{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_67912/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_67912","id":"gutenberg_67912","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67912","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Gender & Sexuality Studies","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Sociology","Marriage","Women -- History","Women -- Social conditions"],"text":"+-------------------------------------------------+\n |Transcriber\u2019s Note:                              |\n |                                                 |\n |Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.  |\n |                                                 |\n +-------------------------------------------------+\n\n\nMODERN WOMAN\n\nHER INTENTIONS\n\nBY\n\nFLORENCE FARR\n\n[Illustration: Logo]\n\nLONDON FRANK PALMER 12-14 RED LION COURT\n\n\n     _Another fire has come into the harp,_\n     _Fire from beyond the world, and wakens it:_\n     _It has begun to cry out to the eagles!_\n                         W. B. YEATS,\n               _Second version of \u201cShadowy Waters.\u201d_\n\n\n_First published 1910. All rights reserved_\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n Mr. Galsworthy\u2019s toy dog--Jewish religion--Embryology  _page_ 7\n\n\nI\n\nTHE VOTE\n\n Latent period before explosion--Refusal of the vote\n has given impetus to revolutionary enthusiasm--Thin\n end of the wedge--Ingenuity of women--A\n working woman and the hospital official\u2019s\n chivalry--Thirty-two million workers, half-million\n independent means, two million of idle spinsters\n in England and Wales--Our wants                              15\n\n\nII\n\nWOMEN\u2019S INCOMES\n\n Lucrative professions for women--Opera singing--Theatrical,\n Literature, Medical, Expert, and\n average incomes--Other work--Independent incomes--Marriage\n for money--Courtesans, prostitutes,\n and riff-raff--Economic independence is a\n way of ennobling sex relations--Marriage often\n settles down into business partnership--The working\n man\u2019s wife--Eugenic advantages of economic\n independence--Racial and social ideals are opposed\n to each other at present                                     25\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE VARIATIONS OF LOVE\n\n The difficulty of a lasting attachment--Enthusiasm\n of youth--English girls apt to mistake interest for\n love--The virtuous wife--The flow and ebb of the\n tide of love--Permanent relations often founded\n on mutual contempt--Jealousy of relations--Mr.\n Harold Gorst\u2019s _Philosophy of Love_--The marriage\n tie must persist because it suits one half of the\n population--Six million bachelors and seven\n million spinsters in England and Wales--The\n ostracism of the unfaithful is more often the cause\n of disease becoming serious than infidelity--The\n emotional degradation of a loveless marriage                 33\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE SORDID DIVORCE\n\n Marriage laws to be reformed--Binding marriage in\n the Catholic Church--Bond of parenthood--The\n bond between the unattractive people--Heiresses--The\n childless--The extraordinarily attractive--Sordidness\n of English divorce--Restitution of conjugal\n rights--Suggested reform--Agreement in\n wishing for divorce should be the first cause for\n it--Questions of fortune or wealth to be fought out\n on economic grounds--Boredom the chief reason\n that people part, but too insulting to be mentioned\n in public--French _dot_--Sale of beauty--Sale of\n helpmate--Fixed allowance for \u201cbed\u201d and fixed\n allowance for \u201cboard\u201d--The birth of child should\n automatically make a bond as in remote country\n places--The Saturday orgy and prudence--Drugging\n and prudence--The police court and the\n wife\u2019s housekeeping money--A romance of the\n mining world                                                 41\n\n\nV\n\nTHE GREEN HOUSES OF JAPAN\n\n Edmond de Goncourt\u2019s account of courtesans in Tokio--Urgent\n danger of delay in reform--Fear of the\n spread of contagious disease--A trades union for\n prostitutes--The good of Public Health in this\n matter the good of future generations--Clean bill\n of health gives special susceptibility--_Les\n Avari\u00e9s_--Anti-social rage--The various moral standards\n of women--Dangers of promiscuity not so great\n as the dangers of a cut finger or chapped lip--The\n sale of virginity--Intoxication leads to\n promiscuity, but it is not natural to the average\n woman--The ardour of a fresh lover her greatest\n temptation--Is charm of value as a racial factor?\n The attitude of marrying women                               53\n\n\nVI\n\nBEAUTY AND MOTHERHOOD\n\n The terror of motherhood--Women will specialize--Lovers\n of men and lovers of children--A woman\n has an instinct for the right father for her child;\n but often chooses a bad lifelong companion for\n herself--Useless old ethical codes--Practical suggestion\n for race betterment--Sterilization of the\n unfit--Education in the laws of sexual health--Motherly\n women with no chance of children--Unmotherly\n women attractive to men and very\n good helpmates--Surgical aid for the tuberculosis\n child-producer--Prejudices--Intellectual education           63\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE NEW PSYCHOLOGY\n\n Life Consciousness--The Man, the Insect, the Tree\n are representatives of Intellect, Instinct, and\n Torpid Consciousness--Henri Bergson and William\n James--The interplay of the three kinds of\n consciousness--Motherhood and the vegetative\n consciousness--Choosing the mate and the instinctive\n consciousness--The Matriarchal civilization--The\n surprises instinct prepares for intellect in dreams\n and inventions                                               70\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE IMAGINATIVE WOMAN\n\n Physical love, reproduction--Emotional love, a\n satisfaction or enjoyment--Scientific curiosity\n about love--Philosophic and sympathetic understanding\n of all sorts of love--Imaginative love\n makes the consciousness elemental--The glory\n and danger of imagination--Vicarious imagination\n in reading--The middle-aged suppress imagination\n in the young--Saintly beauty--Philosophy,\n Criticism, Sensuousness, and commonplace life--Madness,\n Folly, Drink, Drugging--The imaginative\n man is womanly in these respects--Weiningen\u2019s\n _Sex and Character_--Forel, Bloch--Mr.\n Austen Chamberlain                                           78\n\n\nIX\n\nEXPERIMENTS\n\n Solitude and family--The home--The gay societies\n of the past--Solemn experiments in love--Civilization\n a protection from, or concealment of, the\n animal necessities--Eating in public--Privacy--When\n truth is goodness--Useful conventions--Saint\n Teresa and her men friends--Lead the way\n if you want to make an experiment; if you want\n to follow anyone, it is a sign you should follow the\n herd                                                         84\n\n\nX\n\nTHE SAVAGE, THE BARBARIAN, THE CIVILIZED\n\n The Spaniard, the Russian, the Parisian--Intellect,\n art, morals, religion, and women--Conspicuousness--The\n fight against the patriarchal goat--The\n passing love--The necessity of many friends--The\n real play of the life to come                                91\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThere is a great difficulty in writing of the women of the first ten\nyears of the twentieth century. This is to be the Woman\u2019s Century. In\nit she is to awake from her long sleep and come into her kingdom; but\nwhen I look about me I find myself surrounded by the most terribly\ncontradictory facts. We know there is to be a revaluation of all\nvalues--we know that old rubbish is to be burnt up, that the social\nworld is to be melted down and remoulded \u201cnearer to the heart\u2019s\ndesire\u201d; but at the same time we have to recognize that in spite of the\nenthusiasm of the alchemists and the transmuters of base metal into\ngold, the main body of society is as yet hardly aware of the fire that\nis to burn it.\n\nIn writing of this change I have to explain to one set of women, who\nwill think me outrageously advanced, my opinions of another set of\nwomen, who will think me absurdly conventional.\n\nI think I had better own up at once that as an artist I am prejudiced\nagainst the exhibition of the necessities of nature. I am like Mr.\nGalsworthy\u2019s little toy terrier, who disliked the strong odours of real\nlife. Yet at the same time I have a passion for the discussion of life;\nthe salt of wit makes me enjoy the strongest flavours. So I present\nmyself and my limitations to my readers, hoping that my fervid faith in\nthe delight of the communion of thoughts, emotions, and sympathies will\nmake up for my lack of conviction in some other directions.\n\nBefore we proceed any further I think I ought to point out that the\ndegradation of women in the past originated in the region of the\ncountry round Mount Ararat. The lowering of their status occurred\nwhen the white races adopted the Assyrian Semite\u2019s Scriptures. The\nChristian religion brought us that curse cowering behind its gospel of\nglad tidings; and it is most remarkable to trace the way in which the\nJews\u2019 religion crept into Europe under the cloak of Christianity. In\nheaven, the Gospel says, there is love, but neither marriage or giving\nin marriage. Are we to wait for heaven or the millennium before the\npresent system of marrying and selling in marriage shall be abolished?\nEveryone who has read a modern encyclop\u00e6dia is familiar with the\nfact that the first chapters of Genesis are made up of two different\nnarratives. One, called the Priestly narrative, from the beginning to\nthe first part of the fourth verse of the second chapter of Genesis,\nand continued in the first five verses of the fifth chapter. There is\nnothing derogatory to women in this narrative. The unpleasant details\nabout Adam and Eve are in the Prophetic narrative, which is given\nfrom the second part of the fourth verse of the second chapter to the\ntwenty-sixth verse of the fourth chapter. The Jews have taken advantage\nof the confusion of these two contradictory stories to fix the blame\nof all social evils on Eve, just as the Hesiod, influenced by Eastern\nlegend, fixed it on Pandora. These myths come from the same region, a\nregion in which women were kept entirely for the amusement and service\nof men, and were humbled by every kind of insult that the Semite mind\ncould invent. Women have a very long score to settle with the Jews and\nthe Mahommedans. Even Hindoo women were comparatively respected and\nfree until the Mahommedans brought their ideas into Hindostan. And I\nam told that in nearly every city of ill-fame in the world the profits\narising from the procuring of girls are collected by the Chosen Nation.\nThe Semites founded their opinion of women on fabulous legends and\nfalse science. They assert that man gives the spirit and woman the\nmatter to the child. Embryology has now taught us that the parents\nmake exactly equal contributions of chromatin, or the active element,\nto the original cell from which a child develops. It has taught us\nthat, originally, cells are capable of self-reproduction; that sex is\nnot always a vital necessity, but often a device for securing variety.