it is asked of her, she sacrifices to it her\nmother\u2019s happiness in the spirit of Helo\u00efse. And the more love is\nperfected, the more does woman thus learn to love her husband\u2019s work as\nher child, while he, on the other hand, loves her work as his own.\n\nBut it may also be for other reasons that a woman desires a man to keep\nhis complete freedom; it may be, for instance, that he is the younger,\nor that she knows she cannot give him a child. Such unions are not\nunusual in Europe, unions by which two people long make their own lives\nand the lives of those about them richer. In such a case the woman\ntransforms her motherliness into affection for the man. She gives the\nbest of her powers of production for his use, so that he grows while\nshe stops short. But she thereby enjoys the bliss of a mother with a\nchild at her breast; as the mother feeds herself for the child, so\ndoes such a mistress seek the finest intellectual nourishment that she\nmay afterwards impart it: she feels that she steals what she enjoys\nalone. Perhaps the legend of the pelican, which nourished its young\nwith its own blood, would be a better symbol for these women, who must\nbe prepared sooner or later to see the man choose the young bride who\nin every respect will answer to his longing. Cases like these, if any,\nverify Nietzsche\u2019s words that \u201cgreat love desires more than a return,\u201d\nand that \u201cit will create.\u201d Here, if ever, woman\u2019s nature reveals that\nits great genius is for love; that the higher a woman attains, the more\ncertainly will her own honour, her own triumphs, her own future weigh\nlightly as a feather against the joy of being able to develop in all\nits fulness her great talent, that of loving. And when does she love\nmore highly than in lavishing the whole superfluity of her developed\nfeminine nature on the perfecting of her lover\u2014for another woman?\n\nWhat every woman needs, in our time more than in any other, has been\nexpressed by Ricarda Huch in these words: _Courage for one\u2019s self,\nsympathy for others_.\n\nCourage for one\u2019s own destiny; courage to bear it or break under it.\nBut also courage to wait for, to choose one\u2019s destiny. Sympathy with\nthe many who have lacked one part or another of the new courage:\nboldness or vigilance or patience.\n\n\nBoth these courses which woman\u2019s new courage has found out\u2014the man\nand work without the child, or the child and work without the man\u2014may\ndoubtless be called justified forms of life, when they show themselves\nlife-enhancing. But they cannot be the line of life for the majority.\nThis line follows the direction of the old Indian proverb: that the man\nis half a human being, and the woman half; only the father and mother\nwith their child can become a whole. And even if women have the right,\nso far as life is thereby enhanced, to satisfy their erotic longing,\nthey ought never to forget that they never attain their full humanity\nuntil through love they have given their husband a child and their\nchild a father.\n\n\nWe have not spoken here of the young women who are unmarried wives\nof men, while waiting till the latter are able to provide a home\nfor the child and a full domestic life. These women may, it is\ntrue, experience the grief of having trusted too much to their own\nor another\u2019s heart. But they have been pure in their will and their\nwill has been directed towards the future domestic life, not towards\n\u201cadventures,\u201d whose only value for them has been that they rapidly\nsucceeded each other.\n\nThe young women alluded to must, therefore, be carefully distinguished\nfrom those who have become the hetair\u00e6 of the present day. These\nneo-Greek women are finely cultured, richly endowed, choice and pure\ntypes of the cerebral and polygamous woman. Love for them is an element\nof enjoyment\u2014somewhat higher than that of the cigarette with which\ntheir dainty fingers toy, or of the alcohol which warms their pale\ncheeks\u2014but decidedly lower than the joy of colour or the intoxication\nof poetry.\n\nThey share with man the joy of work, the desire of creation, delight\nin beauty, ideas, and freedom in love. Nothing would be more unwelcome\nto them than possible consequences of their \u201clove,\u201d which passes from\none relation to another, with a growing sense of emptiness, fatigue,\nand prostration. Unfruitfulness in every respect, that is their lot and\ntheir condemnation; for life has no use for the solitary unfruitful.\nSometimes indeed they are not even capable of continuing to live\u2014only\nto prove again and again that their soul cannot love, cannot create,\ncannot suffer, and has no other will but to free itself from the tree\nof life like a damaged bud, a spoilt fruit.\n\n\nThe right to an exceptional destiny belongs only to one whose\nhappiness it provides for; in other words, one whom it places in such\nan agreement between the needs of his own life and the surrounding\nconditions that the powers of the individual thus attain their\nhighest possible development. And as this is seldom the case when the\nindividual creates for himself a position which places him in conflict\nwith society, no thoughtful person can thus refer to an exceptional\ndestiny the majority of young women now oppressed by compulsory labour,\nwho wish to improve their lot. The most immediate possibility to begin\nwith is to improve the character and conditions of their labour.\n\nWomen must be more eager to discover or invent for themselves\ndepartments of work which will give them the opportunity of expressing\nsomething of their feminine nature, their human personality. It is\none of the gladdening signs of the times that this is beginning\nto be done. Thus, for instance, in Denmark a distinguished lady\nmathematician\u2014determined by precisely the reasons given above\u2014has\nabandoned her science and become the first female inspector of\nfactories in Scandinavia. Thus in Germany a lady chemist, for the\nsame reasons, has chosen the same career. A lady lawyer in the same\ncountry is devoting herself entirely to the protection of children;\nanother\u2014in France\u2014to the profession of advocate for the assistance\nof poor women. But there are still to be found far too many women\nwhose fortunate situation has given them free choice in their work and\nwho, nevertheless, have sought the profession which offers them the\nsurest income or the largest pension, not the most liberal use of their\npersonal powers.\n\nBut even the possibility of the choice belongs to exceptional ability\nor exceptional circumstances. The majority of women, who must work or\nwish to work, have difficulty in finding a calling which really gives\nthem a backbone, not merely a stick to hold them up. To render possible\na greater organic connection between woman and her work, nothing is\nmore necessary than a business and professional agency or exchange, to\nwhich reports would be sent from different places as to local needs\nof practical or ideal work, and then, in connection therewith, a new\nkind of mortgage bank, but one in which the mortgages would be upon\nyoung women\u2019s courage, industry, and invention; a bank, in fact, which\nwould advance on easy terms of repayment the loans which would be\nnecessary to enable these at present unutilised assets to be invested\nin the wealth of the nation. The sum of happiness of unmarried women\nwould rise if their creative instinct were thus at least directed into\na strong and healthy activity, by means of which they could in some\nmeasure satisfy their need of having something to care for, of evoking\naround them comfort and beauty.\n\nNo fund would be more worthy of the subscriptions of enlightened\npatrons than such a one as this.\n\nIt is important, again, that all those women who are forced to continue\nworking for wages should enter into the social question at least as\nmuch as is necessary to make them understand the duty of solidarity and\nthe need of organisation if they would obtain the higher wages, the\nshorter hours, the summer holiday, and the better conditions in other\nrespects which they must win in order to preserve in some degree their\nspiritual and bodily powers and with them that measure of joy in life\nwhich everyone may thus possess. The first condition for this is that\ngirls who live with their parents should cease to take work at other\nrates of pay than those which the wholly self-supporting can live on;\nand that women in general should cease to think themselves meritorious\nmerely because they work\u2014without troubling about the harm their\nunderpaid labour may do to the whole community.\n\nBut it is not only the will to elevate their own lives, but above all\na more lively feeling for social organisation as a whole that these\nworking women need. Their personal demands for education, rest, beauty,\nlove, motherhood, must be placed in connection with those of everyone\nelse, so that they may begin to claim also for others what they\ndesire for themselves. Instead of making their own existence poorer by\nunfortunate experiments, they ought to fill the souls of other women\nwith their dreams of a more beautiful life. And to be able to do this\nthey must be constantly active and on the watch, giving and taking on\nevery hand.\n\nThus innumerable little streams swell the flood of wills, which shall\none day remove the old landmarks between the power to wish and the\ncompulsion to renounce. Thus shall the woman deprived of love be able\nto forget her own little lot in the destiny of the many, and in spite\nof the limitations of her own life to feel that she lives by feeling\nthe beat of humanity\u2019s heart in her own.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nEXEMPTION FROM MOTHERHOOD\n\n\nTo him whose thoughts go beyond the surface of life to its depths, the\ndemand for the right of motherhood is a sign of health, an evidence\nof the existence in a nation of the strong, sound woman\u2019s will to\npeople the earth, without which the nation shall no longer live upon\nearth. Even if certain manifestations of this will fall short of the\nlife-enhancing purpose, in itself the will is only worthy of respect.\n\nIt is, however, significant of the confusion of ideas on this\nsubject that the evidence of health inspires terror in the guardians\nof morality, while they regard with calmness that tendency of the\nage which is charged with the materials of tragedy, alike for the\nindividual and for the nation\u2014namely, the desire of exemption from\nmotherhood.\n\nChristianity, with its extension of the idea of personality and\ncorresponding lack of consideration for the race, in opposition to the\nworld of antiquity, made marriage the affair of the individual. The\ndevelopment of love has carried on the liberation that Christianity\nbegan. As stated in the first chapter, the champions of Christianity\nconstantly admit the right both to remain unmarried and to limit the\nbirth of children, if both are only the result of abstinence.\n\nTo the evolutionist, on the other hand, only the cause, not the manner,\nis the deciding point. Danger to the possible children or to the\nmother herself; the fear of pecuniary or personal insufficiency for\nthe bringing-up of the children; the desire of using all one\u2019s powers\nand resources for an important life-work; a Malthusian point of view\nin the question of population\u2014these and other motives are regarded by\nthe evolutionist as good reasons for limiting or altogether abstaining\nfrom parentage. And in this respect the individual is allowed freedom\nof choice also as regards the method which best agrees with the opinion\nof science on hygiene, and with his own on morality and fitness.\n\nAs soon as it is recognised that the individual is also an end in\nhimself, with the right and duty of satisfying in the first place his\nown demands according to his nature, then it must remain the private\naffair of the individual whether he will either leave altogether\nunfulfilled his mission as a member of the race, or whether he will\nlimit its fulfilment.\n\nBut as the individual cannot attain his highest life-enhancement or\nfulfil his own purpose otherwise than in connection with the race, he\nacquires duties also towards it, and not least as a sexual being.\nIf life has given the individual a lot which renders moral parentage\npossible, and conditions which are favourable to new lives, then the\nonly moral limitation of the number of children is one which\u2014in and\nby means of the individual\u2019s own life-enhancement and that of the\nchildren\u2014is to the advantage of the whole community.\n\nBut when only petty and selfish reasons\u2014such as considerations of\nthe children\u2019s inheritance, personal good-living and voluptuousness,\nbeauty and comfort\u2014determine fathers and mothers to keep the number of\ntheir children below the average required to secure the due increase of\npopulation, then their conduct is anti-social. A person, on the other\nhand, who is content with few or no children, because he or she has a\nwork to perform, may be able to compensate society by the production of\nanother class of value.\n\nTo these now moral, now immoral, motives for having few children or\nnone at all, must be added woman\u2019s desire to devote her purely human\nqualities to other tasks. This, however, does not refer to those\nwives who are obliged to establish their married life upon their own\nbread-winning labour as well as their husband\u2019s; a necessity which for\nthe present hinders them from motherhood although they are continually\ndreaming of the future child. It is here a question only of women\u2019s\npersonal self-assertion.\n\nWomen are no longer content to manage their husbands\u2019 incomes, but wish\nto earn their own; they will not use their husband as a middleman\nbetween themselves and society, but will themselves look after their\ninterests; they will not confine their gifts to the home but will also\nput them in public circulation. And in all these respects they are\nright. But when, in order thus to be able to \u201clive their life,\u201d they\nwish to be \u201cfreed from the burden of the child,\u201d one begins to doubt.\nFor until automatic nurses have been invented, or male volunteers have\noffered themselves, the burden must fall upon other women, who\u2014whether\nthemselves mothers or not\u2014are thus obliged to bear a double one. Real\nliberation for women is thus impossible; the only thing possible is a\nnew division of the burdens.\n\nThose already \u201cfreed\u201d declare that, by making money, studying,\nwriting, taking part in politics, they feel themselves leading a\nhigher existence with greater emotions than the nursery could have\nafforded them. They look down upon the \u201cpassive\u201d function of bearing\nchildren\u2014and rightly, when it remains only passive\u2014without perceiving\nthat it embodies as nothing else does the possibility of putting their\nwhole personality in activity. Every human being has the right to\nchoose his own happiness\u2014or unhappiness.\n\nBut what these women have no right to, is to be considered equally\nworthy of the respect of society with those who find their highest\nemotions through their children, the beings who not only form the\nfinest subject for human art, but are at the same time the only work\nby which the immortality of its creator is assured. Another thing\nthat these women who are afraid of children cannot expect is, that\ntheir experience should be considered equally valuable with that\nof women who\u2014after they have fulfilled their immediate duties as\nmothers\u2014employ for the public benefit the development they have gained\nin their private capacity.\n\n\nThere is no secret and infallible guide to natural instinct, any more\nthan there is to the tendency of civilisation. Both may lead the\nindividual as well as the race astray with regard to the goal which\nboth, consciously or unconsciously, are seeking: higher forms of life.\nIn motherliness, humanity has attained what is at present its most\nperfect form of life within the race taken as a whole. Motherhood is\na natural balance between the happiness of the individual and of the\nwhole, between self-assertion and self-devotion, between sensuousness\nand soulfulness. A great love, a power of creation amounting to genius,\nmay in solitary instances attain the same unity. But the immense\nadvantage of the mother is that, with her child in her arms,\u2014without\nbeing conscious of a struggle and without belonging to the favoured\nexceptions,\u2014she possesses that unity between happiness and duty which\nmankind as a whole will attain in other departments only after endless\ntoil and trouble. But if this personal self-assertion, this personal\njoy in woman\u2019s consciousness be gradually released from its connection\nwith the child, then this unity will be broken up.\n\nAn incidental displacement of it was necessary; for the liberation\nof woman\u2014like every other movement of the kind\u2014involved precisely\nthe disturbance of that equilibrium which had been produced by the\npressure of superior force and by hereditary inertness, an artificial\nequilibrium, which could be maintained only by pressure on one side and\ninertness on the other. It was necessary that daughters should rise up\nagainst their fathers\u2019 ideals of wives; sisters against the brothers\u2019\nshare of inheritance, which had increased so greatly to their cost;\nmothers against the view of their duties which kept them within the\nsphere of female animals.\n\nThey must carry through that emancipation which has already made it\npossible for them to use their brains\u2014not only their hearts\u2014in\nfulfilling their eternal mission: that of fostering and preserving new\nlives.\n\nAlready the educated\u2014nay, even the uneducated\u2014mother of the present\nday makes use in her care of children of double the brain power but of\nonly half the muscular force that her grandmother employed. She knows\nbetter how to differentiate between the essential and the unessential;\nshe can by circumspection obviate much toil and trouble. And when all\nmothers receive the practical and theoretical training in nursing\nchildren and the sick, which must be their form of universal service\ncorresponding to the military service of men, then the problem will be\neven more simplified in the direction of the impersonal and more and\nmore extended in the direction of the personal. The mother must use her\nintelligence and her imagination, her artistic sense and her feeling\nfor nature, her instincts in physiology and psychology, in order to\nprovide the child with the conditions under which it may develop itself\nin the best and freest way; but, on the other hand, she must beware\nof\u2014remoulding the child. She will in this way gain much time which at\npresent is wasted in unnecessary attentions and harmful education.\n\nBut avoidance of the personal charge is impossible to the mother\nwithout incurring the dishonour of a fugitive.\n\nThere are a number of women who think that the feeling of motherhood\ncan exist independently of a mother\u2019s care and responsibility for\nthe child, and that the latter may therefore be taken charge of by\nthe community and still retain the treasure of motherly and fatherly\naffection. These women can never have reflected that, with human\nbeings as with animals, parental affection is formed by care and\nself-sacrifice; that it rises with these; that the less demand is made\nupon it, the poorer it becomes. When a father for a time takes the\nplace of the mother, he becomes as tender as she; when a sick child\nexhausts its mother\u2019s strength, it is nearest her heart; and as the\nchild grows up, her affection becomes less spontaneously intimate,\nalthough instead it may increase through personal intercourse. State\ncare of young children would mean a withering of the intimacy of\nparental affection. The tenderness evoked by the child\u2019s bodily\npresence shows, better than any other feeling, the unity of soul and\nsenses. Without the sensuous presence, the psychical impression loses\nits power, as does the bodily impression without the psychical. The\ninstinct of motherhood, like all others, has been formed through\nconstancy of external conditions. It is acquired through definite\nsensations and associations of ideas. When certain of these emotions,\nat first conscious, became unconscious, and were then performed by\nlower nerve-centres, the higher nerve-centres, which had formerly been\noccupied, were set at liberty for higher uses. But if the sensations\nand associations of ideas, which originally formed the instinct,\nare weakened, then the instinct loses its automatic sureness. What\nworked easily, \u201cof its own accord,\u201d as popular speech rightly has it,\nbecomes once more laborious. With the displacement of the instinct,\ncorresponding dislocations result, though with extreme slowness, in the\norgan with which it is connected. Thus nursing was perhaps an acquired\nfaculty, which became \u201cnatural.\u201d It has now become so difficult that\namong the upper classes the majority, even with the best will, can\nscarcely perform this function for a couple of months, or perhaps\nnot at all. Science is already enquiring into the possibility of the\ndisappearance of the mammary glands and with them of the peculiar\ncharacter of woman\u2019s breast.\n\nIt is often only the future that can decide what is progress and what\ndegeneration. But certainly nothing can be more unscientific than to\ndismiss all anxiety about the future with the dogma: that the will to\nlive in offspring is so strong that only the degenerate do not possess\nit, and that with a healthy woman nothing can injure the motherly\ninstinct.\n\nTo a thinker of the evolutionist school, everything is subject to\npossible transformation, and nowhere is there anything at work which\ncan \u201cmake no difference.\u201d There is not a brain, not a nervous system\nwhich can evade even the involuntary impressions of the street. These\nsink into the subconscious soul and thence may arise again after many\nyears. Not one person is the same\u2014or will ever be the same,\u2014when,\nfor instance, he comes away from a lecture, as he was when he went\nto it. Some psychic waves have always been set in motion and this\nmotion is continued to infinity. If this is even true of a notice on a\nshop-front, or of a momentary feeling of anger or joy, how much more\nthen must it be so of the impressions which dominate our days and\nyears. Our conceptions are forged from the true or false metal of our\nmoods and become in turn the implements by which the bronze or gold of\nmoods is wrought. All sanctity, all self-culture rest upon man\u2019s power\nof diverting certain thoughts, suppressing certain conceptions, turning\naside certain impulses of the will; of introducing other thoughts,\nintensifying other conceptions, encouraging other impulses; in other\nwords, partly utilising and partly rejecting certain states of mind. In\nthis way, bad habits arise from one class of moods, good habits from\nanother. When these have acquired sufficient strength, new modes of\naction, new plans of life gradually become \u201cnatural\u201d; new instincts are\nformed, in which willingness and reluctance often stand in an opposite\nrelation to that they occupied at the commencement of the process.\nSensuousness and soul are thus both the creations of development, and\nit is the voluptuousness of many thousands of years that stirs in\nthe mother when she feels her child\u2019s lips at her breast; it is the\ntenderness of as many ages which bends in the shape of every new mother\nover her child\u2019s cot.\n\nHowever powerful these emotions of the senses and of the soul may\nhave become, there is always the possibility\u2014for the reasons just\ngiven\u2014that the mighty stream of tenderness may dry up, if its supply\nbe cut off, and that thus humanity may lose its most indispensable\nmotive power in the development of civilisation.\n\nOur destiny is shaped, not only by what we have experienced, but also\nby what we have turned aside to avoid experiencing.\n\nOur conscious ego is made up of our states of mind, the images,\nfeelings, and thoughts which through our earlier life have become our\ninner property; and which by certain processes are connected with each\nother and with our present ego. The less these images, feelings, and\nthoughts in a woman\u2019s past life have been determined by the sense of\nmotherhood\u2014intuitive or actual,\u2014the less valuable will be the \u201cego\u201d\nshe has to assert, or the destiny she shapes for herself. And the woman\nwhom no higher reason keeps from motherhood is a parasite upon the\nparent stem. The majority of these women have not even a deeper meaning\nin their claim to \u201clive their own life.\u201d They fritter themselves away\nin many directions and do not get much profit by the process\u2014since it\nis only great feelings which give great rewards.\n\nThese women, who thus without more ado renounce motherhood, have\nthey ever held a child, not in their bosom, but even in their arms?\nHave they ever felt the thrill of tenderness such a soft-limbed\ncreature, made, as it seems, of a flower\u2019s soft surfaces and fair\ntints, inspires? Have they ever fallen in worship before the great and\nmarvellous world that we thoughtlessly call \u201ca little child\u2019s soul\u201d?\n\nIf they have not, then we can understand these poor women, who do\nnot perceive their poverty, wishing to make the rich as poor as\nthemselves\u2014whereas all the poor should be made rich.\n\nIf this \u201cliberation\u201d of woman\u2019s personality succeeds, it may go with\nher as with the princess in the story, who found herself in the rain\noutside the kingdom she had given up for a toy.\n\nIn a modern poem a woman, when offered as a consolation the thought\nthat childlessness will spare her many sufferings, exclaims:\n\n  _Spared! To be spared what I was born to have:\n   I am a woman and this my flesh\n   Demands its nature\u2019s pangs, its rightful throes,\n   And I implore with vehemence these pains!_\n\n  (STEPHEN PHILLIPS.)\n\nWhen this ceases to be the desire and the choice of woman, then the\nprophecies of pessimistic thinkers of the voluntary extinction of the\nhuman race will be in a fair way to be realised. But in that case women\nwould not possess the nobility which a logical reading of the world\u2019s\nprocesses implies: they would only operate like a wheel unconsciously\nrolling towards the abyss.\n\n\nTo every thoughtful person, it is becoming increasingly evident that\nthe human race is approaching the parting of the ways for its future\ndestiny. Either\u2014speaking generally\u2014the old division of labour,\nfounded in nature, must continue: that by which the majority of women\nnot only bear but also bring up the new generation within the home;\nthat men\u2014directly in marriage or indirectly through a State provision\nfor motherhood\u2014should work for women\u2019s support during the years they\nare performing this service to society; and that women, during their\nmental and bodily development, should aim, in their choice of work and\ntheir habits of life, at preserving their fitness for their possible\nmission as mothers.\n\nOr, on the other hand, woman must be brought up for relentless\ncompetition with man in all the departments of production\u2014thus\nnecessarily losing more and more the power and the desire to provide\nthe race with new human material\u2014and the State must undertake the\nbreeding as well as the rearing of children, in order to liberate her\nfrom the cares which at present most hinder her freedom of movement.\n\nAny compromise can only relate to the extent, not to the kind, of the\ndivision of labour; for no hygiene, however intelligent, no altered\nconditions of society with shorter hours of labour and better pay, no\nnew system of study with moderate brainwork can abolish the law of\nnature: that woman\u2019s function as a mother, directly and indirectly,\ncreates a need of caution, which at times interferes with her daily\nwork if she obeys the need; while if, on the other hand, she disregards\nit, it revenges itself on her and on the new generation. Nor could any\nimprovements in the care of children and domestic arrangements prevent\nwhat always remains above these things\u2014if the home is to be more than\na place for eating and sleeping\u2014from taking up time and thought,\npowers and feelings. If, therefore, we are to retain the old division\nof labour, under which the race has hitherto progressed, then woman\nmust be won back to the home.\n\nBut this involves more than a thorough transformation of the present\nconditions of production; for we are here face to face with the\nprofoundest movement of the time, woman\u2019s desire of freedom as a human\nbeing and as a personality, and in this we are confronted with the\ngreatest tragic conflict the world\u2019s history has hitherto witnessed.\nFor if it is tragic enough for an individual or a nation relentlessly\nto seek out its innermost ego and to follow it even to destruction\u2014how\ntragic will it not be, when the same applies to half of humanity? Such\na tragedy is profound even when it occurs in the struggle between\nwhat are usually called the \u201cgood\u201d and \u201cevil\u201d powers in man\u2014a form\nof speech which followers of the religion of Life have given up,\nsince they know that so-called crime may also increase human nature\nand human worth; that what is profoundly human may appear as evil and\nyet be healthy and beautiful, since it involves the enhancement of\nlife. But infinitely greater will be the tragedy when the conflict\narises between powers unquestionably good\u2014those in the highest sense\nlife-enhancing\u2014and not even between secondary powers of this order,\nbut between the very highest, the fundamental powers themselves, the\nprofoundest conditions of being.\n\nThat is how woman\u2019s tragic problem now stands, if we leave out of\nconsideration the egoists just alluded to and turn our eyes to the\nmajority: woman\u2019s nature against man\u2019s nature, exercise of power in\norder to satisfy the claims of the member of the race or those of the\npersonality. If Shakespeare came back to earth, he would now make\nHamlet a woman, for whom the question \u201cto be or not to be\u201d would be\nfull of a double pathos: the eternal terror of the human race and the\nnew terror of the female sex before its own riddle; the bearer of the\nmost refined spiritual consciousness of the time, and therefore\u2014while\nforced by circumstances to make a decision\u2014a victim of hesitancy,\ndoubt, and fortuity. As true as that all life is a development of\nforce, so is it that happiness is an ever more complete use of one\u2019s\npowers, ever richer in promise for the future, in the direction of\ntheir greatest aptitude. But when these aptitudes lead in two contrary\ndirections, then the soul is in the same position as the wanderers in\nthe legend of Theseus, whom the \u201cpine-benders\u201d bound to the tops of two\ntrees.\n\nThe struggle that woman is now carrying on is more far-reaching than\nany other; and if no diversion occurs, it will finally surpass in\nfanaticism any war of religion or race.\n\nThe woman\u2019s movement circles round the periphery of the question\nwithout finding any radius to its centre, which is the limitation of\nhuman existence to time and space; the limitation of the soul in the\npower of simultaneously giving itself up to different spheres of\nthought and feeling, and the limitation of the body in the capacity for\nbearing a constantly increased burden.\n\nThe heaviest cause of degeneration at the present time\u2014the necessity\nfor millions of women of earning their bread under miserable\nconditions, and the risk that they may lose, some the possibility,\nsome the wish, for motherhood\u2014may disappear, and nevertheless the\nchief problem will remain unsolved for any woman who has attained\nindividually-human development.\n\nIn however high degree a woman may be bodily and mentally competent,\nthis can never prevent the time her outdoor work occupies being a\ndeduction from the time she can bestow on her home, since she cannot\nsimultaneously be in two places; she cannot have her thoughts and\nfeelings simultaneously centred upon and absorbed by her work and her\nhome. And all that is personal in her home life, all that cannot be\nleft to another, will thus necessarily interfere with her individual\nfreedom of movement, in an inward as well as an outward sense.\n\nIf the child and the husband mean anything at all in a woman\u2019s life,\nshe cannot allow another to have the affection, the care, and the\nanxiety about them: she must give her own soul to this.\n\nBut then, on the other hand, it will interfere with her book, her\npicture, her lecture, her research, just as infallibly as would the\ntrouble of in her own person nursing and taking care of the child\u2014 a\ntrouble which she is really able to renounce, though with a great loss\nof happiness and of insight into the child\u2019s character.\n\nIn a word, the most momentous conflict is not between health and\nsickness, development or degeneration, but between the two equally\nstrong, healthy, and beautiful forms of life: the life of the soul or\nthe life of the family.\n\nMany women, who see the necessity of deciding for one or the other,\nchoose the former and thus avoid or limit their motherhood, since they\nbelieve themselves to have another, richer contribution to make to\ncivilisation. But would not the race have gained more by the talents of\nwhich these gifted women might have been the mothers?\n\nWe may pity for their own sake the barren women of the aristocracy\nor plutocracy, who from pure selfishness have refused to become\nmothers. But they do an involuntary service to the race, in that fewer\ndegenerate children are born.\n\nFull-blooded women, in a mental or bodily sense, are, on the other\nhand, the most valuable from the standpoint of generation. When these\nare content with one child or none, because they wish to devote\nthemselves to their individual pursuits, then it is their work, not\nthe race, which receives the richness of their blood, the fire of\ntheir creative joy, the sap of their thought, and the beauty of their\nfeelings.\n\nBut it may be\u2014according to a very moderate calculation\u2014that there are\nannually produced by the women of the world a hundred thousand novels\nand works of art, which might better have been boys and girls!\n\nIt is nearly always the best women who are confronted by the tragic\nnecessity of choosing one sphere or the other, or of dividing\nthemselves in an unsatisfied way between the two; for, the more they\nincrease their demands upon themselves, the more surely do they feel\nthis partition as a half-measure.\n\nPartly by economical necessity, however, partly by the spirit of\nthe age, the choice is more and more often determined in favour of\nwork, when the two alternatives are evenly balanced in a woman\u2019s\nown feelings; for the emancipation of women has laid the stress of\nfeeling upon independence, social work, creation. This has raised\nthese considerations in the mind of woman to the same extent as it has\ndepreciated those of home life. Want of psychological insight makes\nthe champions of women\u2019s rights candid when they declare that they\nhave never depreciated the tasks of the home, but on the contrary have\ntried to educate woman for them. Schools of housekeeping deserve all\nrecognition, but as regards creating greater enthusiasm for domestic\nduties they have not hitherto been signally successful. It is because\ntheir enthusiasm has been directed to every manifestation of woman\u2019s\ndesire to work in man\u2019s former sphere, that the calling of wife and\nmother has now lost in attraction.\n\nViewed historically, the work of emancipation must be advanced by this\none-sided enthusiasm. But now it is a question whether woman, in a\nnew way, will be capable of being inspired by devotion to her purely\nwomanly sphere of activity?\n\nFor nothing short of this would in the main be the solution of the\nquestion. A return to the old ideal of womanliness would be as\nunthinkable as it would be unfortunate. A continued struggle to get rid\nof the ancient division of labour between the sexes is thinkable\u2014and\nequally unfortunate. That woman should apply her new will to her\nancient mission would be the most fortunate solution. But\u2014is this even\nthinkable?\n\nThe answer is unconditionally in the negative as regards exceptional\nnatures, such as now, in their increased vitality and capacity for\nsuffering, beat their heads against the limitation of life which\nprevents their giving themselves wholly either to love, or to the joy\nof motherhood, or to the mission of civilisation.\n\nHere we are faced by the fundamental cause of the modern woman\u2019s\nnervosity. She lives year in and year out above her powers.\n\nShe still retains the old consciousness that a mother ought to be\nunselfishly absorbed in her mission; that she ought to repose in it\nwith a profound calm; that she ought therefore to allow the inner\nvoices, which urge her to follow her instinct of personal development,\nto remain unheard. Added to this, she has the new consciousness that\nthe bringing-up of a child demands the same undivided attention as the\nproduction of a work; that the child is just as sensitive as the work\nto a divided mind, a wandering attention. She wishes, as an authoress\nhas aptly said, \u201cthat she could be at the same time the mother of past\nages: the patiently bearing caryatid, who was always in her place, with\nthe bowl ready for the child\u2019s thirsty lips; and the mother of the\npresent day: ever on the move, seeking out all new paths, quenching her\nthirst at all the springs of life.