II. SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE DIFFERENT CLASSES
Let us pass now to the social condition in which the different social classes live in consequence of the place they occupy in the economic system.
A. THE BOURGEOISIE.
After a long and difficult struggle against feudalism the bourgeoisie, the class possessing the means of production, came out victorious. It has grown and become more powerful, and in almost all the countries where capitalism exists it is still the directing class.
The bourgeoisie is divided into three groups. The first comprises the capitalists who direct their business themselves. As has been shown in the preceding pages the power of this group is based upon its monopolizing the surplus-value. The idea which predominates among the bourgeoisie in general, and particularly among the first group, is to gain money, always more money. This thirst for gold is not quenched when the man has arrived at a point where he can live a luxurious life and gratify all his caprices. Thanks to capitalism it is possible to amass wealth without limit, so that the capitalist is never satisfied, however enormous may be the sums which he has gained. The consequence is that in general he is little developed in other directions, uses all his time in attaining the end he wishes for, has a mind only superficially cultivated, and if he is interested in art he regards it simply as a pastime which he procures for money.
Next to this group comes that of the persons whose sole occupation consists in appropriating a part of the surplus-value to increase their capital and in spending the rest for a luxurious life. It is unnecessary to set forth here the regrettable consequences of idleness and too easy a life. Doubtless there are in this group some persons who work and do not squander their income. But the fact remains that the present economic system produces a class who are not forced to work and can dissipate what others produce. The luxury displayed by the bourgeoisie has injurious consequences for the whole population. Not only do many persons aid this class in spending a part of the surplus-value, but further, as a consequence of the uninterrupted increase of luxury among the bourgeoisie (the result of the continued increase in the surplus-value), desire becomes so much the greater among the other classes as they have the less possibility of satisfying it.
The development of capitalism (the growth of stock companies) is the reason why the above-mentioned group of capitalists increases in comparison with the first group. The control of affairs is more and more abandoned to salaried employes. With these we come to the third and last group; the so-called liberal professions, in which men provide for their needs by intellectual labor. They are not capitalists in the strict sense of the term, for they live by selling their labor; but as they are recruited principally from the bourgeoisie, and in general have nearly the same standard of living as the bourgeoisie, it will be best to treat them here. Under the capitalistic system those who cultivate science or the arts are obliged to sell their products. There was a time when their number being limited their products brought a high price. However the development of capitalism has been the cause of a continually increasing demand for these persons. The task of the state and municipality becoming constantly greater requires an increasing number of functionaries; the larger application of science to industry demands more engineers, chemists, etc.; the multiplication of stock companies puts the direction of affairs more and more into the hands of salaried employes; etc., etc.
The extension of university education produced a greater supply, and this occasioned a considerable fall in the price of the commodity. In the end the supply began to exceed the demand; in this territory also there is an overproduction. Thence it happens that the price of this commodity often falls below its value, and thus a sort of scientific proletariat is formed. Just as the merchant on account of overproduction in his branch can dispose of his goods only by taking advantage of every possible method, so men of the liberal professions must at times have recourse to similar means if they wish to attain a great success or even to support themselves.
Although I speak of these persons under the head of “bourgeoisie” this is not an exact classification. Not only does their material condition sometimes differ from that of the bourgeoisie, but in other regards they cannot be treated under the same head. Many of them are descendants of those who have practiced the same profession; others have come from among the bourgeoisie proper, and have chosen the profession in question from inclination and natural disposition. These circumstances as well as the influence of the profession itself bring it about that for the last group the gaining of money is not the principal end as with the first, but that other motives also impel them.
In the next place we must fix our attention upon a matter which concerns the entire body of the bourgeoisie: the uncertainty of the future, for no one, not even the richest, is sure of it. In the exposition of the economic system which we have been considering the principal causes of this state of things have been indicated; it is therefore useless to go over the details again. It is not only those who lack capital or the ability to direct an enterprise, whose position is uncertain. A manufacturer can be ruined by an invention which makes his product unsalable; an unforeseen fall in price may have the same effect upon a merchant; etc., etc. This uncertainty reaches its height during crises, and, as a consequence of the complexity of economic life at present, the fall of one has disastrous consequences for those who have relations with him. From this it happens that to the agitation and weakness which are the consequences of competition, is added the fear of losing one’s position.
The cause of this fear is obvious. The capitalist who is ruined, and the stock-holder whose securities become valueless, see themselves thereby deprived of everything that makes life worth living, power, luxury, importance, etc., while the possibility of recovery without capital seems very small. This is especially true of the first two groups of the bourgeoisie. Nevertheless the position of the liberal professions is not very stable, though it is somewhat more so than that of the other groups.
Whence does the bourgeoisie recruit itself? In great part from the descendants of the bourgeoisie, in a less degree from the other classes. If a “petit-bourgeois” or a proletarian finds himself incorporated into the ranks of the bourgeoisie it is by virtue of extraordinary circumstances. They may reach this station because they have qualities which especially fit them to direct capitalistic enterprises; but in this case circumstances must arise to bring their capacity to light and give them a chance to develop it.
Although a relatively small number succeed in passing from another class to that of the bourgeoisie, this does not prevent nearly all from having an ardent desire to enrich themselves and from seizing every opportunity which may help them attain this end. (The only exception is found in those workers who understand that the historic task of the working class is to found a society where there shall be neither rich nor poor.) A man will often start a factory or a shop without having either capital or ability, in the hope of raising himself in the social scale; and unless the circumstances are extraordinarily favorable failure follows almost immediately. This applies also quite as strongly to the capitalists who for one reason or another have failed in business; they try to gain success in another branch at any cost, even if capital and ability are lacking. But such a course can only retard their fall, and they end infallibly by sinking permanently to the rank of the proletarian.
What I have just been saying brings out strongly the character of the present process of production. Production is not undertaken for the sake of consumption, but for profit, so that the man who believes that he has a good chance to improve his condition goes to work to produce, without asking himself whether there is need of his products, or whether he can meet the required conditions.
As to the relation of the bourgeoisie, as a class, to other classes, and especially to the proletariat, a few words will suffice after the exposition I have given of present economic conditions. “In every nation there are two nations.” These words describe the relations in question. From their mode of life the bourgeoisie and the proletariat remain strangers to one another. [270] The bourgeoisie, having arrived at a wrong idea of the present system, do not consider the proletariat as the class which sustains society by its toil, but as a necessary evil. According to the bourgeois every strike is a diminution of his rights, an encroachment upon his property. In the political field the bourgeoisie, notwithstanding its intrinsic divisions, acts as a unit against the proletarians; a fact which does not prevent there being opposing interests within the class: in the first place the contest of the different groups of capitalists (manufacturers against agrarians, etc.) and then the opposing interests of the manufacturers within each group.
B. THE PETTY BOURGEOISIE.
In reality the line of demarcation between the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie is not drawn with the precision desirable for a theoretical exposition. Just as there are numerous gradations in the bourgeoisie, so are there in the petty bourgeoisie.
It is the petty bourgeoisie which has among its different classes the most ancient traditions. There was a time when it was strong and powerful. But the development of capitalism has changed all that. Industrialism has arisen and undermined the petty bourgeoisie. In the combat the small capitalist must eventually go down. He has not, like his adversaries, scientific forces at his disposal, has no great credit, cannot, in consequence of the insufficiency of his capital, make use of new inventions; in short, his arms are inferior to those of his antagonists. All this does not make him renounce the contest at once; on the contrary, it arouses him to bring all his forces into play. In consequence of his position in the economic life he has no breadth of view. He cannot comprehend that what earned bread for his ancestors during so many years will some day fail. This is the reason that, as soon as large capital enters into the competition, the small manufacturer overdrives himself, and not only himself but his workmen also, and further, attempts to lower wages, lengthen the working day, and introduce women and children to take the place of men. Competition forces the merchant to take advantage of his customers in all sorts of ways, a fact which gives commerce its character; for the art of commerce is to buy cheap and sell dear. Hence there is opposition between the merchant and the manufacturer on the one hand, and between merchant and customer on the other. This is why the merchant is led to depreciate the article he buys, and to praise that which he is selling. This tendency naturally becomes stronger as competition becomes fiercer. Advertising, a system of deceit, is invented to draw purchasers at any cost; and the point is even reached where men no longer give exact weight (“My competitors do not give it,” says the merchant to himself), and sell goods of poorer quality than represented. This is why commerce has a moral code of its own.
However, notwithstanding their desperate resistance, the situation of the petty bourgeoisie becomes worse and worse, and this has important social consequences, for example, the increase of the labor of women outside of their own homes. Whole groups of the petty bourgeoisie are so fallen into decadence that the plane of their existence has become the same as that of the proletariat, or has even fallen below it. Finally the contest with the large capitalist means not simply degradation to the petty bourgeois, but absolute ruin. When a crisis comes the small capitalists are the first to feel the shock. Their ruin may come in various ways; their business may be annihilated altogether—in which case they are permanently reduced to the ranks of the proletariat—or it may become dependent upon great capital under the name of home industry, i.e. wage labor masked under the appearance of independence. Only those who have been able to save a part of their capital from the wreck can try fortune once more in another branch of industry where great capital has not yet begun to compete, but they are sure to be pursued and finally overtaken by their enemy.
As in the case of the bourgeoisie, the relations which the different members of the petty bourgeoisie have among themselves are determined by the economic system; fierce competition, life in a little circle where ideas cannot be broadened, all this breeds envy, hatred, and meanness. [271]
As to intellectual culture a great part of the petty bourgeoisie takes rank between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Generally the children of this class are better taught than those of the proletariat. But since the field of their ideas is very restricted and the struggle for existence requires all their time, their intellectual level remains in general much below the average level of the bourgeoisie. Others still who are of the lowest stratum of the petty bourgeoisie have the same development as the proletariat.
The petty bourgeoisie is recruited from the descendants of the same class, then from among the bourgeois who have failed in business, and finally from former proletarians. These last are those who cannot sell their labor for some reason, and try to gain a livelihood by making an insignificant capital of value in trading. Their plane of living does not differ from that of the proletariat unless by being lower.
As to the relation of the petty bourgeoisie to the other classes, it is naturally hostile to the bourgeoisie, since it is that class which has deprived it, or is still depriving it, of its influence. This hostility is, however, of a different kind from that which the working class feels toward the bourgeoisie. The petty bourgeoisie envies the bourgeoisie; it desires also to become rich, and thereby powerful. On the other hand it feels no community of interest with the working class, whose fixed determination to be free from the wage system it holds in abhorrence. The political position of the petty bourgeoisie, placed as it is between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, has necessarily become an equivocal one.
C. THE PROLETARIAT.
The proletariat, that class of persons who do not possess the means of production and who can exist only by the sale of their labor, dates from modern times. Between the independent artisan and the modern proletarian comes the journeyman as a link in the chain. The difference, however, between the journeyman and the proletarian is great. The journeyman generally lodged with his master, worked with him, and was considered as a member of the family. And since the means of production necessary were still quite limited, the journeyman by saving his wages had a chance some day to become master. With this hope he came to consider himself as having common interests with his employer.
The situation of the proletarian is entirely different. His work is entirely separate from that of his employer; the lengthening of the working-day does not imply that the capitalist works longer also. The workman lodges apart, and it makes little difference to the employer how his employes are housed and fed. The means of production being very dear, and the knowledge necessary to direct any business being lacking, the proletarian can almost never become an employer.
As has been shown it is the ruined members of the petty bourgeoisie who have formed the first stock of the proletariat. But although this class is still reinforced in the same way the greatest part of the proletariat is now composed of the descendants of proletarians.
We can easily comprehend the situation of the proletariat provided we do not lose sight of the basis of the present economic system, that is, the fact that the object of production is to gain for some the largest possible surplus-value at the expense of the rest of the population. The child of the proletarian is set to work at an age when the child of the bourgeois parents is still leading a care-free life, with nothing to do but to develop his powers. When taken to the factory the young proletarian finds himself in the midst of ignorant and coarse men caring nothing for him, and soon picks up their bad habits. It is in this environment that the proletarian will pass the greatest part of his life without hope of ever raising himself above it.
The greater part of the trades practiced have an unfavorable effect, frequently even very harmful to the health of the workmen (on account of great heat, too much dust, injurious gases, etc.). These prejudicial influences might be checked or prevented, but it costs money to make a factory sanitary, with no immediate return, and hygienic suggestions are therefore generally not followed. A number of trades constantly threaten the workers with death or mutilation; but although safety devices can almost always remove the danger, for the reason above stated they are still many times left untried.