\nIt has taught us by experiment that boys come from their mother\u2019s\nright side, and girls from her left side, and in a healthy mother the\nrhythm of sex is regular. The symbolism of the Fall might indeed\napply to the history of the cell which at first contains its own force\nof reproduction, but in the case of a female ovum deliberately parts\nwith some of its original power in order that it may be replaced by\nthe vital power of a male. The male cell also rends itself apart, and\nbecomes quite unfit for reproductive purposes until it can find another\ncell with which to join. In the simple facts which have been observed\nthrough microscopes there is no place for the overweening pride of the\nSemite race in the virtue of maleness; and I can only hope that it was\nignorance and not malice that led the Jews and the Arabs to spread\nfalse doctrine on the subject of sex. It is unfortunate that the first\npatriarchs, from whom they proudly count their descent, had much in\ncommon with the primitive goat worshippers, who were responsible for\nthe one-sided arrangements for sexual contentment common in harems and\nthe other patriarchal institutions I have mentioned.\n\nIn the great medi\u00e6val revival, the real age of chivalry and\ntroubadours, the knights carried their ladies\u2019 colours to victory in\nvain. The old lies are in our blood--we still believe in Eve and her\nshame. White men have fought in the past, and it remains for white\nwomen to fight now, and at last rid their sex all over the world of the\nignominy of this false doctrine.\n\n\n\n\nModern Woman:\n\nHer Intentions\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE VOTE\n\n\nIt is my conviction that all great changes come from a force that after\nmany years of silence blazes with emotional, passionate enthusiasm.\nThat long period of torpid latent life, once it is liberated from\nprison, gives driving power. Without silence and darkness no new\ncreature can be brought forth. Without resistance no great desire can\nbe felt. It is the same with the woman\u2019s movement.\n\nWhen the vote was refused, the first artillery for the woman\u2019s army was\nforged. That little request for the vote might have been granted three\nyears ago without making any more difference than the borough council\nvote here, or the parliamentary vote in New Zealand, Australia, Norway,\nFinland, and so forth, has made already. That little request, that\nmight have passed almost unnoticed had it been granted, has raised up\na powerful body of feeling on both sides, that will end in one of the\ngreatest social revolutions of the time.\n\nWhether women are militant or anti-militant, whether they ask for the\nvote in order to fight the working man or to join hands with him,\nwhether they content themselves with words of approval and donations,\nor whether they lose their tempers in denunciation of the unfeminine\nbehaviour of certain brave enthusiasts--yet all the women of many\nopinions are alike rousing themselves from their former deadly attitude\nof quiescent acceptance.\n\nThe most violent anti-suffragette is obliged to try to understand the\nquestions of social reform in order to protest against them. The most\ndowntrodden wife is hearing rumours that even now there are laws which\nmight protect her from domestic tyranny. The county ladies who never\nread anything but _The Queen_, _The Spectator_, or _Punch_, protest\nagainst the struggle, but admit that it is time that women of property\nhad a vote now that their butlers and coachmen have obtained that\nprivilege. The \u201ctoo old at thirty\u201d brigade is carrying the campaign\ninto the ballroom and skating-rink. All this is familiar to everyone\nthat moves in English society to-day, and one word of terror used by\nmen who oppose the vote is heard on all sides. They say the vote is\n\u201cthe thin end of the wedge,\u201d and I reply gladly from my side--not only\nas a suffragist, but as an onlooker at the loves and hatreds of the\nsexes--I reply that the wedge is being driven every day. Every day of\ndelay in giving women the vote gives them a power far more deadly, a\nhope more dangerous, an accomplishment far more vital. It gives them\nthe power of standing up for themselves, freed from the belief in the\nprotection of men. It gives them hope in each other. It teaches them\nto speak for themselves, and discover the force of their eloquence and\nthe ingenuity of their resources. It is impossible to go to a meeting\nof the militant party without feeling amazement at the dexterity of all\nconcerned. With wit, with banter, with beauty, with dignity, awkward\nquestions are answered, coarse jokes are frustrated, and swift as\nlight the laugh is turned against the interrupter.\n\nThe odd contrast between the scenes we personally witness and the same\nscenes served up for breakfast by the daily press, is having some\neffect in breaking up the touching faith of our foremothers in the\naccuracy of newspaper reports. Women are awake to public affairs for\nthe first time since the matriarchal period. They are weighing the\nevidence of the press, they are considering political facts. They are\nsaid to be losing the chivalrous adoration of men. But in contrast to\nthe politeness of men to well-dressed, good-looking women, I would call\nattention to the attitude of a respectable hospital official towards\na poor woman who, in November, 1909, brought her little boy as an\nout-patient.\n\nShe arrived very early in order to be able to go to her work with as\nlittle delay as possible, and secured a seat before the men, who came\nin later. When the attendant entered, she was made to go back to the\nlast seat of all and wait for her son to take his turn until all the\nelder males had been interviewed. \u201cMen come first, your place is at\nthe back,\u201d was all the answer she got to her protests. So much for\nchivalry when a woman is poor and worn with labour. It is pathetic to\nsee the working woman, apologetic for her poverty, apologetic for her\nwomanhood, apologetic for her ill-health or any temporary need of help.\nAnd I say that the working woman\u2019s heroic patience has been attained\nby centuries of ill-usage and _lack_ of chivalry. Most women would not\nunderstand the idea of chivalry if it were explained to them, so little\ndoes it come within their range of experience. We have no conception\nof the size of the mass we are dealing with. In England and Wales\nthere are about 17 million females. Of these females, 13 million are\npast childhood, roughly speaking 6 million of these are unmarried, 7\nmillion are married or widows. About 9 million married and unmarried\nwomen are unoccupied, or have retired from business; about 4 million\nare engaged in occupations, and trying to make their own living. Of\nthe 16 million males, about 2 million are unoccupied or retired, 10\nmillion are occupied, and the rest are children. Now we find from the\nlast census that about 7 million women are in charge of a family,\nand 3 million of these are occupied in business; 6 million women are\nunmarried, about 1 million of these are occupied in business, and\nnearly \u00bd million have independent means. Making allowance for the very\nyoung, we have about 2\u00bd million grown women in a dependent position\nwithout a husband or an occupation in England and Wales alone.\n\nIf one spends an afternoon studying the census returns, one sees in\nall occupations the well-paid businesses are for men, and the ill-paid\nfor women. In general and local government, defence of the country,\nand professional occupations, 326 thousand women only have subordinate\nposts, but there are nearly 2 million in domestic service. Textile\nmanufactures, 663 thousand; dress, 710 thousand; food and lodging, 300\nthousand, but in commerce and finance only 60 thousand.\n\nMen can no longer support their daughters, and daughters cannot\ncommand good positions in lucrative professions. There are only 7\nmillion families, and at least 4 million grown-up women, unmarried\nand superfluous as mothers. The working man tells these women to \u201cgo\nhome and do the washing.\u201d \u201cWell,\u201d a virgin replies, \u201cone million of us\nare working at laundry and other work, under half a million of us are\namusing ourselves on independent incomes, and the rest of us have to\nwhile away life somehow without money or occupation, so we are making a\nrevolution.\u201d\n\nThe struggle for the vote is putting heart into the superfluous woman,\nand it is putting the hope of reorganizing the market value of women\u2019s\nlabour into her heart. We not only want work, but we want good wages.\nIf we have children we want to be sure they will be cared for and fed.\nIf we keep house we want our wages. The 12 million females that have\nno independent income cry out to the \u00bd million that has an independent\nincome, in their almost hopeless struggle to win fair wages. It is\ninteresting to think that out of the total population of about 32\u00bd\nmillion in England and Wales, a very little over \u00bd million are living\non independent incomes, and we find that there are less than 100,000\nheirs, and more than 400,000 heiresses in this country. The rest, that\nis 32 million, have to work or starve so as to save enough for their\nold age. Each person that lives at ease is surrounded by sixty-five\npeople that have to struggle. Each woman that has a husband knows\nthat a widow or spinster stands portionless beside her. Figures are\nabstractions, but behind these figures are facts and problems that are\ndriving us before them with such resistless cruelty that at last we are\ndetermined to cry halt and make a fight--vote or no vote!\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nWOMEN\u2019S INCOMES\n\n\nLet us say that certain _prime donne_ can earn \u00a325,000 a year for a few\nyears, that the most successful London actress may receive a salary of\n\u00a35000 a year, that a successful novelist may get a few thousands a year\nby her books, that a lady doctor or dressmaker may make \u00a31000 a year,\nand you have admitted all that can be said in favour of the present\nmeans women have of making a large income on the same lines as men. I\nsuppose the average successful singer is delighted with \u00a31000 a year,\nthe average successful actress with \u00a310 a week or \u00a3500 a year, the\naverage novelist with \u00a3300 a year, and the average lady doctor with the\nsame. In an institution which gives \u00a31000 a year to its male principal,\nwe find the lady superintendent receiving \u00a3200 a year, and the male\nsecretary \u00a3350. Women find it hard to get any professional income out\nof the Government offices, the Church, or the law courts. In the Post\nOffice and in all educational work the disparities between the salaries\nof men and women is well known. And I think we may take it for granted\nthat the average business income of an everyday sort of woman, working\nhard, is less than \u00a3100 a year. The income of a charwoman in London,\nwe know, is 2s. 6d. a day, or a possible 15s. a week--that is, 3d. an\nhour, exactly half a man\u2019s minimum wage.\n\nThese are a few well-known facts. The reason is that women are said to\nhave \u201cother means\u201d of earning a livelihood. First among these comes the\ncomfortable possibility of inheriting money from relations. Many great\nheiresses and little heiresses are to be found among the conservative\nforces of the land, for these women have nothing to gain and everything\nto lose by changing the present state of things. They and the insurance\noffices alike prosper on the present foundations of English family life.\n\nNext comes the probably miserable alternative of marrying a rich\nhusband. It is a very curious thing that it is harder for a rich man\nto be naturally attractive to women than it is for the camel to pass\nthrough the needle\u2019s eye, and the consequence is that women generally\nhave a more or less unhappy domestic life when they definitely marry\nfor a livelihood.\n\nThen we have the adventuress, who succeeds in making a handsome income\nby the unscrupulous use of her intelligence and charm. After that come\nthe various types of women who hire themselves or are hired out for\nthe relief of excitable gentlemen. And lastly the crowd of desolate\ndiseased refuse who pick up a living any way they can, in ways too\nhorrible to think of, by the practice of vulgar indecency.