\u201d She becomes more and more unique,\nby being ever more firmly and delicately individualised, and in the\nprocess her desire increases to live her own life in every direction.\nBut at the same time her feeling of community with the race increases,\nand therewith her consciousness of responsibility as mother and human\nbeing becomes more and more aroused. The more \u201cegocentric\u201d she has\nbecome, the less does she remain a family-egoist. The demands of her\npersonality become ever more definite, ever wider but at the same\ntime more fastidious in their choice, ever more difficult to satisfy.\nHer growing sense of personal dignity imposes on her an ever stronger\nself-control\u2014while her whole being is quivering with an ever more\ndelicate sensitiveness.\n\nAnd upon this new woman, who is already the embodiment of unrest,\nthirst for life, and suffering, the hungry, violent spirit of the\npresent day flings itself like a cat seizing a bird. A hundred times a\nday such a woman is forced to subordinate the claims of personality\nto those of society; a hundred times the will of her personality\nhas to elude her feeling of responsibility. Perfected methods of\nwork may spare her hands and her footsteps, but they cannot prevent\nher eyes from watching with increasing disquiet the balance wherein\naffection, sympathy, and responsibility are weighed against her most\nintimate longing, her creative joy, her thirst for solitude, and her\nself-development. And as first one side of the balance rises and then\nthe other, it will always seem to her that the heavier one contains a\npiece of living flesh cut from her heart; while the side which is\u2014for\nthe moment\u2014lighter has nothing but dead, though perhaps golden,\nweights.\n\nThe brain-woman\u2019s time-tables know nothing of collisions. Her\ntrain-schedule is clear: nursing institute and kindergarten, school\nand dormitory for the children, whose number is fixed according to the\nrequirements of society. The meals are served automatically from a\ncommon kitchen; the housekeeping is done by adding up the cash-book. In\na costume designed for work or athletics, she goes to her study. When\nthe work is done, there is five minutes\u2019 conversation on the telephone\nwith each of the children; two hours\u2019 exercise in the open air. In the\nafternoon, ten minutes\u2019 conversation on the telephone with her husband,\nthirty-five minutes\u2019 pause for reception of ideas; the evening is given\nup to meetings of a utilitarian or social nature. On Sundays, the\nhusband and children are invited, when three hours are set apart for\nthe elimination of their defects, the rest of the time for profitable\namusement. Such a woman never has a thought of the children while at\nwork; never wants to snatch ten minutes\u2019 extra chat with her husband,\nnever has promptings at night. She wakes refreshed after the hygienic\nnumber of hours\u2019 sleep; everything goes like clockwork\u2014better indeed,\nfor the woman of the future is never behind or ahead of time. But\nlove\u2019s selection will probably not tend towards any great increase\nof this type, whose present representatives seem physically and\npsychically so little affected by motherhood, that for their part one\nis inclined to believe in the stork! And with the other poor, weak, and\n\u201csensual\u201d creatures the blood will no doubt continue to be \u201ca strange\nsap,\u201d which makes the head hot with anguish when it ought to be cool\nfor thought; which forces the heart to beat with longing, when it ought\nto be still for deciding; which makes the nerves quiver with anxiety,\nwhen they ought to be tense for creation.\n\nAnd it is the consciousness of this which in her innermost heart makes\nthe new woman shy of the love for which she longs. A little emotion she\nwill not give; the great one would swallow up all the forces of her\nsoul, and what would then become of the revelation of her personality,\nof the word she alone among all beings has within her, the word for the\npronouncement of which she was born?\n\nMona Lisa\u2019s mysterious smile\u2014interpreted by Barr\u00e8s as _une\nclairvoyance sans tristesse_\u2014expresses, as someone has said, the\nfeminine individualism of the Renaissance. It is certain, on the\nother hand, that the feminine individualism of the present day has a\nclairvoyance that is sorrowful even to death.\n\nNever has the earth seen a more complicated and contradictory being\nthan this woman, melancholy and wistful, cold and sensitive, thirsting\nfor life and tired of life at the same time. The blood dances otherwise\nin her veins, sings another song in her ears, than it has in those of\nany other woman since time began. She sees through her husband and is\na stranger to him; his desire seems brutal to her finely-shaded and\ncontradictory moods: she is not won, even when she allows herself to\nbe embraced. She fears the child, since she knows she cannot fulfil\nits simple demands. When fate attempts to tune these fragile beings to\ntheir full pitch, they break like harp-strings under a rough touch.\nThey are only able to live partially\u2014but thus they do not find life\nworth living.\n\nEven if such a woman chooses this partial life and gives herself\nentirely to work, she will nevertheless be still disturbed, in the\ndomain of personal self-assertion, by the woman\u2019s nature she has in the\nmain suppressed; for she will often be confronted by the choice of not\nsucceeding at all or of succeeding by the means of man, the means she\nabhorred in him before she herself discovered that it is the struggle\nfor existence which gives the bird of prey its beak and claws.\n\nShe is forced to lament in the choice between relentlessly seeking\nher own or failing; between the necessity of being hammer or anvil,\nof dividing herself in order to give, or collecting herself in order\nto create. Until woman took up a position in the world of public\ncompetition, she did not suffer from this necessity. It was thus\nthat\u2014in a literal as well as a spiritual sense\u2014she could afford to\ndevelop affection, sympathy, goodness. It is therefore a melancholy\ntruth that woman\u2019s nature, as it has become when removed from the\nstruggle for existence, is profoundly opposed to the condition which in\nthe present economical and psychological circumstances brings success\nin this struggle, the condition, namely, of forcing one\u2019s way over\nothers.\n\nThis conflict often begins in a field where woman cannot renounce her\nrelation to motherhood\u2014that is, where she herself is the daughter.\nEven in this character she has a choice to make, pain to inflict and to\nsuffer.\n\nWhen we thus see the woman of the present day placed between insoluble\nconflicts on every side\u2014or agonising, if solved\u2014we are no longer\ntempted to agree with the poet\u2019s dictum that woman\u2019s name is weakness.\nFor in every fibre we feel that her name is pain.\n\n\nThose men who, from the observation that woman\u2019s professional and brain\nwork seems to stand in inverse proportion to her fecundity, have drawn\nthe conclusion that woman must \u201creturn to nature,\u201d leave her brain\nunemployed and exclusively bear children, are easily refuted. There\nis no satisfactory evidence that mental work in itself need injure\nwoman\u2019s capacity for easy and happy motherhood. In the animal world,\nas among savages, the females easily bear motherhood together with\nother great burdens. In civilised communities, on the other hand, it\nis partly through a lower class, whose bodies are overworked, partly\nthrough an upper class, who overwork their brains\u2014or else do not work\nat all,\u2014that the physical difficulties of motherhood have arisen. That\nthe world\u2019s greatest female geniuses have had few children or none,\nis in full analogy with the great male geniuses\u2014while these men as a\nrule have had gifted and distinguished mothers, an experience which\nalone is sufficient proof that woman\u2019s \u201cweak-mindedness\u201d may not be\nthe most favourable state of mind for the enhancement of the race. No\nconclusive evidence can be adduced against the statement that, when\nbrainwork is moderate and combined with proper care of the health, it\nmay have good effects also in women. The same is true of bodily labour.\nBut as both are carried on at present, the woman, no more than the man,\nhas been able to keep within the limit of her powers. Therefore at\npresent woman\u2019s studies and bread-winning labour involve dangers which\nhave been increased under the spur of the dogma of equality, which\nhas driven woman on to show that she could bear everything that man\nbears\u2014that is to say, more than man or woman can endure.\n\nBut when once studies and labour have been somewhat organised, they do\nnot in themselves involve anything that will make the unmarried woman\nany less fit to be a mother of the race; on the contrary, they are\ncertain to involve much that will make her more valuable. It is thus\nnot for the unmarried woman that the conflict is presented in the form\nof a choice between renouncing\u2014even in the uncertain possibility of\nmotherhood\u2014the development or use of one\u2019s purely human powers. And\nwhen perfect candour as regards the sexual life has become the custom\nbetween the sexes even from childhood, it will also be possible for\nwomen, during work, study, or exercise, to have those considerations\nfor health which modesty has hitherto led them to neglect. In this\nway, but not through the employment itself, many a woman has lost her\nchances of motherhood.\n\nThus the conflict does not commence until marriage; and for the\nexceptionally gifted, as we have already said, it may be tragic. For\nthe majority it will not become so unless the wife is obliged to\nearn her living outside the home and at the same time wishes fully\nto perform her duties as mother, or when she wishes to attend to her\npersonal business but is prevented by a large family from so doing.\n\nThe question is thus for the majority: either the abandonment of the\nwork which produces a living, or the limitation of the number of\nchildren.\n\nThe first alternative will be dealt with later. As for the second, it\nis here that the main conflict takes place.\n\nIt is from the point of view of the ennobling of the race, as well\nas from that of the nation, that men implore women to \u201creturn to\nnature\u201d[4]; it is from that of civilisation that women now refuse\nnature their allegiance.\n\nNothing\u2014even from the national point of view\u2014is more justified than\nwoman\u2019s unwillingness to produce children by the dozen or score. The\nformer consumption of wives, for a man between fifty and sixty, was\nseldom less than three wives in succession and as a rule half the\nchildren of each of them. Limitation of the number of children\u2014apart\nfrom other sociological points of view\u2014has above all the advantage,\nthat many children of poor quality return a low interest upon the\ncapital of working-powers and other expenses that their birth\nand bringing-up cost, while a smaller number of fully efficient\nchildren return a high rate of interest in the shape of increased\nworking-powers, as is sufficiently shown by the prosperity of France.\n\nBut when we turn to the question, up to what point the limitation may\nbe unattended with danger either to the nation or to the individual,\nthen opinion is so sharply divided that to any unprejudiced examination\nit must seem premature at present to lay down the line of development\nof the woman\u2019s question as coinciding with the limitation of the number\nof children. Even if it be finally agreed that a nation\u2019s welfare\ndemands of the women who ought and can be mothers, the birth and\nupbringing of but three or four children, it is not decided that the\nenhancement of the race is thereby sufficiently provided for.\n\nBesides which, the new woman does not want three or four children, but\nonly one or at most two.\n\nBesides the danger, in this case incontestable, from the point of view\nof the nation, and the possible danger from that of the race, there\nis here a great danger for the children themselves. Their childhood\u2019s\nhappiness demands a circle of brothers and sisters and the difference\nin age between the children should preferably not be more than two\nyears. Not only their happiness but their development is aided by this.\nThe position of an only child, or of only son or daughter, usually\nresults in childhood in great selfishness, while in later years, on the\nother hand, it produces frequently a heavy burden of duty, and thus, in\nboth cases, brings danger to harmonious development.\n\nOne or two children have a poorer, and also a more dangerous, childhood\nthan those who among a number of brothers and sisters learn the\nvalue of mutual consideration, of shared joys and troubles. Thus,\nwithout any risk of loss of individuality, awkwardness is polished\nand sensitiveness strengthened, which otherwise in later life would\ncause great losses of power. For a circle of school-fellows can only\nimperfectly take the place of the nursery\u2019s first education in social\nhumanity.\n\nBesides which it may easily happen that parents lose an only child, or\nthe only son or daughter.\n\nThus perhaps from the point of view of the nation, always from that of\nthe children, and most frequently from that of the parents, the normal\ncondition for the majority of healthy, well-to-do married people must\nbe, that the number of children shall not fall short of three or four.\n\nBut in this case a mother must reckon that her children will occupy\nabout ten years of her life, if she will herself give them the nursing\nand care which will make them fully efficient. And during these\nyears\u2014if her contribution in either direction is to have its full\nvalue\u2014she must neither divide her powers by working for a living nor\nby constant public activity. During these years, she may continue\nher own general development; she may take occasional part in social\nwork; now and then she may have time for mental production. But\nany continuous and exhausting work outside the home will, at least\nindirectly, diminish her own vital force and that of her children.\n\nThus the majority of women will never avoid a conflict, lasting\nfor years, between the renewal of the race and their own outward\nself-assertion, in whatever direction the latter may go; just as little\nas they can avoid the conflict of the double burden, now laid with\nincreasing frequency upon women: that of bread-winning and the increase\nof the race.\n\nWhen to all this is added the need, for both husband and wife, of\nmutual converse, and finally the cares of housekeeping, then every\nthoughtful person must see that woman\u2014and with her society\u2014is\nconfronted by a problem in the form of \u201ceither\u2014or,\u201d not of \u201cboth\u2014and.\u201d\n\nOnly by society undertaking the support of those women who by well\nfulfilling the duties of motherhood have produced the highest social\nasset, can the question of married women\u2019s bread-winning be solved.\n\nAnd only if women put their personal creative desire into their mission\nas mothers during their children\u2019s first years, will the problem be\nsolved of woman\u2019s self-assertion and of her simultaneous devotion to\nthe mission of the race.\n\n\nNo, is the answer of Charlotte Perkins Stetson[5] and of many others\nwith her; the solution is State care of children. Look at all the\nwretched homes, where the children lack the most necessary mental and\nbodily conditions for healthy development. The collective rearing of\nall children would be both better and cheaper. Only those women who\nare liberated from the toils of the nursery and the kitchen are really\nfree. To the woman accustomed to public activity, the tasks of the home\nare monotonous and tiresome. On the other hand, as a calling freely\nchosen, the care of children would satisfy those who have the gift\nfor it. The majority of mothers are only ape-mothers to their little\nchildren, and, as the latter grow bigger, this vague affection is\nreplaced by an obstinate misunderstanding.\n\nThis is what one hears over and over again at the present time. And the\nmore it is repeated, the more certain do women become that all these\nhalf-truths are\u2014the truth.\n\nThus it is the mothers who are not good enough to bring up their\nown children, that are expected to provide the new illustrious\nleaders of the community. It is the parents who themselves lack the\ntalent and inclination for bringing up children, that\u2014directly or\nindirectly\u2014will have to superintend and select the persons who, in\ntheir place, will perform the duties of parents. In other words, they\nare to discover and appreciate qualities that they do not themselves\npossess. The trouble that a woman cannot take for the children to whom\nshe has herself given life, is to be borne by other women for ten,\ntwenty, or thirty children, who are not their own.\n\nEven to-day, there is sometimes to be found a kind of primitive\ntype of womanliness, so widely maternal, with such a superfluity of\nstrength, of tenderness, of talent for organisation that it is too\npowerful for a single home; a type which really possesses the immense\nwealth of spiritual elasticity, joy, and warmth, that is necessary\nin order that every such child should have its full share of these.\nBut most women probably do not possess any more of these things than\nis just sufficient for their own children. And with these \u201celected\nmothers,\u201d quickly worn out as they would be, ten, twenty, or thirty\nchildren would be as badly off mentally as they would be bodily if a\nsingle mother\u2019s milk had to be divided among them all. It is even now\na serious loss to society that so many human beings are enfeebled for\nlife by insufficient nourishment in childhood. But according to the\nplan we have been discussing, which now has so many adherents, everyone\nwould be starved in childhood as regards affection. It is even now a\nserious loss to culture that school-life makes children uniform. Still\nmore irreparable would be the harm if their fashioning were in the\nhands of a thorough-going State care of children.\n\nThe danger of uniformity is inseparable from the present tendency to\na hard-and-fast organisation of society, with an ever greater need of\nco-operation, an ever closer connection, an ever more intimate feeling\nof relationship between its component parts. The organisation must\ngo on, because, amongst other reasons, it is only in this way that\nthe individual can now gain increased freedom for development and the\nuse of his personal powers. But if these increased possibilities of\nsatisfying personal needs and using personal powers are to be of value\nto the individual\u2014and through him to the whole community\u2014then we\nmust also have some individualities left who will be capable of taking\nadvantage of their possibilities.\n\nAnd now it is certain that the home\u2014with its changing conditions of\ngood and evil\u2014is first and foremost the best means of forming an\norganically developing sense of solidarity with the whole community.\nLife itself creates in the home an inter-dependence among its members,\na sympathy for others\u2019 destiny, a contact with the realities of life,\nand with the seriousness of work, which no institution can create. It\nis by the efforts of a father and a mother that the joys of home are\nprovided; it is affection for all which counter-balances the mutual\nrights of all; which gives to each his weight and his counterpoise in a\nway so natural that the methodical arrangements of an institution would\nnever be able to imitate it. And furthermore, different homes, with\nthe variety of different impressions they offer, are the best means of\nforming different characters and peculiarities. However straitened and\npoor in every sense a home may be, it nevertheless, as a rule, provides\nmore personal freedom of movement and results in less uniformity than\na collective system of bringing-up.\n\nIf this is even true of those homes where there can be no question of\neducation in a higher sense, then in better homes the watchfulness and\nwarmth of affection, its understanding and sensitiveness, will be the\nforces which will induce and protect individuality of character, and\nwhich will most surely discover what ought to be counteracted and what\nleft alone for self-development. To this must be added the insight\nwhich the parents\u2019 knowledge of themselves and of each other gives into\ntheir children\u2019s character, an insight which no stranger can possess.\n\nTo this it is objected that, if every quarter of a town and every few\nsquare miles of country had its \u201cState nursery,\u201d parents would often\nbe able to see to their children, as well as to take them home and\nthus have an opportunity of using their influence. But apart from the\ncircumstance that the relationship would then in most cases resemble\nthat of the French _petite bourgeoisie_ visiting their children _en\nnourrice_\u2014that is to say, that affection would be shown in a desire\nto amuse and deck out the child, to caress and play with it\u2014the most\nimportant point is forgotten. This is that time, more time, and still\nmore time, is one condition of education, and quiet the other. Souls\nare not to be tended like maladies, in fixed hours of treatment.\n\nThere is no sphere\u2014as parents are still too apt to forget\u2014in which\nthe psychological moment is more important than in education. The\naction which a mother has seen in the morning, should often be first\nmentioned by the child\u2019s bedside at night; the confidence which at the\nright moment might have burst from the child\u2019s lips, will never be\ngiven if the father has not availed himself of that moment; the words\nwhich pained the mother this week, must perhaps wait till next before\na natural opportunity of effectively combating them occurs. The caress\nfor which a little head feverishly longs this evening, will perhaps\nto-morrow leave it indifferent. The word of affection which might have\nbeen all-powerful at one moment, is powerless a couple of hours later.\nAnd above all, direct advice or correction is worthless in comparison\nwith the unpremeditated words that parents let fall in the course of\nthe day, with the result that the child simply sees the full human life\nof its parents.\n\nOnly living together on week-days and holidays deepens the immediate\ninfluence of parents; only this makes it possible for the parents\nto distinguish in the child the accidental from the essential, the\nnewly-acquired from the intrinsic in its changing moods.\n\nAnd finally, when we think we have found that children receive too\nmuch warmth at home, and that they ought rather to be hardened against\nlife\u2014have we then not observed such \u201chardened\u201d ones? Have we not seen\nhow they are beautified when they are admitted to a corner in a home;\nhave we not discovered that, though in intelligence they may be far in\nadvance of their time, their feelings are still on a level with those\nof the savage?\n\nSo far from homes being too warm, they are seldom sufficiently\nwarmed by the only love that lasts for life, that of knowledge and\ncomprehension. Never yet was a human being too much loved, but only too\nlittle, or not in the right way. The whole spirit of the age is now\nopposed to the fatherly and motherly feelings of older times, which\nwere related to the blind affection of animal parents. The affection\nthat is left must be intensified, not weakened.\n\nThe child\u2019s splendid, unconscious happiness is in making others happy;\nin being answered by the smiles it produces; in showing outbursts of\naffection and receiving affection in return; in feeling the security\nand pride of itself owning and belonging to its father or mother; in\nallowing this delight to show itself in play and caresses and being\nmet with the same delight without its being empty. For in a home,\nwhere some seriousness prevails, a child soon learns that affection\nalso means work and sacrifice for others. From such affection the\npsychically personal tie of blood is formed, while the \u201cnatural\u201d one\ngrows weak, as it is not renewed by the apparently unimportant daily,\nhourly influence of the intangible, invisible things, through which,\nas even the _Edda_ tells us, the indestructible ties are formed. In\na word, the home of one\u2019s childhood is for the development of human\nfeelings, what one\u2019s native place is for the development of patriotism.\nEven now home-life suffers in a disquieting degree from the school\u2019s\nincreasing grasp of the older children; from the indifference to and\ndisconnection from the home which occurs when it sees the children only\nat meal-times, on Sundays, and during the holidays. But if even the\nlittle children were to be placed in the same situation, then this evil\nwould be extended to the most decisive years of their lives.\n\nTo turn now from parents and children to the new foster-mothers of\nthe town and country nurseries, how is it intended that these shall\nsuffice for their own children, if they are mothers, how\u2014if they are\nmotherly\u2014are they to content themselves with the children of others,\nwhich they will furthermore be compelled to lose over and over again?\nHave the women who want to be \u201cfreed\u201d ever given a thought to the\nsufferings of these others?\n\nThe only possibility of endurance for such nurses will be to give the\nchildren only that general kindness that is not enough for them. Love\nthey will not be able to give. No word is more abused than love, not\nleast by the interpreters of Christianity, who attenuate it into a\nwafer for the nourishment of all, under the name of universal love. But\nthere is no such thing as universal love, or love of humanity; there\ncannot be such a thing; it would be as much a contradiction in terms\nas a quadrilateral triangle. There is a charity which pours itself\nout like oil upon all wounds; there is sympathy in joy and sorrow\nbetween individuals; mutual help and mutual responsibility in society;\na common feeling of rejoicing or suffering with our nation or with\nhumanity at great moments. But all love from one human being to another\nwhich deserves that name, is in the highest degree individual; it is\na selection, a separation. If it is not this, it is nothing. A woman\nchooses her children even when she chooses their father; and she often\nshows her preference among the children themselves. An individually\ndeveloped mother rightly asserts her privilege of not loving all her\nchildren equally. She gives them all the affection they need in the\nsame degree; she is capable of the same broad justice towards them all,\nbut she has for one of them a more personal love than for the rest.\nThe profound tragedy in the relations between parents and children\nis precisely this, that this relationship is often as passionate as\npersonal love, but without the latter\u2019s understanding; that it involves\nthe claims of a great emotion, but not the power that an individual\nfeeling has of becoming intensified in the same degree as the claim is\nincreased.\n\nIndividual love is alone sufficient for a child\u2019s needs. An \u201celected\nmother\u201d may perhaps once, or several times, be able to feel such a love\nfor one or more of the children entrusted to her. But she cannot have\nthis love for all of them, and she will herself be torn asunder when\none after the other the children she loves are taken from her.\n\nThe mothers for the State institution must furthermore be found by\nthousands, if the whole of society is to be constructed on this plan.\nAnd then it will be with them as with the clergy, who in the earliest\ncongregations were called by the Holy Spirit, but afterwards by the\ncongregation. It would be more and more rarely the proved personal\naptitude and inner necessity that would decide the choice, but in its\nplace the accepted standard of professional training.\n\nIt is by means of these professional mothers, as is now the opinion,\nthat children would have better conditions of life than in their own\nhomes, where, in spite of all shortcomings, personal responsibility\nand personal affection render imperfection in the higher grades of\neducation less dangerous than perfection in a lower grade.\n\nExceptional circumstances exist, to provide for which the cr\u00e8che, the\nkindergarten, the asylum, and the industrial school must continue for\nthe present. But instead of trying to make these expedients universal,\nwe ought to endeavour to eradicate the causes which render them\nnecessary. This would be road-making in the right direction. The other\nis a short cut, which will infallibly take us longer round.\n\nIt is true that poverty now gives many children unhealthy homes. Attack\nthe causes of poverty then, instead of taking away the children and\nleaving the parents in misery. It is true that much parental affection\nis injudicious. Then educate people to be parents. It is true that\nparents now increase the inheritance of certain children at the cost of\nthe others. Then lessen the possibility of this.\n\nBut do not deprive all children of their rightful inheritance: home\nfeelings and memories of home, home sorrows and home joys, all that\ngives its peculiar tone, colour, and perfume to every human being\u2019s\ndisposition.\n\nDo not abolish the most important of all collective education, that\nof the children through the parents and of the parents through the\nchildren.\n\nDoubtless, love\u2019s freedom will bring about more complicated family\nrelations than at present. From this point of view there seems to be an\nevident advantage to the children in State institutions, where their\nlives would not be so immediately affected by dislocations in those of\ntheir parents. But to deprive the majority of children of their homes,\nbecause the minority might thus lose theirs, would be a worse expedient\nthan that of connecting the home more closely with the mother and\ndeveloping human beings so that they may remain friends even when they\nhave ceased to be husband and wife, and may thus continue to be capable\nof co-operating for the welfare of the children.\n\nIn a word, it is not the family that ought to be abolished, but\nthe rights of the family that must be reformed; not education by\nparents that ought to be avoided, but education of parents that must\nbe introduced; not the home that ought to be done away with, but\nhomelessness that must cease.\n\nThe State rearing of children would work like the feeding of foundlings\non Pasteurised milk: they sickened when they were thus deprived of\ncertain indispensable bacilli. The people who were brought up on\nthe germ-free milk of universal benevolence, in the untainted air\nof uniform order; who had their origin in the love of the majority,\ntheir nourishment from the automatic machine of the institution, their\neducation in the mould of the school, their occupation as wax-makers\nin the social hive\u2014these unfortunate creatures might find existence\nso tame and so empty that those of them whom weariness of life had not\ndriven to suicide before the age of twenty might use their atavistic\nlonging for happiness in burning down the institutions and rebuilding\nhomes for human beings.\n\nCan people not understand that State care of children would force upon\nthe young generation life\u2019s last and hardest experience, that of not\nbeing the most important or the nearest to anyone, and that this heavy\nfruit\u2014under which old trees may give way\u2014might deform the young ones\nfor ever? Do not people see that, even if many homes are now hell,\nwe should not sink to the lowest circle of hell\u2014which Dante\u2019s fancy\nmade ice-cold\u2014until the warmth was quenched which the hearths of home\nstill throw out, and their place was taken by the steam-heating of the\ninstitution? When existence is made up of beings with starved hearts,\nfrozen souls, obliterated characteristics\u2014what materials will these\nafford for constructing the society of which they will form part?\nWill they even care to produce children as raw material for the human\nfactories; or the necessaries for the maintenance of that life in which\nthe elements of personal happiness are wanting? Will they even have the\nenergy to take a decision about the order of society which robs them of\nlife\u2019s greatest values?\n\n\nSo wonderfully strong is in man the need of having some place of his\nown, of being among his own, feeling himself at home in one poor corner\nof the world, in a single poor heart, that this feeling has even the\npower of clearing a morass into a spring by subterranean ways.\n\nOn a railway journey in the South I once saw a woman, whose face,\nfigure, and manners betrayed the completest downfall. This mother had\na beautiful six-year-old daughter. Never was it more horrible to see\na child at her mother\u2019s knee; never did an amulet seem more powerless\nthan the saint\u2019s image that a pitying hand had hung about the child\u2019s\nneck. But when the child leaned towards her mother, she was embraced\nby the drunken harlot with a tender emotion, which restored to her a\nspark of human dignity. And when the child read in the looks of her\nfellow-travellers the disgust her mother inspired, her dark eyes glowed\nwith angry sorrow and she took up before her mother a position of\nprotesting affection. No one could doubt that this child ought to be\ntaken out of such unclean hands. But I wonder whether a better guardian\nwould be able to give her the great emotion which at that moment\ndilated the child\u2019s soul? If in a case like this one can even hesitate\nabout the line between disadvantage and advantage, then in many other\ncases one will be convinced that it is not necessarily where a child\nhas the best food, the cleanest bed, the most uninterrupted care, that\nit will thrive best, but rather where its soul may be expanded by\nthe warmest and greatest emotions. Moreover it is one of the sacred\nmysteries of life that most parents, in themselves and towards one\nanother, are worse than the child sees them; for the last being before\nwhom a wretch casts off his protecting rags of human dignity is his\nchild.\n\nAgainst the wickedness of parents, however, as against their\nill-treatment, the child must be protected, and that in a much greater\ndegree than now by a constant extension of the right and duty of\nsociety\u2019s intervention in these cases. But, when it can be avoided, the\nchildren ought just as little to be deprived of the protection of home\nas the home should be deprived of the protection children give to it,\nby compelling the parents to at least some measure of self-discipline,\nself-control, and self-sacrifice, whereby their souls are extended\nbeyond the individual ego. In the day when the \u201chardening\u201d atmosphere\nof the State institutions encompasses all children, human virtue will\nsink with even greater rapidity them human happiness.\n\n\nAll that has been said above does not imply any blindness to the fact\nthat even the best homes are now penitentiaries in comparison with what\nthey may become when the formation of a home has become a science and\nan art. At present the home is fortunately\u2014or unfortunately\u2014neither\ninspected nor rewarded with prizes. But perhaps this time is coming\u2014as\nalready in France the seventh child is brought up at the cost of the\nState, and decorations are proposed for those women who have borne and\nbrought up the greatest number of efficient children. Then, if not\nbefore, will the \u201cliberated\u201d women perhaps regain some interest in the\ndevelopment of their powers in the direction of the home.\n\nWhat now frequently diminishes externally the value even of good\nhomes, is that they are arranged to promote a kind of \u201caspiration,\u201d\ndiametrically opposed to genuine life-enhancement, whose first\ncondition is that the home in a material respect should bear a\nrelation to the health and comfort of its own members, not the habits\nof life of outsiders. What again detracts in a spiritual respect\nfrom even the very best homes is that their members still retain the\nfamily rudeness and want of consideration of older days, a rudeness\nwhich\u2014owing to the new sensitiveness, the deeper strength of personal\nconsciousness\u2014causes even from childhood daily pain that, as\ninfallibly as the grosser faults of bad homes, poisons air and food.\n\nPeople still allow themselves within the home circle a scornfulness\nof each other\u2019s peculiarities, a silencing of each other\u2019s opinions,\na prying into each other\u2019s secrets, a betrayal of each other\u2019s\nconfidences, which in daily life place the members of the circle on a\nfooting of armed neutrality. In good homes, affection, and in inferior\nones fear, stops them from breaking out into open war; for in both\ncases all know each other\u2019s vulnerable spots so well, that they are\nperfectly well aware how severe the conflict would be for themselves as\nwell as for the others.