As regards the length of the working-day, moderate work is a pleasure, excessive work mere torment. Except in so far as the laws and the labor unions have intervened, the day has been prolonged until there is left only the time absolutely necessary for food and sleep. Many workmen are not even given the night for sleeping, for in many factories the night force succeeds that on duty in the daytime. We may read in the holy Scriptures that a day has been set aside for rest, but this does not prevent Sunday from being a day of work under the capitalistic system, even though we are supposed to be living in a Christian society.
In general the work in factories is very monotonous, and hence brutalizing; and further, fatiguing from its great intensity. Moreover a vexatious discipline is sometimes maintained. However harmful may be the results of factory labor upon the physical, intellectual, and moral condition of the worker, they are less so than the results of sweat-shop labor. For sweat-shop hours are still longer than those of the factory; and the work is done in a place which is both kitchen and bedroom, so that not only is the workman injured but his family as well.
Let us now take up the question of wages. It is necessary that the wage should be enough to procure what is strictly needful, and in fact wages generally do not rise above this standard. Further the workman buys at a high price goods of low quality, for he who cannot spend much is powerless in dealing with the producers. Since the workman does not draw his wages till he has done the work, he must get credit for the necessaries of life (often being obliged to add to his debts on account of sickness or unemployment). His wages prevent his paying his debts, and force him, therefore to continue to trade with his creditor, who cheats him at every turn. Again, in some branches of industry he is obliged to buy what he wants from the capitalist, or from the foreman (truck-system), or to live in a house which belongs to the capitalist (cottage system)—and then gets poorer quality at a higher price than elsewhere.
Let us take up next the dwellings of the proletariat. Capitalism is the cause of a great congestion of persons in a limited area. An enormous rise in the price of land in the cities and consequently a similar rise in rents have been the result. No class spends a larger part of its income in rent than the laboring class. The proletariat is not only lodged expensively but badly. All those who pass through the laborers’ districts know the monotonous rows of houses, ill-built, uniform and simple. But the internal arrangement of these buildings is much more miserable; the stairs and landings are narrow, the rooms small, badly lighted and ventilated, and often must serve for kitchen and bedroom combined. But notwithstanding the limited space, the number of inmates often is further increased by taking lodgers, in an attempt to make both ends meet. For all these reasons the house of the working-man is not a real home in which he can be at ease.
As if these consequences of capitalism were not serious enough, the labor of married women is added. By this the life of the family, already damaged in so many ways, has been destroyed. Furthermore the physical effect upon the woman, and even more upon the child with which she is pregnant, is most prejudicial, without reckoning that her moral condition suffers equally.
Up to this point I have been speaking of the proletarian on the supposition that he has been able to sell his labor-power. But, as we have seen already, when this sale is not possible, he and his family are left to their fate. This then is what freedom of labor means, a freedom that the slave never knows, freedom to die of hunger. No one guarantees to the workman or his family the means of subsistence if, for any reason, he is not able to sell his labor. The slave-owner had an interest in taking care of a sick slave, for the slave represented value which he did not care to see diminished. But if a workman is sick he is discharged and replaced by another. The sickness and death of the laborer do not harm the capitalist at all.
I have set forth above the numerous causes which prevent the workman from selling his labor. Forced idleness has become chronic little by little, reaching its acute stage in times of crisis. Then seasonal trades make the work of thousands dependent upon the weather. Aside from general causes, which affect whole groups, there are also individual causes. A workman displeases his employer, it may be because he is one of the leaders of a union, or for some other reason; he is discharged, and runs, especially in times of economic depression, the risk of not being able to find employment elsewhere. If the worker falls ill or is injured (this often happens as a consequence of an unhealthful or dangerous trade), or when he reaches old age (and hard work ages men quickly), he is condemned. If the period of idleness lasts long the workman loses his ability and the habit of working (for working is above all a habit), and the time is not far distant when he will become altogether incapable of working.
The intellectual condition of the working class is easily understood. In his youth the child learns but little. The circle of his ideas remains restricted, since his parents have ordinarily neither the knowledge, the opportunity, nor the desire to supplement the little that is learnt at school. At the age when the child begins to think for himself, and his aptitudes begin to manifest themselves, he is put to work. The little that the proletarian has learned in his childhood is quickly forgotten under the pressure of the long, monotonous toil, which dulls his intelligence and makes him thus less sensitive to higher impressions. Even if this were not the case, the long duration of labor fatigues the workman too much, his domestic life does not permit him to develop himself, and further he has no money for intellectual pleasures. The pleasures of the workman belong to his kind of life. Consequently his amusements are rough and coarse. Alcohol and sexual intercourse are often the only pleasures he knows. [272]
The life of the working-man is less retired than that of the bourgeois. He sees continually the misery of his companions, which is also his own, he feels himself more at one with them, but the demand for labor always remaining below the supply, competition among the workers arouses antagonistic feeling among them. The possibility of some day becoming rich being almost entirely cut out, the working-man is less avaricious than the bourgeois, and less economical; he lives from day to day, and if he happens to get a little more than usual at any time he spends it at once.
The situation may be summed up as follows: under the capitalistic system the greater part of the population, the part upon whose labor the entire social fabric is based, lives under the most miserable conditions. The proletariat is badly clothed, badly fed, miserably housed, exhausted by excessive and often deleterious labor, uncertain as to income, and ignorant and coarse. [273]
However, the sketch given above shows only one side of the question. At length the workers have perceived that the interests of the employer are opposed to their own, that the cause of their poverty lies in his luxury. They have begun to set up opposition when they learn that by organizing themselves into labor unions they gain a power by which they can ameliorate their lot. The work no longer being done separately as in the time of the guilds, but together, there has been this consequence for the workmen, that being now in the same position with regard to the capitalist, and in the same social condition, they have gained in the feeling of solidarity and in discipline, two conditions which are essential to victory in the struggle. Little by little the workers have learned that their enemy is not their own employer simply, but the whole capitalist class. The strife has become a strife of classes. And capitalism being international the conflict of the working class has become international also.
The means by which the working class attempt to better their position are of various kinds. First there are the unions, which undertake the contest for the shorter day and higher wages. Then there is coöperation; and finally, and above all, politics. The movement for unions, which could not exist without liberty of the press, of meeting, and of forming associations, forces the working-men to take part in politics.
At first, when they still had no clear idea of the position they occupied in society, the working-men permitted other political parties to make use of them. But coming to understand that the laborers form a class apart, whose interests are different from those of other classes, they have formed an independent working-man’s party. Finally, the contest of the working class could not limit itself to improvements brought about within the frame-work of the existing economic system; if they wished to free themselves permanently they saw themselves obliged to combat capitalism itself. Thus modern socialism was born; on one side from an ardent desire of the working class to free itself from the poverty caused by capitalism; on the other side from the development in the manner of capitalistic production, in which small capital is always conquered by large capital. The conviction becomes more and more general that capitalism has fulfilled its historic task, the increase of the productive forces, and that the means of production must belong to all if we are effectively to deliver humanity from the material and intellectual miseries which result from capitalism. The labor movement blends itself with socialism, then, and thus social democracy becomes the political organization of the working class.
What have been the results of the opposition made by the working class to the misery imposed upon them by capitalism? When we compare the condition of the proletariat in the first half of the nineteenth century (see, for example F. Engels, op. cit.) with that of today, we cannot help recognizing that it has been improved. Forced (in order to avoid worse things) by the labor agitation and also by the ravages which capitalism had caused in the working class, incapacitating them for the work required of them, the bourgeoisie decided to put forth laws limiting the work of women and children, etc. The unions, consisting principally of skilled workers, have been and still are able to obtain increase of wages and a shortening of the working-day, by making use of the weapons at their disposal (strikes, etc.). Coöperation also has raised the standard of living somewhat for those who have taken part in it.
From the fact that the working class, in so far as it has been organized, has improved its condition, the conclusion has wrongly been drawn that the distance between the two parties, the possessors and the non-possessors, has been diminished. Those who draw this conclusion forget that during this period the totality of wealth has been enormously increased, and that the proletariat has obtained only a part, while the rest has fallen to the bourgeoisie. And so far as I know, no one has yet been able to prove that the part falling to the bourgeoisie must be smaller than that obtained by the proletarians. [274]
Besides the material consequences of the labor conflict, its spiritual consequences are also of very high importance. The contest has obliged the working-men to develop themselves, has taught them that they occupy an important place in society, and thus has increased their confidence in themselves. It is socialism especially which, by giving the hope of a better future to a whole class oppressed and poor, has had the effect of little by little elevating the proletariat intellectually and morally.
D. THE LOWER PROLETARIAT. [275]
I must speak now of the fourth and least numerous group of the population, that of the very poor. Not possessing the means of production, and not being able to sell their labor, these people occupy no position in the economic life properly speaking, and their material condition is therefore easy to understand. Everything that has been said upon this subject with reference to the proletariat applies here, but in a much larger degree. The manner in which these people are fed, clothed, and housed is almost indescribable. The middle class have no idea of such a life; they believe that the pictures of these conditions sometimes painted for them are exaggerated, and that charity is sufficient to prevent their passing certain limits. From these limits we understand that the bourgeoisie does not mean to be incommoded by the poor. If charity were to go farther it would require sums so great that the increase of capital and expenditures for luxury would be interfered with. That would be quite out of the question.
In order to depict these conditions I wish to give but one quotation, taken from an interesting article, “Englands industrielle Reservearmee” in which account has been given of the researches of certain clergymen in the poorest quarters of London. And everything that is here said of London applies in general to other great cities. For capitalism produces the same effects everywhere.
“Think of the condition in which the poor live. We do not say the condition of their dwellings, for how can those holes be called dwellings, when in comparison with them the lair of a wild beast would be a comfortable and healthful place. Only a few who read these lines have any conception of what pestilential places these nests are, where tens of thousands of human beings are herded together among horrors that recall to us what we have heard of slave-ships between decks. To reach these abodes of misery we have to find our way through hardly passable courts, impregnated with poisonous and evil-smelling gases, which rise from the heaps of offal strewn around, and from the dirty water flowing underfoot—courts, into which the sun seldom or never penetrates, through which no breath of fresh air ever blows, and which seldom have the benefit of a cleaning. We have rotten stairs to climb, which threaten to give way at each step, and in some places have given way, leaving holes that endanger the lives and limbs of those who are not accustomed to them. We are obliged to feel our way along dark and dirty passages swarming with vermin; then, if we are not driven back by the intolerable stench, we may enter the holes in which thousands of beings, of the same race as ourselves, lodge together. Have you, dear reader, ever pitied those poor creatures whom you found sleeping in the open under railway arches, in wagons or hogsheads, or under anything that would afford them shelter? You will learn that these are to be envied in comparison with those who seek refuge here. Eight feet square is the average size of very many of these ‘living-rooms.’ Walls and ceiling are black with the accumulation of dirt which has become fastened there through the neglect of years. It falls down from the cracks in the ceiling, sticks out of the holes in the walls, in short, is everywhere. What goes by the name of a window is half stuffed up with rags or nailed up with boards, in order to keep out the wind and rain, while the rest is so smeared and darkened that no light can get in, nor is it possible to see out. If we climb up to an attic room, where at least we may expect a breath of fresh air through an open or broken window, and look down upon the roofs or cornices of the stories below, we shall discover that the already tainted air which might find its entrance into the window, has come thither over the decayed bodies of cats, birds, or still more nauseous things. The buildings themselves are in such miserable condition that the thought naturally arises, ‘Will they fall down upon the heads of the inmates?’ And furniture? We shall perhaps discover a broken down chair, the rickety remains of an old bedstead, or the mere fragments of a table; more often, however, as a substitute for these we shall find only rough boards resting upon bricks, an old warped trunk, or a box; and more often still nothing but rags and rubbish.