\n\nAll these incomes which are earned by women, either by their\ntenderness and charm or by their bestiality, are, together with the\nfamily inheritances, the real reasons why women as a sex are not made\neconomically independent on the same lines as men. The father of a\nfamily longs to save his daughters from the temptations of poverty,\nand if they do what he bids them he insures his life in their favour.\nThe husband prefers to keep his wife dancing to the tune he pays for,\nso he makes her allowance dependent on his own mood of the moment. The\ninfatuated boy considers he is seeing life when he spends his money\nrecklessly on an adventuress. All these women can undersell other\nwomen in the labour market, because they have incomes which make them\nindependent of what they may earn there. They are, in a kind of way,\nwhat the strike organizers would call \u201cblacklegs\u201d: they make life more\ndifficult for the women who must work to live or starve.\n\nAgain, the magic of love is destroyed by the thought of money. And love\nis very apt to evaporate when such thoughts flame up in the mind.\n\nThe hope I see for the ennobling of sex relations is that women should,\nby some means never yet thought of, become independent of the caprice\nof individual man.\n\nThe average middle-class Englishman, I believe, looks upon his married\nlife as a kind of business partnership, in which he pays money in order\nthat he may not be worried about the care of his clothes or his food\nor his affectional needs. These things once settled and put under the\ncare of a sensible woman, he can devote his thoughts to business, to\nbetting, to cards, to golf, or any other amusement he may select to\nensure that he may not become a \u201cdull man.\u201d The average working man, of\ncourse, not only marries a housekeeper, a cook, a maid-of-all-work, but\nthe mother and nurse of his continuous flow of offspring, and the butt\nof his temper when the world has used him ill.\n\nIf any hope of eventual economic freedom is to come for the whole sex,\nI stand aghast to think of all the antagonistic interests that will\nhave to be reconciled. It will be worse than the Budget. The wives will\nhave to stand out for fixed allowances. The mothers will have to make\ntheir bargain either with their husbands or the State, whichever wants\ntheir children most. The housekeepers will have to take their wages\nlike the other servants.\n\nThe women of the adventuress class are a hopeless problem. They are\nworth a hundred a week at one moment, and nothing at all a few weeks\nlater perhaps. Their trade is so dangerous. But we can cheer ourselves\nup with the statistics which tell us they are in England and Wales\nnumbered by thousands only, whereas we are dealing at present with the\nproblem of seventeen millions of women.\n\nWe have, then, four classes of women--the heiresses, the portionless\nwives, the courtesans, and the prostitutes--who stand in the way of the\neconomic independence of women because they appear to be better off\nunder the present state of disorganization. The labour market for women\nis of course permeated by their influence. The rich women who work for\nnothing, the wives who \u201cget round\u201d their husbands, the courtesans who\ncommand the \u201cflesh market,\u201d the prostitutes, who are ignored by the\nrest of their sex, but revenge themselves on the ignorant by spreading\ndisease and sorrow among the happy and healthy.\n\nThe record of the overwhelming advantages of the economic independence\nof women can hardly be compressed into the compass of this chapter. It\nwould make love marriages possible. It is almost certain that a love\nmarriage on the woman\u2019s side is one of the most important elements for\ngood in the production of a fine race. If a girl were free to choose\naccording to her inclination, there is practically no doubt that she\nwould choose the right father for her child, however badly she might\nchoose a lifelong companion for herself.\n\nThis is, of course, true about both the sexes to a certain extent,\nalthough average men are much less dainty about these matters than the\naverage woman. If we could remove the economic considerations from\nparenthood it would help towards the invigoration of the race.\n\nThe sad part of this question is that according to all the great racial\nideals women ought to be economically independent, but, according to\nall little social ideals, it seems inevitable that her independence\nwill be resisted to the last.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE VARIATIONS OF LOVE\n\n\nWe cannot trust ourselves to make a real love-knot unless money or\ncustom forces us to \u201cbear and forbear.\u201d There is always the lurking\nfear that we shall not be able to keep faith unless we swear upon the\nBook. This is, of course, not true of young lovers. Every first love\nis born free of tradition; indeed, not only is first love innocent and\nvaliant, but it sweeps aside all the wise laws it has been taught,\nand burns away experience in its own light. The revelation is so\nextraordinary, so unlike anything told by the poets, so absorbing, that\nit is impossible to believe that the feeling can die out. Sometimes one\nfeels a great pity for the lovers in England, because young English\ngirls are very apt to mistake a feeling of gratified vanity and the\nemotion of a new sensation for love of some special man who happens\nto make love to them at the propitious moment. Many faithful women\ngo through life enduring the love of a man whom they care for very\nmoderately, who, on his side, congratulates himself on having found a\nvirtuous wife. It is lucky for these people that probably the wife, in\nher limited circle of acquaintances, will never meet the man who ought\nto have been her mate.\n\nI have often talked to the apparently contented mother of a family,\nwhen some little word reveals to me that it is possible to be the\nmother of a man\u2019s children merely by putting up with his caresses while\none thinks about some other subject. Is it any wonder that the race\nbecomes more and more an\u00e6mic and bored with existence as generation\nfollows generation?\n\nOther wives have loved their husbands with passion, and perhaps for two\nyears their devotion has steadily increased, but the husband meanwhile\nhas known many ecstasies and wearinesses. His love is like the waves,\nwhich follow each other as periods of dullness follow moments of\nrapture. Hers has been like the tide, increasing in devotion and\ntenderness; but the tide turns at last, and the dancing of the waves\ncan do very little to stay its ebbing. I think men are justified who\nsay that women either love too much for their taste or not at all.\n\nSome women say they could love their husbands better if they did not\nsee so much of the unromantic side of their lives. The holes in a man\u2019s\nsocks are not the most endearing remembrances in the world.\n\nThe only permanent relations are founded on mutual contempt. Brothers\nand sisters have no illusions about each other, and if they feel any\naffection at all it is a steadfast one. Alas! the close knowledge\nof weaknesses very seldom permits the affection to show through the\ncontempt. Married lovers have to pass from the state of love, which\nis so apt to be a state of delusion, to the state of clear-sighted\naffection. The ordeal is one which very few survive.\n\nAnother tragedy of love is jealousy. A man or woman is very often\njealous of the partner\u2019s brothers and sisters, or other relations.\nThose who love wish to be all in all to each other, those who quarrel\ndislike to have others taking sides in their quarrels. This fundamental\njealousy of relations is ever apt to break into a flame, besides\njealousy of the more usual kind.\n\nMr. Harold Gorst has written a book on _The Philosophy of Love_, in\nwhich he points out that it is unwise of a bridegroom to take instant\npossession of his bride. He maintains that the usual programme, in\nwhich a wife shows all her modesty and a husband all his love on the\nwedding-night, is an absurd waste of the honeymoon, which ought to be\nspent in a gradual approach to the supreme surrender. Again, wives are\ntoo apt to give up the charming resistances which are necessary to the\nsatisfaction of a man\u2019s emotional nature. Mr. Gorst cannot imagine\nthat a husband would tire of his wife if she kept her right over her\nown body with a firm hand, and required wooing every time she yielded\nto the wedding of her husband. So much for the man of the world\u2019s point\nof view.\n\nThe marriage tie is a way of keeping people together while they undergo\nthe various disillusions and jealousies that are inevitable, unless one\nof them is prepared to give way in everything. Is there any better way?\nIn most cases, no.\n\nThe marriage tie will always exist, because it is the natural impulse\nof the majority of young people to wish to love each other alone, and\nto remain with each other for ever. The honeymoon having elapsed, they\nvery likely find they are about to become parents, and they spend\nthe intervening months in making happy preparations. Then the baby\nis born, and has to be brought up until it is old enough to go to\nschool. If there are three children, they have to be looked after for\nabout fourteen years. The wife is now thirty-four, and the husband\nthirty-eight. The children are placed in various schools away from\nhome. Is there any alternative to the rather boring life that has to be\nlived out until death parts the parents? None. They are not rich enough\nto travel and amuse themselves, so the wife goes on housekeeping and\ncalling on neighbours, and changing her servants, and the husband goes\nto the City, plays golf, and reads trashy novels. The marriage tie must\nalways persist while these people exist.\n\nBut what are the six million bachelors and the seven million spinsters\nto do? Some of them are very young; thousands of them do not wish to\nmarry, their sexual nature is hardly developed more than a child\u2019s;\nothers are invalids, openly or secretly; and a good number are leading\nillegally arranged lives because the present marriage laws do not\nsuit their constitutions. Among the grown-up population about half\nthe number are married, and the other half unmarried. Many of these\nmarriages are unhappy, and it is to be presumed that at least six\nmillion of each sex do not wish to marry enough to overcome the terrors\nof saying what they want for ever, and getting it.\n\nNow, having regard to the natural variations of love, I must suggest\nthat the stigma might be removed from those who are not capable of\nlifelong fidelity. There seems good proof that a few millions of men\nand women are bringing misery upon the rest because they are treated\nas unworthy of social consideration. Medical men are saying that the\ndisease which is undermining the health of the nation is dangerous only\nbecause it is shameful. It could be easily cured in its early stages if\nit could be treated openly and without ruining the reputation of those\nwhom it attacks. Even when health is retained, reputations are lost and\ncareers are ruined in order to prop up the tottering institution of\nmarriage by making it the only refuge for the respectable.\n\nBut until it is acknowledged that it is not respectable to live\ntogether when the temperaments are incompatible, there will be no\nreal virtue in the married state. Never to want the same thing at the\nsame time is a more far-reaching cause of emotional degradation than\none violent outbreak of temper under extreme provocation. It is more\ndegrading to the finer feelings than a temporary alienation of marital\nlove. One would imagine that the men who refuse to alter the divorce\nlaws really do believe in the sacrament of the marriage ceremony,\ninstead of in the sacrament of the true love, which abides when there\nis a real compatibility of temperament.