\n\nBut so long as homes, even the best ones, have these faults,\ninstitutions must exhibit similar results\u2014since both will be formed\nof the same human material. The institutions, on the other hand, would\nnot possess the advantages which in the case of homes outweigh the\nfaults. These faults may be gradually diminished by a higher spiritual\nculture. But nothing could compensate for what mankind would lose by\nthe abolition of the home.\n\n\nThe conclusion is thus that\u2014however differently the conflict must\nbe resolved in exceptional cases between woman\u2019s personal claims and\nher motherly feelings\u2014in the main those women who, in order to serve\nhumanity, renounce motherhood or its cares, are conducting themselves\nlike a warrior who should prepare for the battle of the morrow by\nopening his veins the evening before.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nCOLLECTIVE MOTHERLINESS\n\n\nAt a Scandinavian meeting on the woman\u2019s question, a cantata was sung\nwhich proclaimed that the human race under the supremacy of man had\nstumbled in darkness and crime. But the race was now to be newly born\nfrom the soul of woman, the sunrise would scatter the darkness of\nnight, and the advent of the Messiah was certain.\n\nThat men during the period of their ascendancy had nevertheless\nproduced a few trifles\u2014for example, religions and laws, sciences and\narts, discoveries and inventions\u2014that the darkness of their night was\nthus at least illumined by a Milky Way, all this her majesty Woman was\npleased to forget.\n\nIf man were sufficiently vindictive to set about finding out what\nwoman has accomplished in the course of ages to justify her towering\nself-esteem\u2014or in other words to justify her challenging the\ncomparison with these works of man\u2014then he would find only one thing.\n\nWhen nature formed the instinct of the race, woman remoulded it as\nlove; when necessity made the dwelling, woman transformed it into the\nhome. Her great contribution to culture is thus affection.\n\nAnd this work is in truth great enough to counterbalance man\u2019s\ncontribution\u2014but not to make it worthless.\n\n\nFortunately we hear less and less about man\u2019s \u201ctyranny\u201d having robbed\nwoman of the chance of also proving her powers within his sphere of\nactivity. It is more and more recognised that in the struggle for\nexistence necessity decreed that woman\u2019s social work should take the\nform of home work. The same necessity has now\u2014in the main\u2014liberated\nthe powers that were confined in home work, although woman has never,\nat any time, been excluded from the use of her mental gifts. Such use\nwas, however, obviously an occasional one, so long as the total of her\nactivity belonged to another sphere.\n\nIt is from the point of view of their now emancipated personality that\nwomen\u2014and many men on their behalf\u2014demand the right of employing\nthese personally-human powers in social work. They point in particular\nto the neglect of the State in that sphere of duty, which is already\ntheirs in the home, namely, that of protecting and improving the\nexistence of the young and of the weak. And men are beginning to see\nthat, the more fixedly society is organised, the more indispensable\nwill be the co-operation between all its parts, if the social organism\nis really to fulfil its purpose, the welfare of all; they see that the\nnew forms both of State help and self-help, which are now being sought\nafter with increasing consciousness of purpose, cannot be adjusted\nto actual needs unless woman is able to co-operate with man in every\ndepartment and take part in the legislation which is to decide the\nwelfare of herself and of her child.\n\nBut that the organisation of society has now progressed so far that man\nis beginning to look for woman\u2019s help, must not be taken by women as a\nreason for putting the whole blame for the slow development of society\non men. This slowness results in an equal degree from the hitherto\nexisting nature of woman and of man, from the limitations of both,\nand from their both being bound by the laws of development. Progress\ntowards higher conditions depends in an equal degree on transformations\nin the nature of both, the ideals of both, the means and aims of\nboth in the furtherance of culture. The very beginning of these\ntransformations is the education women give to the new generation,\nwhich is afterwards to make the laws, to arrange the work, and to\ndetermine consumption according to the needs they bring with them into\nlife and the virtues they have learned to love at home.\n\nOur time is probably more conscious of its own shortcomings than any\nother. But nothing is more revolting to one\u2019s sense of justice than\nwhen this consciousness takes the form of women\u2019s megalomania as\nregards their own omnipotence for altering the course of the world.\n\nFollowing on nature\u2019s rough division of the race, nature and\ncivilisation in conjunction have produced a finer one, that of creator\non the one side and material on the other. Next to being one\u2019s self\na creator, it is a great thing to be worthy material in a creator\u2019s\nhand. And enhancement of culture in a spiritual as well as a material\nsense is brought about by the creators\u2019 success in dealing with their\nmaterial. When that material is human, this means that the creators\u2014or\nleaders\u2014are successful in converting the rest into real collaborators\nwith will and judgment of their own. Flocks driven on by shepherds, or\nmasses of humanity led by one no more remarkable than themselves, have\nnever had lasting effects on the course of civilisation. Such effects\nonly follow when a creator fires the multitude with the enthusiasm of\nnew aims, or teaches them to ennoble the means by which they may attain\nends worthy of aspiration.\n\nThus, if women are to give the development of society a direction\nwholly different from that which man has given it, this will depend on\nthe appearance among women of leaders who shall point the way to higher\naims and employ purer means.\n\nBut what gives us reason to expect this of women? The reason cannot\nbe sought elsewhere than within the sphere of their own creations,\nlove, motherliness, the home, domestic economy. If it can be shown\nthat women have brought all these to the full perfection of which they\nare capable, then there will really be good reason to believe in their\nmiraculous power in the organisation of society.\n\nBut even if we fully admit the hindrances which man\u2019s ordering of\nsociety, his legislation, his nature have placed in the way of\nwomen\u2014is there a single thoughtful woman who can maintain that she\nherself, or that women in general, have nevertheless done all that\nthey could within their own special sphere; that they have used to the\nutmost the opportunities they have possessed? What conscientious woman\ndoes not perceive that the majority still bungle the great discoveries\nof their sex, by the way in which they act as guardians and educators\nof children, as lovers, wives, makers of homes, housekeepers! In\nevery department they lack art and science, clearness of view and\ncircumspection. Frequently they do not possess the first conditions for\nintensifying and refining a happy love; that of bearing and bringing up\nworthy children; that of attaining the greatest sum of material comfort\nfor the members of the family with the least expenditure of force and\nof means; that of arranging the spiritual balance-sheet so that the\nhighest possible enhancement of life will be the net profit. Exactly as\nthe majority of men only slowly and partially receive and transmit the\nthoughts, the works of beauty, the discoveries that their leaders bring\nthem, so also do women slowly and partially receive the leading ideas\nin their sphere.\n\nThere must then be something, not only in man\u2019s nature but in woman\u2019s\nalso, which hinders perfection and delays progress.\n\nIf such be the case\u2014and the supposition need not be considered too\nbold\u2014then also we may perhaps wonder whether mankind would really have\nprogressed so far, if women had had the lead during past centuries.\nAnd if we have ventured thus far, we may also be bold enough to ask:\nwhether these same women\u2014who have been so far from perfecting their\nown work\u2014when they come to take part in the organisation of society,\nwill immediately perfect what man has bungled; twist the sword into\na ploughshare and bring about the Messianic kingdom, where peace and\nrighteousness shall kiss one another.\n\nIt is not until she has renounced all communion with the glorification\nof woman and the assertion of woman\u2019s superiority, that a woman with a\nsense of intellectual propriety can occupy herself with the question of\nthe social work of her sex.\n\n\nThose who conduct the woman\u2019s movement form in every country a \u201cright\u201d\nand a \u201cleft,\u201d each with an extreme wing.\n\nThe particular cult of the right is woman as an ideal being. In\naddition, its dogmas include Christianity, monogamy, and the rest of\nthe existing arrangements of society. It seeks to place woman on an\nequal footing with man within the old forms. To the extremists of this\ngroup, duty, labour, and utility are the great words of life; love and\nbeauty do not come within the scope either of woman\u2019s rights or of her\nobligations. To whitewash the stains on the existing social edifice; to\ngive themselves more space by building out a wing on the right\u2014this\nis their chief concern; the main building itself they would preserve\nunaltered.\n\nThe left has also its deities\u2014but \u201cwoman\u201d is not one of them. Its view\nof life is radical; that is to say, evolutionist and social. It seeks\nto reform the existing institution of marriage by a new morality, and\nexisting society by a higher organisation, which will express a deeper\nsense of solidarity. It thus looks at the rights and liberty of woman\nand of man in connection with the welfare of the whole community. From\nthis point of view, it regards woman\u2019s freedom to love and right to\nmotherhood as of equal importance with her right to vote and liberty to\nwork.\n\nHere, however, a difference comes in between this and the extreme left,\nwhich would give woman complete personal freedom of movement by leaving\nthe children in charge of the State.\n\nThus the extreme wing of the old feminism meets that of the new on this\npoint, that to both woman\u2019s activity is an end in itself to the extent\nthat her right is independent of whether this activity raises or\nlowers the vital efficiency of the whole organism.\n\nIn everything else the opposition is diametrical, except on the plane\nwhere all the groups meet: in the demand for woman\u2019s juridical and\npolitical equality with man.\n\nThose who demand political rights for woman in return for her liability\nto taxation and her cares as a mother, have a well-founded claim.\nBut the position becomes still stronger when the claim is based upon\nthe need of society that every member of it should co-operate to\nfurther the satisfaction of his own requirements. For modern society\ncorresponds more and more to the idea of an organism increasing in\ncomplexity, every part of which becomes more and more important to the\nwhole, determines more and more by its needs and powers the welfare or\nfailure of the whole, and itself receives more and more profit or harm\nfrom the condition of the whole organism.\n\nSociety means human beings\u2014men, women, and children, dead, living,\nand unborn\u2014neither more nor yet less; human beings banded together in\norder thus the higher to enhance the life of the individual and of all.\nThis combination takes at first simple, then more and more complicated\nforms of organisation: simple, so long as their needs are so, since\nonly his needs move man to organise. An increasing civilisation means\na more and more perfect satisfaction of increasingly complicated\nand higher needs. But as it is our needs that set us in motion, any\nhindrance of movement will also produce immediate suffering through our\nnot being able to get rid of the cause of our displeasure; and indirect\nsuffering through our losing the sense of pleasure that movement might\nhave brought.\n\nWhen the aim of society is seen to be that each of its members shall\nemploy and develop his powers to the highest possible extent for\nthe highest possible ends, then it will no longer be in abstract\nconstructions of constitutional law, but rather in the laws of human\nlife, that the criteria of social well-being will be sought.\n\nThe order of society must then favour the life-enhancement of the\nindividual; the limitation of individual liberty must favour the\nlife-enhancement of the whole\u2014this will be to the evolutionist the\nmotive for now extending, now limiting, the freedom of movement of the\nindividual.\n\nThe parallelism with the human organism is evident. The formation and\nactivity of the individual cells determine the structure of the whole;\nthe degree in which their needs are satisfied determines the well-being\nof the organism. The total vital needs of the organism limit the cells\u2019\nexpansion of force and self-determination, for without the health of\nthe whole organism the cells would also languish.\n\nEvery powerful movement of society\u2014and the demand for women\u2019s\nsuffrage is already such a one\u2014is brought about by the will of many\nindividuals to modify society in some respect, in order better to\nsatisfy their own needs and therewith those of the whole community.\nSuch a movement is always opposed in the beginning from the point of\nview of the agreement, equilibrium, and health of the community. And\nsince a transformation in a society never occurs uniformly in time or\ndegree; since the need of new forms is thus for a long time not widely\nspread, the conservatives, as a rule, are right at the beginning of\ntheir opposition; they are right even until the transformation has been\ntaking place so long that the health of the whole organism demands that\nthe class of society, religious body, or group of opinion in question\nshould be given the freedom of activity without which it is ill at\nease; for the uneasiness of many injures all. Conservatism is thus\nfinally in the wrong by reason of the ever-repeated experience, that\nwhen the vital force is increased in any important organ, it is also\nincreased in the whole organism.\n\nWoman\u2019s suffrage ought above all to be demanded from the point of view\nof the social value, and consequent right to freedom of movement, of\nwoman\u2019s powers. Its opponents answer: \u201cWe never thought of disputing\neither one or the other. Woman has already the same power as man in\ndegree, though not in kind, just as truly as the heart is an organ\nequally essential to life as the brain. But the whole organism would\ngo under, if the heart insisted on usurping the functions of the\nbrain. Woman has become the organ of the emotions in human life\u2014but\nthe emotions cannot have a leading mission in public affairs. In that\nfield woman must either be untrue to herself or lose her significance.\nIt would be an immense loss to civilisation if she were forced into the\npaths of masculine egoism, instead of putting her whole strength into\nthe rearing of future men. Thus new generations of great-minded and\nfar-seeing men would reform society in accordance with woman\u2019s ideals,\nand woman would not lose her ideals in party strife, where the chief\nthing is victory by any means and the end is lost sight of.\u201d \u201cIf,\u201d it\nwas thus said by a thoughtful young working woman,\u2014\u201cif the child saw\nboth its father and mother striving for power, with all the hardness\nand relentlessness this implies, then idealism would soon become\nextinct, whereas, on the other hand, women, by unequivocally making the\nhighest ideal demands upon fathers and brothers, husbands and sons,\ncould bring about by degrees an ideal condition of things.\u201d\n\nThis view, which gives to woman the function of one central organ in\nthe social organism and to man the other, does not, however, correspond\nto the reality. Just as the individual is determined from head to foot\nby his sex, so also is society from top to bottom bi-sexual; every\nfunction of government affects, therefore, all women just as much as\nall men. At present, however, only the latter possess the power of\ndirectly remedying what hinders and furthering what enhances their\nlife, through also taking part in the functions by which they are\naffected.\n\nSince every \u201ccell,\u201d which indirectly or directly makes up the\nsocial organism, is male or female, it is unthinkable that a higher\norganisation of society would not finally of necessity manifest this\nits bi-sexual character. Like the family\u2014the first \u201cState\u201d\u2014it\nis probable that the final State will appear as a unity combining\nthe male and female principles. Or, in other words, it will be a\n\u201cState-marriage,\u201d not as hitherto merely a State-celibacy! Simply by\nperforming the functions themselves, instead of allowing the male\ncells to do so on their behalf, the female cells may now as members\nof society experience their highest possible life-enhancement.\nSo long as women were content to let men represent them, woman\u2019s\nnon-enfranchisement did not disturb the well-being of the organism.\nNow, on the other hand, the disturbance has set in and can be removed\nonly by change. But what the health of the organism demands in the\nhighest degree, is that\u2014when the female cells begin to perform their\nsocial functions\u2014they should preserve their sexual character, for\notherwise no higher form of development would be attained. Not the\nmale sex, but the government of society may with truth be likened to\nits brain, as representation may be compared with its nervous system.\nThe society of the present day suffers from one-sided paralysis, so\nlong as half of it is excluded from the possibility of making known\nits needs through the nervous system. And society suffers from this\ncondition just as much as the body would from a corresponding state.\nWe can best see this by observing that society where the whole body\nis paralysed and only the head acts, namely Russia. There only the\nwounds bear witness that the organism as a whole is alive. But all\nthe societies of Europe now include within themselves a Russia, that\npart of the community which Camilla Collet rightly called \u201cthe Camp of\nSilence.\u201d From the same inner necessity that prompted a number of the\nmen in those countries whose condition once was like that of Russia to\nshake off the care of a parental government and take upon themselves\nthe liberty of making known their own needs, of themselves deciding\nthe conditions for their well-being, must women\u2014and the labouring\nclasses\u2014win this right. This does not mean that the female half will\nwork more perfectly or with less danger than the male. But it means\nthat the whole organism will work more, will fare better, and will\nbe developed to a higher condition. Those at present in possession\nare challenged by women as by working men, when they assert that they\nfully secure the interests of the unrepresented and direct their forces\nsatisfactorily. And it may not be they, contented as they are with\ntheir power and with themselves, but the discontented that we should\nlisten to, if higher conditions are to be attained.\n\nTo these general considerations must be added, in the case of the\nsmaller nations, this: that the more alive and thoroughly active the\nwhole social body is, the more power of resistance it will possess in\nthe struggle for its existence. Those nations, in which every person\ncan protect his own interests in and with those of the community,\nwill\u2014other conditions being equal\u2014surpass the others, as an army of\nathletes would overcome one of invalids.\n\n\nSociety is confronted by tasks of increasing complexity. A force\nhitherto unused, that of woman, now become socially conscious, offers\nits co-operation in dealing with them.\n\nAll thinking persons desire new conditions with growing earnestness.\nBut new conditions do not arise, as the socialist is far too willing\nto believe, through new external relations alone; nor through new\nideas and discoveries, as the man of science with his bias is too apt\nto think. New conditions arise above all through new human beings,\nnew souls, new emotions. Only these form new plans of life, new modes\nof action; only these revalue the objects which are then pursued day\nby day by innumerable individuals. A new idea becomes feeling and\nmotive power, at first with one individual, then with a few, then with\nmany, and finally with all. He who has been able to witness this with\nregard to any particular idea, knows that it comes about as in the\nspring, when first a solitary birch-tree on the sunny side unfolds\nits golden-green banner: then the veil of yellow, reddish-brown, and\ngreen is drawn closer and closer over the grey, till finally all the\ntree-tops are rounded and full, all colours subdued to one shade,\nand one scarcely remembers what it was like in the play of shifting\ncolours, when the wild cherry gleamed white among the green, the\ndandelions spread themselves in wild profusion among the grass, the\nlilies of the valley peeped out from the sheath of their leaves, and\nthe cuckoo called in the summer.\n\nEmotions are the sap which rises when the human landscape thus changes\ncolour and form. Therefore no profound spiritual transformation has\never taken place unless women have taken part in it. It is upon this\ngreat power of woman, already indirectly effective, that we may with\nreason base the hope of her direct exertion of force becoming even more\neffective\u2014if with it she preserves her womanly character.\n\nPrecisely as the stricter sexual morality made woman\u2019s love more\nsoulful\u2014till she can now claim love\u2019s freedom, since she has a new\ncontribution to make therewith\u2014so the hindering of woman\u2019s external\nactivity dammed up her emotional life. Under the division of labour\ninto a \u201cmanly\u201d and a \u201cwomanly\u201d field, woman\u2019s peculiar character became\nmore established; her feeling became intensified in the direction in\nwhich she is now ready to use it in the immediate service of humanity.\nTenderness distinguishes her whole way of thinking and feeling, of\nwishing and working. Thus has she reached that dissimilarity to man,\nwhich she must now maintain in a public capacity.\n\nIt is as natural as it is fortunate that woman should come forward with\nher claims to participation in social duties and social rights just in\nour time, when the idea of interconnection, the sense of solidarity,\nhas become increasingly conscious in every nation, as well as between\nthe nations. For a clearer idea of interconnection will have the effect\nof saving woman from a number of man\u2019s mistakes; a profounder sense of\nsolidarity from a number of woman\u2019s weaknesses\u2014while the best traits\nof the womanly character will be invaluable for intensifying the sense\nof solidarity. The man and woman of the present day have become more\nsensitive to their own sufferings, and this is the first condition for\nbecoming more sensitive to those of others. But now the problem is also\nreally to intensify and to refine the feeling for others to such a\ndegree that the social organism will no longer be able to endure that\nany of its members should suffer a hindrance to life in any avoidable\nway. It is in this respect that woman\u2019s deeper sensitiveness, her\nricher tenderness, are given their great mission. It is true that\u2014as\nwas remarked in connection with the evolution of love\u2014it is becoming\nmore and more impossible to speak of \u201cman\u201d or \u201cwoman\u201d in general, since\nindividualisation makes each sex more and more dissimilar within\nitself, while development makes them more and more mutually alike.\nAverage women and average men have more understanding than feeling. But\nwhen feeling is found in a man, it is more violent and more transitory,\nwhereas it is more intimate and more effective in a woman. The majority\nof men as of women seldom think. But when man and woman think, man\u2019s\nmethod is, as a rule, that of deduction and analysis, woman\u2019s that of\nintuition and synthesis. She unites instinct and reflection as the poet\ndoes: the thought of both forms a connected line of light only in the\nway that a row of lamps seen in perspective does so. Her actions\u2014like\nhis poems\u2014have the unconscious purpose of inspiration.\n\nThese general characteristics are reversed, it is true, in many\nindividual cases. It is thus certain that the most conspicuous\nrevelations of Christian charity have occurred in men. This, however,\ndoes not alter the fact that \u201cthe milk of human kindness\u201d flows more\nrichly in women than in the majority of men.\n\nThis superiority is the natural result of motherliness, which has\ngradually been developed in the female sex into immediate feeling for\nall that is weak and in want of help, all that is budding and growing.\n\nBut it follows from this that if woman, by her participation in public\nlife, is to provide a great, new, progressive element\u2014then not only\nmust she not lose the power of sympathy she already possesses; she\nmust, on the contrary, intensify and extend it. Motherliness is not\nto be found in all those who are already mothers, and we have arrived\nindeed at the strange position that\u2014while man is beginning to see\nhow much society needs the motherly feeling\u2014a number of women are no\nlonger willing to become mothers, since their personal development\nand civil occupation would thus be interfered with. Nothing is more\nnecessary than that woman should be intellectually educated for her new\nsocial mission. But if meanwhile she loses her womanly character, then\nshe will come to the social mission like a farmer with a complete set\nof agricultural implements but no seed.\n\nIn all private activity the individuality is the best seed, while, on\nthe other hand, in the social field women will probably for a long\ntime be most valuable owing to their universal-womanly character;\nfor unfortunately it is still true in public life that individuality\nis frequently a hindrance to co-operation, which takes place rather\nthrough partisanship in interests and views than through the working\ntogether of diverging characters. It is only in rare cases that a\nnon-party man has the chance of interposing in a decision. At present,\nwoman may be able to influence society not as a single personality,\nbut rather as a new and powerful principle, a great contribution of a\nhitherto unemployed element. Doubtless individual women\u2014through mental\nsuperiority, intellectual development, strength of will, and powers\nof work\u2014will bring a great increase of general human value to social\nwork. But it will nevertheless be upon the difference in kind between\nthe nature of man and woman that we must base our hope that women\u2019s\nparticipation in the work of society will have far-reaching results.\n\nWhen women think themselves able to accomplish what the whole aggregate\nof man\u2019s courage, genius, devotion, self-sacrifice, and idealism has\nhitherto not been able to do; when in every difference of opinion on\nman\u2019s and woman\u2019s nature they attribute to him every feminine failing\nin addition to his own, while claiming for themselves all man\u2019s merits,\nthen one can be certain only about woman\u2019s superfluity for the time\nbeing.\n\nWoman\u2019s right to participate in public life would, however, be in a bad\nway, if she could not bring to it something really indispensable, new,\nand peculiar to herself.\n\nThis new thing is her idealism and enthusiasm, however finely and\neasily they may blaze up, since woman is so much more inflammable than\nman, so much more eager to translate her enthusiasm into action.\n\nFor only such an enthusiast and idealist is of account who can carry\nthe flame of his zeal in his bare hand, in spite of burns, keep it\nalight in spite of gusts of wind, and thus step by step come nearer his\nideal. But such enthusiasts and idealists\u2014whether male or female\u2014are\nrare, much rarer than genius. They are the wine and the salt of life,\nwhereas the virtues that the majority can show are only the daily bread\non the table of society.\n\nIf then we look at the majority, the sense of justice in man and the\nfeeling of tenderness in woman may be the greatest virtues. This does\nnot mean that men do not both submit to and commit immense injustices,\nor women immense cruelties. But it means that the feeling which has\nbeen the strongest motive power in man\u2019s public actions\u2014in revolts\nand in revolutions\u2014is the sense of justice, while the feeling of\ntenderness sets a hundred women in motion for one that is moved by an\noutraged sense of justice. Nothing is more common than to hear even\nfrom the lips of a boy the words: \u201cIt served him right\u201d; while from a\ngirl we should hear: \u201cI\u2019m sorry for him anyhow!\u201d\n\nIt is the masculine feeling alone which has decided the structure of\nsociety. Not until woman\u2019s feeling has the same scope as man\u2019s; not\nuntil each can counterbalance what is extreme in the other\u2014his what\nis too weak in hers, hers what is too hard in his\u2014will society in its\nfatherliness and motherliness really provide for the rightful needs of\nall its children.\n\nSomeone has maintained that the social brain in the course of ages\nhas developed more than the individual: by thinking and feeling more\nin common, the capacity has also been increased of finding means for\nfurthering the common weal.\n\nIt is probable that women\u2019s brains will show their efficiency above\nall in finding means of enhancing and preserving life, which has so\nmuch greater significance for woman than for man; for every life has\ncost some woman infinitely more than any man; every mangled body on the\nfield of battle or of labour has once made some woman happy with its\nchild\u2019s smile, and leaves some woman in tears.\n\nBut in order thus to become inventive, women must remain what they\nnow are: passionate in the force of their love, rapidly vibrating;\notherwise they will not counterbalance the partialities of man in\nthe work of civilisation. There are perhaps no more remarkable pages\nin J. S. Mill\u2019s book, _On the Subjection of Women_, than those in\nwhich he maintains the faculty of woman\u2014guided by her individual\nobservation\u2014for intuitively finding a general truth and, unfettered\nby theorising, for unhesitatingly and clear-sightedly applying it in\na particular case. Woman, he says, keeps to reality, while man loses\nhimself in abstractions; she sees what a decision will mean in an\nindividual case, while he loses sight of this in face of the general\ntruths he has abstracted from reality, which he tries to force into\nabstraction. These qualities of woman make her more unflinching, more\nrapid, and more immediate in her actions, while at the same time her\nmore intimate and passionate feeling gives her more perseverance and\npatience in the face of trouble, disappointment, and suffering.\n\nAnd this opinion of Mill is confirmed by that of Ibsen, whose\nfundamental view of woman is precisely that she becomes stronger in\nself-assertion and tenacity of purpose when it is a question of values\nof personality, but at the same time more devoted and self-sacrificing\nin the personal sphere. He regards her as less fettered by religious or\nsocial dogmas, but with greater piety and a deeper sense of community\nthan man; he sees in her more unity between thought and action, a surer\ngrasp of life and more courage to live it. In a word: he thinks that\nwoman more often is something, because she has not tried to be it;\nthat she more often attempts the unreasonable, because she cannot be\nsatisfied with the possible.\n\nThus woman became, not more perfect, but\u2014fortunately for the fulness\nof life\u2014different, when first life differentiated the natural function\nof mother and father; made them into separate beings, neither being\nsuperior or inferior to the other, merely incomparable. It is this\ndifferentiation which must continue\u2014not least in politics; for\notherwise women\u2019s votes would only double the poll, without altering\nthe result, and their participation in politics would thus only be a\nwaste of their precious powers.\n\nThus even in public life woman must preserve the belief in miracles,\nthe courage of apparent foolhardiness which her love gives her; that\ncourage of which the most beautiful images are already to be found in\nnational legends. What private life has taught her, she must now teach\nin turn to public life.\n\nThis is the most difficult of all tasks; for here she must preserve\nthe sudden anger or enthusiasm of her feeling, but purge it of\narbitrariness and injustice. She must trust to her feeling\u2019s\nunconscious sureness of direction, but secure it against the risks of\nfoolhardiness. She must allow her feeling its mobility, but free it\nfrom the connection with caprice and untrustworthiness. She must keep\nher eyes for the individual, but yet be capable of lifting them to the\nuniversal.\n\nTo be able to do all this, woman must be willing to learn of man where\nhe is the stronger, without letting man\u2019s scorn of womanly weaknesses\nor his pretensions to superiority mislead her into seeking a kind of\nstrength which cannot be hers; for she could thus lose only what is\nalready her own.\n\n\nUnfortunately, all the signs are not favourable to the hope that woman\nwill pass through academies and carry on the service of the State\nwithout injury to her rapidity of view, delicacy of observation,\nand liberality of soul. \u201cThe conclusions of science,\u201d \u201cthe laws of\nhistory,\u201d \u201cthe demands of social security,\u201d \u201cthe opportunity of\ncompromise,\u201d and all the other things that men pile up in the way of\nreform, are also alarming to woman\u2019s courage, make her too ask for\nproofs instead of feeling strong in her intuition.\n\nIn the university, the government department, and the business office\nthe soul of woman also may run the risk of becoming tied by red tape,\nofficially dry, amenable to public injustice, sober in the face of\nenthusiasm. Such official and business women will be as apprehensive\nas men of being suspected to be dreamers and agitators; they will be\nas logical in proving the unreasonableness of those who think for the\nfuture. In a word: when women bear men\u2019s burdens they will also get\ntheir bent backs; when they earn their bread in the general field\nof work, their hands will also be hardened. But we may hope\u2014and\neverything depends upon this hope\u2014that woman will attain her social\npower before she has yet lost her special characteristics, and that\nshe will then give her whole mind to bringing about new conditions, in\nwhich she will be able to keep her hands soft and her attitude upright.\n\nIf this hope fails, then woman\u2019s entrance into public life will not\nchange, for a thousand years to come, its tendency to put safety before\nboldness; to allow prudence to chill enthusiasm, facts to clip the\nwings of inspiration, and practical considerations to quench ideas. The\ndemands of humane feeling will continue to be blunted by the sharing of\nresponsibility among many; nay, we shall even see woman uniting herself\nwith the majority in curing the madness of idealists or\u2014if this is\nimpossible\u2014in rendering them harmless.\n\nIt is thus not by hymns of praise in honour of her sex, but by great\nand inexorable claims on herself and on all other women, that each\nindividual woman can best co-operate in the education of her sex for\npublic life. Only the spiritual education that each one gives herself\nwill prevent in the political field false estimates of value and a\nconfused sense of justice; for in truth political life in this respect\ngives nothing to him who has nothing; on the contrary, it is there, if\nanywhere, that the words of the Bible are applicable: from him that\nhath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. Public life in\nitself widens neither the view nor the heart of anyone; of this our\nparish and district councils, our municipalities and our parliament\ngive sufficient evidence.\n\nIt is not only want of education, but in an equal degree\nhalf-education, that has the peculiar shady side; and such is the\neducation still provided for the majority by school and high-school:\nability to pass examinations without formation of personality,\nspecialised knowledge without spiritual culture. The sign of this\nhalf-education is that it swallows up the individuality and makes the\ninstincts shallow.\n\nThis evil will above all be fraught with danger to woman\u2019s peculiar\ngift, intuition. The whole existing plan of education aims at rendering\nmore acute the characteristics of man, and is successful therein,\nso that he is strong though one-sided in his half-education. Woman,\non the other hand, becomes weak in hers, since it detracts from her\ncharacteristics without giving her, however, those of man. We often\nfind in an unlettered woman an instinct for essentiality which the\nhalf-educated have lost or to which at least they no longer dare\nto trust themselves. And, above all, this is true of the qualities\nessential to woman herself. Thus women who are working in the service\nof the community often show their resentment of the gladdening power\nof other, young and attractive, women even within the sphere of\nsocial activity. Only the form and contents of the long catechism\ncould convince them of a young girl\u2019s seriousness. Whether these\nbeauty-haters belong to the pietists of Christianity or to those of the\nwoman\u2019s movement, they are agreed in the opinion that the attractive\nwoman is also the less valuable, and that men show their lack of\ndiscernment in so easily allowing themselves to be charmed by her.