“Every room in these rotten, damp, fetid houses is occupied by one, and often by two families. A sanitary inspector reports that he found in a cellar a man, his wife, three children, and four hogs. In another room a missionary found a man sick with small-pox, his wife just recovering from child-birth, and the children half naked and covered with dirt. Here seven persons live in a cellar-kitchen, and a dead child lies between the living. In another room a poor widow was living with three children, and one child who had already been dead thirteen days. Her husband, a cab-driver, had committed suicide a short time before.—Here lives a widow and her six children, including a daughter of 29, another of 21, and a son of 27. Another room contains father, mother, and six children, of whom two are sick with scarlet fever. In another live, eat, and sleep nine brothers and sisters from 29 years old down. Here is a mother who sends her children out on the street from early evening till late after midnight, because she rents her room during this time for immoral purposes. Afterwards the poor worms may creep back to their dwelling if they have not found some scanty shelter elsewhere. Where there is a bed it consists of nothing but a heap of dirty rags, refuse, or straw, but mostly there is not even this, and the miserable beings lie upon the dirty floor. The renter of this room is a widow, who takes the only bed herself and sublets the floor to a married couple for two shillings sixpence a week.” [276]
“However miserable these rooms may be they are yet too dear for many, who wander about all day seeking to get a living as well as they can, and at night take shelter in one of the common lodging-houses, of which there are so many. The lodging-houses are often the meeting place of thieves and vagabonds of the lowest sort, and some are even kept by the receivers of stolen goods. In the kitchen men and women may be seen cooking their food, doing their washing, or lounging around smoking and gambling. In the sleeping room there is a long row of beds on each side, as many as sixty or eighty in a single room. In many lodging-houses the two sexes are permitted to lodge together without any regard for the commonest decency. Yet there is still a lower step. Hundreds cannot procure even the twopence necessary to secure the privilege of passing a night in the stuffy air of these dormitories; and so they lie down on the steps and in the passage ways, where it is nothing uncommon in the early morning to find six or eight human beings huddled together or stretched out.” [277]
We may limit ourselves to this sketch of the habitation—all the other living conditions conform thereto. With so miserable a material life there can be no question of the intellectual life. Continual poverty and the permanent fear of dying of hunger destroy all that is noble in man and reduce him to the condition of a beast, without any aspiration for higher things; for those who have come to this state from the more favored classes become more and more degraded and have soon lost the little knowledge they acquired in earlier periods. Servility and lack of self-respect are necessary to the poor if they are to get the alms they need to keep them alive, since they occupy no place in the economic life. Between them and the workers there is an enormous difference; they have no feeling of solidarity in the social life.
What is the origin of the lower proletariat, from what classes is it recruited? If we are to believe many criminologists and sociologists the answer to this question ought to be that their poverty is not due to social conditions but exclusively to themselves; that they are inferior by nature. But to get a true answer we must put the question in this way: do the existing social classes form the groups into which men would be classified according to their qualities?
Those who give an affirmative answer to this question reason as follows: men differ enormously among themselves in their innate capacities. The largest division of them is made up of people of moderate worth, a small number rise above this, and the rest are inferior. Circumstances have little influence upon the development of these capacities. If any man has great abilities circumstances cannot keep him from the place to which they entitle him. He who has little ability also arrives at the place which that fact makes his own. In other words (to confine myself to capitalism) the bourgeoisie, the ruling class, is composed of persons predestined to rule; next comes the petty bourgeoisie, followed by the proletariat, predestined to rough work; and finally lower proletariat, a class predestined to succumb in the struggle for existence, since incapable of meeting its requirements. [278]
An attentive examination of this theory, which is an application to society of the Darwinian theory of selection, shows at once—even supposing it to be correct—that there is an important difference between the struggle for existence in nature and that in society. In nature the conquered are either annihilated, or are prevented from reproducing themselves, while in society the lower classes multiply much faster than the higher. It is no longer a question of the survival of the most fit, and the annihilation of the rest, as in nature.
Who is it then who remains victor in the struggle for life in society? To answer this it is necessary first to answer another, Are the chances the same for all? If this is not the case then it cannot be a question of the triumph of the best.
There are few questions upon which opinions differ as much as upon this. Generally these opinions are only conjectures, for they are not based upon an examination of facts. For this reason I wish to set down here briefly the very important conclusions of Professor Odin in his “Genèse des grands hommes”, a work noteworthy not simply from the wealth of documents of which the author made use, but also from his very scrupulous care in examining them. Professor Odin has made studies of the educational environment, the economic environment, the ethnological environment, etc., of all the men of letters born in France between 1300 and 1830, to the number of 6382.
As to educational environment, the author has been able to procure exact information with regard to 827 persons; a good education had been given to 811, or 98.1 % and 16, or 1.9 % had had a poor education. “All this forces us to admit that education plays a rôle not only important, but capital, decisive, in the development of the man of letters.” [279]
The economic environment in which the men of letters had passed their youth could be discovered in the case of 619. Of these, 562, or 90.7 %, passed their youth sheltered from all material care, while 57, or 9.3 %, passed their youth in indigence or insecurity. In consequence the author makes the following observation: “As it appears, only the eleventh part of the literary men of talent have passed their youth in difficult economic conditions. This ratio, already very small in itself, appears much more striking when we strive to represent the numerical relation which ought to exist for the whole population between well-do-do families and those that are not. It is impossible to say, doubtless, what this relation has been on the average for the whole modern period. But it is clear that we shall be well below the truth if we admit that the families of the second category are three or four times as numerous as those of the first. That is to say, from the mere fact of the economic conditions in which they are born, the children of well-to-do families have at least forty or fifty times as much chance of making a name in letters as do those who belong to families that are poor, or are simply in a position of economic instability.” [280]
Further, the author shows that the fifty-seven men of letters who passed their youth in an unfavorable economic environment were by chance put in a position to develop their capacities. (Only five of them received a poor education.)
Finally the social environment from which the literary men have sprung:
======================+====================================== | Number of Literary Men of Talent Social Classes. | Relatively to the Total Population | of Each Social Class. ----------------------+-------------------------------------- Nobility. | 159 Magistracy. | 62 Liberal professions. | 24 Bourgeoisie. | 7 Manual labor. | 0.8 ======================+======================================
Upon examining these figures we see that of two persons of the same innate qualities the one who has sprung from the nobility has about 200 times as much chance of becoming a person of importance as the one who comes from the laboring class. The struggle of our day has been characterized as a race with a handicap, in which one runs on foot with a burden on his back, another rides a horse, while the third takes an express train. The reality, however, is still stronger.
Doubtless we must not forget that the researches of Professor Odin include in part a period that differs in many respects from our own (hence the small contingent of the bourgeoisie), and that since this time education has become more solid and more general, a fact which increases the chances of success of a gifted man sprung from a poor environment. In the second place it was literary men and not capitalists who were the subject of investigation, and since the former doubtless must have greater natural aptitudes than the latter, it may well be that it is easier for anyone without money to acquire capital, than would be suggested by the figures applying only to men of letters. Nevertheless, all this does not overthrow the fact that the researches of Professor Odin have proved that the fact of being born in a class where youth is without care, and enjoys a good education, procures an enormous advantage in the struggle for existence. [281]
In order to prevent erroneous interpretations I will add Professor Odin’s own conclusion, from which it is plain that he does not deny absolutely that men’s innate capacities differ widely (which, indeed, is disputed by few, and may be considered settled). “Heredity and environment,” he says, concur with one another in the development of talent. We may characterize as follows their respective spheres of action: where the hereditary qualities are identical—to suppose an impossible case—it is the environment which causes all the difference between individuals; where the environment is identical, it is heredity.
“Put in these terms the proposition is banal. What is less so, since this has been established here with certainty for perhaps the first time, is that heredity alone can do nothing. However strong may be the natural disposition given by heredity, it can only develop itself in a favorable environment. Thrown into an unfavorable environment it will become weakened in the degree in which the environment is contrary to it, and may even end by being atrophied to the point of being no longer perceptible. The supposed omnipotence of heredity is only an illusion, resulting from an elementary confusion between heredity and simple parentage.
“This is not all. We have been able to determine more nearly what is the indispensable environment for the development of literary talent. It is a good education, made possible by certain circumstances which are advantageous socially and economically, in other words, a proper social environment.” [282]
As a second form of the handicap we must speak of inheritance. It is impossible to estimate this advantage in figures, but it is incontestable that the man who has become rich in this way has no need of great knowledge or great intelligence in order to remain rich. Provided he does not speculate or squander his money, he should be able to have the enjoyment of it all his life. The struggle for existence is unknown to him; at the very start of the race his foot is nearly at the goal.
We see already that these two circumstances have as their result that the classes do not correspond exactly to the groups into which men are separated according to their capacities. However we must now leave the cases in which one has a start of another, and give an answer to the question, “In what do the conquerors in the contest excel?”
In the first place, attention must be drawn to a group of capitalists who have acquired their wealth without having their abilities called into play, but who are entirely indebted to chance, i.e. the speculators, the winners of the great prizes in lotteries, the men who make rich marriages, etc. Next we may mention the other capitalists, the great manufacturers and merchants. Wherein are they distinguished? First for energy and activity, next for a great talent for organization, especially as shown in the choice of their chief employes, and finally for a need of luxury, not too great, lest the building up of their capital be interfered with, nor too restrained, lest the suspicion be aroused that their fortune is in danger. The first of these aptitudes must certainly be considered as the most favorable; the talent for organization especially is of the highest importance, for it is without contradiction a factor in social progress. It is because of this talent and not for their fabulous wealth alone that the names of Pierpont Morgan, of Rockefeller, and of other directors of trusts will not be entirely forgotten after they are dead. But these are not the only capacities which these people must display. To direct a capitalistic enterprise it is necessary among other things to have a fair portion of insensibility as well toward workmen as toward customers; then it will not do to be too scrupulous about truth (in advertising, etc.), nor to show too much character (however impertinent his customers may be the capitalist takes it all through fear of seeing them go over to his competitors).
Nevertheless, he who displays all these qualities, still is not entirely sure of being able to improve his position, or even to maintain himself in it; crises, as has been shown, are inevitably bound up with capitalism itself, and strike at times the most substantial and energetic capitalists. By a new invention or a new manner of working the most active and intelligent manufacturer may see himself out-stripped by a competitor. And aside from all fortuitous circumstances, in society as it exists today the struggle for existence is a struggle between those best armed, those who have the best machines, etc. But the manufacturer who can procure the best machines, who can bring his establishment up to the latest technical requirements, who can procure the services of the ablest technicians, etc., is the man who has most capital. The struggle is not a struggle of men but of capital.
In his work, “Die Darwinsche Theorie und der Sozialismus” Dr. L. Woltmann has brought out clearly the difference between the combat in nature and that which takes place in society. He says: “The history of the civilization of the human race also proceeds upon the basis of the great biological principles of adaptation, transmission, and perfection in the struggle for existence. But between the application of these principles among the lower animals and in the world of man there are the following essential differences. In the first place in the animal world the struggle for existence takes place through the adaptation of organic means to organic ends, while with men technical tools and economical means of production enter in, things which are not within the power of separate individuals, but are made possible by association. In the second place hereditary transmission in the case of animals is organic, while in the case of human beings there is added an external and legally determined hereditary transmission of technical tools and of capital. In the animal kingdom, in the third place, the struggle for existence is a rivalry of organic production and reproduction, while among men, especially under the capitalistic order, there takes place a competition in commodities and places, a contest for profit, which has hardly anything in common with natural selection.” [283]
Thus we see clearly who it is that can rise from the class of non-possessors to that of possessors: it is those to whom fortune is peculiarly favorable, or who, possessing the qualities necessary for the capitalist, meet with the opportunity of putting them in evidence. Those who are dropped from the capitalist class are those who have been unfortunate or who do not possess the qualities necessary for capitalists.
The answer to the question proposed, “Are the present classes also the groups where men can be ranked according to their qualities”, must be decidedly negative. The bourgeoisie is not the ruling class because the most intelligent and energetic persons are found among its members. There are also included in this class persons without energy, stupid people, of minor importance in short, just as in the petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat very capable persons may be met with. The fact of being excluded from the class of possessors is not a proof of inferiority. If the superior persons were those who led society they would be the great thinkers, the savants, for it is they who have made society progress and who have desired its well-being. For even if capitalists, more than others, have aided progress, it is by chance, for they have always had in view only their own profit. [284]
I could easily cite a number of celebrated authors who are unanimously of the opinion that the conquerors in the present struggle are not such because they are naturally superior. [285] I will confine myself to recalling the opinion of one whose authority no one will contest, namely, Charles Darwin. Here is what Wallace says: “In one of my last conversations with Darwin he expressed himself as having very little hope of the future of humanity, and this upon the basis of his observation that in our modern civilization natural selection does not occur, and the fittest does not survive. The victors in the struggle for gold are by no means the best or the most intelligent, and it is a well known fact that our population reproduces itself in each generation much more rapidly among the lower than among the middle and upper classes.” [286]
An examination of the struggle for existence in the middle class shows that everything which happens in the bourgeoisie on a large scale is reproduced here on a small scale. He who has little capital is surpassed by a competitor who has more, even though the former may be entirely fitted for his business; crises have the same ruinous influence here, and strike skilful and unskilful alike. The difference, as far as the struggle for existence is concerned, between the class in question and the bourgeoisie, consists in this: the less energetic, the less intelligent of the middle class runs more danger of falling back out of the ranks than a member of the bourgeoisie who is his equal.