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE SORDID DIVORCE\n\n\nI mentioned in passing that marriage was an institution that should\nnot be ended, but should be mended. In the first place, let us inquire\nwhether the marriage ceremony is a sacrament, whether parenthood is\na sacrament, and why marriage should be binding. The Catholic Church\nrefuses divorce altogether on the ground that the blessing of the\nChurch makes the contract binding till death. Parents with children are\ngenerally prepared to endure each other for the sake of their family.\nWhile women are economically dependent it would be pure folly for\nthem to advocate marriage for a short term. Very few women succeed in\nretaining their attraction for men for any considerable length of time.\nTen years of attractiveness is not to be thought of in the majority of\ncases. While a man holds the purse-strings he can always find someone\nto marry. A woman can offer nothing but her power of enchantment, and\nmost of them have to rely on the universal enchantment of innocence\nwhich can only be offered once.\n\nBut conditions are very variable even now. Women hold the\npurse-strings when they are heiresses. They are as free as men when\nthey are childless. Ninon de l\u2019Enclos was irresistible until she was\neighty, apparently because she was amusing as well as fascinating.\nUnder such circumstances as these it is sometimes wise to seek divorce.\nIn England this cannot be done without outraging every feeling of\ndignity and delicacy.\n\nUnless one of the married pair is faithless, impotent, cruel, or rich\nenough to leave the neighbourhood, the other cannot get a divorce. This\ninvolves discussing the secrets of the alcove with solicitors, and a\nfinal exposure of your domestic concerns in the law courts, for the\npress and the public to take or leave as they are more or less painful\nto you and amusing to them.\n\nA very frequent method of obtaining a divorce now is for a wife, who\nwould not touch her husband with a besom if she could help it, to sue\npublicly for restitution of conjugal rights. To a woman of any delicacy\nsuch a demand would be degrading, even if it were made in private.\nTo be obliged to make it publicly as a matter of form is, to say the\nleast, unpleasant to such a woman. The next proceeding is taken when a\ncertain time has elapsed and the husband has not noticed the wife who\nhas to pretend to be pining for his forced caresses.\n\nI confess it is hard to realize the state of a woman who actually can\ndesire the society of a man who is weary of her. I have not imagination\nfor that, I am afraid. The law was made by men, and men are said to\nknow women better than they know each other; also, we have all heard\nof the charms of a captured or unwilling bride, so perhaps it is an\ninstance in which men have done for women what they would wish to have\ndone for themselves.\n\nWhatever the reason is, the law is there, and when the husband has been\nfaithless and refused his wife\u2019s embraces, he has done sufficient to\njustify the court in calling him guilty of desertion and adultery, and\na decree _nisi_ is pronounced. Then, if no evidence of collusion is\nforthcoming, and the court can make believe that one of the parties at\nleast does _not_ want to be divorced, the decree is made absolute in\nsix months. Can anyone realize that the present divorce law is in such\na hopelessly stupid state? There seems no possibility of using common\nsense in a law court. To get a divorce you must _not_ agree together\nthat it is a desirable step. To get a divorce the innocent person must\nspeak in public of subjects no innocent person would care to mention\nin private. To get a divorce from a woman you respect at all, you must\nrefuse to live with her, and must openly commit adultery, at the same\ntime making no arrangement with her as to how she is to get rid of\nyou. The old complaint of the inequality of the divorce laws for the\nsexes is perhaps of importance, but to me it seems a small thing in\ncomparison to the general sordidness of the whole proceeding.\n\nSurely the one cause of causes for a divorce is that both the parties\nwant it. Some simple form of procedure, such as separation on the first\napplication, to be followed by divorce in six months if the parties had\nnot made up their differences in the meantime, should be devised.\n\nThe difficulties would arise in cases in which the parties were not\nagreed, and I am afraid in those instances the question of money would\nnearly always be discovered to be the root of the trouble. Ladies would\nbe found to be unaccountably attached to their husband\u2019s cheque-books;\nand gentlemen unable to separate themselves from a share in their\nwives\u2019 dividends. But when the question of fortune or wealth enters\ninto the marriage bargain, why not let it be fought out on that ground?\n\nDivorce is always brought about because of the weariness and boredom\none human being causes another. Cruelty, adultery, temporary desertion,\nevery kind of outrage can be borne if excitement and interest\ncounterbalance suffering. But the devotion of the whipped dog would\nsoon be exhausted if the dog could find something in the world which\ninterested him more than his master. Curiosity once fully satisfied,\ntenderness balances on the edge of the precipice of boredom, and may\ntopple over at any moment.\n\nOf course the insult of being considered a bore would be harder to\nbear in most instances than the accusation of wickedness, so on the\nwhole it would seem advisable to keep to the good old formula of\n\u201cincompatibility of temper,\u201d and fight out the money questions on their\nown merits.\n\nNow the merits of the money question in marriage have never been\nproperly arranged. In France the wife has her own _dot_, as a matter\nof course; but the French have so carefully adjusted their population\nto their pockets that we can only bow in silent admiration of their\nunparalleled foresight.\n\nIn England a girl very often marries without any fortune of her own,\non the understanding either that she is beautiful and that the husband\nis prepared to endow her with all his worldly goods, or that she is so\nuseful that she will really save him a good deal of money. If she is\nvery beautiful, her relations can generally get a settlement made on\nher; if she is only useful, she is lucky if she can induce her husband\nto insure his life in her favour. The merely useful wife has very\nlittle hold on ready money. One week she may get a good sum of money,\nanother week nothing, for her household expenses. If she is clever and\nmanaging, she will probably gain her husband\u2019s confidence, and if he is\nhonest and has a regular income they may be very comfortable together;\nbut under other conditions the affairs of the household go from bad to\nworse, and the wife is only a very inefficient servant, who may get her\nkeep, but who will certainly not get her wages.\n\nI can only suggest that the position of wife and mother ought to\nlegally entitle a woman to a fixed proportion of her husband\u2019s income,\nand the position of housekeeper to a further proportion. If, as is\noften the case in upper and middle-class modern marriage, the husband\nand wife do not live in the connubial state, the legal allowance as\nwife and mother would not be made, but the allowance as hostess and\nhousekeeper could be enforced as long as they remained under the same\nroof. In the case of the poorer classes, where the wife does the whole\nwork of keeping up the home and increasing the family, the proportion\nshould be very much greater, so great, indeed, as to make both partners\nthink twice before recklessly bringing children into the world. Among\nthis class I think that the birth of a child might legalise the union\nof the parents. This appears to be an old custom in many parts of the\nworld.\n\nThe working man is the greatest enemy of women\u2019s equal value, I am\nafraid. Among the mining population, where his wages are high enough\nto make him independent, the woman he has married holds a very\nlow position--very much what middle-class women held early in the\nnineteenth century. The working man of prudence and forethought is of\ncourse limiting his family with as much care as the rest of the world.\nBut the others, who drive away drab intelligence by a Saturday orgy,\nforget prudence, and the result is that their wives are always in the\npangs of childbirth or miscarriage. The usual self-sacrifice of women\ncomes dangerously near suicide in this matter. To save her husband from\na few moments of self-control she goes through months of drugging,\nloses her beauty, undermines her health in the endeavour to exercise\nprudence and to avoid bringing children into the world for whom she has\nno hope of making provision.\n\nA romance of the mining world, in September, 1909, is instructive\nreading. One Friday night, at 10 o\u2019clock, the husband came home with\ntwo former lodgers, two old friends, and one stranger. They brought\nplenty of beer with them. The wife was upstairs in bed, but she called\nover the banisters to them to make themselves at home, and returned\nto her sleep. Later on, when the men were nearly all dead drunk, one\nof the former lodgers heard screams upstairs. He found the stranger\nundressed and making an assault on the wife of his host. The lodger\nflung him downstairs, and to his horror found that he had killed him.\nHe was terrified, and he and the woman left the house, calling to\nthe others to fetch a doctor at once. Whatever the woman and he said\nto each other it was tragic, for she hurried to a pond and drowned\nherself, while he went to his sister\u2019s house and waited arrest. The\nhusband was severely reprimanded for his \u201cnegligence.\u201d A woman counts\nfor very little in the mining districts, she takes the German position\nof a kind of upper servant, in whose emotions, if she has any, none\ntake any interest. In the manufacturing districts the working man\u2019s\nwife is generally a breadwinner herself, and she only needs a little\nenterprise to make her position much more favourable than it is at\npresent.\n\nNearly all the police court cases turn on the question of the wife\u2019s\nhousekeeping allowance. It is an endless source of dispute, and if it\ncould be regulated, irrespective of caprice, most of the miseries of\nmarried poverty would cease. The poor are simple, and in this truth\nabout them we see the truth about ourselves. We all want a regular\nincome, and very few of us gain from being dependent on the affection\nof our family. Divorce, then, is sordid with regard to sentiment and\nwith regard to money, and in these ways is greatly in need of change.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE GREEN HOUSES OF JAPAN\n\n\nThis chapter deals with the subject of prostitution from the point of\nview of public health, so that the nervous reader had better skip it.\n\nEdmond de Goncourt has written some charming chapters in his book about\nOutamaro, the Japanese artist, on the courtesans who live within the\nwalls of Yoshiwara. He describes the quarter as containing fifty green\nhouses within the walls and a hundred without the walls. They were\nestablished by the Emperor of Japan in the eighth century for the use\nof foreign princes, ambassadors, and wealthy merchants. The present\nwalls were built in the seventeenth century. The girls, from all parts,\nare brought up like princesses, and taught writing, the arts, music,\nand the archaic language spoken by the court in the seventh and eighth\ncenturies, which is now the language of the poets. The formalities of\nthe suitors are three visits of ceremony, each with its ritual of good\nmanners. A green house contains twenty first-class beauties and sixty\nsecond-class beauties. They sing, play, and write verses. These are a\nfew translations which give some idea of their feelings:--\n\n\n     \u201cIt is only when both of us are looking at it that the moon is\n     beautiful; when I am alone it makes me feel too sad.