\nMan\u2019s sense is, however, not so far wrong, even though he often takes\nappearance for reality. For what man looks for above all in woman\u2014and\nloves most deeply, when he finds it\u2014is the joy of goodness. It is this\nwhich is made visible in all real charm and gains its rightful victory;\nand only when women possess this joy of goodness and know how to\ncommunicate some of its charm to public life, will their participation\nin the latter tend to beautify it.\n\nIn judging of the position of affairs at the present moment we\nought to remember that it is not only mothers-in-law but also\ndaughters-in-law, not only the mistress of the house but also the\ncook, who would receive the franchise. But none of these groups seems\ninclined to regard the others as at present endowed with the greatest\nimaginable perfections\u2014in private life! It may not, therefore, be too\npresumptuous if an outside observer should wonder whether it will be\ngiven to them to exhibit greater perfections in political life.\n\nIn a word, we must remember that developed women are not more numerous\nin proportion to the undeveloped than the former kind of men are to the\nlatter. The same or other prejudices, self-interests, and stupidities,\nwhich on the part of men delay progress, will also stand in its way\non the part of women. Just as one now sees herds of male \u201celectoral\ncattle\u201d in the wrong place, so will one see crowds of electoral\nhens\u2014and the wrong place does not mean either the right or the left,\nbut the place to which one is driven without personal choice and where\none nevertheless remains without a feeling of shame.\n\nWoman will, however, have the advantage of being able to learn from\nman\u2019s mistakes, and she learns more quickly than he. But only the power\nof being one\u2019s self active where one has the responsibility, and the\nright of deciding where one is to act, are educative. Developed women\nwill naturally exhibit one-sidedness, like developed men; not until\neach sex comes forward with its own peculiarities will legislation\nand administration become universal. But universality is not yet\nconnection. Whether one strums with one finger or with all ten on an\ninstrument, this does not make music. Not until each finger does its\nwork\u2014and can play together with the others\u2014does harmony result,\nwhether one is speaking of instrumental or of social music.\n\nBefore social politics have replaced the politics of self-interest and\nclass instinct, it is probable that the vital forces of many will be\nwasted, and among them those of many women, if in the meantime women\nenter political life. But neither the argument that women are too good,\nnor that they are too immature, will weigh heavily in keeping them from\npolitical work; for they will hasten development in the degree in which\nthey preserve their worth; they will attain the maturity they lack in\nthe degree in which they participate in development. Only by being used\ncan tools be gradually adapted and perfected for what they have to do;\nonly by performing its functions does the organ become developed for\nits purpose. And to this must be added the equally weighty argument\nthat the women even now necessary for development are, no more than the\nmen, to be found on one side only of a dividing line of money or birth\nor education. Only the great democratic principle\u2014equal possibilities\nfor all\u2014involves in spite of its defects the best prospect of the\nright man or the right woman arriving in the right place. It is more\nimportant to the community that one man or woman through right of\nelection or eligibility should reach the prominent position for which\nnature intended them, than that a hundred others should make mistakes\nas electors. Even if women are at first on the side of reaction\u2014and in\nSweden this would certainly be the case\u2014their direct influence would\nnevertheless be less dangerous than their indirect and irresponsible\ninfluence is now; for there would be a possibility of their being\nconvinced by public life that, as long as a dominant social and\neconomical group maintains the conditions which make innumerable other\nmembers of society the victims of militarism and industrialism, of\nprostitution and alcoholism\u2014so long will all social work be casting\nseed into the snow. But even if women did not allow themselves to be\nconvinced, but only became a support to those at present in power, this\nstill ought not to be a hindrance to their enfranchisement. Just as\nnothing makes us more persevering than working for justice, so there is\nno better evidence of the purity of our own claims than when we adhere\nto them in spite of our knowledge that their attainment will for a long\ntime be to the advantage, not of ourselves, but of our opponents.\n\n\nEveryone with eyes to see is more and more clearly aware that in our\ntime new paths must be found. Women too are more and more frequently\namong those who see this, although the majority of women, by their\nignorance, their lack of understanding, their petty aims, still place\nobstacles in the way of the pioneer work of their male kinsmen and\nfellow-workers.\n\nBut even among women fully conscious of the importance of social\nquestions, there is little perception of their significance. This\nperception must be raised, but, above all, the idea of collective\nmotherliness must be intensified, by fundamentally distinguishing it\nfrom that of benevolence. The latter may be justified in the individual\ncase. But all social work, which is directed to the whole community,\nmust aim at attaining so far in _right_-thinking that all _well_-doing\nmay disappear. Collective motherliness must act more as an eternal\nsubterranean fire and less as the soaring but soon burnt-out flame of\na sacrifice. It is not enough that the instinct of mutual help and\nsympathy is more immediate in woman than in man. Just as affection is\nnot sufficient for the care of children, if insight into the vital laws\nof the body and soul is lacking, so also do women need an understanding\nof the biology and psychology of society in order to fulfil their\nindividual tasks in national economy, and to understand the problems\nwhich are summed up under the name of social organisation.\n\nOnly thus can sympathy with the victims of society lead women to an\never stronger opposition to the system which permits these sacrifices.\nThey must thus begin\u2014and that very soon\u2014by obtaining power to\nrestrict this, at any rate where it applies to the bringing-up of\nchildren and the education of the young; to places where women work\nor are brought to justice; where the sick and aged are cared for;\nwhere laws are made for all these. The majority of women\u2014who are\nstill on Christian ground\u2014preach at the best charity as the duty of\nthe favoured and patience as that of the unfortunate. But no more\nthan the individual mother will be satisfied with charity for her own\nchild, but will have full justice\u2014which implies full possibilities\nof development, full satisfaction of wholesome needs, full employment\nof personal powers\u2014even so will collective motherliness refuse to be\nsatisfied with less on behalf of any child of the community.\n\nNot until the idea of poor-law relief is exchanged for that of\nself-help, aided by society but without sacrifice of pride, not until\ncharity is exchanged for justice, patience for assertion of rights,\nwill there be a prospect for the many of an existence compatible\nwith human dignity. We need not fear that the virtues of charity and\npatience will therefore disappear: everyone will doubtless have only\ntoo much daily use for them\u2014not only towards God, but towards himself\nand his neighbour.\n\nBut as regards the life of the community their time is gone by\u2014or at\nleast will be so, in proportion as the belief in a fatherly providence\nabove is exchanged for a knowledge of the power of human providence\nupon earth. When women\u2019s brains and hearts begin to exercise this\nprovidence in such a way that their views of life and their social work\nno longer conflict with one another, then and not till then will these\nbrains and hearts become a reforming force.\n\nNow, for instance, the majority of women are afraid of socialism, as\nto which however only one opinion should prevail: that as a party\npolicy in the near future it is the most indispensable motive power\nof development, while as a principle\u2014when cleared of the mutually\nconflicting dogmas of different schools\u2014in its widest meaning it\nexpresses the ever firmer coalescence of society into an ever more\nintimate unity, in which the sincere assurance of the old hymn, \u201cthe\ngood of one, the good of all,\u201d will gradually be realised in and\nthrough the whole organisation of society. When this has made the\nfine image of the suffering of every member through that of one come\ntrue\u2014then will the social State be attained.\n\nThe fear of socialism now hinders the leading women of the upper\nclasses from supporting the others in conflicts which can result only\nin the victory of the cause they themselves wish to further. They are\nalarmed at the mere word _claims_, behind which they see the great\nhosts of the labouring classes streaming on with their red flags. They\ntherefore prefer to speak of the duty of voting rather than of the\nright to vote. They hope it may be possible to carry on politics as\npeacefully as a college of teachers, that a public meeting may be as\namenable to discipline as a school class. But this lack of a sense of\nproportion misses both the end and the means.\n\nWomen are thus desirous\u2014and with full reason\u2014of abolishing\nprostitution. But the first condition is a wholesale raising\u2014for at\nleast fifty per cent. a doubling\u2014of the present wages of working women\nand shop assistants. This increase can take place only by means of\ntrade-unions, and then strikes will be necessary. But the Christian\nchampions of the woman\u2019s movement have a horror of both these things.\n\nThe latter desire\u2014and with full reason\u2014to stop the abuse of\nintoxicating liquors. But they do not see that this is not to be\nbrought about by prohibitions and tea-meetings; that only by better\nopportunities and an increased appetite for the joys of home comfort,\neducation, beauty, and nature can the intoxication of life take the\nplace of the intoxication of alcohol. But these enhanced possibilities\nof life will result only from the stubbornly waged class-war, of which\nChristian women in general disapprove.\n\nA number of women wish to abolish war. But the same women are not able\nin education to renounce those kinds of forcible methods which keep\nalive crude passions and low ideas of justice; they still believe\nthat the souls of children are to be cleansed like mats, by beating.\nIt is in vain that all the most eminent educationalists, as well as\nmany of the foremost criminologists of our time, have again and again\ncondemned corporal punishment\u2014which one of the greatest contemporary\nauthorities on jurisprudence has called the \u201cfruitless bloodshed\u201d\nof the centuries\u2014since experience has incontrovertibly shown that\nphysical fear never produces morality in the true sense of the term.\nWomen, however, continue to lighten their work in the nursery by\nemploying fear. In other words, they themselves practise\u2014and train\ntheir children in\u2014acts of violence, such as correspond in the life of\nnations to the wars these very women wish to abolish.\n\nThese examples might be multiplied. They do not prove that woman is\nmore ignorant or more inconsistent than man in her social activity.\nBut they prove that women, like men, will be of very little value in\ntheir public capacity, so long as they follow the methods of piece-work\nrather than of continuity.\n\n\nTo begin with, therefore, it would seem that individual women, and not\nthe majority of the sex, will represent that collective motherliness\nwhich is to be at the same time far-seeing and warm-hearted. And these\nwomen can no more expect to go on from one victory to another, than\ncan individual men. Those who\u2014with their souls glowing against all\ninjustice, their hearts warm and anxious with sympathy\u2014enter into\ncold reality, must be prepared to experience what has been the lot of\ninnumerable reformers in thought and action among the other sex: that\nthey have won the best for themselves\u2014martyrdom; but not the best\nfor society\u2014victory. And it is a poor consolation that it is often\nthe best who become martyrs and the next best who are victorious. The\nformer are those who throw themselves into the fight, urged by justice\nor love of humanity or passion for liberty\u2014without asking themselves\nwhether they will conquer, or at least without knowing what will be the\nanswer to this question. The latter again are usually those who within\nthemselves have answered it in the affirmative; for this conviction of\nsuccess gives them the power of arraying an army behind them, and the\ncourage to inspire it.\n\nThe precursors among women will also find out how unspeakably difficult\nit is to aristocratise the democracy, which does not mean simply\ncleaner hands and better manners, but purer actions and finer thoughts.\nAnd if they retain their sensitiveness\u2014as they must\u2014the leading women\nwill thus have to suffer not only from their own wounds, but from the\nshame of seeing so many of their own sex as incapable as the men of\nsacrificing their own advantage\u2014or the imaginary advantages of their\ncountry\u2014when humanity and justice demand it. And it will be the fate\nof these women\u2014as of so many men before them\u2014that the pure will, the\nrich personality, which cannot bend, will be forced to break.\n\nEveryone who has had anything to do with politics must have seen\nsomething of these tragedies in which a noble heart is broken piece by\npiece, and know how cruel these bloodless struggles really are.\n\nWill the best women endure to witness such tragedies? Will they endure\nto see how year by year politics and the press\u2014indirectly, if not\ndirectly, under the sway of financial interest\u2014succeed in producing\nthe greatest possible number of half-measures and the greatest possible\namount of stagnation, accompanied by inevitable self-surrender on the\npart of the best, and unconditional self-satisfaction on the part of\nthe others? Will they endure seeing how in questions of culture, where\nselfishness can mean nothing, omniscient stupidity decides the great\nvital interests of the nation?\n\nA gathering of people on great national festivals can together feel\nand act more greatly than each individual for himself. But in the\neveryday life of nations the individual is often better than he becomes\nin co-operation with others. What collective stupidity, collective\ncowardice, and collective untruthfulness together produce without shame\nin public life, would cause almost everyone who makes up the mass\nto hesitate in his private life. To rescue the effectiveness of the\nprivate conscience\u2014but at the same time to preserve the power of the\ncollective conscience for great moments\u2014this should be the great task\nof political morality.\n\n\nWomen must be prepared to find that their participation in public life\nwill cost them, not only various unjustified prejudices, but also many\nhardships. They must, moreover, understand that it will take much time\naway from their home; for the whole thing is not so simple as merely\nhanding in one\u2019s voting-paper, reading the leading article instead of\nthe feuilleton, and going to an election meeting instead of to supper.\nIf one hands in a voting-paper without knowing how one has voted,\none\u2019s participation is of no great importance. If one wants to know\nhow one is voting, this involves the sacrifice of time; and when once\none has begun to take part in public affairs, one is often forced by\ncircumstances further and further into their vortex.\n\nFathers of families, who \u201ctake up\u201d politics, are even now the despair\nof those families. And what if mothers of families begin likewise?\n\nThis is the kernel of the question. As mother of a family the woman\nwho takes part in politics must make her choice between an outward\ndirection of her activities which will be unfortunate for the home and\nchildren and a lack of independence which will be personally painful to\nher. She can sacrifice her private pleasures, not her private duties.\nBut it is this latter temptation which will present itself to the woman\nof the poorer classes. The wife of a working man wants to go to an\nelection meeting with her husband\u2014but what of the little children?\nThere is no servant. The neighbour\u2019s wife? She too wants to go to the\nmeeting. The cr\u00e8che? It is closed in the evening, for its manageress\nalso takes an interest in public affairs! There is therefore no way out\nof it but that the wife must be content with her husband\u2019s judgment.\n\nIn the suffrage question\u2014as always when it was a question of woman\u2019s\nrights\u2014attention has been too one-sidedly directed to the point of\nview of the unmarried woman of the upper class. But these are so far\nfrom being the most important that we might rather assert that a\nmother of the working class, who\u2014with all the trouble and privations\nthis involves for her\u2014has cared well for her children both bodily\nand spiritually, has made a happy home for them and her husband and\ntherewithal has acquired for herself education and insight in social\nquestions, affords so extraordinary a social power, that the most just\nof proportional suffrage methods would be to give her\u2014and all other\nmothers of remarkable children\u2014a double vote.\n\nWe are here again faced by the difficulty already pointed out: that\nit is precisely the most excellent women, the most indispensable for\nthe task, who will have to choose between the duties of collective\nmotherliness and those of motherhood, as well as between the latter and\nthose of individual development. During her children\u2019s earlier years no\nmother can well fulfil both these motherly calls. She will be forced to\nacknowledge that, if anyone could be said to cross the river to fetch\nwater\u2014and with one of the Danaids\u2019 pitchers at that\u2014then it would be\none who should set aside her children for her social mission.\n\nHere and there we already meet one or another of these strong, proud,\nand beautiful mothers of the twentieth century, who have lost nothing\nof their full-blooded womanliness, but rather doubled it through a\npersonal quality which year by year embraces the kernel of their being\nmore closely.\n\nHuman being and woman, citizen and personality\u2014less than this the\nsocial mother of the future cannot be. She has destroyed all bridges\nwhich might take her back to the womanly ideal of older times: the\npowerful but narrow-minded housekeeper, the thoughtlessly devoted\nwife. But at the same time she has nothing in common with the\nshort-sighted woman\u2019s rights woman, who takes pride in being a restless\nworking-machine or a specialist rewarded by diplomas but otherwise\nhalf-educated.\n\nShe has learned something from the older as well as from the new type.\nBut she resembles neither, for only completeness of life is to her the\nmeaning of life.\n\n\nMany a little girl, leaning over her history book, must have been\nindignant at the way humanity used to be reckoned in past times: so\nmany men\u2014\u201cbesides women and children\u201d!\n\nIt was long before women began to be counted at all, and they are still\nonly half-counted. Children are still under \u201cbesides.\u201d But some day we\nmay perhaps have come so far in our feeling for what is coming on, that\nwe shall invert the order and reckon \u201cso many children\u2014besides women\nand men.\u201d We shall then give evidence in our treatment of children of\nour reverence for these profoundly wise and mysterious beings, whom\nwe never fathom. We shall see behind the figure of every child the\ninfinite line of past generations, before it the equally endless ranks\nof those to come. We shall remember in our actions that the child is\nthe sum of these dead ones, the hope of those unborn. We shall let the\nchild reveal itself and receive its revelations with a discretion at\npresent unsuspected.\n\nThe tragedies of the childish soul are still waiting for their\nShakespeare, although the child is already appearing in literature as\nnever before. And here, as ever, literature is the precursor of the\ngreat movement of liberty which shall bring the children\u2019s declaration\nof rights and make an end of the spiritual and bodily ill-treatment of\nchildren, which must appear to the future as monstrous as negro slavery\ndoes to us. It may be that children too will have their right to vote,\nas well as their own representatives in the legislature and in the\ncourts of law.[6]\n\nIt should be the collective mothers who would thus finally liberate\nthe children of society. It will then be seen that the octave of the\nchild\u2019s soul was just as indispensable as that of woman or man, in\norder that the great harmony of humanity might be complete.\n\nWhen this happens the third kingdom will have arrived, whose Messiah\nthe age now awaits. But it is not in the lap of collective motherliness\nthat he will be borne.\n\nAgain and again saviours will be born to humanity. But always of some\nyoung woman with forehead pure as a lily and deep eyes. And Bethlehem\nwill always be there, where a young mother kneels in prayer by her\nchild\u2019s cradle.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nFREE DIVORCE\n\n\nThe desire of the young to abolish prostitution by means of love\u2019s\nfreedom has already been adduced as one of the proofs of the higher\ndevelopment of sexual morality. Another such proof is the desire of the\npresent day to abolish adultery by means of free divorce.\n\nThe preachers of monogamy are afraid that this desire will prepare\nthe way for an open polygamy, instead of that which at present is\nat least secret. In the press and in the pulpit, in schoolrooms and\nlecture-rooms, modern literature is blamed for this \u201cnew immorality.\u201d\n\nAnd yet we all know that long before our time, married men and their\nsons in country houses were too often ready to seduce the wives and\ndaughters of their dependents as well as the servants of the house.\nThe wives and mothers of these gentlemen were frequently not ignorant\nof this\u2014but they were praised for their wisdom when they pretended to\nsuspect nothing. It was a matter of common knowledge that not a few\nmarried men and married women had mistresses and lovers within their\nown social circle; and every one knew that in the towns many men,\nduring or before marriage, had illegitimate families.\n\nSerious preachers of morality doubtless reply that they no more condone\nthis secret adultery than they would an open one; that they see in\none and the other a manifestation of that power of sin which only\nreligion can vanquish. We have the right then to ask, whether within\ntheir own ranks\u2014among clergymen, missionaries, readers\u2014no similar\ntransgressions occur.\n\nThe honest ones answer Yes, but point out that this causes shame\namong their fellow-Christians, and that these believers themselves\nacknowledge that they have sinned. Such men of the world, who play\nthe hypocrite to retain their respectability, do the same thing. But\nthe great danger to society first comes in when free-thinkers with no\nqualms of conscience commit, and authors without moral indignation\ndescribe, the sin. This it is that degrades the ideal of morality.\n\nHere we are at the very cross-roads of the old and the new morality.\n\nThe champions of the latter go on to ask whether all\nadulterers\u2014children of this world as well as children of God\u2014in their\ninnermost consciousness really feel themselves to be sinners. The need\nwhich impelled them was perhaps so imperious that it justified them\nbefore their own conscience in choosing a lesser evil in preference to\na greater, when\u2014from one cause or another\u2014they could not or ought\nnot to satisfy the need in their marriage.\n\nAnd if this be so, then the exponents of the new morality may have\ngrounds for their opinion: that self-control cannot and must not be the\nonly answer to all the problems of sexual life; that a solution must\nbe found which shall by degrees prevent men from wasting, either in\nunchastity or in a celibacy disguised as marriage, the strength which\nbelongs to the race. The solution can only be this, that we not only\nassert love\u2019s freedom to unite without external tie, but also man\u2019s\nright more freely than at present to loosen the tie, when real union is\nno longer possible.\n\nWhen speaking of love\u2019s selection, it was put forward that a growing\ninsight into the value and conditions of the enhancement of the race\nmight produce cases where a marriage could be openly broken without\ntherefore being dissolved. But the true line of development will quite\ncertainly be this: that divorce will be free, depending solely on\nthe will of both parties or of one, maintained for a certain time;\nthat public opinion as regards a dissolved marriage will take the\nbroader view that it has already acquired in the question of a broken\nengagement, which at one time was thought just as humiliating as a\ndivorce is now.\n\nWith ever-growing seriousness the new conception of morality is\naffirmed: that the race does not exist for the sake of monogamy, but\nmonogamy for the sake of the race; that mankind is therefore master of\nmonogamy, to preserve or to abolish it.\n\nEven the advocates of free divorce know well enough that it will\ninvolve abuses. But at the same time they know that there is no better\nproof of man\u2019s incredible indolence of mind than the uneasiness\nproduced by the thought of possible abuses resulting from a new\nsocial form, while the ancient abuses are tolerated with the dullest\ntranquillity.\n\nWhatever abuses free divorce may involve, they cannot often be worse\nthan those which marriage has produced and still produces\u2014marriage,\nwhich is degraded to the coarsest sexual habits, the most shameless\ntraffic, the most agonising soul-murders, the most inhuman cruelties,\nand the grossest infringements of liberty that any department of modern\nlife can show.\n\nWe may answer that abuses do not prove anything against the value of\nany particular social arrangement, so long as its right use serves well\nthe purpose for which it was introduced.\n\nThe majority thinks that this is still the case with marriage. The\nminority, on the other hand, considers that its constraint now tends to\ndefeat its original object, an enhanced sexual morality.\n\nThis minority thinks that, as soon as love is admitted as the moral\nground of marriage, it will be a necessary consequence that he who has\nceased to love should be allowed a moral as well as a legal right to\nwithdraw from his marriage, if he chooses to avail himself of this\nright.\n\nAnd this same minority is aware that love may cease, independently of\na person\u2019s will; that therefore no one can be held to the terms of a\npromise, the performance of which lies outside his powers.\n\nNothing is more natural than that love\u2019s longing for eternity should\nprompt lovers to vows of eternal fidelity; nothing is more true than\nthat it is a satanic device of society to seize upon this promise and\nbase thereon a legal institution (Carpenter). Nothing is more necessary\nthan to abolish the legal claims that people have on one another,\nsupported by promises of love and vows of fidelity.\n\nThe more people understand the laws of their own being, the more will\nthe conscientious begin to hesitate about making promises which perhaps\nsome day they will be forced by inner necessity to break. An increasing\nnumber of people find it impossible to contract marriage, or to ask it\nof the other party\u2014or to continue in marriage or ask its continuance\nof the other\u2014when their love has died or has awakened for another. A\ngeneration ago, an engaged person could refuse his or her betrothed\u2019s\npetition for liberation with the answer that he or she had love enough\nfor both. In corresponding circles at the present day, such a speech\nis unthinkable. But then a public engagement was still regarded as a\nbinding tie and the marriage took place. After a long engagement it\nwas a \u201cpoint of honour\u201d for the man not to let a woman run the risk\nof being unmarried, and she was satisfied if he only paid his debt of\nhonour.\n\nSuch coarseness of feeling is fortunately becoming more and more rare,\nalthough it is far from disappearing. People see more and more that\nthey have no more right to marry simply to fulfil a duty of fidelity\nthan they have to steal in order to fulfil a duty of maintenance; that\nthere is no more obligation to abide by a marriage which one feels to\nbe one\u2019s ruin than there is a duty to commit suicide for the sake of\nanother.\n\nThe love of older times was above all afraid that the other party\nshould not feel sufficiently bound. The finest erotic feeling of the\npresent day shudders at the idea of becoming a bond; trembles at pity\nand recoils from the possibility of becoming a hindrance. This state of\nthe soul knows of no other right than that of perfect candour. To place\nlegal limits to each other\u2019s liberty, so that neither shall cause pain\nto the other, is under these conditions meaningless; for each suffers\njust as much through a union maintained without full reciprocity.\n\nThus the question of divorce presents itself to modern souls, in cases\nwhere there are no children. And when there are children\u2014as is of\ncourse the rule\u2014they think that the mistakes of parents do not absolve\nthem from the duty of co-operating in the rearing of the children to\nwhom they have given life.\n\nBut they maintain that this need not always be effected by means of\ncontinued cohabitation. On the other hand, this may often be necessary,\nand in such cases they subordinate their personal claims of happiness\nto those of the race. One who holds these opinions regards him who\ngives the same answer in every case\u2014whether this answer be \u201cfreedom at\nany price\u201d or \u201crenunciation at any price\u201d\u2014simply as a moral automaton.\n\n\nIt is true that modern men and women are less able to bear unhappiness\nin marriage than were those of former times. This shows that connubial\nidealism makes greater demands than formerly.\n\nThe conscious will to live, of our time, revolts against the\nmeaningless sufferings through which the people of bygone days, above\nall the women, allowed themselves to be degraded, benumbed, and\nembittered. A finer knowledge of self, a stronger consciousness of\npersonality, now puts a limit to one\u2019s own suffering, since the danger\nis understood of taking hurt in one\u2019s soul. This determination of\nindividualism makes it impossible for the modern woman to be fired by\nthe ideal of Griselda\u2014if for no other reason, because she feels how\nall-suffering meekness increases injustice. The \u201cgood old\u201d marriages,\nsustained by the willing sacrifice of wives, are disappearing\u2014that is\nhappily true! But no one takes notice of the new good ones that are\ncoming in their place. If those who now grudgingly reckon up divorces\nwould also count all happy marriages, it would be seen that new\nformation has proceeded further than dissolution.\n\nIt must be evident that the question of divorce is the pursuance of the\nline of development of Protestantism. With the formation of a right\nand a left party, as usual in the treatment of a problem of culture,\nthe Reformation succeeded only in asserting the right of the senses in\nhuman life. That it is the right of the soul in sexual life that is now\nmost intimately affected by the question, people will not understand.\nAgainst the right of the individual they set up that of the child. If\nthere is none, then a certain number of Christians are willing to admit\nthat divorce is sometimes justified. Unhappy parents, on the other\nhand, must remain together for the sake of the children.\n\nBut the erotically noble person of the present day cannot, without the\ndeepest sense of humiliation, belong to one he does not love, or by\nwhom he knows he is not loved. Thus for one or both of the parties a\nmarriage that is persisted in without the love of one or both causes\nprofound suffering either through this humiliation or through lifelong\ncelibacy.\n\nThis is the kernel of the question, which is avoided by all who, in\ntheir care for the children, forget that the parents must nevertheless\nbe considered as an end in themselves. It is not asked that for the\nsake of the children they should commit other crimes; thus a woman who\ncommitted forgery to support her child would be disapproved of. But\nother women are judged leniently who \u201cfor the sake of their children\u201d\nfeel themselves prostituted year after year in their marriage.\n\nThat married people are to be found who continue to live as friends,\nsince the erotic needs of both are small; that others do not feel the\nhumiliation of cohabitation without love; that the former as well\nas the latter are probably acting best for the children in keeping\ntogether a home for them\u2014this does not prevent others under similar\ncircumstances from suffering in such a way that life loses all its\nvalue. And these are they who end either in adultery or divorce.\n\nEven if an enemy of divorce admits these difficulties, he replies,\nthat the individual must still suffer for his erotic as for his other\nmistakes, since only so can people be taught not to commit mistakes.\n\nBut the true state of the case may be, that just as in old times\nmurders increased in proportion to the number of executions people\nwitnessed, so unhappy marriages may become more frequent, the more\nthere are at present; for it is, above all, the whole spirit that\nprevails around us which determines our action. If the young are\naccustomed to see their elders content with false and ugly relations,\nthey will learn to be so likewise. If they see around them an\naspiration towards ideal conditions in love\u2014an idealism which is\nrevealed now in a beautiful married life, now in the dissolution of\none that is not beautiful\u2014then their ideals will also be lofty. Those\nagain, who have once made a mistake, will perhaps be more clear-sighted\nif they choose again.\n\nBut neither those who make mistakes nor those who witness them can be\nsaved by the misfortunes of others from that great source of error,\nerotic illusion. And until erotic sympathy has become more refined,\nthese mistakes are the most innocent of all. Every lover believes\nhimself to be exempted from the sacrifice of illusion and no experience\nof the irretrievable erotic mistakes of others has ever opened the eyes\nof one blinded by love.\n\nAs it is recognised that society ought to make the lives of all as\nvaluable as possible, this involves the claim that innocent mistakes\nshould cause as little ruin as need be.\n\nIn marriage as in other fields, the modern principle must be put in\nforce, that punishment should improve the faulty and prepare the way\nfor a higher idea of justice. But this higher idea is that marriage\nshould be contracted under gradually improving conditions, not that it\nshould continue under gradually deteriorating influences.\n\nMarriage under constraint forces people to continue their cohabitation\nand to bring children into the world in a revolt of the soul which\nmust leave its mark in their children\u2019s nature and thus influence\ntheir future destiny. But this is not a \u201cwell-deserved punishment\u201d\nfor a mistake: it is the profoundest violation of the sanctity of the\npersonality and of the race.\n\nHere as ever the only logical alternative is full individual liberty or\nunconditional surrender.\n\nThe Catholic Church maintains\u2014and rightly from its own point of\nview\u2014that, since even marriages entered into with the warmest love\nand under the most favourable conditions may turn out unhappily, it is\nimpossible to base the morality of marriage on the emotion of love.\nNothing that is founded upon emotion can be permanent. Nay, the richer,\nthe more individually and universally developed a personality is, the\nless immutable will be the state of its soul. Thus even the highest\nneed an inflexible law, an irremovable tie, to prevent their being at\nthe mercy of winds and waves through their emotions, while inferior\nbeings need them so as not to be driven out of their course by their\ndesires. The concessions of Protestantism, therefore, lead to the\ndissolution of marriage, since when love is made the basis of marriage\nit is built upon sand.