Finally, we come to the proletariat. Here also there is an elimination of individuals not because they are incapable, but because they are superfluous in the present mode of production, as well as of those whom sickness or old age render unfit for labor. Here we must take account of a factor which is of less importance in the other classes, bodily health and strength. While the proletarian has need neither of much knowledge or great intelligence to carry on his trade, he has a powerful weapon for the struggle in his muscular strength and health. Unfavorable conditions have a strong influence upon him, and the one who is weak and ailing must, other things being equal, yield in the present struggle for existence to a competitor who is stronger and in better health. And finally, in this contest also the less active, the less persevering among the workers will have the smaller chance of success, supposing conditions to be equal.
So we return to the point from which we set out, the lower proletariat. This class is not composed, then, as has sometimes been claimed, of beings inferior by nature, of persons who are fit for nothing. In the great majority of cases social conditions and not their lack of aptitude, are the exclusive and direct causes of their position. In support of this I will give some figures, which also show the relative importance of the causes compared among themselves.
German Empire.
====================================================================+============ Injuries to the person assisted } | 1.04 ,, ,, ,, breadwinner of the family } By | 0.09 Death of ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, } Accident. | 0.36 ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, } Not by | 8.35 Sickness of the person assisted or of one of his family } Accident. | 15.24 Bodily or intellectual infirmities | 8.97 Weakness of old age | 12.32 Large number of children | 1.34 Forced unemployment | 2.23 Alcoholism | 0.88 Laziness | 0.71 Other causes designated | 4.09 ,, ,, not designated | 0.06 “Co-assisted”[287] | 44.32 +------------ | 100.00[288] ====================================================================+============
This table shows that 44.32% of the persons assisted were “co-assisted”; that 8.8% have become indigent through the death or injury of the breadwinner of the family; that there are, therefore, 53.12% of those assisted the cause of whose indigence is not to be found in the persons themselves, but in their social environment. (Generally such persons are spoken of as not being poor through their “own fault”, a term so vague that it would be well to discontinue its use.) 1.34% are persons with a large family, whose wages are too small to support so many; 2.23% are out of employment, i.e. they wish to work but can find nothing to do; 12.32% are prevented from working by old age. Consequently we reach the figure of 69.01% for those who have become indigent through causes which do not depend upon themselves. Finally come 25.25% of those assisted who have been injured, or are sick, or have bodily or intellectual infirmities.
Further, there are social causes which play a great part in the etiology of the cases we have been discussing (bad housing conditions favoring tuberculosis, lack of protective devices for dangerous machines, causing injuries, etc.). Others of these persons are born weak or sickly, in which case we may speak of individual causes of poverty, although social conditions have contributed in their turn by their influence on the parents to make the children wretched.
It is, however, a social phenomenon that the sick and weak of the proletariat are left to shift for themselves. They find themselves in that condition only because they do not possess the means of production, and are no longer in a condition to sell their labor. Many times we read in treatises upon morals how shameful it is that nomadic peoples abandon or kill their sick and aged, and how by these customs they give proof of their inferior morality. But those who speak in this way forget how, notwithstanding our present civilization, a great number of persons still pass their old age in the direst poverty; they forget also that the manner in which the nomadic peoples live forces them to rid themselves of their sick and aged, because it would be impossible to take them with them; they forget also that, on account of the limited power that nomads have over nature, they find themselves in exceedingly difficult material circumstances, so that their manner of acting is not judged immoral by any of their own families who suffer by it; [289] finally they forget that the productivity of labor is so enormous at present that all the sick and aged could be supported; a part of the money spent in superfluous luxuries would be ample for this purpose.
We have still to examine the last two headings, laziness and alcoholism. As the figures given above show, these form a very small part of the causes: together only 1.59%. [290] Among the causes which have brought these persons to the point where they are, there are social factors also. Later on I shall speak of the relation between the present economic system and alcoholism. But at this point we may say as regards the 0.71% of persons who do not wish to work that a part of them—it is impossible to say just how many—have grown up in a bad environment, where they have never been given the habit of working regularly and diligently, so that they have become totally incapable of doing so.
There is still another social factor that may be named; the disagreeable character of many kinds of work, made worse by long hours and low wages. To adduce but one example: the miner is obliged to work in a vitiated atmosphere, often in a painful position, and constantly surrounded by dangers, and this for very low wages. If we stop to think of this we are more astonished at the millions of workers who pass their lives under similar conditions, than at the comparatively few who refuse to work.
However, taking all this into account, it is certain that there are among the proletariat persons who are predisposed to idleness by their congenital constitution. It is indubitable that these persons are invalids, who would be cared for in a well-organized society, but in ours are abandoned to their fate. Professor Benedikt says, in speaking of physical neurasthenia: “It represents not so much absolute weakness as speedy exhaustion coupled with a painful feeling of weakness. We make in our childhood more muscular movements than is necessary, and out of the pleasurable feeling which comes from these develop the first elements of pleasure in work. If, however, the child quickly becomes weary, and the muscular action soon begets a lively feeling of discomfort, there arises from this discomfort laziness or physical neurasthenia.” [291]
The number of those the cause of whose poverty is to be found in themselves is not, then, very considerable. Nevertheless it is a little greater than the statistics given would lead one to suppose, for there are also certain of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie, ruined in consequence of the lack of the qualities required for success, who have gone down little by little and have finally become incorporated with the lower proletariat.
But is this class of poor persons absolutely fit for nothing? It seems to me that (leaving the sick out of consideration) the answer must be decidedly in the negative. It is true that a part of this group succumbs in the struggle because it is inferior. But it would be as absurd to say of the runner who comes in last in a race that he cannot run at all, as to say of the man who goes under in the struggle for existence that he is fit for nothing. Those who do not succeed in life are in great part those who through accident of birth have not obtained the place for which their talents fitted them. How many among the bourgeoisie are ruined from their incapacity for directing a business enterprise, while they would have become useful members of society if they had been able to follow their true vocation? And how many proletarians have fallen lower and lower through not being fitted for the trade to which their birth destined them, while their innate qualities predestined them to a different form of work? [292]
Side by side with these there are individuals who are really inferior, who have little energy, intelligence, etc. It would be absurd to claim that these persons are capable of doing great things, even in the most favorable circumstances. But there is a great difference between not being able to do great things, and being absolutely useless, as are the members of the lower proletariat under present conditions. These persons have need of being guided, cannot stand up without support, and in order not to perish need to find themselves in a favorable environment. If their neighbor comes to their assistance they can assuredly become sufficiently useful, and in any case need do no harm. Anyone who will look about him may be convinced of the truth of this; for many persons of just this sort, happening to belong to the bourgeoisie, have succeeded very well.
Ethnology points out also that classes have not their origin in the universal fact that men differ in their innate qualities. For if this were true classes would be as old as humanity itself. This, however, is not the case; it has been proved that in the evolution of society there has been a stage (that it was a long time ago makes little difference) when riches and poverty were unknown, and classes did not exist. [293] The assertion that the “war of all against all” is a natural phenomenon, is absolutely false, and proves a very great lack of sociological knowledge. It is certain that classes have long existed, but a society like that of our time, in which we can apply the adage of Hobbes, that “man is a wolf to his fellowman”, is of comparatively recent date.
Our conclusion, then, is this: the groups into which the population of capitalistic countries is divided do not originate in the circumstance that men differ in their innate capacities, but in the system of production that is in force; it is chiefly chance that determines to which class an individual belongs; there are inferior beings in each group, but among the lower proletariat they are more numerous than elsewhere; but these inferior beings may still be useful enough on condition that they be placed in a favorable environment.
III. THE RELATION OF THE SEXES AND OF THE FAMILY
A. MARRIAGE.
As between the two commonplaces, “There have always been poor people”, and “The present institution of marriage springs from human nature itself and is as old as society”, it is hard to say which is repeated oftenest, but it is quite certain that one is no more exact than the other. Sociology has proved that marriage, as it exists at present, is the result of a long process of evolution, and every serious observer must be convinced that its present form will be no more constant than those which preceded it, and that the ideas concerning it have undergone important modifications.
The question to solve is this: “How has monogamy taken its rise?” With the aid of sociology I shall endeavor to give the answer as summarily as possible. [294] It will, however, be necessary to recall the ancient forms of marriage, without which it would be impossible to grasp the origin and evolution of the present form. Most sociologists are of the opinion that primitive man lived in promiscuity, which, if true, must have been in the most remote period, when man was hardly distinguishable from the anthropoid apes. Other authors, on the contrary, have attempted to show that such a state of things has never existed. [295] However, the only thing proved is that no case of promiscuity has ever been established among peoples observed by serious ethnologists. But all these peoples, however far removed they may be from us, had already attained a certain degree of development, and were by no means in their primitive state. No amount of observation can prove whether or not primitive man really lived in a state of promiscuity, and we can only take refuge in hypotheses.
We shall be getting at the truth when we come to an agreement as to the meaning of the word “promiscuity.” Do we mean by this a state like that in which dogs live, where after copulation the male and female do not remain together at all? Then it is very likely that human beings have never lived in that state, inasmuch as such promiscuity exists rarely or not at all among the animals most approaching man. [296] If, on the contrary, we mean by promiscuity a state in which rules concerning the sexual life are lacking, but where life in common for a longer or shorter period is not excluded, then, since man is part of the animal kingdom, it is most probable that there has been a time when this state has existed, and that it is only little by little that objective rules have appeared. [297] Let us now leave the domain of hypothesis and examine the real facts. [298]
The most primitive of the peoples who have been observed in detail have been named “lower hunters”; they include the Australian aborigines, the Veddhas, the Botocudos, etc. Among these peoples the men hunt while the women gather fruit and roots. They are forced to wander in small groups in order to provide for their needs, as otherwise the game and fruit would soon fail. Their limited control over nature is a frequent cause of famine and distress generally, and thus prevents any considerable increase in the population.
As to their sexual relations, there could not be any question of promiscuity among these peoples. Each horde is divided into three age-classes, and the union of a member of one of these classes with a member of another is forbidden. The cause of this prohibition is not certain. Grosse [299] (as well as other authors [300]) is of the opinion that it lies in the fact that these peoples discovered the unfavorable effects of consanguineous unions upon the children, and that this discovery led to the prohibition. [301] Other authors believe that the hordes which practiced this exclusion, without suspecting its importance, ran less danger of extinction than those which did not practice it. [302]
The hordes being composed of but few persons, this exclusion would force the men more and more to seek wives from outside the horde, thus little by little becoming a group of consanguineous persons with whom union is forbidden. If a man has procured a woman by capture he becomes her absolute owner, can maltreat her, abandon her, do what he likes in short. The power of the man over his wife is less great if he has acquired her by purchase or exchange, since her family then exercises a certain control.
The relation of the sexes is sufficiently explained by the mode of production. When these savages are on the march the woman carries the little that they possess, erects the tent, and searches for fruit; the man on the other hand by his natural qualities is fitted for hunting and for the defense of the hunting ground. Hunting being the principal resource, and in this period bodily strength being of the highest importance, it is natural that the man should rule.
The so-called “higher hunters”, among whom we must reckon the North American Indians of the northwest coast and some peoples of northern Asia, have reached a higher stage of social evolution. The difference between these and the preceding class is only quantitative, and results from the circumstance that they have been able to settle themselves in countries that are rich in game and fish. This permits them to be more sedentary, to live in larger groups, and to attain a higher development.
As with the lower hunters there is among them a division of labor between men and women: The man hunts, fishes, and constructs the tools that he has need of; the woman gathers roots and herbs, prepares the food, and gives herself up to the duties of the household. Some of these peoples are capable of producing more than they need, a fact which occasions commerce of some importance, and produces at times a great inequality of fortune.
At this stage of development the woman is of great use, which brings it about that the father does not give his daughter but sells her. Since the man, then, has bought his wife she has become his property, and he can do with her as he wishes; her infidelity is punished with death. If the husband has received gifts of value from his father-in-law, he is a little limited in his power, since, if he wishes to repudiate his wife, he is obliged to return the gifts. However repudiation is rare, since the woman is very useful to the man and he has ordinarily paid very dear for her. This is also why polygyny, though permitted almost everywhere, is rare. Only the very rich can permit themselves the luxury of more than one wife.