\u201d\n\n     \u201cThis evening who will share the sweetness of life, this floating\n     body in the passing world?\u201d\n\n     \u201cOh, that the moonlight might shine brightly in the waters of this\n     life [the courtesan\u2019s], but the autumn moon on the other side of\n     the clouds makes me long for it\u201d [wifehood].\n\n     \u201cAlthough I am nothing here, the moon lights up my heart with a\n     ray of consolation.\u201d\n\n     \u201cHow often do I part from one whose shadow I shall never see again\n     under the moon of dawn!\u201d\n\n\nThese little moon-women are not the only members of the sisterhood in\nTokio. There are the geishas who dance and sing, and there are the old\nand abandoned; but the horrible sordidness of the red blinds and the\ndraggled torn lace curtains one sees in the streets Charles Booth has\ncoloured red in his maps of London, is absent.\n\nThis question is not a mere matter of sentiment, it is one in urgent\nneed of immediate attention. The pitiless contempt of married women for\nprostitution is bringing a terrible punishment, which is ruining the\nphysique of nearly every civilized race. It is now certain that the\ndiseases called contagious can be cured with the greatest certainty\nif they are taken in hand in the earliest stages, but if they are\nneglected they bring in their train every scourge that the flesh is\ncapable of enduring. It cannot be repeated too often that if women\ndo not wish to contract diseases themselves in the intercourse of\nordinary life, they must bring themselves to protect those who in the\nintercourse of passional life are ignorantly or malignantly spreading\nthe diseases. There might be a trade union for women on the streets.\nIn the cause of public health, which is, in this matter, the cause of\nfuture generations, family cannot separate itself from family, innocent\nfrom guilty, moral from immoral. We can no longer say: Let those who\npractise promiscuity suffer for their incontinence, let them encounter\nthe dangers they choose to face, \u201clet their sin find them out.\u201d We know\nnow that from this particular scourge of contagious disease the pure\nsuffer far more severely than the impure; and the races who have never\nknown the disease are the first to die when, by accident, they finally\ncome in contact with it.\n\nSo the clean, healthy youth from some remote country place is in\ngreater danger than the sophisticated townsman. And mothers do not\nrealize the dangers they and their young children run every day when,\nin their ignorance of danger, they entrust their households to the\ncare of women servants who may be carrying contagion without even\nknowing it.\n\nThe contempt that is shown towards prostitutes makes it impossible\nfor them to insist upon proper sanitation in the quarters where they\ncongregate. They are hunted from street to street, and, as they get\npoorer and poorer, their condition becomes more and more of a danger to\nthe rest of the town.\n\nI cannot make any suggestions as to the methods that should be used to\nmake the danger less terribly imminent than it is at present, but I do\nsuggest that the women who are uppermost should face the fact that they\nthemselves are in danger because the lower prostitutes have no civil\nrights, no trade union, no means of redressing the wrongs they suffer\nfrom.\n\nM. Brieux has written a play called _Les Avari\u00e9s_, dealing with this\nimportant subject in all its aspects. One incident is that of a young\ngirl on the streets who is infected by a man. She is furious and in\ndespair, but before she goes into hospital she, in her turn, revenges\nherself on as many men as she can, for the wrong done to her by one.\n\nCan we wonder that a woman who is treated as street walkers are treated\nshould feel this wild anti-social rage against the society that has\nfirst made use of her and then treated her as an outcast?\n\nIt is becoming more and more difficult to say anything definite about\nthe moral standards of women. Thirty years ago the chorus-girl drank\nchampagne and \u201cwent to the bad,\u201d now she drinks milk and marries a\npeer. Girls with beauty are finding out that prudence pays exceedingly\nwell. On the other hand, we have girls with brains deliberately\nresolving that they will not marry. They refuse to run the risk of\nliving with a man whose love has become a mere habit. They boldly say\nthat they do not care enough for love to perform its rites, unless they\nare animated with the ardour of love. Passion served up with cold sauce\nas in the Shaw-Barker school of sex revolts them. Enthusiastic love is\nthe only excuse in their eyes for going through the rather ungraceful\ngestures of love.\n\nBloch has asked the question if we can ever do away with the menace\nto public health which promiscuity entails? He seems to think from\nthe evidence of history and psychiatry that men certainly, and women\nprobably, are not naturally unitarian in their affections; therefore\nthe sooner we seriously wrestle with the realities and leave off hoping\nfor the \u201csomething to change nature,\u201d the better. Above all, it is most\nimportant for women to realize at once that the most innocent contact\nwith the unmentioned diseases--the contact, say, of a cut finger or a\nchapped lip--is enough to endanger the health, unless it is attended to\nat once.\n\nAs for the aspect of the prostitution question entailed in taking\nmoney, the sale of virginity and so forth, it comes under the general\nconsideration whether it is right for any woman to become the property\nof a man in exchange for money. A woman who loves does naturally become\nthe property of the man she loves for the time being. The wiser she\nis, the less she will let him know it. The money bargain I cannot\nhelp regarding as a device invented by unattractive men whom no woman\nwould voluntarily look at. Again, as to women whose love affairs are\nnumerous, I do not think they would care to practise promiscuity unless\nthey were intoxicated. On the other hand, I think most women are\ncapable of several love affairs. I said before that their love ebbed\nand flowed with the sweep of a tide, while men\u2019s love glittered and\ndulled like the shaken silver of the waves; still, there are more tides\nthan one in many women\u2019s experience. We cannot read the autobiographies\nof the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries without observing that.\n\nThat love becomes very stale in time is a regrettable fact. Many women\ndistract their thoughts with work or amusements. But the greatest\namusement of all is flirtation. It is an amusement peculiarly fitted\nto the English. In the Latin countries flirtation is admittedly not\nonly an amusement, but a vital part of women\u2019s lives. It cannot be\ndenied that, after a time, a childless wife, or a wife who is not\nabsorbed in her children, begins to feel like a withered rose tree,\nand a flirtation comes to her like springtime after winter. I do not\nthink it is often her sensual nature, but her emotional nature, that\nmakes a woman unfaithful to a husband of whom she has really been\npassionately fond. Unfortunately there is a charm about the first\nsteps of a love affair, in the half-admissions and the uncertainties,\nwhich it is almost impossible to feel after a year of married life.\nThe truth is that to feel a charm we must be in a state of emotional\nexultation which is above the average exultations of daily life. The\ngreat question for the race is what this feeling of charm means, and\nwhether it is of value to the race, and to be encouraged? Or even then\nwhether the destruction of our present fixed social arrangements is\ntoo great a sacrifice to make for the vital improvement of mankind? In\nthe meantime, until this question of changing charm versus habitual\nlove can be settled, and the value of emotion as a factor in race\nimprovement be proved by careful inquiry into the experiences of the\nparents of conspicuous children, I reiterate what I have said. Marrying\nwomen owe it to themselves and to their children to do all they can to\nmake the conditions of prostitutes sanitary. Above all, they should\nremember the green houses of Japan, and recognize that if women are\ndegraded it is generally because they have been treated with contempt,\nand not because they are essentially any more contemptible than the\nrest of us.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nBEAUTY AND MOTHERHOOD\n\n\n\u201cAmericanism\u201d is the word sometimes used by scientific men to imply\nthe terror of motherhood that is coming upon women. The old days when\nNelson said the two most beautiful things in the world were a ship in\nfull sail and a woman with child, are passed. Pain and the loss of\nbeauty mean something hauntingly horrible--something of a nightmare to\nthe modern highly strung, nervous woman. In America the question is\nbecoming one of national importance: as a matter of fact some women\nare beginning to refuse motherhood, both there and in other parts of\nthe world. I do not see anything alarming in this. To me it means\nthat women will specialize in the future. When the unnatural economic\nreasons for marriage have been removed, the natural desires of women\nwill be able to assert themselves. For centuries they have lied and\nschemed and flattered men in order to wheedle a living out of them, and\nit will take some time for the weaker sex to learn that it may really\ntell the truth; to learn, indeed, that it is necessary for the good\nof the race that it should tell the truth. When this is done it will\nbe perceived that women are divided into two distinct classes--those\nthat love men better than children, and those that love children better\nthan men. This is natural enough. In ordinary life we can see some\npeople prefer to associate with their inferiors, and some with their\nsuperiors. At present the comparatively free life led by men make them\nfar better company, and therefore superior as a sex to women. They\ndo not talk as well as clever women, but their views are wide, and\nas a rule they know something of the general facts of life. They are\nmerrier, too, and I have often thought, \u201cIt is not so much that men\nmust work and women must weep, but that men may laugh and women must\nlook shocked.\u201d\n\nBut, as I was saying, some people prefer to look up, and others\nprefer to look down on their companions. Some people, to put it more\npleasantly, like to care for and watch over others, while others want\nto be cared for. So it comes about that some women do not really love\nchildren. They may feel such a passion for a man that they long to be\nthe mother of his child, but that is a state of unusual exultation,\nwhich in cold blood is repented later. On the other hand, the born\nmothers--the women who really long for children, to whom it is a\nterrible deprivation to live without children--are undoubtedly the\npeople who may best be entrusted with the future of the race.\n\nI do not think that we shall ever get mankind to carry out the eugenic\nideal of careful breeding, but I do think we might come to a time when\nthe natural instinct of a woman for the fit father of her child will be\na very important factor in the arrangements made for the existence and\nbenefit of future generations.