\n\nMarriage, which the Church therefore made a sacrament and indissoluble,\nhad already become the legal expression of the husband\u2019s right of\nprivate ownership over his wife and children. The course of development\nhas consisted in an unceasing transformation of this religio-economical\nview, and development cannot stop until the last remnant of this\nconception has been destroyed.\n\nTherefore the believers in Life refuse to admit either the\nhalf-admissions of Protestantism or the logical compulsion of\nCatholicism. They demand that the step from authority to freedom shall\nbe taken outright, since they know that the external authority which\nsimplifies life does not create the deeper morality. Compulsion fetters\nlegal freedom of action, but thereby only makes secret crime a social\ninstitution.\n\nAnd even if a husband or a wife has outwardly overcome a temptation,\nthis will not prevent that individual when in the embrace of the lawful\nspouse from being filled with feeling for another. Have they then\navoided adultery? Not according to their own finest consciousness\u2014that\nconsciousness which Goethe aroused in his great poem on elective\naffinities. Duties performed may as surely as those left undone produce\nincalculable and tragic results. They are foolish who think they can\nlead another soul across the bridge, fine as a hair and sharp as a\nknife-edge, by which every one goes his solitary way over the abyss to\nsalvation: the way of the choice of personal conscience.\n\nWhen custom and law deprive a human being of full freedom of choice in\nthe matters of most profound personal concern\u2014his belief, his work,\nand his love\u2014then existence is robbed of greater values than those the\ncompulsory fulfilment of duty can bring in.\n\n\nIn love, the idea of personality has now brought us to the view that\n\u201cproperty is theft\u201d; that only free gifts are of value; that the ideas\nof connubial \u201crights\u201d and \u201cduties\u201d are to be exchanged for the great\nreconstructive thought, that fidelity can never be promised, but that\nindeed it may be won every day.\n\nThis will give the motive power for the attainment of ever higher\nforms of erotic organisation a power which the Buddha-like calm of\nindissoluble marriage has left unused.\n\nIt is sad that this truth\u2014which was already clear to the noble minds\nof the Courts of Love\u2014should still need proclaiming; for one of the\nreasons given in these Courts for love being impossible in marriage is\nthis: that woman cannot expect from her husband the delicate conduct\nthat a lover must show, since the latter only receives by favour what\nthe husband takes as his right.\n\nWhen divorce becomes free, the attention to each other\u2019s emotions, the\ndelicacy of conduct and the desire to captivate by being always new,\nwhich belong to the period of engagement, will be continued in married\nlife. As in the early days of love, each will allow the other full\nfreedom in all essential manifestations of life, but will exercise\ncontrol over his own casual moods, whereas marriage now as a rule\nreverses this happy state of things.\n\nThe security of possession now puts to sleep the eagerness of\nacquisition; the compulsion to win anew will brace the energy in this\nas in every other connection.\n\nA fidelity thus won will be the only sort that will be thought worth\nhaving in the future. A craving for happiness more sensitive than the\npresent may one day marvel at the legally insured fidelity of our\ntime, as at its inheritance of wealth. In both cases it will have been\nseen that only one\u2019s exertion of force brings happiness and gives that\nfelicity of victory before which hands stretched out to steal shrink\nback.\n\nThe believers in Life are everywhere distinguished by their\ndetermination to give to every relation the value of the unique, the\nstamp of the exceptional, that which has never been before and will\nnever come again. Like the worshippers of Life of the Renaissance,\nthose of our time have begun to recover the power of strong enjoyment\nand strong suffering which is always the sign of increasing spiritual\nunity, a new gathering of force through a new religious feeling.\n\nTo this view of life the permanence of happiness will be less important\nthan its completeness while it lasts.\n\nSpinoza, who described jealousy as no one else has done, has also\nuttered this deep saying of love: The greater the emotion we hope that\nthe loved one will experience through us, and the more the loved one is\nmoved by joy in his relation to us, the greater also will be our own\nhappiness in love.\n\nPeople of the present day have begun to distinguish the idea of this\n\u201cgreatest joy\u201d from lifelong proprietorship; and therewith jealousy in\nits lower form has begun to disappear.\n\nJealousy like other shadows belongs to the rising and setting light and\ndisappears like them in the full clearness of noonday. But its tone\nof feeling has become quite different since man has discovered that,\nif the sun stands still in the zenith for him, it is a miracle\u2014not a\nright. The most highly developed people of the present day say \u201cI am\nloved\u201d or \u201cI am not loved\u201d with the same simplicity as they say the sun\nshines or does not shine. The difference is in both cases immeasurable,\nbut in one case as in the other, necessity removes the feeling of\nhumiliation. The grief which comes when a lover no longer feels that he\nbrings joy to the beloved or when he sees another bring it, is natural\nand worthy of respect. It ceases to be so when it manifests itself in\nthe will of an avaricious proprietor, the brutal instinct which often\nsurvives not only the feeling of the other but also its own.\n\nBut although the psychological differentiation in our time involves\ngreater possibilities of finding some one who will satisfy some side of\nthe erotic longing,\u2014while it is more and more difficult to find one\nwho wholly satisfies this ever more complex desire,\u2014the danger of such\ndivision of self is counterbalanced by the growing wish for the longing\nto be wholly satisfied. Love by thus making ever greater demands\nbecomes at the same time ever more faithful.\n\nThose who dread the dissolution of society through the insistence upon\nthe rights of love, do not reflect that its right to break up marriage\nis allowed to the feeling, which has not only the red glow of passion,\nbut also the clearness through which two people have become conscious\nof each other as a revelation of the whole unsuspected richness of\nlife. A revelation which included all the fulness of comprehension,\nall the serenity of confidence; where both have given with equal\nexactingness and generosity\u2014not meagrely or hesitatingly, but so that\neach without reserve has rushed to meet the other\u2014this is the only\nhappiness that love\u2019s noblemen will now experience. It will be more and\nmore difficult even to experience it once\u2014how much more so then to\nfind it many times!\n\nA great love is never like the erotic thunderstorms which move against\nthe wind\u2014that is to say, against the whole disposition of the\npersonality in other things.\n\nAll valuable feelings\u2014whether entertained for a person, a belief, a\nplace, or a country\u2014are conservative. The consciousness of this gives\nthe preacher of liberty his boldness. He never perceives how liberty\nmay be abused, since he knows what it costs to loosen a heart from what\nit has once embraced.\n\nTo a volatile nature, the happiness that a more steadfast one\nexperiences in love is as unfathomable as the bliss of the mystic\nbecoming absorbed into the fulness of his divinity is to the polytheist.\n\nHere, as everywhere, to the believer in Life, happiness is one with\nmorality. Since happiness consists in the greatest emotions, its first\ncondition is to intensify and enlarge all feelings, and above all that\nwhich leads to marriage.\n\nBut in addition, the whole standard of personality depends to a great\nextent upon whether we consider fidelity a life-value. He who desires\nfidelity centres his moods and his powers upon what is essential and\nprotects them from the gusts of the accidental. Only this gives style\nand greatness to existence. The desire of fidelity is therefore one\nwith a person\u2019s feeling for his own integrity, his inward consistency,\nthe attitude and dignity of his spiritual being.\n\nWhen fidelity is preserved for these profound reasons, it will also be\nbroken only for the same reasons. A fidelity, on the other hand, which\nrests upon conventional notions of duty, will be in the fire like a\nfire-escape of straw.\n\nIt is moreover forgotten, in all discussions of the dangers of free\ndivorce, that under the influence of love the whole disposition of\nthe soul is towards fidelity. Great love absorbs all associations of\nideas and thus without conscious exertion intensifies and enlarges the\npersonality. Fidelity will be a necessary condition of love, but a\ncondition whose psychological continuance is not favoured by coercive\nmarriage.\n\nFidelity towards one\u2019s self\u2014also in the new sense of the word\u2014thus\ninvolves not only the ability in case of need to destroy the bridge\nbetween one\u2019s self and one\u2019s past. It also implies the building of\nbetter bridges to strengthen the connection between our personality\nand our present. It implies not only the capacity to have finished\nwith a destiny; but also that of not having done too soon with a\nperson. It may certainly involve the necessity of a new experiment\nin life. But still more certainly it involves the need of not\nallowing the incidental numbness of one\u2019s feeling to seduce one\nto new \u201cexperiences.\u201d This expression\u2014in place of the old word\n\u201cadventures\u201d\u2014implies, moreover, an intensification of feeling: where\nformerly only the excitement of \u201cadventure\u201d was looked for, a richer\nelement of life is now sought. But it is often a fatal error to suppose\nthat this is to be gained in new relations, when on the contrary it\nmight have been won by an intensification of the former ones. By more\nattention to and respect for the other\u2019s personality one may often\ndiscover more than one had expected; for some people are like certain\nlandscapes or works of art: they do not begin to make an impression\nuntil one thinks one has done with them. But piety is required to await\nthe revelations of soul as of a work. Piety implies contemplation, and\nthis demands peace. But peace is difficult to find in our time, whose\nmisfortune is precisely disturbance and amusement.\n\nThat our time like every other has its particular epidemics in the\nerotic sphere, is certain, and disturbance is just the condition\nin which the most dangerous of these find a favourable soil. It is\ntherefore a part of the erotic art of living that a married couple\nshould now and then pass some time undisturbed in each other\u2019s\ncompany\u2014or separately and alone\u2014in order thus to strengthen the\nhealth of their feelings. Here as in other things external precautions\nagainst infection are unimportant in comparison with care of the\ngeneral health.\n\nOnly he who, after unceasing effort and patient self-examination, can\nsay that he has used all his resources of goodness and understanding;\nput into his married life all his desire of happiness and all his\nvigilance; tried every possibility of enlarging the other\u2019s nature, and\nyet has been unsuccessful,\u2014only he can with an easy conscience give up\nhis married life.\n\n\nThe life-tree of a human being is formed, no more than are the trees\nof the forest, according to a strict measure for the length of the\nbranches or a pattern for the shape of the leaves. Like nature\u2019s\ntrees, its beauty depends upon the freedom of the boughs to take\nunexpected curves, upon the disposition of the leaves to exhibit an\ninfinite diversity of shape. Only he who does not permit the tree to\ngrow according to its own inner laws, but clips it according to those\nof gardening, can be sure of not preparing surprises for himself and\nothers, when one branch unexpectedly shoots out and another equally\nunaccountably withers. No one can answer for the transformations to\nwhich life thus may subject his own nature; nor for the changes which\nthe transformation of another\u2019s nature may effect in his own feeling.\nHe may possess the rarest disposition to fidelity, the most sincere\ndesire to concentrate himself upon his love, to \u201clet his personality\ngrow around it, as about its core\u201d\u2014it nevertheless does not depend\nupon his will alone whether this core shall shrivel or be corrupted.\n\nTherefore the desire of fidelity can not, must not, and ought not to\nimply more than the will to be true to the deepest needs of one\u2019s own\npersonality.\n\nIn other spheres than that of love, people admit this freely. Nobody\nconsiders it an unquestionable duty for a young man to find at once\nthe view of life or the career in which he can continue for the rest\nof his life. What young people are rightly warned against is the\nwandering without method among different opinions or undertakings; for\nonly that belief or that work which one seriously tries to live by\nand live for can really employ the powers of the personality and thus\nshow its efficacy in enhancing them. But the most profound seriousness\ncannot prevent a continued development of the personality from one day\ncompelling the man to abandon that belief or that work. It probably\nwould not occur to a thoughtful clergyman to appeal to such a man\u2019s\npromises at confirmation, or to a thoughtful father to bring forward\nhis own choice of a career as an example to his son.\n\nLifelong tenacity was demanded in those days when it was assumed\nthat a single doctrine, a single set of circumstances, was entirely\nadequate for personal development for a whole lifetime. The crime\nof deviation was then logically punished by excommunication or by\nfines. But the profounder view which we have acquired in the matters\nof belief and occupation must also be extended to the third. We ought\nto perceive that unconditional fidelity to one person may be just\nas disastrous to the personality as unconditional continuance in a\nfaith or an employment. Those who are now patching the sack-cloth of\nasceticism with a few shreds from the purple mantle of personality are\nspoiling both. Either state the claim of renunciation clearly, like\nthe Catholic, or admit the whole claim of personality. But the whole\nproblem is unfairly stated by those who make \u201cpersonal love\u201d the moral\nbasis of marriage, but go on to speak of this love as though it were a\nquestion of light-heartedly taking partners for a game, where nothing\nis more usual than that each woman finds the right man and each man the\nright woman\u2014and so everything is in order. If life were so easy, there\nwould be reason for the pronouncements, which are now so profoundly\ncoarse, that only the man or woman without character, the aimless\npersonality, is incapable of vowing a lifelong love and keeping the\npromise; nay, that a true personality can \u201ccommand itself to love its\nchild\u2019s father or mother.\u201d\n\nHe who asserts that our true personality will always follow the\nduty laid down by society and constantly be able to fulfil the\nclaims of fidelity, and that those who cannot do this are guided by\na false subjectivity and not by their personality, makes the idea\nof personality equivalent to that of member of society, the whole\nequivalent to the part. The personality, the unique and peculiar value,\nis certainly connected through part of its nature with the standards of\nright upheld by society. Yet it never becomes equivalent to them.\n\nThe only thing therefore that a psychological thinker can demand is\nthat love should not divide the personality in any phase of a human\nbeing\u2019s development, but should always be its true expression.\n\nBut only one who is ignorant of the idea of personality can believe\nthat the relation, into which a person at the age of twenty puts his\nwhole feeling, must necessarily correspond to the needs of the same\npersonality as it becomes at thirty or forty. Only one so ignorant can\npersuade himself that the destiny of our love will necessarily resemble\nour lofty theory of love, our pure desire of constancy. If even our own\nwill has little to do with the love we feel, how much less then will\nit influence that which we receive or lose!\n\nThus the problem of fidelity is not solved merely by imposing the claim\nof constancy upon one\u2019s self; for in the first place, in love there are\ntwo who must desire the same thing, and in the second, each of these\ntwo is manifold.\n\nNo human being is sole master of his fate when he has united it with\nanother\u2019s. The possibility of becoming a complete personality in and\nthrough love depends in half upon the pure and whole desire of the\nother to share in developing the common life.\n\nIt is this which is overlooked by the eloquent preachers of \u201cconstancy\nas the expression of the personality,\u201d and this makes their words about\nthe duty of lifelong love as meaningless as a harangue about the duty\nof lifelong health.\n\nIt is a beautiful sight when two married people enjoy the happiness\nof their love for the whole day of human life. It is also a beautiful\nsight when life sets like a clear sun upon the horizon, and does not\nlose itself like a weary river in the sand. But these are beautiful\nideals not commands of duty.\n\nLove, like health, can certainly be neglected or cared for, and by good\ncare the average length of life both of human beings and of their loves\nmay be raised.\n\nBut the final causes both of love\u2019s birth and of its death are as\nmysterious as those of the origin and cessation of life. A person can\ntherefore no more promise to love or not to love than he can promise to\nlive long. What he can promise is to take good care of his life and of\nhis love.\n\n\nThis may be done, as already pointed out, through the conscious will to\nbe faithful, the firm resolve to make love a great experience.\n\nBut perhaps the majority as yet do little to preserve their happiness.\nIn this case, life works for them, as God \u201cgives to his servants, while\nthey sleep.\u201d\n\nIf ever the doctrine of the importance of the infinitely small has\nits application, it is in respect to the power the little things of\neveryday life have of uniting or dividing in marriage.\n\nThat hardships and memories, joys and sorrows shared bind people\ntogether even without the continuance of love; that in the deepest\nsense of the word they cannot be separated, since a great part of the\none\u2019s nature remains in the other\u2019s\u2014this in reality forms the binding\ntie, but not ideas of duty, whether clear or obscure, strict or free.\nIf in one case a married life has so dried up the feelings of both that\na gust of wind drives them apart like two withered leaves, in another\nit may have given the feelings such deep roots that, even if all the\nleaves that the springtime gave are torn away, even if life seems as\nempty and cold as naked boughs in winter\u2014it is still lived in common.\n\nIt is thus a physiological and psychological fact that the man or woman\nwho for the first time has communicated to the other the joys of the\nsenses retains a power over her or him which is never really set aside.\nIt is even said that long after a man\u2019s death a woman sometimes bears\nchildren to another man which resemble the first. As such influences\nare more decided in the case of the woman, her fidelity has also for\nthis reason become more of a natural necessity than man\u2019s\u2014although the\nsame influence, if in a somewhat less degree, applies to him.\n\nEven if no qualms of conscience for others\u2019 sufferings are mingled with\na new happiness\u2014in many other senses the two, who in each other seek\nto forget the past of one of them, will perhaps for ever find a third\nbetween them.\n\nMarriage, in a word, has such sure allies in man\u2019s psycho-physical\nconditions of life that one need not be afraid of freedom of divorce\nbecoming equivalent to polygamy. What this freedom would abolish is\nonly lifelong slavery.\n\n\nIt is evident to every thoughtful person that a real sexual morality\nis almost impossible without early marriage; for simply to refer the\nyoung to abstinence as the true solution of the problem is, as we have\nalready maintained, a crime against the young and against the race, a\ncrime which makes the primitive force of nature, the fire of life, into\na destructive element.\n\nBut the consequence of early marriages must be free divorce.\n\nAs soon as one approaches the outer side of the marriage problem, one\nis met by the experience which the four great Norwegian writers, Ibsen,\nBj\u014drnson, Lie, and Kielland, some years ago jointly and publicly\nannounced: that at present the majority do not marry for love. And R.\nL. Stevenson may have hit the mark, when he calls the marriages of the\nmajority \u201ca kind of friendship sanctioned by the police\u201d and compares\nthe \u201cfancy\u201d which decides them to that which sometimes takes one for a\nparticular fruit in a dish that is being handed round.\n\nBut even if we one day come so far that early love-matches are the\nrule, we shall still be faced, as regards them, by the system which\nat present obtains among the upper classes: that marriage is binding\nupon the lovers before love is consummated. There is therefore a truth\nworthy of consideration in the words of the brothers Margueritte, in\ntheir contribution to the question of free divorce; that as the young\ngirl has not experienced what she binds herself to at marriage, the\nmajority of divorces begin on the wedding night.\n\nFree divorce is therefore an unconditional demand of such young people\nwho know that unforeseen transformations may take place in the sphere\nof the soul as in that of the senses, and who now frequently seek in\nthe secret possession of love a security against a precipitancy which\nthe legal bond of marriage may make irretrievable.\n\nThe young know, if any can know, that no form of love is more beautiful\nthan that in which two young people find each other so early that they\ndo not even know when their feeling was born, and accompany each other\nthrough all their fortunes, sometimes even to death\u2014for now and then\nlife vouchsafes this crowning fortune. Never do greater possibilities\nexist for the happiness both of the individuals and of the race than in\na love which begins so early that the two can grow together in a common\ndevelopment; when they possess all the memories of youth as well as all\nthe aims of the future in common; when the shadow of a third has never\nfallen across the path of either; when their children in turn dream of\nthe great love they have seen radiating from their parents.\n\nThese happy ones\u2014like the old couple in Bernard\u2019s fine fresco in the\n_mairie_ of the Louvre _arrondissement_ in Paris\u2014will one day look up\nto the stars of the winter twilight, united in a more intimate devotion\nthan either the playtime of the spring morning or the midday toil could\nafford.\n\nIf this wonderful love were really the first and only one which fell\nto the lot of every young man and woman, and were it always possible\nfor them to realise it at the right time\u2014then there would neither be a\nproblem of morality nor of divorce.\n\nBut the youth of the present day knows that this love is not the\nfortune of all. It has learned so much, from literature, from life,\nfrom its own soul, of the transformations of love, that one is tempted\nto wish for these young people the romantic belief of their fathers and\nmothers in a love which became extinct as easily as now. The difference\nis merely this, that whereas formerly they were content with a faded\nglow, we will have continual fire.\n\nIt is known now that, although youthful love may be the surest basis of\nmarriage, it is more often the reverse. Here, if anywhere, is the scene\nof accidents. The one we have grown up with, the girl or youth we are\nthrown with just when the erotic life is waking; the one we were teased\nabout; the one we hear is \u201cin love\u201d with us; the one we meet when\nthe happiness of others fills the air with longing\u2014these and other\naccidents, but not personal choice, often decide youthful love.\n\nThen the imagination sets to work to transform the reality in\naccordance with the ideal we have formed for ourselves\u2014and even this\nis often the result of accidental influence. It is therefore not\nsurprising that most people, when after ten years or so they meet again\nthe object of their first love, give a sigh of gratitude to the fate\nwhich made that love \u201cunhappy.\u201d\n\nWhen it has not been so in the usual sense of the word, one of the\nparties may often be most to be pitied, and it is just those young\npeople who unhesitatingly realise their love in the belief of its\nlifelong continuance, that in coercive marriage are made the victims\nof their own pure will, their healthy courage, their bright idealism.\n\nFor the younger, in the richest sense of the word, a person is, the\nmore certainly does he possess the poet\u2019s gift which transforms reality\naccording to his dreams. The fine curve of a pair of lips renews the\nmarvel of the legend: that every frog that jumps over them is changed\ninto a rose. Even if a dim suspicion awakes, when every serious\nthought or intimate feeling is met by empty silence or equally empty\nloquacity, the imagination easily convinces the instinct that silence\nmeans \u201cprofundity of intelligence,\u201d or speech \u201ccandour.\u201d At every\nage, but especially at this, love is a great superstition. Secure as\nsleep-walkers in the presence of danger, its votaries fling themselves\ninto a decision. And it is this simple rashness of innocence that the\ncurrent conception of morality subjects to a lifelong punishment.\nThe cautious ones, on the other hand, often find in time the great\nrewards\u2014thanks to their own smaller value.\n\nMore things happen in a human life than marriage and finally death.\nMuch may happen in a human soul between marriage and death. The current\nassumption that everything which separates a person from the partner\nin matrimony is evil and ought to be overcome; everything which binds\nhim to her good and ought to be encouraged\u2014this is part of the wisdom\nwhich reduces life to the simplest terms, which is cheap and therefore\nmost in use; for a higher wisdom demands a higher price.\n\nNothing is commoner, especially for the woman whose first experience\nof love is in marriage, than that she is in love with love and not her\nhusband. Sometimes woman is betrayed by her senses, but more often by\nthe morning dew of sensibility, which youth and love spread over even\nthe driest of men\u2019s souls,\u2014a dew which disappears with the morning.\nAnother illusion, which in these days of intercommunication causes many\nmistakes in love, is the peculiarity of a foreign nationality, which\nhas the effect of a personal originality\u2014until it gradually betrays\nitself as only another kind of conformity than that one is used to.\n\nIn other cases again, the husband is all she sees in him. But a young\nwoman herself often goes through, during the years from twenty to\ntwenty-five, so complete a transformation of feelings and ways of\nthought, that after a few years of marriage she finds herself in the\npresence of a man who is a perfect stranger to her.\n\nThis period of illusions in first youth is answered by another towards\nthe close of youth. If a woman has not before experienced love,\nthis is the psychological moment at which almost every illusion is\npossible. Her now universal demands of love, the longing of her mature\nwoman\u2019s nature, have countless times made a noble creature cast these\npearls\u2014if not exactly as described in the biblical image\u2014at least\ninto an empty space where they have just as surely been unappreciated.\n\nOn man\u2019s side, there are other or corresponding possibilities that\nearly marriage may be founded on self-deception.\n\nBut even when love is real and well-founded, there yet arise, from the\ncharm of contradictions already referred to, innumerable occasions of\nincurable discord.\n\nThus there are natures so simple that they become crippled, so\nuncomplex that they are foolish, so homogeneous as to be heavy. These\nare they who usually love once for all, with complete devotion. But,\nespecially when they are women, Goethe\u2019s words are often true of\nthem: that a woman\u2019s greatest misfortune is not to be charming when\nshe loves. Only complete security gives these natures the calm of\nequilibrium, the courage of self-confidence, which calls forth the\n\u201csmile of inward happiness\u201d whereby they also become attractive. But\nthese natures, who of all most deserve happiness, usually meet with\nsome person of constantly changing moods, who reacts with extreme\nsensitiveness to every impression, but can never love deeply, and\ntherefore is soon unable to bear that simplicity and seriousness in\nlife and death which at first charmed by their contrast.\n\nSuch people are often poets or artists, who in love seek only constant\nstimulation. To them loving means \u201cwaking in the morning with new words\non one\u2019s lips,\u201d and their erotic fortunes therefore show a rapidity\nof revolution comparable with that of the moons around Mars. Just as\nfor certain natures, a connection originally frivolous may become\npermanent, held together by depth of feeling, so for this class of\nnatures\u2014on account of the superficiality of their feelings\u2014no kind of\nconnection is serious.\n\nIt is not unfrequently those who give the finest descriptions of their\nsoulful moods and their exquisite feelings, who in their acts of love\nare narrowly selfish or relentlessly harsh. For it is the impressions\nof culture stored in their intelligence which determine their conscious\nutterances, but, on the other hand, it is their subconscious ego that\ndecides their actions. And this ego is often centuries behind their\ncultured consciousness. He, on the other hand, who is reticent and\ncurt of speech or dull and awkward in manners may at bottom possess a\ndelicacy which he can show only in actions, the others only in words.\nBut unfortunately in our time opportunities for speech are many and for\naction few\u2014and so women pass over the latter for the former. How many\na woman has not afterwards\u2014before some act of the man of words\u2014asked\nherself how it was possible for her ever to love that man! How many a\none, before the actions of the silent, has not sighed, What a pity that\nI was never able to love him!\n\nBut in one case as in the other, through the law of contrasts, she was\nunited to him and feels in this union the death or paralysis of the\nbest possibilities of her being.\n\nThe most misleading of illusions are, however, those which are\nfostered by the actions love produces; for it is not these which\ndetermine the quality of a personality. While love is fighting for\nits happiness it may transform an ordinary person into something\nhigher than himself, as also into something lower. When the tension is\nrelieved, it is seen that in the former case\u2014especially as regards\nmen\u2014love was able to\n\n  ... unmake him from a common man\n  But not complete him to an uncommon one....\n\nIt was no organic growth of the personality, but only a straining of\nself that love called forth.\n\nBut she who loved him will watch till her eyes are weary for what she\nhas seen but once!\n\nThose who have loved them deeply learn from these, in one way or\nanother, inadequate persons the most dearly-bought truth in the\nknowledge of human nature, a truth that the heart acknowledges last\nof all: that even if we poured out our own blood in streams for any\none\u2014we could not thereby give him a drop of richer or more noble blood\nthan is found in his own heart.\n\nMany have learned this secret in that kind of marriage, where secure\nfriendship and faithful comradeship abounded; just those feelings,\nin fact, which are recommended as the infallible remedy for love\u2019s\nmistakes.\n\nHow often has not one of these married people active for and with the\nother, found out that they never bring their mate into spiritual\nactivity, that the soul of one has never reached the soul of the other?\nOutside observers think them suited like \u201chand in glove.\u201d The image\nis significant, for a glove is empty and meaningless when it does not\nenclose a hand. But like hand to hand they are not suited! Therefore\nit not unfrequently occurs that some day one of them is seized by a\npassionate longing to meet with another hand, which shall be strongly\nand quietly grasped in his own and thus double its power; that the\nvoice, which has continually spoken into empty space\u2014whence a faithful\necho has unfailingly answered\u2014will finally be dumb from the longing to\nreceive an answer from another voice, in words that were never heard\nbefore.\n\nNot a few marriages include men who have had such fine thoughts,\ndreamed such fair dreams of woman, that they have desired to win her\nsenses only through her soul and have disdained to offer her other\nthan their best, the richest treasures of their personality. But\nperhaps such a man has a wife who understands only money-making and\ndesires only the pleasures of love. If he offers all the glories of his\nsoul, she does not even suspect when a mood is at its height; for her\nsilence is never eloquent; she is incapable of waiting for another\u2019s\nthought; has no patience with what is difficult of comprehension, and\nwill always receive the unusual with dull misunderstanding or gay\nsuperiority.\n\nThe gulf perhaps began to open between them when one became aware of\nthe other\u2019s absence at a moment when he himself was most present;\nor when one felt that their bodies stood between their souls, the\nother that their souls stood between their bodies; or when one felt a\nrestriction of liberty from the other\u2019s superior spiritual or sensual\nforce; or when one found that he could never show his innermost being\nwithout its putting the other out of humour. Thus two persons, each one\ninnocent, may make each other profoundly solitary while sharing the\nsame bed and board. Neither receives from the other what his innermost\nnature needs\u2014and what one gives is only a constraint upon the other\u2019s\nnature. Not a note in the soul of one is tuned to the same pitch as the\nother\u2019s; not a movement in the blood of one is capable of enrapturing\nthe other\u2019s. Now it is unbearable dissimilarities, now unbearable\nsimilarities, that cause the trouble; each finds in the other \u201call the\nvirtues he detests but none of the faults he loves.\u201d With all this,\nperfect outward peace may prevail; nay, respect and devotion in a\ncertain sense. That this is the fortune of innumerable marriages is\noverlooked in general, since married life usually continues\u2014unless a\nthird appears.\n\nIn the ideas of the Church, the incapacity for marriage of one party\nfreed the other from the duty of fidelity. In the more spiritual view\nof the future it will be equally evident that the same right exists to\ndissolve a marriage which has remained unconsummated in a spiritual\nsense; and there may be just as many possibilities of incapacity to\nfulfil the spiritual claims of marriage as there are men and women;\ntherefore also just as many causes of divorce.\n\n\nIn the preceding pages only certain typical cases of unhappiness have\nbeen referred to. The many tragic exceptions are here left altogether\non one side. So also are those causes of divorce which the preachers\nof monogamy call the \u201creal misfortunes\u201d: drunkenness, bodily cruelty,\nand the like; for with the customary realism of \u201cidealism,\u201d they admit\nthese as valid reasons for divorce. It is significant that among the\nlower classes people still often think themselves bound to bear these\nmisfortunes as a part of the miscalculations of marriage as unavoidable\nas those more complex sufferings which the champions of monogamy exhort\npeople on a higher plane to endure. The pangs a soul suffers may, they\nthink, be borne with God\u2019s help, whereas unfortunately God is not in\nthe habit of interfering when a man beats his wife; and the longer a\nsoul has suffered, the more certain are they that it can continue to\nsuffer.\n\nNor do they perceive that a relationship may have seemed good\u2014perhaps\neven have been good,\u2014until, after a lapse of years, a moment has\narrived which has stripped the soul of one of them naked, sometimes in\nall its loftiness, more often in all its baseness. If the latter, then\nwhat was possible before becomes from that hour unthinkable.\n\nThat the soul may be confronted by such an alternative, of life or\ndeath, they will not admit. The soul, they say, is \u201ca spirit,\u201d an\n\u201cinvisible and imperishable entity.\u201d That its conditions of life are\njust as variable and complex as those of the organism is, to a certain\nsort of \u201cidealism,\u201d meaningless. With God\u2019s help, they say, everyone\nmay save his soul. But such help is in this kind of peril as uncertain\nas it is in peril of the sea\u2014and even in the latter case it is not\n\u201cthe votive tablets of the drowned, but only those of the saved, that\none sees in the temple\u201d (Nietzsche).