The position of the wife is rather better when, instead of following her husband, he comes to live at her father’s house. This happens sometimes when the man cannot pay the whole purchase price, sometimes when the father-in-law is much richer than he. In this latter case the son-in-law prefers to profit by the wealth and power of his wife’s father, who, for his part, asks nothing better than to keep his daughter at home, since, in this manner, instead of losing a worker from the household he gains one by the coming of the husband.
We come now to the “pastoral peoples”, living principally in Asia and Africa. Just as hunting is not the sole resource of the preceding groups, so the raising of cattle is not the exclusive occupation of this group, but simply the principal one; hence their name. The raising of cattle is naturally the work of the men, seeing that it proceeds genetically from hunting, while the women in this class, as in the preceding, gather fruits and herbs and attend to the work of the household. Although the land is held in common, there are great diversities of wealth, since cattle, the principal form of possession, are individual property, and since war and pillage are also frequent sources of wealth.
Polygyny is permitted, and nomads take as many wives as they can pay for and support. Only the rich, however, can afford to purchase more than one wife, for the fathers demand a good price. Once purchased the woman becomes the absolute property of the man, who can exploit her in any manner, or abandon her, and when he comes to die can leave her to his heirs with the rest of his possessions. Adultery on the part of the woman is severely punished, while the man is free. Often under polygyny only one of the women is considered the legitimate wife and her children have the sole right to inherit, while the other women are considered only as concubines. The position of the legitimate wife towards her husband does not prevent her being as much of a slave as the other women. Nowhere else has the woman as humble a place as among these pastoral peoples, and nowhere else is the rôle of the man as important as here.
Let us next examine the “lower agriculturists” (among whom are to be found the greater number of the North American Indians, and a great number of the peoples of Africa and the East Indies). When hunting peoples, through chance circumstances (wealth of game for example), have ceased to wander continually, they may easily pass into agriculturists. [303] Agriculture in its turn brings it about that those who practice it become more and more sedentary.
The cultivation of the soil developed in connection with the gathering of fruit and roots, so that it originally formed part of woman’s sphere of labor; hence the economic importance of women increased, and a father became less and less disposed to give his daughter in marriage for a small equivalent. The future husband is obliged to acquire his wife at a considerable price, perhaps may have to win her by serving his father-in-law temporarily. Thus, although polygyny is permitted it is only the rich and the chiefs who can procure more than one wife.
Since agriculture requires many hands, the parents try to keep their children with them as long as possible. [304] Thus the custom grows up of several families living in the same house, and the husband comes to live with his wife’s family when he is unable to pay the purchase price. Even if this is not the case, a close relationship exists between the wife and her family, so that she returns to it with her children when her husband dies. The more important the position of the woman in the family becomes, the more it comes to pass that the married woman remains in her own family and the husband in his, and that the union consists only in more or less frequent visits paid by the man to his wife.
It is easy to see why the position of woman at this stage is in general better than at those which preceded. Ordinarily it is the woman who tills the soil and cares for the household, while the man hunts and prepares the necessary tools; and since agriculture gives a more regular and surer production than hunting, it follows that the position of woman is improved. The woman becomes less dependent upon the man, to such a point that, for example, she is able to break the marriage, a condition very different from those in which the wife was the property of her husband. (The somewhat numerous exceptions are explained by the fact that in those cases the man takes part in the cultivation of the soil.) This is especially the case when a domestic community is formed in which the women govern (matriarchate). [305] Thus a situation is developed at times in which the women have an important position even outside of the family (gynecocracy).
As the preceding considerations show it is not the family which, at this stage of development, takes the first place. During the periods which I have examined before this the clan (in Latin “gens”, in German “Sippe”), a group of persons descended from a common ancestor, is of importance only inasmuch as members of the clan are forbidden to marry among themselves. Among the lower agriculturists, however, the clan is developed into a consanguineous group living in a community, and in most cases the clan is maternal—that is, descent and the right of succession are reckoned in the maternal line.
However as soon as agriculture increased greatly in importance, especially when the raising of cattle, commerce, and industry grew up beside it, the relation between the sexes became considerably modified. The man gave up hunting, always a less important resource at this stage, and applied himself more and more to agriculture and other branches, and the woman only seconded him in these occupations. In consequence of the continually increasing productivity of labor, the man could produce more than he needed for consumption. The possession of slaves then became advantageous, slavery took on greater and greater proportions, and in this way the woman’s part in the economic life became less important. Thus the man becomes anew the principal factor and his authority resumes the force it had in the earlier periods. It is no longer the man who lives with the woman and her family but she lives with him. We have seen above that among the lower agriculturists it is the clan, and especially the maternal clan, that holds the first place. Through the economic development the maternal clan is made to give place to the paternal clan. In the clan there was equality, since the soil, the most important means of production, and the dwelling were possessed in common; but the disappearance of this equality followed the development of commerce and industry, for the products of these were, from the first, private property. This inequality was increased still more because private property in land began to grow up side by side with property in common. In the second place, the booty in war was not the same for all warriors, and furthermore war brought about the existence of a class of persons (slaves) whose interests were opposed to those of the conquerors. This development of private property leads necessarily to a gradual change from the maternal clan to the paternal. For in the first case a father had to leave his property to the members of his clan (we have seen that it was the man who became the possessor of private wealth); and since his children belonged always to another clan than his own, the clan of their mother, the children did not inherit from their father. Hence the change to the paternal clan. [306]
But this was not all. Through the great modifications in the mode of production of which I have already spoken, the importance of the clan diminished more and more, and at length disappeared entirely. As long as there was equality among the members of the clan, as long as the social relationships were little complicated, the clan and the organizations that sprang from it (mere combinations of clans) sufficed for the purposes of social organization. But such an organization, being purely democratic in its nature, was no longer adapted to a society in which there were rich and poor, freemen and slaves, in which, therefore, there was a large group of persons oppressed and a small group of oppressors.
The clan and the combinations of the different clans were replaced by the state. This was an organization which had for its principal end the maintenance of order as far as possible, in a society in which the interests of different groups, like those of individuals, were opposed to each other, and the regulation of this conflict of interests. [307] This organization is consequently entirely different from the clan, the object of which was to take the interests of the community to heart. It is evident that in an organization like this it is the most important and influential class which comes first.
On the one hand, then, the clan loses itself in the state; on the other hand the family, which played but a secondary part while the clan system was at its height, became of greater importance. The clan is divided into “great families” (“Grossfamilien”), i.e. husband, wife, and their unmarried children as well as their male descendants, with their wives and children; and the father is the master of all these persons and all their property. However it is only little by little, and in proportion as we get away from the clan, that the authority of the father becomes unlimited. This form of the family has continued even down to our own day in China and Japan, and was general during the early days of ancient Rome.
In China the woman, whose work is entirely limited to household occupations, has a position which, according to all accounts, is only that of a subordinate. Her whole life is under the direction of her husband; she can never obtain a divorce, while her husband can dissolve the marriage without cause; if he takes her in the act of adultery he has the right to kill her, while he himself may keep concubines. In Japan the position of woman is much the same, and in ancient Rome also, though in the course of time the situation of the Roman woman was improved.
As the method of production became more elaborate and the social life was modified as a consequence, the “great family” disappeared, to be replaced by the modern family, consisting of the husband and wife with their unmarried children. Through the increasing extension of the division of labor the sons could more easily provide for their own needs and withdraw themselves in this way from the paternal authority, and the increasing power of the state favored this tendency by limiting the authority of the father.
The best sources for the study of the first phases of monogamous marriage are furnished by ancient Greece. There absolute submission of the woman to the man still prevailed. After the decease of the husband the woman was under the guardianship of his son. The man could repudiate his wife or give her to another. While he had full liberty to have intercourse with other women, the woman who committed adultery was severely punished. The occupations of the woman were confined to spinning, weaving, and housekeeping; her life was concentrated within the house, though even there her authority was very limited, while outside it had no force whatever.
In comparing the position of woman during the period in question with that in the earlier periods (excepting the lower agricultural period) we see that in general her condition is but little ameliorated. Monogamy existed in reality for one of the parties only, since the man was free to keep concubines, while he took every means in his power to prevent the infidelity of his wife, by isolating her from the outer world. Hence it is not true, as some would have us believe, that monogamy is the consequence of an instinct, nor that it is due to a higher degree of culture, made possible by the increased productivity of labor. [308] On the contrary, among the lower agriculturists, much less civilized than the ancient Greeks, the position of women was better than with the latter; being more free, the woman enjoyed in general a higher degree of consideration.
The origin of monogamy is explained only by the modifications that the mode of production has undergone. Through these the man has again taken the most important place in the economic life, it is he who governs and the woman has only to obey him. Thus it is that through the continual increase of private property monogamy sprung up, that is to say the union of a man and a woman with the object of producing legitimate children who might inherit the property of the father. [309]
Since that time monogamy has persisted to our own day. However important the modifications which the method of production has undergone since the rise of monogamy, the fact remains that a certain part of the work necessary to existence belongs still to the work of housekeeping, which, as at other times, is performed by the women. The more important labors, those which give the greater social power to him who executes them, fall upon the man, and from this fact his preponderance still persists.
Though the position of the married woman may be somewhat improved when compared with that at the beginning of civilization, nevertheless a study of existing civil codes (especially of the French civil code and of those for which it has served as a model) shows that the married woman is in general still in a state of great dependence. The woman must obey her husband and follow him wherever he wishes; except where otherwise stipulated in the marriage contract the husband has the management of his wife’s fortune and the income from it belongs to him; it is the man who exercises parental authority; the woman cannot appear in a lawsuit without the assistance of her husband; etc.
The difference between the position of the married woman of today and that of former times consists principally in that the consent of both parties is necessary to conclude the marriage, that the husband can no longer repudiate his wife, but can only dissolve the union for important reasons (adultery, cruelty, etc.), and that the woman also, for the same reasons, can obtain separation or divorce.
This raises the question as to why a marriage should not be dissolved as soon as for any reason the union becomes intolerable to either party. The answer must be as follows. From the dominant position of the man in the economic life it is clear that the woman would not be able to loose the bonds of marriage at her pleasure, except in the case provided by law, inasmuch as the man could not permit so grave an assault upon his authority. From this point of view monogamy and the ancient forms of marriage are alike, for the woman has never been able to secure a divorce at her own pleasure except among the lower agriculturists, where, on account of her importance in the economic life she enjoyed the same rights as the man. The present organization of society prevents the man, for his part, from getting a divorce except in certain cases provided by law, for if it were possible for the husband to break the marriage at will, society today would not have the necessary solidity and stability; marriage would be a very hazardous enterprise for the woman, since, from the nature of her occupation, she is generally not in a position to provide for her own needs by herself; and the support and education of the children by their parents would also be less assured. But even this is not all. As we have seen, monogamy was created as soon as private property became general. Reciprocally monogamy is one of the causes which support and increase the spirit of property in men. It is in the narrow circle of the family, away from the contact with society, that a keen desire to possess is developed among children.
The deepest roots of marriage as it exists today are found in our present state of society, based as it is on private property; and, in its turn, marriage is a support for that society. Here is also the reason for the disapprobation of free unions felt by the majority, even if the motives of these unions are the most noble. And this also is why the more conservative a man is as to the institution of private property, the more he holds to the existing form of marriage, a fact otherwise inexplicable.
An examination of the modifications made during the last century in the matrimonial law and in matters pertaining to it, shows that the position of the married woman has improved gradually. To cite only a few examples, the French civil code gave to the married woman the right of divorce in the case of adultery on the part of her husband only if he kept a concubine in the common dwelling (art. 230). In 1884 this article was modified so that the woman now has the same right of divorce in case of adultery as the man. (Article 337 of the penal code, however, punishes the adulterous wife by an imprisonment of from three months to two years, while article 339 punishes the adulterous husband only if he has been keeping a concubine in the common dwelling, and then only by a fine of from one hundred to two thousand francs.) In England before 1870 the married woman was in a position of dependence. The right of possession of personal property as well as the administration of real estate and the benefit of revenues from it devolved upon the husband. Since 1870 and 1882 there has been a great change in the matrimonial law, to the great advantage of the woman who has become, among other things, the sole owner of her fortune, etc. [310] In the countries where there have been no modifications in the last century, public opinion is such that we may be sure that the condition of women will be better in case of an eventual revision of the matrimonial law.