\n\nWe have such a lumber of useless old ethical codes to get rid of, and\nsuch innumerable practical suggestions for race betterment, that we\nhardly know where to begin. In the _Eugenic Review_ for October, 1909,\nthere is an excellent paper by Mr. Havelock Ellis, which explains a\nnewly discovered and harmless operation which can be performed without\nmaking the slightest difference to an individual\u2019s happiness. This\noperation would prevent him or her from ever becoming a parent. It\nis hoped that it may some day be used in cases where the heredity is\nhopelessly bad. It would save a great deal of public expense in cases\nwhere the dangerous person would otherwise have to be kept under\nconstant supervision. The great benefit of the discovery is that it\nhas none of the unfortunate effects which often follow from the\npractice of more Eastern methods of sterilizing the unfit. Contact\nwith radium has also been found to lead to temporary sterility. But\nalthough stamping out the worst class of disease and imbecility in one\ngeneration would be a tremendous benefit, it is not the only remedy\nproposed. The encouragement and training of fit men and women--I mean\nthe education in the laws of sexual health--would do a great deal to\nsave the next generations from many ills that are brought upon it by\nthe sheer ignorance of its parents. Here, again, we have to fight the\nsilly conspiracy of silence which leaves schoolboys and schoolgirls\nto struggle through the early temptations of life without a word of\nwarning from responsible people who have studied the subject of sex.\n\nThere is no doubt that the world at present is full of motherly women\nwho have no chance of becoming mothers, and of unmotherly women who\nhave children that they do not want, or more children than they want.\nIt would be a great advance if these arrangements could be readjusted\nby some slight change of public opinion, guided by the obvious facts of\nheredity. For instance, it is a fact that some women are very fit to be\nmothers, and are unattractive as wives. For others, attractive to men\nas they often are, it is a sin to become mothers. A tuberculous woman\nis apt to have a much larger family than a normally healthy woman,\nand that tendency ought to be modified by surgical aid. Even these few\nsuggestions acted upon would help to make the world less full of pain\nand sorrow.\n\nBut we are full of prejudices against these improvements. The old\nmarriage laws, the old ideas of right and wrong remain; religious\nprejudice lasts far longer than religion; and the world moves on, and\neveryone hears of improvements that might be made quite easily. But\nnothing is done because of a public opinion which everyone supposes to\nexist, but is really a bugbear invented by the Press on the strength of\na few letters from the sort of people who write letters of protest to\nthe public libraries. A hundred letters impress an editor, because he\nforgets the millions of people who do not write letters, but pay all\nthe same.\n\nOne of the most serious facts which is alleged with regard to the\n\u201cAmericanism\u201d I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, is that the\nnervous sensitiveness from which the women of the United States suffer\nis caused by their education being too purely intellectual. Now this\nis probably true. I remember one of the cleverest men I have ever met,\nthe late Professor York Powell, Regius Professor of Modern History at\nOxford, who was an encyclop\u00e6dia of information, and could assimilate\nthe contents of a book in a phenomenally short time, told me that\nhe meant to paint up the words \u201cDamn Intellect\u201d over his mantelpiece\nat Christ Church. Intellect has been said to be the result of man\u2019s\nstruggle with material facts, very useful as far as material facts\ngo, but absurdly misleading when applied to the all-important side of\nour natures which comes under the consideration of the psychologist.\nThe stuffing of one\u2019s head with a lot of undigested knowledge for\npurposes of examination is not only useless in after life, but really\ndamaging to the vital apparatus. I was myself educated in the colleges\nof Miss Dorothea Beale and Miss Buss, and I know it took me quite six\nyears to get out of the shell my education had hardened around me. I\ndon\u2019t suppose I should ever have spread my own wings if the beak of my\ndestiny had not been stronger than my overwhelming education, so that\nit succeeded in hammering through that shell at last.\n\nIn the next chapter I hope to show in more detail how women might\nbe educated to deliberately cultivate their instincts, and use them\nin conjunction with the practical intellect to increase the power\nof intuitively understanding the consciousness of groups and crowds\nof people. Above all, how they may learn by definitely guiding the\nvegetative consciousness to increase the health and beauty of their\nchildren.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE NEW PSYCHOLOGY\n\n\nIntellect, then, is only a part of the life-consciousness. Henri\nBergson and William James have both agreed that the other parts deserve\nour respect, and demand the attention of all practical people. They are\nInstinctive Consciousness and Torpid Consciousness. Bergson, so well\nknown on the Continent, gives in _L\u2019Evolution Cr\u00e9atrice_ a brilliant\noutline of the relations of the intellectual, instinctive, and torpid\nstates. Briefly, he pictures vital consciousness as the centre from\nwhich the three diverge in different radiations. The intellect which\ncovers an enormous field and can grapple successfully with the\nsuperficial appearances we call facts, finds its present culmination\nin mankind. The instinct which dawns in the consciousness as vision,\nand deals only with one or two things, but knows them perfectly\nthrough and through to their deepest causes, finds its culmination in\ninsects, especially in the elaborate societies of ants and bees. The\ntorpid state which, without external motion, like deep sleep, is most\ncreatively powerful, most enduring, and most in touch with the first\nbeginnings of organic life, finds its culmination in the vegetable\nkingdom. The psychologists\u2019 idea, then, for the practical future of\nour race is that it should turn its attention to the cultivation of\nthese two modes of consciousness which have hitherto been lamentably\nneglected in all schemes of education.\n\nBergson says that there are many questions the intellect can ask but\ncan never answer, which the instinct could answer, but, unprompted by\nthe intellect, would never ask.\n\nThe practical turn psychology has taken lately has a very deep\nsignificance for women. For the adolescent girl and the woman\nwith child are the very types of the power of mysterious torpid\nconsciousness which is so little understood by the most learned men.\nThe ancients have believed that a mother\u2019s impressions stamp themselves\non the child and determine its type. I mean, for instance, that a woman\nsurrounded by Burne-Jones\u2019s pictures would be likely to have children\nresembling that type. The whole matter is one of the deepest interest,\nand one guiding principle stands out from all our uncertainties on\nthe subject, which is, that a woman with child should not use up her\nvitality in other directions, that she should for the time being live\nthe life of a fruit tree, and nourish herself, and sun herself without\ncare and without intellectual distractions.\n\nIt is said that in deep sleep the creations of our imagination are\nconceived; and that the state of impending motherhood should be one of\nrest, and the quiet enjoyment of beauty and peace if it is to have a\ngood result.\n\nI am not saying all women should be mothers, nor am I saying that\nmothers should not have intellectual pleasures, but I do agree that\nthey should not have intellectual tasks, and above all that they should\nbe protected from worry, anxiety, and irritation. If the care of\nmothers became a national question, I believe the saving in the care of\nlunatics and unemployables and criminals would be incalculable.\n\nThe torpid consciousness is one which women who are to be mothers\nshould respect. I believe it is a state cultivated to a high degree by\nthe Eastern mystics, who have given us glimpses of the psychic powers\nto which it can give birth. It is intimately connected with a control\nover the emotional storms which affect most people and govern their\nconduct. The Eastern sage does not starve his emotional nature, but\nlearns to direct it, while he is in a state of apparent torpor. So I\nbelieve the wise mother might, if she gave herself the opportunity,\ndirect the future character of her child in the best sense of the word.\n\nAt present the torpid consciousness is hardly understood at all, but\nthe instinctive consciousness has been studied, although it is talked\nof with a contempt it is far from deserving. I admit that to some\nextent instinct is the enemy of civilization, but at the same time\ncivilization is the enemy of instinct.\n\nThe old matriarchal village community seems to be the ideal state of\nan instinctive race of people. I do not say it is possible now, but it\ncertainly seems a good way of conducting affairs on a dignified basis\nwithout the family unit.\n\nTemperance with an occasional orgy is a prescription ordered for a\npatient by a modern doctor, and that exactly describes the life of the\nold matriarchal village. In the first place, it was situated near the\nequator, and everyone could do without clothes. The village children\ngrew up together under the care of the elder men and women, with no\ncuriosity about the unseen. They worked in the fields and perhaps\nhunted a little, but they all lived like brothers and sisters. They\nhad a central grove of sacred trees in their village, with a dancing\nground; the huts were round the grove, and then the belt of cultivated\nland was called the \u201cguardian serpent.\u201d Beyond that was the jungle,\nwith paths leading to other villages. In the spring the Saturnalia was\ncelebrated, and the young men left their homes and visited the other\nvillages, scattered in the neighbourhood beyond the jungle-paths, to\ncelebrate the festival with song, wine, and dance. The orgy lasted a\nfew weeks, during the blossom time, when there was no work required at\nhome. It ended in a good deal of love-making, after which the young\nmen returned to their homes sobered, and ready to work in their own\nvillages for another year. Nine months later, when the weather made\nit well to remain indoors, the children were born, and were called\nthe children of the sacred grove or the tree, and no one talked of\nfathers. The men of the tribe cheerfully undertook the education of\nthe children, and maintained them on communal principles. It sounds\nalmost as socially elaborate as a hive, and the whole business appears\nto have been carried out on purely instinctual lines. Perhaps I ought\nto add that all can read for themselves about these matriarchal customs\nin a book called _The Ruling Races of Prehistoric Times_, by J. F.\nHewitt, and in Tiele\u2019s _Outline of the History of Ancient Religions_,\nalso in Risley\u2019s _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_. The life was perhaps\ntoo austerely virtuous for the majority of mankind, but it had its\nadvantages.