\n\n\nIt is, however, especially when a man or woman is divorced in order to\ncontract a fresh marriage that an outcry is raised over the weakness of\nthe age in bearing suffering. Indeed, it is not even acknowledged that\nmarriage may involve any suffering. Even those who have hitherto found\na married couple extremely ill-suited, forget at once that they did\nso\u2014should either of them \u201callow a third person to come between them.\u201d\n\nThey forget not only their own former judgment but also the fact taught\nby experience, that when two married people are wholly one, there is no\nroom for a third between the bark and the tree. In the contrary case, a\nthird comes between them sooner or later. Sometimes it is the child,\nsometimes a life\u2019s work, sometimes a new feeling\u2014but something always\ncomes, thanks to nature\u2019s \u201cabhorrence of a vacuum,\u201d which is never more\nfatal than in marriage. Within the dimensions of the soul, as within\nthose of space, no one can take the place of another, but can occupy\nonly that space which another has left empty or not been able to retain.\n\nIn the latter case it is fair to admit the indirect share of literature\nin the inconsiderateness of those without an erotic conscience. The\nidea of justice in love has had to be extended. But during this\nremoval of the boundaries, which literature is carrying out, a general\ninsecurity has set in.\n\nPoetry performs with the fullest freedom its duty of investigating the\nsecrets of love, according to which souls and senses are attracted and\nrepelled in answer to that law of elective affinity which our time\nis seeking more and more eagerly to discover, in order to be able to\ndirect the erotic forces to a higher development. Literature is the\nforemost of these discoverers; and this in itself is enough to justify\nthat complete freedom, without which, moreover, it cannot become what\nGeorg Brandes has called love-poetry: the finest instrument for gauging\nthe strength and warmth of the emotional life of a period.\n\nThat literature is often the power which gives rise to erotic\nagitation, is self-evident. And thus it always co-operates in\nsome measure in the misfortunes which are caused by loves of the\nimagination or the intellect, misfortunes which are avoided by the\nfirm and mature personality. The weak, on the other hand, are those\nwho in their loves as in their beliefs adopt the course that another\u2019s\ninfluence gives them.\n\nLike lawn-tennis\u2014which in certain circles makes or mars\nmarriages\u2014love is favoured by summer air and idleness. But at all\nseasons there are men and women for whom everyone is a ball that sets\ntheir fancy or their vanity in motion. No form of self-assertion is\nmore justified than that of opposing one\u2019s vigilance, one\u2019s will,\nand one\u2019s dignity to this use of one\u2019s personality. What stimulates\nthe game is not the power of the senses alone. No, this game is the\nsole inventive faculty of spiritual poverty, the mark of erotic\nill-breeding. Only a refined person can rejoice at the stimulants to\nlife in every field, the means of which he does not himself possess.\nAs yet few people have attained a culture like that of the Athenian\nbeggar, who thanked Alcibiades for giving him the jewels that\nAlcibiades indeed wore\u2014but that the beggar was free to rejoice at.\nTo attain in regard to human beings this sense of joy, free from all\ncovetousness, is the flower of fine breeding.\n\nBut the nervosity of the present day stimulates, on the contrary,\nerotic kleptomania. People steal one another, now from the same kind\nof hysteria which makes thieves of Parisian ladies in the fashionable\nstores; now from the same crudity which makes the child pluck every\nflower he sees; now from the same desire which urges the collector\nconstantly to acquire new specimens.\n\nWhen in regard to human beings the pleasure of the connoisseur rather\nthan that of the collector has been attained, then the greatest of\nall joys\u2014that of human beings in one another\u2014will not be so often\ndisturbed by erotic complications. To appeal to the liberty of the\npersonality in frivolous concessions to eroticism is the same gross\nabuse of the idea as to use the name of this liberty in sailing a leaky\nyacht in a storm.\n\nThe liberty of the personality involves great risks to win great\nrewards; but it does not involve allowing one\u2019s self to be driven into\ndangers, where for a trifle one stakes one\u2019s own life and that of\nothers. To drift into relations where one has not the hundredth part of\nthe consent of one\u2019s innermost ego, is not proving but wasting one\u2019s\npersonality; for every action which is less than ourselves, degrades\nour personality.\n\nAgain, it may be disastrous to perform acts greater and stronger than\nourselves. He who ventures upon an exceptional course must\u2014like the\nalpine climber\u2014possess an abundance of strength and the sense of\nsecurity which it lends; for otherwise, in both cases, the enterprise\nwill be successful only if everything occurs according to the most\nfavourable calculation. In an unforeseen misadventure the inadequate\nones are those who are lost. Therefore, in one case as in the other,\npublic opinion is unwittingly right when it glorifies the daring that\nsucceeds, but condemns that which fails.\n\nMost people are not equal to the consequences of their resolutions. On\nthe contrary, like unseated riders they are dragged by their actions\nthrough degraded circumstances that they had not counted upon. Thus\nmany a pair of lovers who have broken earlier ties, have been only a\nwarning example\u2014since their action was destructive, not enhancing to\nlife.\n\nRuin may be the climax of life; but inefficiency is always defeat; and\nof all the rashness of this life, the rash project of an exceptional\nlot is the saddest.\n\nFew people who have passed their youth have courage or strength for\nsuch new experiences as imply a real enhancement of life. The majority\nought rather to employ their personality in the task of worthily\nbearing and making the best of their lot\u2014and, in spite of all that is\nasserted to the contrary, that is also what most people do and will\ncontinue to do.\n\nThose who trust only in compulsion to restrain a man\u2019s desire to desert\nhis wife, forget to what a degree spiritual influences have even now\nfacilitated divorce, in spite of the coercive law. One seldom finds\nin our day a high-minded husband or wife who insists on retaining the\nother against his or her will, except when it is clear to one partner\nthat divorce, if conceded, would result in the certain ruin of the\nother. As a rule it is now only the narrow-minded or the low-minded\nwho exercise the right of refusing divorce. If this right were\nabolished, this would not entail the abolition of the influences which\neven now keep married people together\u2014although in most cases they\nmight be free if they wished it.\n\nThose who thoughtlessly separated, when greater facilities are given,\nwould be the same class of people who now, in coercive marriage,\nsecretly deceive one another.\n\nTo the serious, divorce will always be serious. Before a person of\nfeeling and thought consciously hurts another who has loved or loves\nhim, he himself has suffered terrible pain. Gratitude for a great\ndevotion in a free connection has often proved more powerfully binding\nthan the law could have been. Nay, to anyone tender of conscience the\nties formed by a free connection are stronger than the legal ones,\nsince in the former case he has made a choice more decisive to his own\nand the other\u2019s personality than if he had followed law and custom.\n\nAnd even when no feelings of affection exercise their retentive power,\nmany people prefer to remain as wreckage on the same shore, rather than\nbe washed away towards a new and uncertain fate.\n\nHuman nature is credited with far too great simplicity and elasticity\nwhen it is taken for granted that one experiment in life would succeed\nanother if divorce were free. In this case it is life itself, not the\nlaw, which fixes the insurmountable limits. To the deeper natures\nwhich have broken away from a life-connection, the pain of it has often\nbeen so great as permanently to deaden the colours of life.\n\n\nIn connection with the modern demand for exemption from motherhood we\nhave already rejected the expedient of securing love\u2019s freedom through\nthe rearing of children by the State. At the same time the importance\nand value of the parental home was insisted upon as strongly as\npossible.\n\nHere, on the other hand, is the place to point out the one-sidedness\nof the notion that nothing is more important than that the parents\nshould remain together for the sake of the children\u2014since everything\nmust finally depend upon how the parents remain together and what they\nbecome through remaining together.\n\nThe more degrading cohabitation is to the personality of each parent\nthe less valuable will be the influence for the children of the\nparental relation.\n\nOnly one who sees in marriage a system directly ordained by God, a\nform of realisation of the divine reason, can maintain the proposition\nthat in such a system the good must outweigh human defects. Those who\nhold that the maintenance of marriage is always the sound and moral\ncourse, must take upon themselves the burden of proving that the dull\nconnubial habits of divided mates are a pure source for the origin of\nnew beings; that their mutually conflicting influences are better able\nto further the welfare of the children than a tranquil bringing-up by\none of them: that the happiness of one of them in a new union is more\ndangerous to the children than his unhappiness in the former one.\n\nTo those, on the other hand, who hold the faith of Life, the question\nof the children is always a fresh one in every fresh divorce. Here\nagain we must rise to the conditional judgment, and leave behind the\nchess-board morality with its equal squares of right and wrong. The\ndanger to the children arising from a divorce depends on all that has\ngone before and all that comes after. He who dissolves his marriage in\nthe face of his inner consciousness of the harm that the children will\nthereby suffer, commits a sin which will infallibly be succeeded by\nthe remorse that friends are sometimes eager to adduce as extenuating\ncircumstances. He, on the other hand, who \u201csins\u201d with an easy\nconscience, has made his choice with the welfare of the children in one\nscale of the balance. This calm of conscience is then not indifference,\nand, therefore, does not prevent the possibility of his suffering\ndeeply through the consequences of the decision which he nevertheless\ndoes not regret. It may be that in most cases where there are children,\nthe less painful course, even for him who is most convinced of his\npersonal right, is to endeavour to the utmost to preserve a common life\nwhich allows the children to grow up under the joint protection of a\nfather and mother, and for the sake of the children to give this life a\nworthy and kindly character.\n\nIn former times, people mended and patched things up endlessly. The\npsychologically developed generation of the present day is more\ndisposed to allow what is broken to remain broken. For, except in the\ncases where the cause of rupture has been outward misunderstanding\nor belated development, patched-up marriages\u2014like patched-up\nengagements\u2014seldom prove lasting. It has often been profound instincts\nthat caused the rupture; the reconciliation violated these instincts\nand sooner or later such violation revenges itself.\n\nThus, it happens, that even exceptional natures have a greater burden\nthan they can bear, and then it is not the living together but the\ndying together of their parents that the children witness.\n\nNeither religion nor the law, neither society nor the family, can\ndecide what a marriage kills in a human being or what it may be the\nmeans of saving in him. Only he himself knows the one and feels the\nother. Only he himself can determine how far it may be possible for him\nto have so far finished with his own existence that he can completely\npass into that of his children; to bear the pain of a continued married\nlife so that it may enhance the powers of himself and the children. A\nmother can do this oftener than a father, but in no case is there any\nstandard that others can use to determine when an excess of suffering\nis present. More than this, there is strictly no suffering, but only\nsuffering beings who in every case create the suffering anew according\nto their type of soul.\n\nOnly one thing is certain: that no one is more outside the question\nthan the very one who causes the suffering. Thus nothing can be more\nunreasonable than to leave to the judgment of one of the parties the\ndecision we have just mentioned. The knowledge of being able to refuse\na divorce now involves want of consideration for the other\u2019s moods of\ndejection, which would never occur if consideration were necessary to\nprevent separation. Such attentions are especially significant at the\nbeginning of married life, when most young married people solve the\nsmall and great problems of accommodation with more or less difficulty.\nThe birth of the first child, moreover, is often accompanied by\nabnormal states of feeling, which lead to hasty conclusions as to\nincompatibility and antipathy. The opponents of free divorce think that\nit is just during these years that precipitate divorces might take\nplace. But they do not reflect that either partner in his sense of\nproprietorship now gives himself a loose rein in a way that would be\nunthinkable if such security did not exist. Thus the young certainly\nkeep together, but not unfrequently destroy their finest chances of\nhappiness. The need of mutual caution during these dissensions should\nhave a much deeper influence in keeping a couple together than has\nat present the knowledge that they cannot be free. After the advent\nof children, the danger is small\u2014except in the case of heartless\nnatures\u2014that a sufferer will too hastily think his powers of endurance\nare exhausted. The inter-dependence which children create between their\nparents when these together care for and love them, is sometimes\nindissoluble. In most cases it is so strong as to form the real tie,\nwithout which laws twice as strict as the present ones would have no\npower to keep together two unwilling beings.\n\nWhen speaking of love\u2019s selection, we pointed to the signs which\nindicate that the feeling for the race\u2014the feeling which from time\nimmemorial has linked together man and woman at a common hearth,\nhas raised the altar near it and round them both the town wall\u2014is\napproaching its renaissance. Consciousness of the children\u2019s rights is\nindubitably on the increase, together with a knowledge of the rights of\nlove. And against the assaults of this most turbulent and dangerous sea\nthe race-feeling will continue to stand as a wall protecting society,\nthough in a new form to give it new powers of resistance.\n\nBut the opponents of divorce think, on the contrary, that the sense\nof happiness through the children\u2014especially in the case of the\nfather\u2014has now become so weak that most fathers would free themselves\nfrom all responsibility if they only could.\n\nIf this be so, society itself is to blame. It not only countenances\nsexual relations entirely independent of the mission of the race;\nit frees the man from responsibility for his illegitimate children\nand thus assigns to him a standpoint below that of the beasts. The\ninstincts favourable to offspring, which in animals have remained\nundisturbed, cannot attain their full strength until man is completely\nanswerable for every life he creates. As soon as society decrees that\nthe fact of two persons becoming parents makes their union obligatory,\nthe relationship itself will gradually intensify their feeling and the\nman will wish to possess and preserve the elements of joy for which he\nmust always bear the burdens. Even if man\u2019s fatherly feelings should\nbe slow in awaking\u2014and if a number of fathers of the present day\nshould thus really avail themselves of free divorce to leave wife and\nchild\u2014there are still the mothers, who do not, as a rule, lightly\nleave their children, but who, on the contrary, now suffer the deepest\nmisfortunes and renounce the greatest happiness so as to remain with\nthem, and who\u2014even if they tear themselves from them\u2014are hardly ever\nable to release themselves. When the law gives to every mother the\nrights which now only the unmarried mother possesses, but imposes\nat the same time on every father the obligations which now only the\nmarried have\u2014then it may be that the child will become a new and\nmore valuable possession in the eyes of the man. If he only feels the\ninfluence he may obtain through his wife\u2019s respect for his fatherly\nqualities; if his importance in the child\u2019s existence comes to depend\non personal force, not on legal might, then the quality of fatherhood\nmay be in a high degree ennobled. And with this affection will grow,\naccording to the immutable law, that the more man gives, the more he\nloves.\n\nIf matriarchy, in a new form, refined by the whole of development,\nshould become the final phase\u2014as in the opinion of many it has been\nthe starting-point\u2014of the family, then this would involve that\npaternal authority became conditional, depending on the value and\nwarmth of the paternal feeling. At present many fathers are merely an\naccident in their children\u2019s life, an accident which never even looks\n\u201clike an idea.\u201d And this is not only true of those fathers who, with\nthe support of the law, withdraw themselves from all responsibility,\nbut also of many others, especially of those who are driven by work or\npublic business and who remain inwardly strangers to their children.\n\nFor the present, it may be regarded as certain that free divorce\nwould, above all, afford this advantage, that a number of wives, who\nnow keep broken-down husbands, could work for food for their children\ninstead of for liquor for the children\u2019s father; and that a number of\nmothers, who now are obliged for the sake of their children to suffer\nthe deepest humiliation, would be able to free themselves; and in both\ncases the children would gain. On the other hand, the father who took\nadvantage of free divorce to desert his family for frivolous reasons\nmight, as a rule, be easily spared by that family.\n\nIn most cases, the children are even better off through a divorce, when\nthe cause of it is differences of temperament and opinion between the\nparents. Each of them separately may be a person of merit. When they\nseparate on the ground of dissension, both have a sense of something to\natone for with the children. This prompts them to try to make amends,\nand thus the children receive\u2014from each separately\u2014far more than they\ndid when the parents were united, when the children were witnesses\nto their conflicts and saw the worse side of the nature of each. The\nchildren are spared the pain of being the subject of their father\u2019s and\nmother\u2019s quarrels; of being compelled to take the part of one of them;\nof being torn between two diverse wills, between the jealous endeavours\nof each to win them exclusively. They, in part, avoid being brought up\nfrom two different, mutually-counteracting points of view, where one\nis trying to take away from the children the ideas that the other has\ngiven them.\n\nBut of all this the opponents of divorce take no account. The main\nthing is that the parents shall keep together, however chill or dark\nwith thunder may be the air in which the children grow up.\n\nThis point of view misses the reality as much as that of those who\ncall for divorce as soon as love is over. Keeping together may, in\ncertain cases, give the children a happier and richer childhood than\nthe state of things after a divorce. It has been maintained with reason\nthat discord between the parents is sometimes compensated for by the\nvalue of the manly nature of the one and the womanly nature of the\nother, which\u2014even if they do not co-operate\u2014still work well side by\nside; and that children who, through dissensions at home, have early\nbeen forced to think and choose for themselves, often become stronger\ncharacters than those who have grown up in happy homes.\n\nWhile, on the one hand, we hear children whose parents have separated\ncomplain that they did not have the patience to remain together, on\nthe other we hear those who have grown up in unhappy homes regret the\ncontinuance of their parents\u2019 married life. If this had been dissolved,\nthe children might have had at least one good home, perhaps two,\nwhereas now they have none.\n\nBut, of course, each one can know only what he has suffered from a\nseries of events, not what he might have suffered if circumstances had\nbeen different; and thus the children\u2019s opinion cannot in either case\nbe regarded as decisive, when laying down the principle.\n\nThe experience, therefore, which we have, of the position of children\nwhom death has deprived of their father is more important. While the\nwidower, as a rule, marries again, if his children are small, the\nwidow, in most cases, remains unmarried. And it may be regarded as\ncertain that statistics of able men would give a remarkable result in\nrespect of the sons of widows.\n\nA divorce often puts the child in a corresponding position of\ntenderness and responsibility towards his mother. But while society\nbows to the \u201cstern necessity\u201d of a single battle making more children\nfatherless than the divorces of a generation\u2014and calmly relies on the\nmothers\u2019 ability by themselves to make good citizens of their sons\u2014it\nshrinks from the same stern necessity when it is a question of saving a\nliving person from lifelong unhappiness.\n\nThe children\u2019s chief danger in a divorce is that they are often divided\nbetween father and mother and thus lose in part the companionship of\nbrothers and sisters which is so eminently productive of happiness.\nNext to this, the greatest misfortune is not that the father and mother\nno longer live under the same roof, but that they are no longer able to\nmeet. This misfortune could often be avoided, if friends and relations\nwould refrain from the pleasure of deciding how the divorced couple\nought to hate and variously torment each other. If people saw the\nmerit of two human beings\u2014who were able to separate as friends and\nto meet again as such\u2014being also capable of this; if the presence of\neither parent with the children never led to their being influenced to\nthe detriment of the absent one\u2014then children, even after a divorce,\nwould not feel the want of their essential relation to both their\nparents. Now, on the other hand, divided as they often are between two\nmutually hostile parents, separated thus from each other and\u2014lacking\ncommon memories and other ties to bind them\u2014gradually becoming\nstrangers to each other when they meet, the children lose so much by\na divorce, that parents in most cases can gain nothing which makes up\nfor the losses of the children and thus prefer to bear the burdens of\nliving together rather than lay those of divorce upon the children.\n\nIn the question of divorce also, the great fundamental idea of\nprotestantism must be applied in the recognition of the individual\u2019s\nfull freedom of choice, since no case can be decided generally, and\nsince here also the right and wrong can only be discovered through the\nsearching of each individual conscience.\n\nA child has often\u2014in moments of great crisis\u2014blocked the way which\nled from the door of the home. But the home within that door did not\nfor that reason become brighter or warmer for the child.\n\n\nIn the preceding, the position of the children in divorce has been\nconsidered from the point of view of discord between the parents. If,\non the other hand, the divorce is brought about by a new feeling on\nthe part of one of them, then this father or mother must be prepared\none day\u2014when the children can understand them\u2014to justify the step by\nshowing them how the new love has made him or her a richer and greater\npersonality. The children have a full right not to be sacrificed to the\ndegradation of their parents. In every case, the children are the most\nincorruptible judges of their parents.\n\nBut the fact that a person has already brought children into the world\ndoes not give to these children an unconditional right to demand that a\nfather or mother shall sacrifice the love that may advance themselves,\nand through them the race, to which they may thus give more excellent\nchildren or more excellent works than they have been able to produce\nhitherto. Many a woman has borne children to her husband without having\nseen her child; many a man has given the community his industry but\nnever his work\u2014until great love accomplished their innermost longing\nand the child or the work that was thus created became the only one\nindispensable to the race.\n\nThe claim of society that a father or mother, radiant with\npossibilities of happiness, shall sacrifice these for the sake of the\nchildren, will be reduced when the sense of the value of life has\ngrown and the duty of parents to live for their children is more often\ninterpreted to mean that they must continue to be fully alive, with\npowers of renewal. On the other hand, this very rejuvenation of parents\nat the present day may often result in their living so rich a life\ntogether with their children that they will need no other renewal than\nthat which is most productive of happiness to all parties; namely, to\nenjoy their \u201csecond springtime\u201d in the children\u2019s first.\n\nIf, on the contrary, the result of this prolonged youth of the parents\nis that a father or mother changes the course of his or her life, then\nthe children must suffer\u2014until they can understand that perhaps in a\ndeeper sense they do not suffer thereby. Sometimes the new partner has\nexercised a richer influence on the children than their own father or\nmother\u2014as may also be the case with a step-father or step-mother. At\npresent, however, this possibility is often destroyed by the common\nopinion just alluded to, which also decides that the children ought to\nhate, where, if left to themselves, they would perhaps have learned to\nlove.\n\nThe selfish demand of grown-up children that the life of their parents\nshall in and with them have reached its climax and be personally\nconcluded, is as cruel as it is unjustified, since there are souls\nwhich do not lose their blossom when the fruit appears, but are able\nat the same time to bear both fruit and new blossom. Children receive\nwith life a right to the conditions which may make them fully fit for\nlife; no less than this, but at the same time no more. What their\nparents may be willing to sacrifice of their own lives beyond this must\nbe reckoned to their generosity, not their duty.\n\n\nIf great love may thus be admitted to possess a right superior to that\nof the children, the question obviously arises, how is this love to be\ndistinguished from the accidental?\n\nA mistake is already a hard thing in a marriage where there are\nchildren, for the obstacles that have to be surmounted in such a case\nare so serious that only great love can overcome them\u2014that is, if\nthe parents are such that they really mean anything at all to their\nchildren.\n\nIt is precisely by its genesis, in despite of all obstacles, that the\npredestined love often reveals its nature and thus becomes what is\ncalled \u201ccriminal.\u201d Even if those who are possessed by this emotion\nallow duty to interpose oceans between them, they will, nevertheless,\ncome together in every great moment of their lives until the last,\nconvinced that\n\n  \u201chis kiss was on her lips before she was born.\u201d\n\nWhen people have acquired more knowledge of the laws of psychology,\nthey will discover, as Edward Carpenter has said, that there is also\nan astronomy in the world of emotion; that inter-dependence arises\nthere also, in obedience to eternal laws; sympathies and antipathies\nwhich keep all the \u201cheavenly bodies\u201d at the right distance or\nproximity; that thus the path of love follows an equally irresistible\nnecessity as the orbit of a star and is equally impossible to determine\nby any influences outside its own laws. And without doubt there will\nsome day be discovered a telescope for this field also, which will at\nlast reveal to the short-sighted the fixed stars, planets, nebul\u00e6, and\ncomets of erotic space, and will prove that its constellations are\nordered by a higher law than that of \u201ccrude instinct.\u201d But until we\nattain this astronomical certainty we must be content with the degree\nof knowledge that art criticism can give.\n\nGreat love, like a great artist, has its style. Whatever subject the\nlatter may handle, whatever medium he may use, he gives to the canvas\nor the marble, the paper or the metal, the impress of his hand, and\nthis reveals itself in the smallest thing he has created. So in every\nage and every country, every class and every time of life, great love\nis one and the same; its signs are unmistakable, though the fortune it\nleads to and the individuals on whom it sets its mark may in one case\nbe more important than in another.\n\nBut this mighty emotion\u2014which arouses one\u2019s whole being through\nanother\u2019s and gives one\u2019s whole being rest in another\u2019s\u2014this emotion\nseizes a man without asking whether he is bound or free. He who feels\nstrongly and wholly enough need never wonder what it is he feels: it is\nthe feeble emotion that is doubtful to itself. Nor does he who feels\nstrongly enough ever ask himself whether he has a right to his feeling.\nHe is so exalted by his love, that he knows he is thus exalting the\nlife of mankind. It is the minor, partial passions that a person\nalready bound feels with good reason to be \u201ccriminal.\u201d For him, on the\nother hand, who would call his great emotion a sinful infatuation, a\nshameless egoism, a bestial instinct, one who loves thus has nothing\nbut a smile of pity. He knows that he would commit a sin in killing his\nlove, just as he would in murdering his child. He knows that his love\nhas once more made him good as in his childhood\u2019s prayers to God, and\nrich as one for whom the gates of paradise are opened anew.\n\nArt is interpreting a universal experience when it always depicts Adam\nand Eve as young when they are driven out of Eden. One wonders that no\nartist has shown them\u2014at a maturer age\u2014outside the walls of paradise,\ntormented by the sense of now possessing wisdom enough to preserve the\nhappiness for which in youth they only possessed the means.\n\nFor there not unfrequently arrives a time in human life when\nenlightenment enters before coldness has set in; when the blossoms\nare still rich although the fruits have already begun to mature. It\nis then that great happiness is often seen for an instant and then\ndisappears. Sometimes she is never seen, for she comes softly and\u2014like\na playmate\u2014lays a hand over one\u2019s eyes, asking: Who am I? One guesses\nwrongly and happiness is gone before one can bid her stay. To her\nfavourites only does she come with her hands full and open. To the\nmajority the words of the dying Hebbel are true: _We human beings lack\neither the cup or the wine_.\n\nLove\u2019s deepest tragedy is that a number of people have first to learn\nthrough their mistakes before their souls and senses are ready for the\ngreat love which of two beings makes one more perfect.\n\nIn poetry as in life it is sometimes the first love, sometimes the\nlast, that is extolled as the strongest. Neither need be, and either\nmay be, this. The strongest love is that which\u2014at whatever age it\ncomes\u2014most takes up all the forces of personality.\n\nIt also sometimes happens that not until a person ought to have done\nwith love, is he really ready for it. The fewer are then the chances\nof finding the love he wishes to give and receive. And fewer still the\nchances that he can give himself up to them, with the concurrence of\nhis whole being.\n\nFor it is one thing to have the right to one\u2019s great emotion; another\nto have the right or the possibility of one\u2019s full happiness.\n\nLove may be never so free in its social aspect; no freedom of\nmorals or of divorce can release the sons of men from the inevitable\nsufferings of their own nature, nor from the inevitable conflicts of\ntheir connection with the past. These sufferings and conflicts have\nbeen made so deep by life itself that there is indeed no necessity for\nthe law to make them deeper.\n\nThe most usual form of the conflict is that a person is bound by or\nbroken by casual love\u2014whether wedded or free\u2014when the predestined\nintervenes in his existence.\n\nThat so many more unhappy marriages continue than are dissolved may\nbe due less to a sense of duty than to the fact that only a few are\ncapable of great emotions. Peer Gynt\u2019s symbol\u2014the bulb\u2014illustrates\nthe erotic nature of the majority. It flowers as readily in sand as\nin water, in the open as in a pot. But should an acorn be planted in\na pot, it is inevitable\u2014on account of the vital conditions of the\noak\u2014that it should one day burst its prison or die.\n\nAnd in such a case, it is unfortunate when a Christian ethical view\nstands in the way of serious and genuine chances of so renewing life\nthat it may be more valuable to the community as well as to the\nindividual himself. People who are equipped with rich possibilities\nstill allow themselves to be decided by unconditional consideration for\nothers\u2019 feelings, which, taken from Christianity, have been grafted\neven on evolutionism, and which, especially through George Eliot, have\nobtained their great but one-sided expression.\n\nThat the race not only needs people willing to lose their lives in\norder to gain them, but also people with courage to sacrifice others\nin order to win their own\u2014this is a truth which nevertheless must\nbe indissolubly bound up with an evolutionist view of life, to which\nthe will to preserve and enhance one\u2019s own existence is a duty as\nundeniable as that of preserving and enhancing the lives of others\nby self-sacrifice. To have the courage of one\u2019s happiness, to be\nable to bear the pain inseparable from a rupture without pangs of\nconscience, is only in the power of those who act from their innermost\nnecessity. That pairs of lovers outside the law now so often commit\nsuicide together is no proof of the overmastering power of love; it\nrather proves the powerlessness of their emotion to dare and win the\nright of direct and immediate living and thus increasing the riches of\nlife. For it is only to a love that is throughout a will to live that\ncircumstances become as wax in the artist\u2019s hand.\n\nFrom the point of view of the religion of Life this impotence is\nregrettable, just as much as secret adultery. Doubtless both may\npossess the beauty of a great love-tragedy. Probably no one who has\nread the _Inferno_ wished Francesca strength to reject the love of\nPaolo. And so strangely does a soul find the way home to itself, that\nthere are cases where a person in adultery feels himself purified\nfrom the defilement of marriage\u2014since he thus for the first time\nexperiences the unity of soul and senses which was his dream of love\nfrom the beginning.\n\nBut even in these exceptional cases\u2014so much the more, therefore,\nin others\u2014the secret transgression, which the older morality found\ncomparatively innocuous, is from the point of view of the new morality\ngreater than the open rupture. For the personality is humiliated by the\nduplicity and the weakness whereby one avoids the responsibility of\nthe consequences of one\u2019s actions. And this, moreover, decreases the\nlife-value of love to the race. New experiments in life, which are made\nopenly, which enhance the strength of the individual through conflict\nand earnestness, may possess an importance for the personality itself\nand for society which secret transgressions in most cases lack.\n\nA poet or an artist, for example, has a wife, as to whose insufficiency\nfor him all are agreed\u2014so long as he still has her. Suddenly he finds\nthe space, that was empty and waste, filled by a new creation; the air\nbecomes alive with songs and visions. He not only feels his slumbering\npowers awake, he knows that great love has called up in him powers he\nhad never suspected; he sees that now he will be able to accomplish\nwhat he could never have done before. He follows the life-will of his\nlove, and he does right. Marriages kept inviolable have doubtless\nproduced many great advantages to culture. But it is not to them that\nart and poetry owe their greatest debt of gratitude. Without \u201cunhappy\u201d\nor \u201ccriminal\u201d love, the world\u2019s creations of beauty would at this\nmoment be not only infinitely fewer, but, above all, infinitely poorer.\nNay, after such an exclusion the whole spiritual world might appear\nas some medi\u00e6val church, decorated from floor to roof with frescoes,\nappeared after the whitewashing of the Reformation.