In searching for the causes of the changes of opinion upon this question we discover that here again they are due in the last analysis to the economic life. This springs from the fact that the number of women who work independently, who gain their own bread, increases continually. The causes which bring this about are of diverse kinds but can be reduced to the following. In the first place, the number of marriages contracted is in general diminishing, and this decrease is due to the continually diminishing number of marriages among the moneyed classes, and to the fact that these marriages take place later in life than formerly. [311] It is not difficult to see that a retrograde movement in the marriages of the bourgeoisie must tell. Marriage brings an increase of expenses indeed, but among the proletariat it brings also an increase of revenue (the woman may earn something by working away from home, or save by doing the work of the house herself). Among the bourgeoisie, on the other hand, it brings with it pecuniary disadvantages only, at least if we except those cases in which the wife is more or less rich. The struggle for existence becomes more and more difficult, and especially among the members of the petty bourgeoisie and those who practice the liberal professions marriage does not take place until later in life, and in general the number of marriages diminishes. [312] To this it is still necessary to add the fact that in Europe and in some of the states of North America the number of women exceeds that of the men. [313]
The diminishing opportunity for women of the more or less well-to-do classes to marry forces them to earn their own living. The change that housekeeping has undergone and is still undergoing must also be taken into consideration. The importance of housekeeping continually decreases in consequence of the extension of manufacturing, which absorbs the special tasks of the household one after another. While formerly clothes were made at home, bread was baked there, etc., at present there remains for the work of the household only the care of the house and the preparation of the food. And even these occupations may soon be taken out of the house. [314] Unmarried women of the bourgeoisie used formerly often to be able to find a home with members of their family, since they were able to be of service. At present they are in general only superfluous persons in the household.
Even the married women of the bourgeoisie find themselves more and more forced to contribute to the revenues of the family by working for money, [315] and this for reasons already cited in speaking of unmarried women: the increasing difficulty of the struggle for existence, and the diminution of the importance of household occupations. Outside of those whose economic situation forces them to work for money, the number of women who seek to earn something is becoming greater and greater. With these it is not necessity that forces them, but the spirit of independence awakened in them by the example of the others. If, on the one hand, the supply of women’s labor increases, on the other hand the demand is increasing also; for though it has been asserted that women are incapable of anything beyond housekeeping, they have proved their aptitude for many of the professions. And besides, the labor of women is much sought after, for not being yet organized like men, the wages they can obtain are not so large.
And if the women of the bourgeoisie are engaging more and more in paid labor, the women of the proletariat were forced into it long ago. The labor of women became possible through the development of mechanical processes, as our exposition of the present economic system has shown. Since then this form of labor has assumed larger and larger proportions. The unmarried women of the proletariat are all obliged to provide for their needs, while the married women also often are, and the number of these is continually increasing. [316]
By what has gone before it has been indicated how important a change has taken place and is still taking place in the economic position of women. This change is in the last analysis the reason why women have revolted more and more against the inferior position in which the law places them, and why their opposition has already taken the form of deeds. This is the reason also why the legal position of woman is best in general in those countries where she has freed herself most by her independent work, as, for example, in the United States.
Up to this point we have examined only the legal side of the question. We must go on to add some observations concerning the material side. The civil codes rest, among other things, upon the fiction that all persons are equal. No mention is made of the division into distinct classes; and it is the same with marriage. Before the law all marriages are equal, while in reality they are not so. It is necessary, therefore to treat of the conjugal conditions of the different classes. [317]
In the first place take marriage in the bourgeois class. The conditions of life for the two sexes are different before marriage. Leaving out of account the fact that the number of women who provide for their own needs is increasing (they are still in the minority), it is incontestable that the aspirations of the women of the bourgeoisie tend toward marriage, the earliest and best marriage possible, in order that their future may be assured. And since the possibility of making a good marriage is becoming less, husband-hunting with all its unfortunate consequences becomes more and more eager. While the whole education of women looks only to marriage, that of the great majority of young men has as its object the attainment of wealth or an important position as soon as possible. Even when the marriage is contracted in consequence of a reciprocal inclination, the differing conceptions of life held by the two parties contain the germs that may render it unhappy. In speaking of these very frequent cases Mme. Dr. Adams-Lehmann very justly says: “Neither understands the other. Sundered in everything that belongs to life, from childhood up, nature succeeds in uniting them at one point for a short time only. From this point on their paths diverge. The husband complains often and bitterly that his wife does not understand him. What would he have, when she belongs to an entirely different civilization? She has her own virtues, her own failings and vices, but they are not those of her husband, and serve principally to set her at variance with him. And the same is true of the man, over whose lack of understanding his wife just as often and bitterly laments. Different systems of culture, different aims, different ideals,—in such an atmosphere how should harmony thrive?” [318]
But these causes are further strengthened when economic motives have influenced the marriage more or less. If the two parties have frankly made their union on this basis they will not be too exacting, and will know how to submit to the inevitable; but when, as is ordinarily the case, the marriage has been contracted under false pretenses, the situation is much worse. [319]
It is plain, then, from this how little the legal form shows the reality. In order that the marriage may be contracted, the consent of the two parties is necessary, no matter how that consent is obtained. It is very often the parents who have made the choice, being guided by calculation alone. Such is the reality, and the formal free consent is only the appearance.
Weighty causes, sprung from social conditions, then, often bring it about that the married life is one of hate and discord. Aside from the reasons cited there is yet another which does not proceed from social conditions. Even when the marriage has been brought about through mutual inclination, there is no guarantee that this inclination will last. Not only may the parties be deceived as to each other’s character and temperament, but their feelings may change, and the marriage bond become insupportable.
The law permits divorce only in certain fixed cases; and since divorce brings with it serious economic disadvantages for the woman, and sometimes for the man as well, it is not often resorted to. The fear of losing the good opinion of one’s friends may also prevent divorce. And this fear of blame where a divorce is desired proves once more how little real love has to do with the origin of monogamy.
If it is difficult, then, if not impossible, to break a marriage, the consequence is bound to be adultery, especially on the side of the man, since his manner of life gives him easy opportunity for it, and he does not fear the consequences as a woman does. The difference between monogamy and the more ancient forms of marriage is not great. Before the law monogamy alone is recognized and polygamy prohibited; but in reality polygamy always exists.
Let us go on now to marriage among the proletarians. [320] Here there can be no question of a different education for the boy and the girl; both are put to work while still children, and their relations are quite free. Among the working classes marriage usually takes place at an early age, because the workman early reaches the maximum of his earning capacity, and as a consequence it is useless for him to wait long before marrying; besides which he reaches maturity sooner than the bourgeois. Often marriage is contracted after it has been consummated and the sexual intercourse has had results. This is easy to understand when one observes the life of the proletariat, their housing conditions, their work in common, etc.
While it is not true that the marriages of the proletariat are always marriages of inclination, as has been asserted (for material interests play some part here also), yet they are oftenest of this kind. One of the causes, then, which often make marriages among the bourgeoisie unhappy does not exist here. On the other hand there are other causes which can bring about the same result. In the first place, this inclination is in many cases of a sexual nature only, without there being any sympathy of character. If this inclination dies out, therefore,—a thing which happens very often, since marriages in the proletariat are made at an early age, and the women soon grow old because of their hard life—there is no longer any basis for a happy marriage. There is a lack of that intellectual development which may render the difficulties of married life supportable. In consequence of this lack the slightest differences may result in great altercations, and the causes of unhappiness are sought in the person and not in the circumstances of which the person is but the victim. Then in the next place there are the heavy cares of the struggle for existence. If a laborer’s family have already enough difficulty in making both ends meet, in the case of sickness or forced unemployment their misery is extreme, and it is often this misery which causes disputes and even blows. Further, the labor of women, the bad housing conditions, and alcoholism all tend to the same result. And because of hard work and many cares the wife of the workman soon grows old. In the proletarian class, therefore, marriages are threatened by many causes.
There is besides all this a very important difference between the marriages of the bourgeoisie and those of the proletariat as to their bases. The preponderating power of the man, which is strongly marked in bourgeois marriages, is less so in the proletarian, especially in those families where the woman provides for herself by paid labor. And private property, one of the “raisons d’être” of legal monogamy with the bourgeoisie, is lacking among the proletariat. This “raison d’être” is found with the latter in the necessity that the man should be charged with providing for the material needs of the children. Thus, in the proletariat the free union between a man and a woman generally meets with disapprobation only when there are offspring. The consequences are, first, that conjugal unions without legal sanction are not as much frowned upon by the proletarians as by the other classes; second, that the decision to dissolve the union, whether free or legal, is much more easily made among proletarians than among the bourgeoisie. [321]
With regard to marriage among the lower proletariat a word or two will suffice. Persons who have recently fallen to this class keep the ideas of the class from which they came. But when the persons have been born in the lower proletariat, or when their poverty has lasted for a long time, they become demoralized, and the relations between men and women show the effects of it. [322]
We come, then, to the end of our exposition. It seems to me that it has been shown that the different forms of marriage are in the last instance determined by the respective modes of production. Hence the origin of monogamy, the most recent form of marriage, is not to be found in the innate desire of the man and the woman to be united for the whole of their lives, a desire which the law is supposed to sanction. Quite on the contrary men are not all monogamous, and still less monogamous during the whole of their life; a circumstance because of which the present economic conditions have produced the legal marriage, obliging two persons to remain together; if it were otherwise the law would not concern itself with the relations between man and woman.
Some important modifications have taken and are taking place in this matter. The bases upon which the present marriage system rests are changing. This is due to different reasons. In the first place woman is coming little by little to occupy a higher and more independent social position. Next, the importance of housekeeping in the economic life is diminishing. The only moral basis for marriage is little by little coming to be mutual love and sympathy, for true love can only exist between persons free and equal. [323] There is a constantly increasing number of persons who, in place of stigmatizing as immoral a union that is non-legitimate, but contracted because of mutual love and sympathy, consider it, on the contrary, as superior to a legal marriage contracted for economic reasons.
Finally, it is to be noted that the present economic and social life has bound up the sexual life with the economic life, by making marriage possible only for those who have the necessary means at their disposal, and consequently has caused the compulsory celibacy of millions of men and women.
B. THE FAMILY.
In the preceding pages we have fixed the attention principally upon the relation between the man and the woman, and it now remains to treat of the position of the children born of their union.
It is a biological fact that the mother is designed by nature to have the care of the child during its first years, and consequently this care persists through all phases of the social development. It is, then, superfluous to speak of it in a sociological treatise.
The relations between parents and children have not always been the same in the different phases of social development, and it is therefore impossible to speak here of relations instituted by nature. A glance at the respective situations in the different periods shows that among the “lower hunters”, where the woman is considered as the property of the man, the children born are also in the absolute power of their father, who has the right of life and death over his children, and whose power over them ceases only when he has sold his daughters to their husbands, or when his sons, having become adults, are recognized as members of the tribe. [324]
Among the upper hunters and the pastoral peoples it is, as with the peoples named above, to the father, in general, that the children belong, or to whom they owe obedience. The mother, herself in subjection to the father, has little or no authority over the children. [325]
Among the lower agriculturists the conditions in question differ relatively very much. As has been shown in the considerations upon marriage among these peoples, the position of woman is often quite other than during the preceding periods. She is not at all in so subordinate a situation, her position is even not without importance, thanks to the place which she occupies in the economic life. And this importance shows itself also in her relations with her children. In general it is to the mother that the education of the children falls, while the influence of the father is little or nothing. In these last cases a greater or less power belongs to the mother’s brother (under the matriarchate the grandfather and father of the children belong to another clan, and the maternal uncle and the children belong to the clan of the mother). [326]
As has already been said above conditions among the higher agriculturists were patriarchal. The father had unlimited power over his unmarried daughters, and over all his sons with their descendants. [327] It is from these so-called “great families”, that the present form of the family springs (husband, wife, and their not yet emancipated children) as a consequence of the fact that the adult sons have been able to emancipate themselves on account of the modifications that the economic life has undergone. From this time especially the affection for children in general which is found among almost all people, takes on an exclusive character, and becomes limited to one’s own children. For monogamy is before all a consequence of the desire of the man, which came in with private property, to leave his possessions to the children of his legal wife, whose father he knew himself to be. [328]
In its essence this form of the family has been maintained down to the present day. The modifications it has undergone may be reduced to the two following. [329] In the first place, in consequence of her improved position as wife, the mother has obtained a greater influence over the education of her children, though her power is, under the law, still subordinated in every way to that of her husband. In the second place the state manifests a continually increasing tendency to exert an influence over the relations between parents and their children. To begin with, the state imposes upon married parents the task of supporting and bringing up their children, and prohibits by the penal law slaying or abandoning them. The origin of these requirements must be found in the fact that the state is interested in having the children cared for, in order that the population may be as numerous as possible. (The state being once formed, while the causes of infanticide among primitive peoples have almost disappeared, the law has no occasion to make any great change in the existing situation.) If the married parents were not forced by the state to support and bring up their children [330] it would be necessary to impose this task upon other institutions which do not exist in our present society. The state is not an institution for the public well-being; it is chiefly a means of maintaining the external order in the disorder which results from the complicated and muddled system of capitalistic production; it is before all a system of police. If it were otherwise, the state would consider it as one of its first duties to deprive parents of their rights over their children, if they did not perform their task, or did it badly, and would itself undertake the care and training of these children, as well of those whose parents were dead or otherwise absolutely unable to care for them. For society as a whole, as well as the children themselves, has a very great interest in this matter.