\n\nInstinct is an animal faculty cultivated by an outdoor life, which we\nto a great extent have swamped in our all-pervading intellects. It\nis a power of the consciousness which appears to act without effort,\nand to increase its power as we decrease our mental struggles. Very\noften when after fussing over a lost object or forgotten name we cease\nto trouble ourselves, and employ our clamorous minds in some other\ndirection, the consciousness of the name or place appears like the sky\nfrom which the clouds have cleared away. It is in the interplay between\nintellect and instinct that the practical value of the new school of\npsychology will be found. Our instincts need to be stimulated by the\ncuriosity of our intellects. We have an extraordinary and inexhaustible\npower of inventing surprises for our intellect, both in our dreams\nand in inventive states of meditation. Some people call these things\nmanifestations of the subconsciousness. I prefer to think of them as\nmanifestations of the long-neglected powers of the instinct. We know\nthat many insects who have never met their parents in their lives, yet\ncarry out their destinies as if they had received the most careful\npersonal instruction. The truth about instinct appears to be that it\nis a race-consciousness--a kind of wireless telegraphy which can be\nset in motion between sympathetic centres without passing through the\nmental machinery at all. It almost seems as if our brains, our nervous\nplexuses, and our glands[1] each had a manifest consciousness of their\nown, and it is not until we can set in motion an interplay of the three\nthat we shall gain all we can, either from the intellect, the instinct,\nor the torpid creative consciousness.\n\nWhen women come in for their share of control in affairs, there is no\ndoubt we shall make further use of these more feminine aspects of vital\nconsciousness.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[1] As to the study of the functions of the glands, many interesting\ndiscoveries have been mentioned in the medical journals during the last\nfew years.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE IMAGINATIVE WOMAN\n\n\nNow women can look at love from a great many points of view. If it were\nnot so, Byron would hardly have been justified when he said:\n\n\n     \u201cLove is from men\u2019s lives a thing apart,\n     \u2019Tis woman\u2019s whole existence.\u201d\n\n\nWomen can look upon love as a physical act which enables them to\nbecome mothers. They can look upon it as a sanctification or a means\nof enjoyment. They can look upon it as a subject of scientific\ncuriosity, in which mood they logically compare facts and come\nto sage conclusions. They can consider their own temperaments\nand peculiarities, and take into account their personal bias and\ncharacters, philosophically. Or they can use their imaginations\nto alter all the conditions which life has imposed upon them, to\ntranscend all the limitations of incarnation, and, having passed beyond\nphilosophy, science, emotion, and experience, bathe in the love between\nthe fixed stars and comets rushing from the spaces beyond. They can\ntake dim legends and embroider them with rich details. In a word, the\nimaginative woman from her childhood has known dreams of such rare\nbeauty that nothing life shows her is good enough. She passes from\ndisappointment to disappointment. She never finds in one place or one\nperson the wonder that description had made her see in her mind\u2019s eye.\n\nThousands of less imaginative women long for the impossible. They\nare fed on romantic stories and live in the more or less commonplace\nimagination of the novelists or playwrights they patronize. Thousands\nof tired men have this same love of vicarious sensation--anything\nthat lifts them out of the drab of their surroundings into a merry or\nsentimental atmosphere is a relief.\n\nLife seems hopeless to the middle-aged. Most of them once thought they\ncould put it right in a week if they had a free hand. They try, they\nfail, they marry and spend the evening of their lives trying to destroy\nthe illusions of their children as quickly as possible, so that they\nalso may \u201csettle down\u201d to hard facts. To excuse himself a thinker will\nsay, \u201cI know the dangers of cultivating the imagination; I know that\nunless it is nipped in the bud this wild flower of the mind will twine\nits tendrils round me, cover me with its shadows, intoxicate me with\nits fragrance, and destroy reason and physical health.\u201d In answer,\nI admit there are dangers, but on the other hand if the possibly\nevil weed is cultivated by wise gardeners, it may show itself at last\nas the most splendid flower of the soul. The cultivator of flowers\nthat sterilizes the bud and diverts the life-force into creations of\nelaborate beauty has found the physical side of the religious mystery\ncalled the Coronation of the Virgin. The imaginative power that has\nreached this point transmutes human nature, whether philosophic,\nscientific, sensual, or physical, and it is then that the soul may\nbe said to have attained the regenerate state which makes for the\nunnatural beauty we call perfection of culture.\n\nThe imaginative woman may reach the degree of joyous saintly beauty,\nor she may stop short at the next stage in which she is enough of a\nphilosopher to recognize the great variety of temperaments to be met\nwith among her fellow-creatures, and to greet them all alike with\nsympathy and interest. She may not reach the philosophic or really\nsympathetic stage, she may remain in a third stage, where her mind\ncan coldly classify her fellow-creatures with critical discretion,\nand laugh at them all cynically. Or she may not be able to perceive\nclearly, but may be carried away perpetually by her own feelings and\nsensations, in the fourth degree of unawakened ignorance. Lastly, she\nmay abandon the four regions of beautiful image making, sympathy,\nperception, and sensation, and deliberately devote herself with\ncommon-sense prudence to the patient task of getting her daily bread\nand reproducing her species until she dies of it. On the other hand,\nshe may go mad, she may become silly, she may drown her disgust with\nlife in alcohol or drugs, or she may irritate her feeble dream-power\nwith novelettes. These states of degenerate imaginations are the worst\ncurses of the woman\u2019s sphere as it is at present understood. Good hard\nwork, rewarded by a decent income, varied by motherhood and love, is\nthe best cure for these vapourings.\n\nThe men who have a good deal of womanhood in their natures suffer and\nenjoy through their imaginations in the same way, and it is interesting\nto observe that a really virile man has no trace of imaginative power\nin his composition. He cares for nothing but tangible reality. When men\nof imagination talk to him he has not the smallest conception of what\nthey mean. I think it was Goethe who said that he felt the universe in\nhis arms when he embraced a woman. What I am obliged to call a virile\nman feels nothing of the kind, he is merely amusing himself like Don\nJuan, or any cat or dog. However, Don Juan is a rarity.\n\nIt is very difficult to classify temperaments without alluding to\nWeiningen\u2019s _Sex and Character_. That book has been followed by other\nclassics on the subject by Forel and Bloch, but I only want to remind\nmy readers that in Weiningen\u2019s book they will find, set out at length,\nthe ingenious theory that virile men and feminine women are the rarest\ncreatures on earth, and that the great majority of us are made up of\nvarious proportions of the two sexes. He further suggests that happy\nunions are those in which the proportions of sex in the two lovers\ntogether make up one virile man and one feminine woman. For instance, a\nman who was one-eighth feminine should marry a woman who was one-eighth\nmasculine.\n\nI am told that Mr. Austen Chamberlain repeatedly made the very careless\nstatement that \u201cmen are men, and women are women,\u201d in a speech\ndelivered in 1909. He evidently has not acquainted himself with the\nelementary science of sex. Is it not time that the books alluded to\nabove should be made generally accessible? Then our younger statesmen,\nat least, might come to the platform with some less absurd refrain than\nthat obsolete inaccuracy. Let me assure Mr. Chamberlain that German\nscience and research have proved that the contrary statement would be\nrather more exact.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nEXPERIMENTS\n\n\nWe are all speculating about the changes to be brought about in this\ncentury from which we women hope so much, and a great many people are\nmaking practical experiments. Myself, I am of that tranquil nature\nwhich willingly follows the advice of Punch when he says: \u201cNever\npractise what you preach, to do so is to hold up your opinions to\nobvious ridicule.\u201d\n\nI must confess to an altogether selfish concern for my own comfort.\nI dislike the home because it means that one has to live with people\nwho are privileged to behave without politeness in each other\u2019s\ncompany. Most of us share the feeling, I think, that we like to be the\nworst-behaved person present. This can only be achieved satisfactorily\nto all when one lives by oneself. My own experiments have mostly been\nin the attempt to modify the solitary life with an exactly pleasant\nproportion of social life. I was brought up in a large family until I\nwas twenty-three, and I lived the orthodox married life for four years,\nso that I have given home and the family as much trial as seemed\nnecessary.\n\nAs a hermit with mitigating friends and enemies, and the various\nsocieties I have helped to run, my life has been unusually full of\nvaried interests. I have no regrets, because my failures have been some\nof my most valuable experiences, and my moments of bitterness have been\nthe cause of my greatest contentment.\n\nAt the same time, one is horribly afraid that one might induce courage\nin some other person whose heart is too tender to get through trouble.\nOne is rather apt to dread the grey life of a patient woman without any\nkind of artistic talent, who makes a muddle of her affairs because she\nreligiously practises instead of preaching.\n\nSome people say that example is better than precept; but in the case\nof social reform and the need of a real change in public opinion, my\nexperience shows me that precept is no good at all, if one is suspected\nof inventing it to serve one\u2019s own purposes of self-indulgence. I own\nI have indulged myself by leading a solitary life as described above,\ntherefore I do not propose to try to destroy the home and family life.\nThose who are suffering from the home want to do away with it. With\nphilosophic calm I can suggest improvements and ways of escape that\nwould make it bearable, but would not destroy it. As a matter of fact\nthe home is in a very poor way just at present. Public-houses, clubs,\nrestaurants, the servant difficulty are all devastating it. Still, it\ndoes not do to say we are glad, so I register the fact with as long a\nface as I can pull, and trust my readers will recognize the sad truth\nin the same serious spirit.\n\nBut, to return to experiments, let us go back a little in time, and\nwe find that all gay societies, such as that under Louis XIV and XV\nof France, The Empire and the Second Empire, practised every kind of\nexperiment. Yet one looks upon Rousseau, Mary Wolstonecraft, Shelley,\nand Godwin as the real pioneers of experiment, because they made a kind\nof religion of their protests against convention. Of late years it has\nbecome the fashion to solemnly register a protest every time one omits\nto register one\u2019s marriage.\n\nIt is partly my stupid objection to public indecency that makes me\nobject to the advertisement of marriage, legal or illegal. One has to\nclean one\u2019s teeth, some people have to marry, but for the life of me\nI cannot see the use of talking about either of these necessities.\nSurely the whole object of modern civilization is to conceal the fact\nthat we are animals. It is true that we have begun to make a public\nart of eating, but although we permit ourselves to munch in public,\nwe disguise the nature of our food, and we have sternly suppressed\nthe more ancient freedoms of the dinner-table. We no longer think it\npolite to go about when we suffer from catarrh, and it is seldom that\nwe encounter unpleasant expectorations, except in the immediate haunts\nof admittedly hooligan circles.