\n\nBut in a choice such as we have just mentioned, public opinion is\nalways certain that the sufferings of the wife, unimportant as she\nis to the community, are the great thing, while those of the man,\nimportant to the community, may be disregarded.\n\nHe, however, who experiences the new spring which flowers in song, in\ntones, in colours, raises the life of generation after generation,\ncenturies after the one person or the few who suffered through him have\nlong ceased to suffer.\n\nWho would have gained what the race would have lost through his\nself-sacrifice? Not the wife, if she had a heart, and not only a pride,\nwhich could suffer.\n\nNot only from the point of view of universal, but from that of\nindividual life-enhancement, we ought not to give all our sympathy to\nthe one who is called \u201cheart-broken.\u201d Why is the heart that is broken\nconsidered so much more valuable than the one or the two which must\ncause the pain lest they themselves perish? And why will people not\nsee that he who is looked upon as \u201cbroken-hearted\u201d sometimes finds\na new and richer happiness? But, above all, why is it constantly\nforgotten that one who suffers through sorrow often becomes greater\nthan he could ever have been in the secure possession of his \u201cproperty\u201d?\n\nThere are other ways of living on a great emotion than that of being in\nthe usual sense made happy by it.\n\nThis must, however, be remembered above all by him who, already tied,\nis seized by a new feeling. If all three parties are high-minded\nenough, it has sometimes happened that the feeling has been transformed\ninto an _amiti\u00e9 amoureuse_, which has made all of them richer and none\nof them unhappy\u2014even if it has made none of them completely happy.\n\nBut even under other circumstances people ought to remember, that one\ndoes not always own what one has\u2014and sometimes possesses most surely\nwhat one has never owned.\n\nThe sanctity and loftiness of one\u2019s own feeling is the indestructible\npart of happiness in love. No longer to be able to love is the greatest\nsorrow. But a person no more becomes less worthy of love because his\nown love is dead, than he becomes so through leaving love unrequited.\n\nTherefore, he alone can feel himself really ruined who has been nothing\nbut the means of another\u2019s pleasure or sport, development or work;\na means that is cast off when it no longer affords enjoyment or\nprofit. The person who is thus betrayed in love, either because love\nnever existed or because its past existence is denied; who sees the\npersonality he loved unveiled as another than he believed himself to\nbe loving\u2014this person must exert his whole soul to save it from being\nnarrowed, embittered, and destroyed. All other great blows of fate may\nbe borne in such a way that a man grows by them: but to lose faith in\na human being is the greatest pain of all, since it is also the most\nunfruitful; since it in no respect enlarges the soul or enhances the\nexistence.\n\nBut even from this suffering the soul may finally raise itself through\nthe consciousness that it has too great a value of its own to allow\nitself to be destroyed by the baseness or pettiness of another.\nOnly he who has fought out the battle alone in all the horrors of\nthe desert night knows what the sunrise is. Years later it may fall\nto the lot of such a man, who at one blow has lost everything\u2014the\nsanctity of his memories, the meaning of his experiences, the faith\nof his love\u2014himself to see the truth of the great, calm thinker\u2019s\nexhortation: that one ought neither to laugh nor weep at, exalt nor\ncurse a human being\u2019s actions, but only to try to understand them\n(Spinoza). And then there begins for him a great and difficult work,\nwhich perhaps will last as long as life lasts, the work of looking\ninto the depths of this other soul; of again reviewing the past in the\nperspective of distance; of perceiving his own limitations as well as\nthose of the other, and thus beginning to understand. This is the only\nforgiveness there is.\n\nBut thus a person once dead and buried in the midst of life may finally\nsee the grass grow green and the sun shine over his grave.\n\n\nIf this can become true\u2014and it has become true for many people whom\nothers regarded as broken-hearted\u2014how much more then is it not true\nto him who has once been really rich and has never been robbed of his\ngreatest treasure, the glory of his own love?\n\nA woman, for example, who for years of her life has possessed complete\nhappiness and through this has become a mother\u2014will she be robbed of\nit all, if this happiness comes to an end?\n\nThere is still the happiness of others to serve, the sufferings of\nothers to alleviate, the great ends of humanity to further. To many a\none who has never even had a happiness of his own this must still be\nsufficient consolation. But we judge of happiness as of wealth. That\ninnumerable human beings daily perish from want makes little impression\non us. But if one of our friends falls from riches into poverty, this\nseems to us dreadful. We forget that he may perhaps, through poverty,\nattain a development that riches never won for him; that he who is\nrobbed by fortune may make a new position for himself.\n\nLife has countless possibilities as well as countless contradictions.\nIt is full of secret remedial powers as well as of hidden causes of\ndeath. And, finally, it is, therefore, very uncertain whether it is\nnot the two who come together that are \u201ctorn asunder\u201d\u2014while the one\nabandoned remains whole.\n\nFor loving is a healing medicine even for the wounds love gives. Only\none thing a loving person cannot bear, to see the dear ones suffer. To\ntake one\u2019s self silently away in order to spare them pain is within\nthe power of great love. And this does not mean a tame resignation\nwatering the red stream of the blood. It means that love has become\nso great that it takes seriously the great words so lightly uttered\nin happiness, that torments caused by the beloved were dearer than\njoys given by others. When love has become the power in which a person\nlives and moves and has his being, the words of the _Epistle to the\nCorinthians_ on love are fulfilled in a more beautiful way than Paul\ndreamed of. Great love does not only love for the sake of loving; it\nattains the incredible: to love the loved one more than one\u2019s own\nfeeling. If it were a question of thus providing for the other a more\nperfect happiness, this love would be able to quench its own flame and\nwith it the fulness of pain and of joy that life had gained from this\nfeeling. Women sometimes make such a sacrifice. Here and there a man\nhas been capable of it. But he who has attained to this height of\nemotion lives so wonderful a life that the happiness the united couple\ncreate for each other must be extraordinarily great if these two rich\nones are not in reality to be the poorer.\n\nWhen the thought has once become inherent in mankind that no one can\nbe happy without the feeling that he is making others happy; that only\nthe highest development of one\u2019s own feeling is imperishable happiness;\nthat all other happiness is charity, not justice\u2014then there will be\nfewer torn asunder, even if there be no more happy ones.\n\nBut love is still such, men, women, and the people around them are\nstill such, that one would rather wish a tied man or woman strength to\nendure marriage than to break it, at least if they have children who\nmust share with them the unknown fortunes of their love. Before these,\nif ever, one feels the meaning of the Breton fisher\u2019s song:\n\n  ... la mer est grande et ma barque est petite ...\n\nHow often has not the little boat, fraught with life\u2019s last riches,\nbeen lost on the wide sea?\n\nBut therefore it is that no one there seeks his pleasure, but only his\nlife.\n\n\nThat our actions in the erotic sphere\u2014as in every other\u2014must call\nforth the criticism of others is just as unavoidable as that our\nfigure should be reflected in a mirror as we pass. But public opinion\nis a convex mirror, a globe swollen by prejudice, which distorts the\nimage. Only a clear and calm soul gives a true picture of another\u2019s\nactions.\n\nAnd to such a soul, it will not unfrequently be apparent that the\n\u201ctransgression\u201d was right for one nature and not for the other. The\nlatter will have felt that its innermost being would have been outraged\nif fidelity to the past had not been preserved to the uttermost\u2014and\nwill have chosen to allow its erotic powers to wither and to live only\nby the will of duty. Of this kind of self-immolation the same is true\nas of its bodily counterpart: sometimes they are great souls, sometimes\ngreat cowards. Nay, the same sacrifice may be sublime at one period of\nour lives and shameful at another.\n\nLife never shows us \u201cmarriage,\u201d but countless different marriages;\nnever \u201clove,\u201d but countless lovers. He who sets up an ideal in these\nmatters must, therefore, be content with possibly working for the\nfuture, but should not use his ideal as a criterion for the present.\nNay, he ought not even to desire in the future the sole authority of\nhis own ideal\u2014since a descent from the diverse to the uniform would be\na retrogressive development.\n\nThe effort of society to press into a single ideal form life\u2019s infinite\nmultitude of different cases under the same circumstances or of the\nsame cases under different circumstances, the same influences on\ndifferent personalities or the same personalities under different\ninfluences\u2014this has been in the field of sexual morality as violent\na proceeding as would be the establishment for all figures of\nPolycletus\u2019s canon of beauty. The madness of the latter proceeding\nwould be obvious. But violence to souls is not so obvious. Therefore it\nis always established by law.\n\nNot until the diversity of souls becomes in our ideas a truth as real\nas the diversity of our bodies shall we perceive that of all dogmas\nmonogamy has been that which has claimed most human sacrifices. It will\none day be admitted that the _auto-da-f\u00e9s_ of marriage have been just\nas valueless to true morality as those of religion were to the true\nfaith.\n\nThe Grand Inquisitors of the past probably resembled those of the\npresent day in that, when confronted by a particular case within the\ncircle of their own friends and relations, they found easily enough\nextenuating circumstances which they did not otherwise admit. But\nwe must learn to see that every case is a separate case and that,\ntherefore, sometimes a new rule\u2014not only an exception to an old\nrule\u2014becomes necessary. We cannot any longer maintain this double\nstandard for known or unknown, for friends or enemies, for literature\nor life. It must be abolished by an earnest desire for genuine\nmorality.\n\nThis double standard shows us, however, that even among the orthodox\nof monogamy the impossibility of carrying out a monogamous morality\nwhich shall apply to all is beginning to be perceived. But the effort,\nnevertheless, to attain in some degree the impossible now stands in\nthe way of the possible, which is germinating here and there: the\nattainment of the morality of love.\n\nAlthough the new life is already showing its strength\u2014like spring\nflowers that push their way through last year\u2019s carpet of dead\nfoliage\u2014the withered leaves must yet be cleared away.[7] And only they\nwho do not perceive the power of the new spring are afraid that the\nearth will not be able to dispense with its withered protection.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nA NEW MARRIAGE LAW\n\n\nIt results from the foregoing that the ideal form of marriage is\nconsidered to be the perfectly free union of a man and a woman, who\nthrough mutual love desire to promote the happiness of each other and\nof the race.\n\nBut as development does not proceed by leaps no one can hope that\nthe whole of society will attain this ideal otherwise than through\ntransitional forms. These must preserve the property of the old form:\nthat of expressing the opinion of society on the morality of sexual\nrelations\u2014and thus providing a support for the undeveloped\u2014but at\nthe same time must be free enough to promote a continued development\nof the higher erotic consciousness of the present time. The modern\nman considers himself supreme in the sense that no divine or human\nauthority higher than the collective power of individuals themselves\ncan make the laws that confine his liberty. But he admits the necessity\nof a legal limitation of freedom, when this prepares the way for a\nmore perfect future system for the satisfaction of the needs of the\nindividual and a more complete freedom for the use of his powers.\nInsight into the present erotic needs and powers of individuals\nmust thus be the starting-point of a modern marriage law, but not\nany abstract theories about the \u201cidea of the family\u201d or juridical\nconsiderations of the \u201chistorical origin\u201d of marriage.\n\nSince, as already pointed out, society is the organisation which\nresults when human beings set themselves in motion to satisfy their\nneeds and exercise their powers in common, it must also be in a\ncondition of uninterrupted transformation according as new needs arise\nand new powers are developed. This has now taken place in the erotic\nsphere, especially since those emotional needs and powers of the\nsoul, which formerly were nourished by and directed towards religion,\nhave been nourished by and directed towards love. Love itself is thus\nbecoming more and more a religion, and one which demands new forms for\nits practice.\n\nBut while the individualist can only be satisfied with the full freedom\nof love, he is compelled by the sense of solidarity, at least for the\npresent, to demand a new law for marriage, since the majority is not\nyet ready for perfect freedom.\n\n\nThe sense of solidarity and individualism have equally weighty\nreasons for condemning the existing institution of marriage. It\nforces upon human beings, who are seldom ideal, a unity which only an\nideal happiness renders them capable of supporting. It fulfils one\nof its missions\u2014that of protecting the woman\u2014in a way that is now\nhumiliating to her human dignity. It performs its second function\u2014that\nof protecting the children\u2014in an extremely imperfect fashion.\nIts third\u2014that of setting up an ideal of the morality of sexual\nrelations\u2014it performs in such a way that this ideal is now a hindrance\nto the further development of morality.\n\nFrom a realistic point of view, what is the value of matrimony to a\nwoman? That the present law compels the husband to provide for his\nwife and for the children born in wedlock, and that at the death of\nthe husband it secures to her the widow\u2019s share in his estate and to\nthe legitimate children their inheritance. But she pays for these\neconomical advantages by resigning the right over her children, her\nproperty, her work, her person, which she possessed when unmarried.\nEven when there is a marriage settlement the husband\u2014as guardian and\nadministrator of his wife\u2019s property\u2014may squander this, as well as\nthe proceeds of her work; he can forbid her exercise of a calling or\nsell the implements of its exercise. In the eyes of the law, she is\nplaced on a footing with her children who are under age: her husband\nhas to sue and to answer for her, and there are certain functions of a\ncitizen which she cannot perform at all, while others, which she could\nperform if unmarried, she can fulfil only with her husband\u2019s consent.\n\nAs concerns the children, the law leaves those born outside wedlock\nentirely without rights, except for an insufficient contribution to\ntheir bringing-up, if the father does not free himself from this by\noath. The law provides very imperfectly for the welfare of the new\ngeneration by limiting the right of marriage to certain degrees of\naffinity, refusing it in the case of certain diseases, and fixing the\nage for lawful marriage at fifteen to seventeen for the woman and\ntwenty-one years for the man.[8]\n\nFinally, marriage binds the wife to the husband and him to her, by the\nfact that neither can obtain a divorce without the other\u2019s consent\nunless certain acts of ill-treatment or misconduct can be proved. Even\nwhen married people agree to a divorce, it entails a painful procedure\nfor both of them and poor guarantees for the children\u2019s welfare. If\nthe man refuses a divorce, the woman\u2014owing to the above-mentioned\nobligation of proof, frequently impossible\u2014is forced to remain with\na man she despises, since only thus can she keep her children and\nreceive support. If the husband is no longer capable of providing this;\nif, perhaps, he has squandered means belonging to her which would\nhave provided it; nay, if the wife, by her own work, is keeping him,\nherself, and the children, he still retains the same authority over her\nand them.\n\nThe unmarried woman, on the other hand, who has given her love\n\u201cfreely\u201d\u2014that is, without legal compensation in the form of a right\nof maintenance\u2014retains full authority over her children, as well as\npersonal liberty, responsibility, and civil rights. In other words,\nshe retains all that gives her a dignified position as a human being\nin society\u2014but loses the respect of society and economic security.\nThe married woman, on the other hand, loses all that is important to a\nmember of society of full age, but retains the respect of society, her\nright of inheritance, and her support.\n\nTruly, society has not made it easy for woman to fulfil her \u201cnatural\nmission\u201d! That she nevertheless\u2014under one or other of these two\nalternatives\u2014still gladly performs it, is strong evidence that\nit must be the most powerful demand of her nature. If other needs\nbecome stronger\u2014as is already the case with some women\u2014then the\nconditions of either alternative will be unacceptable. And as the new\nwomen are still less likely to content themselves with the two other\nextremes\u2014lifelong asceticism or prostitution\u2014a new marriage has\nbecome for them a condition of life.\n\n\nThe marriage law now in force is a geological formation, with\nstratifications belonging to various phases of culture now concluded.\nOur own phase alone has left few and unimportant traces in it.\n\nIt has been perceived in our time that love ought to be the moral\nground of marriage. And love rests upon equality. But the law of\nmarriage dates from a time when the importance of love was not yet\nrecognised. It, therefore, rests upon the inequality between a lord and\nhis dependent.\n\nOur time has given to the unmarried woman the opportunity of making\nher own living, a legal status, and civil rights. But the marriage law\ndates from a time when women had none of these things. The married\nwoman, thus, under this law, now occupies a position in sharp contrast\nto the independence of the unmarried, which has been acquired since\nthat time.\n\nOur time has displaced the ancient division of labour, by which the\nwife cared for the children and the husband provided maintenance. But\nthe law of marriage dates from a time when this division held full sway\nand when it was, therefore, almost impossible for a woman to receive\nprotection for herself and her child otherwise than in matrimony. Now\nsociety has begun to provide such protection for unmarried mothers, and\nthe renunciation of liberty by which the wife purchases the protection\nof marriage is seen to be not only more and more unworthy, but also\nunnecessary.\n\nOur time has recognised more and more the importance of every child as\na new member of society and the right of every child to be born under\nhealthy conditions. But the law of marriage was framed at a time when\nthis aspect had not presented itself to the consciousness of mankind;\nwhen the illegitimate child was regarded as worthless, however superior\nin itself, and the legitimate child as valuable, whatever might be its\nhereditary defects.\n\nOur time has recognised the value to morality of personal choice.\nIt admits as really ethical only such acts as result from personal\nexamination and take place with the approval of the individual\nconscience.\n\nThe marriage system came into being when this sovereignty of the\nindividual was scarcely suspected, much less recognised; when souls\nwere bound by the power of society, and when compulsion was society\u2019s\nonly means of attaining its ends. Marriage was the halter with which\nthe racial instinct was tamed, or, in other words, the instinct of\nnature was ennobled by being brought into unity with social purpose.\n\nNow love has been developed, the human personality has been developed,\nand woman\u2019s powers have been liberated.\n\nOn account of woman\u2019s present independent activity and\nself-determination outside marriage, the law must provide that the\nmarried woman shall retain her freedom of action by giving her full\nauthority over her person and property.\n\nOn account of the individual\u2019s dislike of being forced into religious\nforms that have no meaning for him, the legal form of marriage must be\na civil one.\n\nOn account of the individual\u2019s desire of personal choice in actions\nthat are personally important, the continuance of marriage\u2014as well as\nits inception\u2014must depend upon either of the parties and divorce be\nthus free; and this all the more, since the new idea of purity implies\nthat compulsion in this direction is a humiliation.\n\nThese are the claims the people of the present day make upon the form\nof marriage, if it is to express their personal will and further the\ngrowth of their personality. The actual institution of marriage, on the\nother hand, involves forms that have become meaningless and therefore\nrepulsive, and places the parties under the law in a position with\nregard to one another which, looked at ideally, is as far beneath the\nmerits and dignity of the modern man as it actually is beneath those of\nthe modern woman.\n\nWhile thus the development of the ideas of personality and of love\nhave resulted in these demands of increased liberty for the individual\nwithin marriage, the idea of solidarity and evolutionism, on the other\nhand, demand great limitations of individual freedom. The knowledge\nthat every new being has a right to claim that its life shall be a\nreal value\u2014as well as knowledge of the right of society that the new\nlife shall be a valuable one\u2014has involved the demand of prohibiting\nmarriages which would be dangerous to the children, and of better\nprotecting the children where there is no marriage or where a marriage\nhas been dissolved.\n\n\nThe economic factor has in modern society an importance for marriage\nwhich is felt to be more and more degrading as marriage becomes\nestablished on the basis of love.\n\nMarriages inwardly dissolved are now often held together because both\nthe parties would be in a worse financial position after divorce. The\nhusband can not or will not make his wife a sufficient allowance; he\nis, perhaps, unable to realise her fortune, which he has invested in\nhis business, or perhaps he has spent it; the wife at marriage has\nabandoned an occupation which she cannot now take up again in order to\nsupport herself\u2014and so on to infinity.\n\nBut even happy marriages suffer through the wife\u2019s subordinate\nposition, economically as well as judicially.\n\nIt is, therefore, of great importance both in happy and unhappy\nmarriages that the wife should retain control over her property and\nher earnings; that she should be self-supporting in so far as she\ncan combine this with her duties as a mother, and that she should be\nmaintained by the community during the first year of each child\u2019s life.\nSimilar proposals have been made from the socialist side, but also in\nother quarters.\n\nA woman ought to be able to claim this subsidy if she can prove:\n\nThat she is of full legal age;\n\nThat she has performed her equivalent of military service by undergoing\na one year\u2019s training in the care of children and in hygiene, and\u2014if\npossible\u2014in nursing the sick;\n\nThat she will, herself, care for the children or provide other\nefficient care;\n\nThat she is without sufficient personal means or earnings to provide\nfor her own and half of the children\u2019s support, or that she has given\nup work for the sake of looking after the children.\n\nThose who are unwilling to conform to the above conditions will not\napply for the subsidy, which naturally cannot be greater than what\nis strictly necessary, and which will only in exceptional cases be\ndistributed for longer than a child\u2019s _three_ first and most important\nyears.\n\nThose who renounced the subsidy would thus be as a rule the well-to-do,\nor those who wished to devote themselves to self-support and thus gave\nup, either altogether or after the first year, this help from the\ncommunity. The arrangement would fulfil its purpose in those classes of\nsociety where at present the mother\u2019s outdoor work, both in country and\ntown, involves equally great dangers to herself and the children. The\ncharges for this most important of defensive taxes ought, like other\nsimilar ones, to be graduated and thus to fall most heavily upon the\nrich, but upon the unmarried in the same degree as the married.\n\nInspection should be carried out by commissioners to be appointed in\nevery commune, varying in number according to the size of the commune,\nbut always composed of two-thirds women and one-third men. These\nwould distribute the subsidy and supervise the care not only of young\nchildren but also of older ones. The mother who neglected her child\nwould, after three cautions, be deprived of the subsidy and the child\nwould be taken from her. The same would also apply to other parents who\nsubjected their children to bodily or mental ill-treatment.\n\nThe mother\u2019s maintenance would always amount to the same sum per\nannum, but for every child she would receive in addition the half of\nits maintenance, until the number of children was reached that the\ncommunity might consider desirable from its point of view. Any children\nborn beyond that number would be the affair of the parents. Every\nfather would have to contribute a corresponding half of the child\u2019s\nmaintenance from its birth up to the age of eighteen. At present the\ncommunity affords a man help as breadwinner for a family in the form\nof higher wages calculated to that end and a rising scale according\nto age, which, however, he receives whether he is married or single,\nchildless or the father of a family. But by paying the subsidy to the\nmother, all need of unequal wages for the two sexes would cease, and\nthe subsidy would really further the purpose that is of importance to\nthe community: the rearing of the children.\n\nThe present system, on the other hand, maintains that most crude\ninjustice, the difference between legitimate and illegitimate children;\nit frees unmarried fathers from their natural responsibility; it drives\nunmarried mothers to infanticide, to suicide, to prostitution.\n\nAll these conditions would be altered by a law which prescribed that\nevery mother has a right, under certain conditions, to the support\nof the community during the years in which she is bearing the burden\nmost important to the community; and that every child has a right to\nmaintenance by both its parents, to the name of both and\u2014so far as\nthere may be property\u2014to the inheritance of both.\n\nSince the mother must now, with increasing frequency, be a breadwinner\nas well as the husband, it is just, even from this point of view, that\nshe should share with him authority over the children. But since,\nfurthermore, she has suffered more for them, thus loves them more and\nunderstands them better\u2014and thus, as a rule, not only does more for\nthem but also means more to them\u2014it is likewise just that, whereas the\nmother now has to be satisfied with what power the father allows her,\nthe conditions should be reversed, so that the mother should receive\nthe greatest legal authority.\n\nWhen the husband is not alone in bearing the burden of breadwinner,\nthere will be a possibility of his duty as educator being realised. He\nwill then have time to develop his qualities in this direction and the\ngrowing value of his fatherly care and fatherly love will lighten for\nthe mother the task of education which at present often overwhelms her,\nsince with a growing consciousness of its responsibility this task is\nbecoming more and more difficult to perform with her increasing need of\npersonal freedom of movement.\n\nThe mother and child would, therefore, not have to look exclusively\nto the father for the necessaries of life, and they could not become\nentirely destitute through his incapacity or downfall. But he would,\nnevertheless, continue to bear his half of the responsibility and\nthe family would still be dependent on the father and his voluntary\ncontributions for a great part of the pleasures of life, while he\nwould, moreover, be freed from the often unbearable burdens under which\nhis spiritual worth as a father and his family joys now suffer to so\ngreat a degree. Far from its being the case\u2014as one has heard certain\nwomen declare\u2014that the majority of men are nothing but egoists,\ncountless numbers of them have borne and still bear burdens of slavery,\nnot only for wife and children but also for the support of other female\nrelations. On the other hand, the prevailing system of society has\nprompted fathers still more to enslave themselves in order to create\nan advantageous position for their children. The existing rights and\nduties of a father stand in immediate connection with the right of\ninheritance, one of the greatest dangers of our system of society.\nFor inheritance often keeps inefficiency in a leading position, but\nefficiency in a dependent one; it favours the possibility of the\ndegenerate propagating the race, above all if the parents have died\nearly, although\u2014as it has been asserted\u2014it is precisely such children\nthat are the least apt to have offspring. It is unfavourable to the\nchances of the efficient in this as in every other direction, where\nbirth in poor circumstances involves hindrances to education and the\nuse of personal powers which wealth permits. On the other hand, poverty\nfavours natural talent, in so far as it braces the capabilities, while\nit is often one of the misfortunes of heirs not to experience this\ninciting and pleasurable tension. It is only the strongest or the\nfinest natures that become stronger and finer through the advantages\nand the sense of responsibility that inherited wealth brings with it.\nIn the main, the productive sources of society would be multiplied\nupwards as well as downwards, if wealth became personal in the fullest\nsense of the word, depending on each person\u2019s contribution of efficient\nforce, but the goad of acquisitiveness would be broken, through the\nlimited possibility of increasing one\u2019s wealth and the needlessness of\nthereby securing the existence of one\u2019s children. A new system would\ndo away with the necessity of applying to the state for increase of\nsalary for the education of children as befits their class. For if all\nchildren were placed in an equal position by the community providing\neverything\u2014from school materials to travelling scholarships\u2014for the\ncomplete education of the bodily and mental powers of individuals, an\neducation in which a true circulation of the classes would take place\nby consideration being given only to ability; if each thus had the same\nposition when all entered upon their different careers; if each had the\nsame chances of there attaining to the right use of his special powers,\nsince he had had every means of training them; if society gave\u2014as a\nright, not as a charity\u2014to every worker full care during sickness and\nfull support in old age, then the desire to favour one\u2019s own children\nat the cost of the rest would disappear. The father whose activity\nhad procured him a position of power, which during his lifetime made\nhis children\u2019s circumstances more favourable than those of a number\nof others, would certainly thus be able\u2014and to the advantage of the\nwhole community\u2014to allow his children to enjoy that differentiation\nand refinement which, for instance, the richer culture of their home\nmight give. But when the right of inheritance disappeared\u2014or at least\nwas greatly limited and heavily taxed\u2014he could not exempt them from\npermanently securing by the exercise of their own powers the advantages\nof a higher or lower kind that they had learned to value at home.\n\nWhen the difference between legitimate and illegitimate children is\nabolished in every respect, the paternal home, as in classical and\nScandinavian antiquity, may include more often than at present the\nchildren of more than one living mother; sometimes even a mother\u2019s home\nmay include children of more than one living father. In either case\nthis would be a recognition of the children\u2019s rights which would leave\npresent day customs with respect to children born out of wedlock a long\nway behind.\n\n\nNo relation shows better than marriage how morals and emotions may be\ncenturies in advance of the laws within whose limits they have been\ndeveloped.\n\nMany men now show their wives a delicacy of feeling and allow them a\nfreedom of action which render these fortunate wives unconscious of\nthe fact that\u2014in the eyes of the law\u2014they possess these only by the\ngrace of their husbands. It is not until relations become unhappy that\nthe wife discovers that all the legal power is placed in the hands of\none, who thus has judicial support if he wishes to use his power alone,\nto the exclusion of his wife, or if he wishes to misuse it, to the\ndetriment of her and the children.\n\nThat, in spite of these circumstances, married men so often voluntarily\nplace themselves in a position of equality with their wives in regard\nto authority in the home and with the children is the best proof of\nthe power of the feelings to protect essential values. And that men, in\nspite of these marriage laws, have become more and more considerate,\nredounds as much to their credit as their success in becoming human\nbeings\u2014in spite of all hindrances\u2014redounds to that of royal\npersonages. Just as the latter have more excuse than others when they\nabuse their position, so the same is true of the husband, who must be a\nvery fair-minded person if an _I will_ is not to be the conclusion of\na difference of opinion between himself and his wife; for not even the\ntenderest love will hinder the sense of mastery from flaring up in the\nface of her obstinate resistance in one direction or another.\n\nTo the majority of men, however\u2014and this is the more the case the\nlower they are in other respects\u2014the present marriage law still\nforms the great hindrance in the way of their development to a higher\nhumanity. To have wife and child in his power makes of the wicked man\na torturer, of the low-minded a wretch. There is no exaggeration in\nStuart Mill\u2019s words, that so long as the family is based upon laws\nwhich are at variance with the first principles of social life in other\nthings, the law will be favouring what education and civilisation are\ncounteracting in other spheres, namely, the right of force instead of\nthat of personality. Everywhere\u2014in morals as in politics\u2014it is now\nheld that not what a man becomes through being born in a certain sex\nor class, but what he is personally worth determines the respect he\nshould enjoy; that only his conduct and merits can be the source of his\npower and authority. But marriage reverses the whole of this principle\nof modern constitutional law and, therefore, the social application of\nthe principle of personality has not yet gone beyond the surface.\n\nThat the law continues to sanction what reality has begun to transform\nis, as we have said, of comparatively little weight, since the law\nis\u2014in the better sense of the words\u2014a dead letter. But the immediate\ndanger to the individual and the indirect danger to society become\ngreater in proportion as the possessor of uncontrolled power is worse,\nor the life less ideal in which this authority is decisive. And even\nwhen circumstances are favourable, the authority of the husband is the\nmore painful to the modern woman in proportion as she is more conscious\nof being able to attain only through perfect equality a satisfactory\nco-operation with her husband in every direction. It is this profound\nvexation of the modern woman with her dependence which, amongst other\nthings, makes many women, even when they do not need it, wish to remain\nat least self-supporting after marriage.\n\nThe labour market has hitherto favoured this desire of theirs. It can,\nhowever, only be a question of time when the unmarried women will begin\nto thrust out the married ones\u2014owing to the conditions of competition\nbeing more favourable to the former\u2014when legislation has begun to deal\nwith the present disproportionate state of things, where the wives\nlower the wages of the husbands, the children those of the parents,\nand the result is the neglect of the homes and the physical and moral\ndegeneration of the children.