However, the state in general does not assume any duty towards abandoned or neglected children, and only in a hesitating way intervenes to punish or to take away the parental authority of those who have been guilty of such acts. [331] Little by little, as the ideas upon the duties of the state become modified however (principally under the influence of organized labor, which aims at transforming the state into an organized community), it interests itself more in the person of the child. As to the care of the child’s property all the codes are already very much detailed!
There are two points with regard to which the state quite generally has an influence over the lot of the child. First, it prohibits or limits his paid labor; and second, it obliges parents to send their children to school.
We have already spoken of this prohibition, which is made necessary from the fact that the physical condition of the working classes is becoming worse, and because the labor movement exercises a pressure upon the state. Compulsory education has its origin, on one side, in the fact that, in some occupations, capitalism cannot make use of workmen who are altogether ignorant; on the other side, in the fact that without compulsory education the youth of the working class would be even more brutalized than at present. The opposition to compulsory education on the part of whatever is conservative is another clear indication of what an intimate connection there is between the individual family and the present economic system. The economic position of the man as breadwinner for his wife and children is the cause of his desire to be limited in his power as little as possible.
Up to this point we have been treating of conditions past and present only in so far as they are regulated by law (the formal side); we must now go on to treat conditions from the material side. Here we must consider three subjects: physical education, intellectual education, and moral education. In treating of criminality, however, we have naturally little to do with the first two, while the third is of the highest importance for us.
As to physical education it is enough to say that it is the “conditio sine qua non” of the two others. The intellectual and moral qualities of a child that is badly cared for physically, can never be entirely developed. The parents (and the child himself) use up all their energy in providing for their bodily necessities, so that there is none left for the other needs. Dr. A. Baer says: “Children of this kind (i.e., of the poor classes) already at an early age bear the cares and sorrows that life imposes upon them; they early become acquainted with the claims and demands of life, and not infrequently are very early influenced by living-conditions which will necessarily affect them long afterward.” [332]
It is only among the bourgeoisie and the relatively well-to-do portion of the petty bourgeoisie that there can be any sufficient physical education for the children. Among the proletarians, and those of the petty bourgeoisie who are in a similar situation as regards material conditions, it is insufficient, and worse, if possible, among the lower proletariat. However, if there is a lack of it among these last, there is at times a superabundance among the bourgeoisie. There children are often brought up in such luxury that they are early made blasé and rendered unhappy for the future. Dr. Baer says upon this subject: [333] “It is through other circumstances and causes that the children of the rich and well-to-do classes are brought to a condition of precocity, accompanied by sickly irritability and arrogant self-conceit. Here are good-living, luxury, and the superabundance of bodily enjoyments, the early familiarity with the theater, balls, and outside social life in general, which make them incapable of the harmless pleasures of childhood. Improper education in the family is responsible for the fact that children in widely separated social classes are already at any early age left to themselves and fall into evil ways. ‘One must have lived in a great city,’ says von Krafft-Ebing, ‘and have visited the hovels of the poor, and the palaces of the rich to know what mistakes in the bringing up of children are committed there, where the children of the poor, amidst dirt and drink, and those of the rich, amidst arrogance and rascality, are going to ruin physically and morally.... Every day may be seen children falling asleep at the theater or other places of amusement to which their parents’ folly and desire for pleasure have dragged them. Other parents provide for their children the doubtful happiness of children’s balls and soirées. Is it any wonder, then, if we now, especially in the great cities, very seldom meet with any real children?’”
In the countries where education is compulsory, it is guaranteed that all the children will acquire a certain amount of knowledge. It is unnecessary to say that in general this amount of knowledge is very small in the case of the children of the poor, and consists of the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic, so that there is no real intellectual education. For the children of the bourgeoisie quite a different preparation is made; here there is rather an over- than an undersupply of the means of education. The great competition in present day society, the superabundance of intellectual forces, the ardent desire to see their children succeed in spite of everything, all this obliges parents to crowd their children’s intellectual capacities, even to the detriment of their other qualities. “The thing which in our modern life conduces most to the giving of a one-sided, inharmonious development to the child, is the fact that too little weight is given to the development of the disposition, and too much to the development of the understanding. Because there is no influence exerted upon the spiritual and emotional life, the mind of the child is often from early youth turned toward the material and sensuous, the life of pleasure, and comes to bend its thought wholly to the practical and utilitarian.” [334]
Thus we arrive at the very subject we have in view, moral education. As I have already remarked, one of the characteristic differences between education among the primitive peoples and that of our own day is this, that as a consequence of the great complexity of our present society, and the numberless conflicts between individual interests, the task imposed upon the educator is now much broader and more onerous. [335]
The first condition, without doubt, that might be demanded of one who is to make a child into a moral man, a man of character, is surely this, that he should be himself a man of character. It goes without saying that no person can give more than he has. Leaving aside for the moment the criminal class, of whom I shall treat later, it is clear that no one without character, or weak in character, can ever train children to have well developed moral sentiments. He may be able, it is true, to teach them to distinguish good from bad, but such lessons concern only the intellectual part of the nature and not the moral part, and they cannot transform children into persons who feel morally. It cannot be denied that the number of persons who do not feel morally is great, and that these have children. Without forgetting the fact that it is the father to whom the law gives especially the parental authority, we must recognize that it is the mother upon whom the task of education generally rests, because the father is almost always away from home. But the inferior position of woman, maintained now for centuries, has been extremely harmful to her character, and thus it often happens that this lack of character passes to the children as well. [336]
A second condition without which successful education is impossible is that educators shall have the innate qualities necessary for their task. We should doubt, and not without reason, the common sense of anyone who dared to assert that every person was capable of becoming a good sculptor or even carpenter. Just so no one could say that everyone possesses the qualities necessary for an art as difficult as that of education.
To be a good educator it is necessary to be very fond of children, to have much patience and zeal, to know how to put one’s self on a plane with the child, to have a clear and practical intellect, especially when the teacher has a great affection for the child, since without intelligence the excess of affection will only be harmful. There are parents who possess these qualities in a very high degree, and it is only to be regretted that they teach only their own children, and not those also of parents in whom the teaching faculty is entirely lacking. Next comes the group of those who have a modicum of the requisite qualities, and finally a smaller group who have little or no aptitude for the task. The least fit to give a good education, however, are psychopathic individuals, because of their changeable disposition, their quick fits of temper, etc.
Just as educators differ greatly in their innate fitness for teaching, so different children need to be guided in different ways. If there are children who require little care in order that they may presently be able to adapt themselves to the requirements of society, others, who form the great majority, require more; while there remains a second minority who, if they are to be made fairly useful men and women, must have constant and minute attention. Among these last are to be classed the victims of heredity. If they have parents without great teaching ability, as is often the case with these psychopathic individuals, the results are even worse.
Aside from innate fitness it is necessary that an educator should have received the necessary education. The teacher without notions of psychology, of pedagogy, etc., often deceives himself, even if he has all the necessary innate qualities, and consequently warps the character of his pupils.
The instructor must learn his trade, and if this is so, why should not the educator in charge of the moral education of the child need an apprenticeship, since moral education is a task no less difficult than intellectual education (which is about all that our present schools undertake)? However, it is incontestable that in all classes of society today moral education is practiced in dilettante fashion, as was formerly the case with intellectual education. [337]
Finally, there remains the condition that the teacher should have the time necessary to perform his task, for without this the most capable cannot attain good results. Having now laid down the general conditions, let us go on to examine in a few words education as it is actually practiced in the different classes.
Let us begin with the bourgeoisie. As has already been remarked, the children in this class are often spoiled by the great luxury that surrounds them, and further by the fact that their intellect is developed at the expense of their moral qualities. As my remarks concerning capacity, character, etc., apply to all classes, it is unnecessary here to speak of them more fully. Only it must be observed that, as far as positive knowledge of pedagogy is concerned, the bourgeoisie is much superior to the proletariat, from which there follows among other things a corresponding superiority of the bourgeois education. The character of the bourgeois woman, who occupies, like all women, a lower rank in society, has generally suffered still more from her easy mode of life, and her weakness of character is transmitted to her children if she brings them up herself. This condition must be added, for society life, or in other words, the habit of doing nothing at all, is often the cause of mothers’ having their children brought up by some one who has neither natural aptitude nor acquired capacity for this task, but only takes charge of the children for the sake of a place. There are even children who are not suckled by their mothers but by nurses, since the mothers are afraid of diminishing their own charms. This proves once more the weakness of the allegation that the parents are the natural educators of the child; for we see in this case that the social environment can lead to the renunciation of duties that are really natural. [338]
The moral education of the children of the bourgeoisie is generally superficial, and has especially in view the task of teaching the children to conduct themselves according to the proprieties, much more than that of developing their real moral nature. [339] In the second place this education develops among them a very strong feeling of class, so that they consider the members of the proletariat as inferior beings, born by nature to serve the bourgeoisie, in place of seeing in them only their own fellows, who have become different merely because of fortuitous circumstances.
In the third place, our present educational system makes children egoistic, those of the bourgeoisie more than those of the proletariat. This assertion contradicts, it is true, the numerous authors who are convinced that our present education in the family is a source of altruism. [340] They are right when they say that altruistic sentiments between the members of the family themselves have their rise within the circle of the family. For a long time the life within the family constituted a man’s whole life (as it still does for a very great number of women), but in the society of today a great part of the time is passed outside of the family circle, and for this reason the opinion of these authors, though shared by many persons, is not correct. In the family circle the child, especially when he has neither brothers nor sisters, [341] soon discovers that his own interests come first, that the outside world is his enemy, and that when he grows up he must make himself as large a place there as possible. It matters little that the interests of others will then be injured. It must be added further, that if on the one side the family is an economic unity, and that the interests of the members of the family are so far parallel, on the other hand there exist opposing interests, such as inheritance, which may destroy the homogeneity of interest.
It may be objected here that in our present society, consisting as it does for the most part of adherents of Christianity, most children are taught to love their neighbor as themselves. This is true, but in a society such as ours, where the interests of all men are opposed, the effect of this commandment cannot be great, or will be practiced only in words and not in acts, and so end in hypocrisy. He who wants to follow this commandment to the letter sees himself at once defeated in the conflict of life, unless he changes his opinion. [342]
No one known to me has better characterized the existing educational system than Owen. “As society is now constituted,” he says, “no children can by possibility be really well educated. The fundamental errors upon which it has been based, filling the early mind with error and hypocrisy and all manner of conflicting ideas, opposed to facts and to nature, render it impracticable for any child to be rationally trained or treated by society. And the more education of this kind is given to children, the more they are estranged from a knowledge of themselves, or of human nature generally, and the less competent will they be to understand what society has been made to be, and yet less what it ought to be, and how it may be made what it is desirable that it should be, for the happiness and well-being of all.
“Mothers and fathers thus taught, are incompetent to teach and educate their children in the spirit, manner, and conduct, which should, for the benefit of all, be given to all children. Their affections also, especially the strong natural animal affections of the mother, are, in almost all cases too strong for the very limited powers of judging accurately respecting their own children and those of other parents, which females now acquire from their present mal-education.
“The individual family arrangements confining the child to the limited number of ideas among them—to their early deep impressions in favor of family interests and supposed rights—to the narrow and partial experience of a family and its usual small connections, are equally destructive of a good sound practical education or well-training of children.
“The individual system of society which has so long prevailed in all nations, and amongst all peoples, is also a strong barrier to the proper education of beings intended to be made rational. The individual system of society is injurious to man now, under every point of view in which it can be considered; but especially in the education of children of all classes. It confines all their strongest feelings to self first, then to family, afterwards to kindred, and then to small neighborhoods and districts, regularly and systematically training each child to become at maturity a merely localized, ignorantly selfish animal, filled with family and geographical prejudices.