\n\nThey say that nowadays it is possible to talk of any subject as long\nas one does so with sufficient delicacy and avoids the words of the\ngutter and the club smoking-room. Still, I admit that it is difficult\nto explain that just as we feel that every other necessary function\nof nature should be performed without attracting attention to it,\nso I feel that I would rather not be informed every time the bold\nexperimenters in marriage see fit to take a partner.\n\nWhen outspokenness is for the public good, when a \u201chushed-up disease\u201d\nbecomes disastrous simply because it is \u201chushed up,\u201d then there is some\nmeaning in making a gospel and parade of the truth. But I really think\nit is time we accepted the convention that men and women seek each\nother\u2019s society in order to exchange ideas.\n\nStrangely enough it is often the case. A woman has only to talk and\nlisten well, and she will find that the less she desires love the more\nfriendliness she will receive from men. Saint Teresa of Spain was an\nexcellent example of this. I suppose she had more warmly affectionate\nfriendships with men, without a shadow of scandal, than any other\nwoman. A perfectly frank woman will generally keep men as her friends,\nthey will not dare to be her lovers unless she deliberately ceases to\nbe frank.\n\nUnfortunately experimenters have to be original in order to be\nsuccessful. The people for whom I am sorry are those who are led into\nmaking experiments which are unnatural to them by the hypnotic power of\nseductive example.\n\nSave us from our imitators is the cry of all great poets; and the only\nvaluable advice one can give is, if you must experiment be careful that\nyou lead the way and are not seduced by the example of anyone else.\nIf by nature you must follow, it is a sign that you are a gregarious\nanimal, and had better remain with the main body of the herd. The real\nexperimenters are quite ready for solitude, and when they have found\nfair country and good pasture the rest of the herd will come over in a\nbody with one accord. It is no use perishing with cold on the way to\nthe Pole, unless you have the capacity to find it. Much better stop at\nhome by the fireside.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nTHE SAVAGE, THE BARBARIAN, THE CIVILIZED\n\n\nThe stately Spaniard, graceful as a tree swaying in its dance with the\nwind, savage and noble.\n\nThe Nihilist Russian, watching in her lair, instinctive and ready to\nkill. Her hatred of government marking her as the free barbarian.\n\nThe Parisian, knowing the correct convention of a funeral or an\nadultery, civilized and logical to her glove-tips.\n\nOf the three women the two first are simple, but civilization is\ncomplex, and it may mean to be cultivated with regard to intellect like\nthe Jesuits, art like the Greeks, morals like the Irish, or religion\nlike the Arab.\n\nIn which way will the women of the future develop? Will she strive\nlike the frequenters of the _salon_ of Madame de Rambouillet to excel\nin intellect, or like Saint Teresa of Spain as a religious mystic? We\nhave seen both these types, and I have no doubt that we shall see many\nshining examples of morality, but at the moment I cannot think of any\nconspicuous woman of whom no one has whispered scandal. For in these\ndays if people do not trip in one direction, it is said it is because\nthey prefer to trip in another; and soon it will be taken as a sign\nof evil life that one should live in a desert on bread and water. I\nmention in passing that our late Queen is usually admitted to have been\nconspicuously moral. In the arts we have seen, and hope to see again,\ngreat women novelists and actresses. In history we have an array of\nsplendid uncivilized women immortalized from all time--Medea, Electra,\nthe Roman empresses, Queen Maive of Connaught, the Russian heroines.\nWhether they excelled most as noble savages or as gloriously barbaric\nhaters of ordered life, I cannot stay to consider.\n\nFor I want the women who read this book not to dwell upon the past, but\nto look forward to the great century that is waiting for their alchemy,\nto transmute its life by giving it a more intent purpose. Are we going\nto be like the very badly dressed lady of title, whom we heard the\nother day imploring us to behave ourselves like other people, just as\nwe dressed like other people, in order not to be conspicuous! Or are we\nreally going to make something out of this brilliant opportunity given\nus by the \u201crefusal of the vote,\u201d and the quickly spreading passion of\nenthusiasm which is moving the women of all nations to make a fight\nagainst the patriarchal faith of the goat-worshippers.\n\nMr. Gorst says that the object of life is making (moral) love. I think\nthe object of our life is to make experiments, as gardeners make\nexperiments in floriculture. I quarrel with absorption in the family\nbecause family jealousy is a bar to that kind of social intercourse\nwhich is the only education worth having, and the only experience which\ncan lead to any result worth having. They say in France, \u201cLove is a\nplay in which the acts last five minutes, and the _entr\u2019actes_ for any\ntime you like.\u201d If it filled the whole of life it would only mean that\nlife would be as short as that of the ephemeral winged creatures of\nthe insect world. Family love cannot absorb us if we wish to survive.\nWe are complicated, and our possibilities of social and political\nintercourse are a subject of endless interest and inquiry. Let us then\nstart again on our voyages of discovery, this time with a little more\npurpose in our method and delight in our hearts.\n\nWomen want the vote, it is true, but what they want more, and what they\nare getting, is strength to hammer through the prisons which have kept\nthem for many centuries packed away conveniently for use on occasion.\nThey are all coming out into the daylight for the first time within our\nmemory, and now the real movement of life begins.\n\nWe want to change public opinion about divorce, contagious diseases,\nand forethought with regard to breeding. We want married women to\nrecognize the various proportions of sexuality in each sex, to make\nallowance for the passionate, and to admit that we are greatly indebted\nfor our culture to individuals who do not desire to be parents.\n\nIn conclusion, all I can say is, \u201cTalk! talk! talk!\u201d We are more moved\nby one conversation than by many eloquent discourses. After all, what\nis so permanently delightful as communion of ideas? So once again I\nsay, \u201cGo on talking until the savage, the barbarian, and the civilized\nwomen have found out all they can learn from each other. Plenty of men\nwill be glad to help them in their discoveries.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nBOOKS by FLORENCE FARR\n\n\n+THE DANCING FAUN.+ A Novel. Cheap Re-issue with cover design by AUBREY\nBEARDSLEY.\n\n\u201cFull of bright parodox, and parodox which is no mere topsy-turvy play\nupon words, but the product of serious thinking upon life.\u201d--_Star._\n\n\u201cThe writing reveals in almost every sentence the cultured artist whose\nevery stroke adds strength and beauty to the picture.\u201d--_Liverpool\nMercury._\n\n\u201cWe welcome the light and merry pen of Miss Farr as one of the deftest\nthat has been wielded in the style of to-day. She has written the\ncleverest and the most cynical sensation story of the season.\u201d--_Daily\nPost._\n\n\n_Paper, +6+d. +net+._\n\n+THE MYSTERY OF TIME.+ A Masque.\n\n\nBOOKS FOR WOMEN\n\n\n+THE BURDEN OF WOMEN.+ Compiled by FRANK MOND. 230 pp. Wrapper, 1_s._\n6_d._ net. Cloth, 2_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\n\u201cContains things which ought to be said.... The real burden of woman\nis found to be the relation of the sexes in marriage, particularly in\nregard to congenital and other diseases.\u201d--_The Morning Leader._\n\n\u201cThe scope of the book is wide, and it discusses not a few very\ndelicate topics fearlessly, but always with discretion and force,\nwhilst its general tone is unexceptional.\u201d--_Aberdeen Free Press._\n\n\n+WOMAN\u2019S WORST ENEMY, WOMAN.+ By BEATRICE TINA. Stiff Wrapper, 1_s._\nnet.\n\n\u201cMiss Tina has attempted to deal with the problem of marriage and\nmaternity, and has succeeded in so far as she has given us something\nto think about. She has realised how imperative it is for the future\nof society that a sane outlook upon sexual ethics, fundamental as they\nare, should be arrived at. One cannot but admire Miss Tina\u2019s courage\nin dragging various questions into the light of open day which have\nhitherto been either tacitly ignored or deliberately swept into the\nlimbo of hypocrisy.\u201d--_The Woman Worker._\n\n\u201cIt is intentionally provocative, but there will be many shrinking\nwomen grateful to so fearless an asserter of their inmost thoughts.\nThey will be a minority, but they should be heard.\u201d--_Leicester\nPioneer._\n\n\n FRANK PALMER, PUBLISHER, 14 RED LION COURT,\n FLEET STREET, LONDON.      ::      Catalogues Free.\n\n\n+THE COMMON-SENSE OF THE WOMAN QUESTION.+ By MILLICENT MURBY.\nWrapper, 6_d._ net. Quarter canvas, gilt, 1_s._ net.\n\n\u201cThis book ought certainly to make Mr. Belfort Bax readjust his views\nas to women\u2019s lack of power to form \u2018an objective and disinterested\njudgment,\u2019 for a clearer, more moderate and more precise presentation\nof the woman\u2019s point of view than this of Miss Murby it would be\ndifficult to find. To those even who differ from her conclusions will\ncome many plain statements of fact which will bear thinking over.\u201d--_T.\nP.\u2019s Weekly._\n\n\u201cWe have read many books on the woman suffragist side, but have not\nmet one which is so forcibly and sensibly written. Miss Murby has the\nacuteness to see that the voting is a mere surface question, and she\nexamines the roots of the problem, that is the fundamental relation of\nwomen to society. We recommend the book for its reasonableness and good\ntemper.\u201d\n\n_The Leicester Pioneer._\n\n\n+THE LEGAL SUBJECTION OF MEN.+ An Answer to the Suffragettes. By E.\nBELFORT BAX and Another. Wrapper, 6_d._ net. Quarter canvas, gilt,\n1_s._ net.\n\n_The Author in the Preface says_:--\n\n\u201cThe women\u2019s rights agitator has succeeded in inducing a credulous\npublic to believe that the female sex is groaning under the weight of\nthe tyranny of man. The facts show these individuals to be right in\none point, namely, that sex-injustice and sex-inequality exist; for\nthe facts show the said injustice and inequality to exist _wholly_ and\n_solely_ in favour of women as against men.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe \u2018oppressed\u2019 woman does not appear so very \u2018oppressed\u2019 in these\npages. All interested in the woman\u2019s suffrage movement should make a\npoint of studying this excellent book.\u201d\n\n_Dundee Advertiser._\n\n\n+SEXUAL ETHICS.+ By Professor AUGUST FOREL, M.D., PH.D., LL.D. With\nIntroduction by Dr. C. W. Saleeby, F.R.S. (Edin.). _2nd edition._ Demy\n8vo. Stiff wrapper, 1_s._ net. Cloth gilt, 2_s._ net.\n\nThe present work consists of an analysis of sexual morals as they\nexist to-day, together with a variety of constructive proposals for\nthe future. It is a book which must be read by every social reformer\nwho realises that the first step on the road to progress is the\nreconstruction of human morals.\n\n\u201cThe author discusses frankly, but scientifically, and without\npruriency, the rights and wrongs of matters sexual.\u201d\n\n_The Huddersfield Worker._\n\n\n FRANK PALMER, PUBLISHER, 14 RED LION COURT,\n FLEET STREET, LONDON.      ::      Catalogues Free.","title":"Modern Woman: Her Intentions","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":15670}