\n\nBut when married women\u2019s labour has been limited by legal \u201cprotection\nfor mothers\u201d\u2014especially if this takes the form proposed above\u2014and\nwhen, further, the married and the unmarried are protected by the\nfixing of a minimum wage, an eight hours\u2019 day, and prohibition of\nworking at night and in certain industries dangerous to health, then\nthe mothers will still be able\u2014when their children have passed the\nage of infancy\u2014to take part in several occupations. This will be\nstill more the case if a collective system of dwellings sets them free\nfrom the work of the kitchen and renders possible a good collective\nsuperintendence of the children while their mothers are absent.\n\nBut the best thing for the children\u2014especially if by the prohibition\nof home work they were rescued from earning a livelihood to the\nadvantage of their school and home life\u2014would be the liberation of\nmarried women from outside labour through the higher wages of their\nhusbands, while in return _their home work would acquire the character\nof spiritual care_. This would be brought about in the fullest sense\nby the mothers being allowed the above-mentioned _subsidy from the\ncommunity_ for bringing up the children. In such an arrangement,\napproved by the community, the majority might find that agreement\nbetween their occupation and their powers which constitutes the true\njoy of work. For it can scarcely be doubted that even now the wife,\nas a rule, finds more employment in her home work, however heavy, for\nher special talents, and thus finds a greater satisfaction than the\nhusband, who often slaves, not at the work he has chosen, but at that\nhe has been able to obtain.\n\nBut what, in spite of this, now makes women more and more unwilling\nto undertake the duties of the home and to prefer outside work, is\nthat they carry out their domestic work under conditions derogatory to\nthemselves.\n\nFirst and foremost, women are determined to enjoy the facilities in\ntheir domestic work which here and there are already beginning to be\nprovided. These, however, will probably not become general until women\nmake more use of their capacity for thinking out the most convenient\nand agreeable methods, both for labour-saving co-operation and for\nthe performance of domestic duties, which will in any case always\nremain; and this again necessitates their educating themselves to a\nreal knowledge of the questions of consumption and other details of\nmodern household management. This will be the more necessary as the\nservant problem within a short time will have reached that point at\nwhich women of all classes will have to choose between doing the work\nthemselves and the complete dissolution of the home. Woman\u2019s domestic\nwork and the care of children will be facilitated for all women only in\nso far as the educated agree in making new and higher demands in the\nmatter of domestic arrangements as well as in practical and ornamental\nappliances. They would thus not only further their own work, but also\nevoke a higher culture as regards beauty and appropriateness, both in\narchitecture and industry.\n\nBut this is not enough to enable domestic work to regain its dignity.\n\nThis will not take place until society shows such appreciation of\nwoman\u2019s domestic work as shall remove her present sense of being kept\nby her husband to perform a subordinate work, a work which does not\nreceive the appreciation which at the present time has become the\nabsolute standard of the economical value of labour, that of a money\nwage.\n\nThe existing institution of marriage came into being when woman had no\nreal field of employment outside the home, since its income was for the\nmost part received in kind, and the wife was thus indispensable for\nturning it to account. Her domestic activity was of great value from\nthe point of view of national economy, and under these circumstances\nthe joint estate was natural. Furthermore, the mistress of the\nhouse possessed at this time\u2014as manager of the consumption of the\ncommodities she had prepared from raw materials\u2014a freedom of action\nand an authority which she now quite naturally lacks in her own eyes\nand those of her husband. It is of no avail that she has a legal\nright to be supported by her husband according to his position and\ncircumstances; for if her task frequently consists simply in asking her\nhusband for money and keeping an account of its expenditure through\nthe cook and the needlewoman, she has reason to feel herself kept in a\nhumiliating way. Neither indirectly nor directly is it through her work\nthat the food comes to the table or the clothes are fitted to the body,\nsince the husband alone earns the means wherewith she\u2014efficiently or\notherwise\u2014keeps house.\n\nFor this reason wives are becoming increasingly desirous of personally\nearning a livelihood. They see how their husbands are developed through\ndevotion to a profession, through the patience, the accumulation, and\ntension of forces which this demands. And only professional training,\nin the opinion of modern woman, can give her the same energy, only a\ndirect income can give her the same certainty of her fitness for work.\n\nBut there is another expedient which would afford these advantages\nwithout, however, driving women away from home, namely, that their\nspecial training for, and their work in, the field of housekeeping and\nthe care of children should be as serious as in any other occupation.\nNot until she has a sense of the new value of her domestic work will\nthe wife be able to demand that it shall be economically estimated like\nany other efficient work.\n\nWhen wives speak of the humiliation of being kept by their\nhusbands\u2014since they have more and more frequently been self-supporting\nbefore marriage\u2014their husbands always become profoundly idealistic.\nThey use fine words about the wife\u2019s important mission, the adapting\npower of love, until one asks some particular man: whether any love\ncould make it pleasant _for him_, instead of drawing his own income,\nto be obliged to ask his wife for what she considered necessary for\ntheir joint expenditure or for his own. In spite of the consciousness\nof having herself brought wealth, or in spite of the knowledge of\nconstantly making important contributions of work in the home, the\nnecessity of asking for money is the wife\u2019s unbearable torment. For\nthe husband in his heart has often the same feeling as she; that\nwork nowadays means earning money outside, since the management\nof an income\u2014in spite of its immense importance to the strength,\nhealth, and comfort of the workers and thus indirectly to the whole\nnational economy\u2014is more and more overlooked. In part this idea of\nthe husband is due to the very fact that women have not acquired the\nnew kind of domesticity which is necessary for the efficient conduct\nof expenditure, and that the husband is, therefore, often right in\nthinking that his wife neither works nor saves, but only wastes.\n\nHowever touchingly idealistic a girl may be in this question before\nmarriage; however confidingly she allows her husband to handle her\nfortune, after a few years of married life experience will turn her\ninto a complete realist. However happy she has otherwise been, she\nwill, nevertheless, remember more than one occasion when she has\nbitterly regretted the absence of the freedom of action a separate\nincome gives; when, for instance, her husband has refused to allow her\nto use\u2014for some ideal purpose or other\u2014the means which in many cases\nshe herself brought him, and how perhaps this for the first time really\nmade a division between them.\n\nThe dependence of woman can only be abolished through the _economic\nappreciation of her domestic work_. This appreciation is an easy matter\nwhen she has left a salaried employment for her domestic duties, for\nthe performance of the latter must be regarded as worth at least as\nmuch as her occupation formerly brought her. Where there is no such\nmeasure of value, she ought to receive the same amount as a stranger in\ncorresponding circumstances would receive in salary and cost of keep.\n\nThe wife would thus be able to meet her personal expenditure, her share\nin the joint housekeeping and in the maintenance of the children, when\nthe subsidy for this purpose came to an end but the couple were agreed\nthat the wife\u2019s work at home was of such value that she ought rather to\ncontinue it than to try to earn money outside.\n\nThe carrying out of this arrangement need not cause any dislocation of\nexisting conditions. The wife would continue to manage the domestic\nfunds to which each would contribute according to agreement, but she\nwould probably be better able to solve the problem of making them\nsuffice for their joint expenses. She would be perfectly free to forego\nher allowance, as her husband would be to increase it according to\nneed and ability. The direct economical appreciation of her domestic\nwork would transform her own and her husband\u2019s respect for it and\nthus give wives, on the one hand, a sense of independence which even\nthe conscientious are now without, on the other, a sense of duty\nwhich in the case of the less conscientious is doubtless in need of\nstrengthening; for the existing arrangement favours not only domestic\ntyranny on the part of the husbands, but also inefficiency on the\npart of certain wives. But the fact that a small number of women of\nthe upper class now do no work at all in the home, or that a number\nof others do it badly, must not obscure the truth that innumerable\nwomen are constantly expending in their homes great sums of working\npower, without being able legally to claim any corresponding income\nof their own. This applies not only to the wives but also to the\ndaughters of the house, who often work from morning till night, but\nare nevertheless obliged to accept as gifts from their parents all\nthat they personally need, and thus also have to do without anything\nthat their parents consider unnecessary. The same is true of the wife\nin relation to her husband. When unmarried\u2014whether she was in private\nor public service, a factory hand or a clerk\u2014she had the chance\nof in some measure providing for her own interests. When married,\nevery present she gives, every contribution she makes for a public\npurpose, every book she buys, every amusement she allows herself, has\nto be taken from her husband\u2019s money. The wife who, in a farmer\u2019s\nhome perhaps, saves thousands\u2014both by economy and by the direct\ncontribution of her labour\u2014frequently has not a silver piece at her\ndisposal.\n\nThis dependence, as we have said, now drives wives and daughters\nfrom their homes to earn a livelihood, which often does not by any\nmeans compensate economically for the loss of their work at home. But\nthey simply cannot endure to be without the personal income, which\nto them has become a more and more important value, according as\ntheir general freedom of movement and their needs in other directions\nhave increased\u2014above all, through increase of education and social\ninterests.\n\nWoman\u2019s present unpaid position in domestic work is an obsolete\nsurvival from earlier conditions of housekeeping and production, as\nfrom the ecclesiastical doctrine that woman was created to be man\u2019s\nhelpmate and he to be her head. Women have thus often received worse\nheads than nature gave them\u2014and thereby man has had less valuable help\nthan life intended for him.\n\nNot until an incorruptible realism establishes the principle within\nthe family as elsewhere, that each retains his own head and that every\nlabourer is worthy of his hire, will idealism find there a full field\nfor unforced generosity in the free will of mutual help.\n\nWhile what is said above applies to all women who wish to work at\nhome, it need not apply to those who are able through the fortune they\nbrought with them to meet their household expenses and those of the\nchildren and who wish in return to be free from the trouble of domestic\nwork.\n\nEvery attempt at mediation in the question of married women\u2019s\nproperty\u2014such as an obligatory marriage settlement and similar\nproposals\u2014only introduces endless complications. It will be simple and\nclear only when\u2014as in Russia even from the time of Catherine II\u2014the\nwoman simply retains her fortune. The law ought to express the great\nprinciple, that either party owns what is his or hers, while those,\non the other hand, who desire to introduce another arrangement, must\ndecide by contract how much of the property is to be held jointly.\n\nOnly a separation of property carried out as a principle will be\nable to form the new and clear ideas of justice that the present\ntime demands. A separate estate places two individuals side by side,\nco-operating with the freedom that is enjoyed by a brother and sister\nor two friends. Both parties retain full right of decision and full\nresponsibility. Either leaves transactions to the other only in that\ndegree that the other\u2019s qualities have won his confidence. Both show\neach other mutual consideration in the planning of joint undertakings\nand neither can be drawn into such without a personal examination.\nThe rights of a third party are, in these circumstances, equally\nwell protected as when brothers and sisters or friends work or live\ntogether. For the mutual transactions of married people must to this\nend have the same publicity as all other similar transactions between\nbusiness partners.\n\n\nNot only as regards her property, but also in her full civil rights\nand the disposition of her person, the married woman must be placed on\nan equal footing with the unmarried. It is true that the law is not so\nfavourable as many people believe to \u201cconjugal rights.\u201d But this belief\nhas survived for centuries and in turn influences morals; moreover,\nit is not without a certain legal support, in case such a question is\nbrought into court. As a rule, of course, this does not happen, but, on\nthe other hand, the idea of legality\u2014which is further encouraged by\nthe Bible\u2014influences the husband\u2019s sense of right and the wife\u2019s sense\nof duty. So long as the law maintains even a shadow of \u201crights\u201d in that\nrelation which ought to be the most voluntary of all, it involves a\ngross violation of love\u2019s freedom.\n\nThis\u2014like all other obsolete laws\u2014is meaningless to the erotically\nrefined, who live above the law\u2019s standpoint. But the lower the\nlevel, the more certainly does the husband enforce his \u201cright\u201d under\ncircumstances the most repulsive or most dangerous to the wife, just\nas\u2014contrary to his present right\u2014he extorts from her the earnings of\nher labour.\n\nNo law will be able to hinder the wife from continuing voluntarily to\nallow her husband to violate her person, squander her property, or ruin\nher children; for the law cannot seal up the sources of weakness and\nconflict which arise from the human being\u2019s own nature.\n\nBut what we have a right to demand of the marriage law is that it shall\ncease itself to extend these sources.\n\nThe law must be so contrived that it leaves to happiness the greatest\npossible freedom for its own formative power, while, on the other hand,\nit limits as far as possible the consequences of unhappiness; and this\ncan be brought about only by each party\u2019s complete independence of the\nother.\n\nIt is, therefore, not sufficient that the husband\u2019s guardianship and\nthe wife\u2019s legal incapacity should cease. Every provision also which\nhas for its object to bind the wife by her husband\u2019s condition and\ncircumstances must be revoked.\n\nThe majority of men now cherish the belief that a wife who leaves her\nhusband\u2019s house can be brought back with the aid of the law. This is,\ndoubtless, a mistake. But even if the letter of the law in this case\nalso is better than the popular idea of it, the whole spirit of the\nlaw, nevertheless, entails the obligation of married people to live\ntogether.\n\nThe more personality is developed, however, the more uncertain\nit becomes that every person\u2019s erotic needs are answered by this\narrangement. There are, on the contrary, such natures as would have\nloved for life, if they had not, day after day, year after year, been\nforced to adapt their wills, their habits, and their opinions to\none another. Nay, many misfortunes depend upon pure trifles, which\ntwo people with courage and foresight might easily have dealt with,\nif the instinct of happiness had not been silenced by consideration\nfor convention. The more a woman has enjoyed personal liberty before\nmarriage, the less she can endure not to have a moment or a corner in\nher home which she can call her own. And the more the people of the\npresent day enlarge their individual freedom of movement, their need of\nsolitude in other respects, the more will both man and woman enlarge\nthem in marriage.\n\nBut even if those desiring solitude remain in the minority, they must\nstill be granted both by the law and by public opinion full liberty to\nshape their married life according to their own requirements.\n\nConventionality and mental inertness pronounce this unheard-of, even\nimmoral. On the other hand, it is regarded as equally natural and moral\nthat the majority of sailors and commercial travellers should live for\nthe greater part of the year apart from their wives; that journeys for\nscientific or artistic purposes should separate married people for\nyears, or that\u2014in exceptional cases\u2014one of them, for instance, should\nspend the winters as a gymnast in England while the other is a teacher\nin Sweden.\n\nAll these things, it is thought, are nothing but external necessities.\nAnd to these one always submits! Ought we not, nevertheless, to find\nroom for the thought that there may also be necessities of the soul?\n\nOur time, for instance, tends more and more to bring together artists\nwho work at different, or, still more often, at the same art. The\nnerves of both are worn in the same way; both need the same freedom of\nmovement and the same undisturbed quiet. But in the claims of everyday\nlife for mutual sympathy and mutual consideration, nearly all their\nspiritual energy is used up. They see that, if they are not to consume\none another\u2019s mental resources, they must adopt a system of spiritual\nseparation, which is possible only at a certain distance. The holiday\nhappiness of these natures may be rapturous, the sympathetic union of\ntheir souls richer than any others. But each feels for the other what\nis expressed by one of Shakespeare\u2019s joyous young women, when she calls\na suitor \u201ctoo costly for every day\u2019s wear.\u201d Each is tempted at times\nto exclaim, like another young woman in a modern book: \u201cI want to be\nable to say, let me now for three weeks be altogether free from loving\nyou\u201d\u2014since each knows that this freedom would only renew the feeling.\nBut now married people are bound by custom to a common life, which\noften ends in their separating for ever, simply because conventional\nconsiderations prevented their living apart.\n\nNatures of other types may also feel the constraint of narrow\ndependence, enforced association, the daily accommodations and constant\nconsiderations. More people ought, therefore, quietly to begin\nreforming matrimonial customs, so that they may more nearly correspond\nto the need of renewal just alluded to. Let each, for instance, travel\nseparately, if he or she feels the desire of solitude; let one visit\nby himself the entertainment the other does not care for, but formerly\neither forced herself to, or kept the other from visiting. More and\nmore married people have separate bedrooms. And in another generation\nperhaps separate dwellings will have ceased to attract attention.\n\nCompanionship on week-days as on holidays, co-operation in the\nsatisfaction of everyday claims as well as of life\u2019s highest purposes,\nwill, nevertheless, continue to be the form of married life chosen by\nthe majority, even when public opinion has left room for other systems\nof living. But full freedom for the latter will not be won till the law\nceases to place any limit to the self-determination of each partner in\nmarriage.\n\nAnother matter that ought to be left to personal decision is the\ndegree of publicity that is to be given to a matrimonial union. An\notherwise conservative father of a family once put forward the weighty\nreasons which might be in favour of keeping secret a marriage that was,\nnevertheless, intended to be fully legal. Amongst the reasons which\nnow frequently cause the postponement of a marriage are, for instance,\nthe necessity of completing studies, or reluctance to hasten, through\nsorrow, the death of parents or others. The possibility of not having\nto publish the union in these or similar cases would spare the lovers\nunnecessary waiting without in any way encroaching on the rights of\nothers.\n\nFurther, to personal determination belong not only free divorce but\nalso new forms of divorce. As divorce itself has been treated in the\nlast chapter, we will speak here only of the method of it. The wife\u2019s\ninfidelity, as well as the husband\u2019s right to refuse divorce, at\npresent frequently affords an opportunity for blackmail on the part of\nthe husband from his wife, who, in the latter case, has to buy her\nfreedom, and in both cases often has to buy permission to keep her\nchildren. The husband, too, may be exposed to blackmailing by a wife\nwho refuses divorce or who can prove his infidelity and tries to take\nfrom him the children, whom he knows to be exposed to corruption in\nher hands. But, since society and nature favour the man\u2019s infidelity,\nwhile both are against that of the woman, it is in the nature of the\ncase that the wife often has difficulty in proving the husband\u2019s\ninfidelity, while he can prove hers easily. His repeated acts of\nunfaithfulness have, perhaps, been the cause of her single one. But it\nis, nevertheless, he\u2014since there is no valid evidence against him\u2014who\nhas the children assigned to him, or, it may be, sells them to his wife.\n\nThe same applies to divorce on account of \u201chatred and ill-will.\u201d Before\na court which cannot test the reasons that have most spiritual weight,\nbut only the evidence that has most to say, all the details of married\nlife have to be dragged forth, all its wounds inspected. The evidence\nwhich, as a rule, is decisive is that of servants! The profoundest\nspiritual concerns of educated people are thus made to depend upon the\nopinion of uneducated persons on all the complicated circumstances of\nan unhappy marriage. And not only this: the result in most cases is\ndetermined by the indelicacy with which the husband and wife have drawn\ntheir servants and their acquaintances into the conflict. If husband\nor wife has summoned the servants to witness violent behaviour, then\nthat party is in a much better position in an action for divorce than\nthe one who has sought to the utmost to preserve the dignity of their\nmarriage. There are, moreover, some sufferings of which no proof can be\nproduced. Such, for instance, is misuse of \u201cconjugal rights\u201d; another\nis the power of either party, under forms of outward politeness, to\nmake life entirely worthless to the other; a third, the constant\nopposition of two conflicting views of life.\n\nIt is only in the case of the grossest and most palpable evils that\nit is now possible to furnish the necessary evidence without such\ndifficulties as\u2014both in the granting of divorce and in the disposal of\nthe children\u2014may give rise to the grossest injustice. And all this is\nonly a part of the humiliations and sufferings which now\u2014especially\nfor the wife\u2014attend a divorce. Finally, an action for divorce is\nsufficiently expensive to render it on this account alone a matter\nof great difficulty for many people in poor circumstances to obtain\njustice.\n\nSuch a system of divorce\u2014which makes either partner dependent on the\nworst qualities of the other; which calls forth all that is indelicate\nin the nature of both; which drags their weaknesses and sufferings\nbefore the eyes of strangers, and which, nevertheless, provides no real\nprotection for the children\u2014such a system ought to give no thoughtful\nperson peace until its degrading and deteriorating influence is\nabolished and a new system, which shall protect both personal dignity\nand the children, introduced.\n\n\nIn looking back upon the preceding, it would seem to result clearly\nthat nothing that has been said here contemplates the establishment of\na single form\u2014recognised as the only moral one\u2014for sexual life. But\nsince only the fixity possessed by the law is capable of transforming\nin a profound and permanent manner the feelings and customs of the\nmajority, there is need, for the present, of a new law to support the\ngrowth of the higher feelings which will finally render any marriage\nlaw unnecessary.\n\nIn connection with the course of development of sexual morality it\nwas pointed out that the ecclesiastical and legal establishment of\nthe ideal of monogamy as _the only form of sexual morality_ has had\nfor its result the unconditional acquiescence in the idea that the\nclaims of evolution are in complete agreement with existing laws and\ncustoms; with the further result that we are now\u2014through the want of\na recognised right to manifold experience\u2014almost in the same position\nof ignorance as to the form of sexual morality most favourable to the\ndevelopment of the race, as we were a thousand years ago, and that,\ntherefore, the vital needs of the race as well as the individual\u2019s\ndemands of happiness speak for a more extended right to such\nexperiences.\n\nNo one knows whether, at the end of the new paths, we shall not again\nbe confronted by the riddle of the sphinx: how the parents are to avoid\nbeing sacrificed for the children or the children for the parents. The\none thing certain is that on the path we have hitherto followed we have\narrived at the sphinx. And all those who have been torn to pieces at\nits feet are witnesses that on this path mankind did not arrive at the\nsolution of the riddle.\n\nThe point of view which has here, throughout, been the leading one\nis, that in the same degree as life itself becomes the meaning of\nlife human beings will also in all their sensations and all their\nundertakings become more and more conscious of regard for the race.\nIt is thus only a question of time when the respect of society for a\nsexual union shall not depend upon the form of cohabitation that makes\na couple of human beings become parents, but only upon the value of the\nchildren they thus create as new links in the chain of generations. Men\nand women will then dedicate to their mental and bodily fitness for\nthe mission of the race the same religious earnestness that Christians\ndevote to the salvation of their souls. Instead of divine codes of the\nmorality of sexual relations, the desire of, and responsibility for,\nthe enhancement of the race will be the support of morals. But the\nknowledge of the parents that the meaning of life is also in their\nown lives, that they thus do not exist solely for the sake of their\nchildren, may liberate them from other duties of conscience which at\npresent bind them in respect of the children, above all that of keeping\nup a union in which they themselves perish. The home may then more than\nat present be synonymous with the mother, which\u2014far from excluding the\nfather\u2014contains the germ of a new and higher \u201cright of the family.\u201d\n\nWhen every life is regarded as an end in itself from the point of view\nthat it can never be lived again; that it must, therefore, be lived as\ncompletely and greatly as possible; when every personality is valued\nas an asset in life that has never existed before and will never occur\nagain, then also the erotic happiness or unhappiness of a human being\nwill be treated as of greater importance, and not to himself alone. No,\nit will be so also to the whole community\u2014through the life and the\nwork his happiness may give the race or his unhappiness deprive it of.\n\nFor himself, as well as for others, the individual will then examine\nthe right of renouncing happiness as conscientiously as he now submits\nto the duty of bearing unhappiness. The importance to children of their\nparents\u2019 life together will depend upon the kind of life it is, when\nit has been seen that when all is said the new generation has most to\ngain by love being always and everywhere set up as the condition of the\nhighest worth of cohabitation.\n\nThis is the rich promise that the new path offers; but the majority\ncannot see the promise on account of the possible new dangers. It is\nthis dread that still paralyses the courage to dare the untried, in\norder to win the valuable.\n\nIt is astonishing that those who tremble for the future never seek\nconsolation in the past. They would there find, for example, that when\nthe family ceased to be the match-maker, when the guardian could no\nlonger keep a woman in a position of legal incapacity and prevent her\nmarrying\u2014then there were prophecies of exactly the same \u201cdissolution\nof society and of the family\u201d as are now dreaded in freer forms of\nmatrimony. But the same people who now laugh at the former forebodings\nare convinced that the latter will be realised; for man believes in\nnothing so reluctantly as in his own nature\u2019s power of replacing\noutward bonds with inner ones. And yet, long before the new forms are\nready, there is an abundance of the new feelings which are to fill\nthem. Nothing is more certain than that, if feelings were no better\nthan laws, we should never have new laws (Mill). But human beings\nwill never believe in the possibilities of development of their own\nfeelings until they leave off seeking their strength from above. They\nwill never have faith in themselves as pathfinders until they no longer\nbelieve themselves \u201cguided.\u201d As soon as a change has taken place, it is\nregarded \u201chistorically,\u201d as a given consequence of \u201crational\u201d causes\nand \u201cdivine\u201d guidance. But to look historically at the future; to trust\nin regard to what has not yet happened to the given consequences\u2014for\ngood and evil\u2014of the same constantly operating causes, this does not\noccur to the guardians of society. Their belief in God\u2019s guidance is\nalways\u2014retrospective.\n\nThe believers in Life, on the other hand, know that vital needs were\nthe productive soil of the feelings that gave the pith to those laws,\nwhereof now only the straw remains. But the earth has not exhausted\nits powers of fertility, any more than the feelings have lost their\ncreative force. The believers in Life, therefore, attach small\nimportance to the old straw, but consider the increasing of the earth\u2019s\nproductiveness of supreme significance.\n\nA great and healthy will to live is what our time needs in the matter\nof the erotic emotions and claims. It is here that there is a menace of\nreal dangers from the woman\u2019s side; and it is, amongst other things, to\navert these dangers that new forms of marriage must be created.\n\nA human material increasing in value and in capacity for\ndevelopment\u2014this is what the earth will produce. The chances of\nobtaining this may be decreased under fixed, but favoured under freer,\nforms of sexual life. It is not only because the present day demands\nmore freedom that these claims are full of promise. They are so\nbecause the claims are coming nearer and nearer to the kernel of the\nquestion\u2014the certainty that love is the most perfect condition for\nthe life-enhancement of the race and of the individual\u2014and because\nthe present time acknowledges the necessity of temporarily limiting\nfreedom, though only by means of laws which will form an education in\nlove.\n\nSuch a law must, for the sake of woman\u2019s liberty, deprive man of\ncertain of his present rights; for the sake of the children, limit the\npresent liberty both of man and woman. But these limitations will all\nbe to the final profit of love.\n\n\nThose who believe in the perfectibility of mankind for and through love\nmust, however, learn to reckon not in hundreds of years, and still less\nin tens, but in thousands.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n\n  [1] Many of the facts in the foregoing pages are taken from a\n  detailed biographical pamphlet on Ellen Key by J. F. D. Mossel\n  in the series of _Mannen en Vrouwen von Beteekenis in Onze\n  Dagen_. The reader may be referred to an interesting account\n  of Ellen Key, from personal knowledge, by Miss Helen Zimmern,\n  in _Putnam\u2019s Magazine_, Jan., 1908.\n\n  [2] In England, Tennyson, in _The Princess_, was the first to\n  give to \u201cthe new woman\u201d her name and to speak of her objects,\n  and many others began in the middle of the last century\n  indirectly to develop the idea of love, especially Elizabeth\n  Barrett Browning, the sisters Bront\u00eb, and Miss Muloch among\n  women writers. Robert Browning, George Meredith, and other\n  great poets among the men have also furthered it indirectly.\n  In later days, George Egerton in _Rosa Amorosa_ and Edward\n  Carpenter in _Love\u2019s Coming of Age_ have, in their different\n  ways, given a remarkable treatment of the evolution of love.\n  _Woman Free_ by Ellis Ethelmer, _A Noviciate for Marriage_ by\n  Edith M. Ellis, _The Woman Who Did_ by Grant Allen, belong to\n  the same group of writings.\n\n  [3] Walt Whitman.\n\n  [4] As far as England is concerned I will here only remind my\n  readers of Galton\u2019s contributions to this subject; of Geddes\n  and Thomson\u2019s _Evolution of Sex_; of Havelock Ellis\u2019s _Man and\n  Woman, Sex in Relation to Society_, etc.\n\n  [5] See _Woman and Economics_ and later works by this American\n  authoress, who has many adherents in Europe as well as in\n  America.\n\n  [6] Every English reader knows what Dickens achieved in this\n  respect. I will only remind them here of Hannah Lynch\u2019s\n  (anonymously published) _Autobiography of a Child_.\n\n  [7] Before 1857, no legal divorce in the usual meaning of\n  the term existed in England. The ecclesiastical courts could\n  grant a sort of \u201cdivorce from bed and board,\u201d whereupon\n  the aggrieved party could get rid of his unfaithful half\n  by a special Act of Parliament in each particular case. As\n  a consequence, only very wealthy people could afford this\n  luxury, for it cost immense sums to get a special motion of\n  this kind through Parliament. The further injustice prevailed,\n  that in practice this course was open only to men, not to\n  women.\n\n  It was, moreover, with the greatest difficulty that Palmerston\n  succeeded in carrying the reform of 1857. The friends of\n  reform urged above all that the old law was unjust to poor\n  people, and that among both rich and poor it had become\n  increasingly common to marry again in an illegal way, so that\n  in the eyes of the law thousands of people in England were\n  living in bigamy.\n\n  The new law of 1857 introduced a separate secular court for\n  divorce causes, divorce was made legal, and the possibility of\n  taking advantage of it was placed within the reach of others\n  than the wealthiest.\n\n  But the experience of fifty years has shown that divorce\n  procedure is still altogether too costly for the poor, and\n  entails an infinity of time and trouble. Furthermore, a number\n  of revolting injustices remain.\n\n  Thus, for instance, a wife cannot obtain legal divorce from\n  her husband either because he is an habitual drunkard, or an\n  incurable lunatic, or is imprisoned for life for some grave\n  crime, or has abandoned his home and refused to contribute to\n  the support of his wife and children! The most she can obtain\n  under such circumstances is a judicial separation\u2014which makes\n  it possible for either party to enter into any illegitimate\n  connection they please. A husband can obtain divorce from his\n  wife if he can prove a single case of infidelity on her part;\n  but the wife cannot obtain divorce from her husband even if\n  he can be proved to be living in continual adultery. In order\n  to get rid of him she must be able to prove that he has been\n  guilty of cruelty towards her or has deserted her for a period\n  of two years.\n\n  The worst thing is that the greater offence is punished far\n  more leniently than the less. A wife can get a judicial\n  separation on account of her husband\u2019s infidelity, but loses\n  therewith the right of proceeding against him for divorce,\n  and neither she nor her husband may marry again. But if the\n  husband has also been guilty of cruelty to her, she obtains a\n  divorce, and then both she and her husband are at liberty to\n  remarry. The man who deceives his wife is not free to marry\n  another; but if he both deceives her and beats her, he is\n  divorced and may marry again!\n\n  In general the opponents of the existing law declare that\n  it contributes powerfully to the formation of illegitimate\n  connections.\n\n  [8] These details refer, of course, to the Swedish\n  law.\u2014TRANSLATOR.\n\n\nTHE END","title":"Love and Marriage","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":98488}