“As long as this individual system shall be continued, it will be vain to expect that any child can be well educated, or properly trained to become a rational being—a man with the full physical and mental powers of humanity, intelligent, moral, and virtuous. The isolated character formed by the individual system will, as long as children shall be educated under it, and in accordance with all its innumerable errors in practice and principle, render it impossible for any child to be so educated and placed in society as not to become, more or less, a cause of anxiety to its parents. Every child under this system comes into society, at its birth, opposed by the capital and experience of society; and as it advances in its progress, and has to take part in the jostle, bustle and business of life, it has to contend for itself, often, not only against these general powers of society, but on the death of parents, or sometimes even before, with brothers and sisters, for individual property or other advantages.
“Besides, children before they have any resisting powers of mind, being forced to receive the errors of their parents and other early instructors, respecting their supposed faculties of believing and disbelieving, loving and hating, are by this process, placed through life in direct opposition to nature; and, as vice has been made, by the gross errors of our ancestors, to consist in acting in accordance with nature, and virtue in acting in opposition to it, and as nature continually impels the individual to desire to act in accordance with its own laws, in defiance of man’s unwise and unjust laws, the great probability is that children will be more liable to obey nature than man; and thus, where there are children, they must be a source of constant anxiety to parents; and that anxiety must be injurious to the best formation of the organization of the remainder of the infants that may be born to them.” [343]
We have still to fix our attention upon the sexual education of the children of the bourgeoisie. In our society the Christian sexual ethics is dominant, often even among non-Christians, without their being conscious of it. According to this system the whole sexual life proceeds from the evil one, and man would be better without any sexual instincts. [344] This is why children are generally raised in an absolute ignorance upon this subject, or even have lies told to them about it. As nature cannot be suppressed it follows that the curiosity of the child only becomes the more inflamed, and that the conduct of men in this regard becomes hypocritical. [345]
Secondly, let us take up education in the petty bourgeoisie. Upon this point we can be very brief. A part of this class joins on to the proletariat from the conditions of its life, and another part to the bourgeoisie. It is unnecessary, therefore, to speak of it at length. It is only the core of the petty bourgeoisie who, having kept the traditions of their class, show any differences in this regard. Here there is no danger of the demoralizing influence of the luxurious surroundings of the rich, and the surveillance of the father is greater, and thus the education more severe; but the limited conception of life, and the continual efforts of the parents, eager to procure advantages for their families, develop egotism among their children in a high degree.
With regard to the proletariat it has already been shown that the material advantages necessary for a sufficient education are lacking in the case of this class. Housing conditions are here of the greatest importance. Generally there is not room enough for the children at home, so that they spend the greater part of the day in the street. Then again the housing conditions are responsible for the fact that the children often are thrown with persons whose influence is harmful to them (prostitutes, etc.). And finally the small apartments bring it about that the children are too early instructed in sexual matters, and this in a bad way (through sleeping in the same small room with their parents, or in the same bed with children of the opposite sex, etc.).
Then children need to grow up in an environment not poisoned by cares, one in which poverty does not harden the heart, and extinguish all gayety, and where the knowledge necessary for education is not wanting. Further, in this class the father has generally no opportunity to busy himself with the education of his children in consequence of the long duration of his hours of labor outside of the home. A great many working men have to leave home in the morning to go to work long before their children are awake, to return only after the little ones have already been put to bed; and the situation is much the same where the laborer works at night, and consequently sleeps during the day.
The development of capitalism has led to the paid labor of married women, and consequently to one of the most important causes of the demoralization of the children of the working class. When there is no one to watch a child, when he is left to himself, he becomes demoralized. In his work, “The Condition of the Working-Class in England”, F. Engels has put the situation briefly: “The employment of the wife [in the factory] dissolves the family utterly and of necessity, and this dissolution, in our present society, which is based upon the family, brings the most demoralizing consequences, both for parents and for the children. A mother who has no time to trouble herself about her child, to perform the most ordinary loving services for it during the first year, who scarcely indeed sees it, can be no real mother to the child, must inevitably grow indifferent to it, and treat it unlovingly, like a stranger. The children who grow up under such conditions are entirely ruined for later family life, can never feel at home in the family which they themselves found, because they have always been accustomed to isolation, and they contribute therefore to the already general undermining of the family in the working class.” [346]
Finally, when, through death or otherwise, the parents are no longer in a position to support and raise their children, they are left to their fate, unless there are charitable persons or benevolent institutions that wish to take charge of them. For the state, for reasons shown above, does not lay upon itself the duty of caring for such children.
It remains now to speak of the lower proletariat, among whom prostitutes and criminals are included. The education of these persons is not only much neglected, as is often the case with the children of the proletariat, of whom it may be said that they receive a negative education—but these receive in addition a positive education in evil. It might be possible to dispute the advantages of a good education, but it is indisputable that children brought up by immoral people, or even incited to evil (prostitution or crime) run the greatest risk, unless exceptional circumstances present themselves, of becoming persons hurtful to society.
In this connection it is necessary to fix our attention, finally, upon the situation in which illegitimate children find themselves. Since marriage, at once the consequence and support of existing social conditions, is the only form of sexual union legally recognized, illegitimate children are legally and socially treated as pariahs. [347]
It is difficult to form an idea of the great number of children who, in our present society, are neglected or abandoned. The following passage may help form some conception of it: “If the reader will imagine a procession of 109,000 children marching past him, and notice attentively child after child as it goes by, he will get some idea of the extent of the suffering of children with which the ‘National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in England’ has actually had to do during the first ten years of its existence.
“The first 25,437 are sufferers from injuries inflicted upon them with boots, crockery, pans, shovels, straps, ropes, pokers, fire, boiling water, in short with every imaginable instrument that came to the hand of the brutal and vindictive parents—covered with wounds and bruises, burned, scalded, and covered with plasters and bandages.
“Then come 62,887 sufferers from neglect and starvation—covered with dirt, eruptions, and sores, trembling, in rags, half-naked, pale, weak, faint, feeble, pining, starving, dying—many of them borne in the arms of the nurses of the hospitals.
“Then come 712 funeral processions, where the maltreatment ended fatally.
“Then come 12,663 little beings, their sufferings displayed to turn the lazy and cruel benevolence of the street to those who are answerable for their pallor, leanness, and coughs—most of these, too, are still in arms, but in the arms of vile drunkards and vagabonds.
“Then come 4460 pitiable girls, victims of the lust of human monsters.
“Then come 3205 little slaves of unsuitable and harmful occupations and dangerous performances, untimely births in traveling vans, acrobats at fairs, trapeze performers and tight-rope walkers in circuses, laboring under too heavy a load, and suffering the most diverse outrages. The procession is 60 miles long and takes 24 hours to pass by.” [348]
The society spoken of above is a private institution. The extent of its labors is very limited, which is why it has not taken cognizance of a great number of the children who have been thus treated. At the time when the report containing the above figures had just appeared, it had only been in operation ten years—during the last five more effectively, as a part of the first five was taken up with the organization of its service. Finally the field of its labors includes only the United Kingdom, while capitalism reigns over a great part of the world and has everywhere the same consequences. In consideration of these facts we can form an idea of the great destitution in which a multitude of children are found, and what sort of persons children so treated are likely to grow up to be.
To sum up what has been said, we see that the system of education for the child has not always been what it is now, and that we cannot therefore speak in this connection of institutions created by nature, except as regards the relation between mother and child during the first years of the latter’s life. It has been shown, I think, that the present system of education is closely bound up with the method of production of the day. No one can deny that in this regard also we are far from living in the “best of possible worlds.” [349]
C. PROSTITUTION. [350]
By prostitution must be understood the social fact that there are women who sell their bodies for the exercise of sexual acts, and make a profession of it. The putting of one’s body at the disposal of another for the purpose of sexual intercourse constitutes then at times the sale of merchandise. To find the cause of prostitution in our present society it is necessary to begin by asking: “What are the causes for the demand for this merchandise?” These causes may be reduced to the following:
a. The difficulty or impossibility of marrying found by many men. We have already seen that in our present society there is a continually increasing number of the petty bourgeois and of those who practice the liberal professions who, in consequence of the insufficiency of their incomes, cannot marry, or only at a rather advanced age. As we have seen, also, this is not in general the case with the proletariat. They reach the maximum of their wages while still quite young, and are less exacting as regards their material needs. All this brings it about that they marry sooner and so have less recourse to prostitution. (Soldiers and seamen, who are often forced to remain unmarried, form an exception.)
b. Besides those of whom I have been speaking, those also must be mentioned who do not wish to attach themselves for life to a single woman. Further, separate education, inducing a different life for the two sexes, is often an obstacle to the easy meeting of two persons who might make a marriage of inclination. Many men renounce marriage because the intellectual plane of women is altogether different from theirs, as a consequence both of their education and of their manner of life, and also because with them the thought of improving their economic position by marriage predominates. [351]
The larger contingent of men who have recourse to prostitutes is made up of bachelors, [352] and the smaller of married men. Whence springs the following cause:
c. Often the marriage is not contracted from inclination, but for financial reasons, which brings it about that the men often indemnify themselves with prostitutes. But this is applicable also to those cases where the marriage has not been made for the reasons named, but in which, for any cause, an antipathy has sprung up between the couple, without the dissolution of the marriage, either because of the difficulty of securing a divorce, or from motives of expediency. Since monogamy does not proceed from an innate inclination, prostitution is a necessary correlative of marriage.
d. The keeping of extravagant mistresses is a pastime for those who have been demoralized by a life of luxury and ease, and at the same time is a means by which these people can get rid of their incomes.
e. Finally, prostitution is a means whereby rich perverts satisfy their inclinations.
Before leaving the causes of the demand for prostitutes there is one further matter to consider. Those who have recourse to prostitutes must necessarily have a low opinion of woman, whom they consider only as an object existing for pleasure, and thus bound to be ready, as soon as a man wishes, to furnish him what he desires, for money, and not because of affection. This vile fashion of regarding women has been universal for centuries, and is still pretty general. It is to be explained from the long-continued inferior social position of women. We have seen that this position has been improved little by little, and that the result of this improvement has been an increase in the number of men who have a higher opinion of woman, and who wish to have sexual relations with a woman only when there is a mutual affection between them. These persons form even today only a small minority, however.
In the presence of a majority still thinking quite differently it is absurd to preach total sexual abstinence to all unmarried young men, as certain moralists do (Tolstoi, for example). Though there are men who abstain without injury to their health, these moralists forget that the satisfaction of the sexual desires is one of the most important needs of the majority of men (the life of our day certainly increases these desires), and that present social conditions are the cause of men’s considering woman their inferior. Dr. Blaschko, in his work “Die Prostitution im XIX Jahrhundert”, rightly says: “The sexual requirement in the case of mankind as of all other beings is an entirely natural one. To be sure, it is not so strong and compelling as the necessity of food and drink; it can be suppressed in the case of anyone for a time, and with many permanently, without injury to the health. But what is true of this or that person does not hold for the mass of mankind, for whom sexual intercourse is doubtless a necessity.” [353]
It is now necessary to inquire why there is a sufficient supply to meet this demand. Before beginning, however, one remark must be made. The point of departure of the etiology of prostitution must be the incontestable fact that modesty is not an innate but an acquired quality. The problem is chiefly, then, what are the causes why the feeling of modesty is not sufficiently developed among certain women. The following are the principal causes:
a. Immoral environment. We shall examine this first in so far as it affects children. [354] In running over the statistics which mention the age of prostitutes one is particularly struck by the fact that a great number of them are still very young. To cite some examples: Dr. G. Richelot gives the following figures in his work “La Prostitution en Angleterre”: [355]
London, 1836–1854.
Prostitutes Sentenced in Cases of Summary Jurisdiction.
=====================+================== Age. | To the 10,000. ---------------------+------------------ From 10 to 15 years | 27 ,, 15 ,, 20 ,, | 2,463 ,, 20 ,, 25 ,, | 3,623 25 and over | 3,887 =====================+==================
Edinburgh, 1835–1842.
Prostitutes Admitted to “Lock Hospital.”
================+================== Age. | To the 1,000. ----------------+------------------ Below 15 | 42 From 15 to 20 | 662 ,, 20 ,, 25 | 199 25 and over | 97 ================+==================
In the “Reports from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Law Relating to the Protection of Young Girls” [356] the following figures may be found:
England, 1881–1882.
Received into an “Asylum for Girls and Women.”
==========+==========+============= Age. | Number. | Percentage. ----------+----------+------------- 12 to 14 | 8 } | 14 ,, 16 | 6 } | 16 ,, 18 | 28 } | 55 18 ,, 20 | 34 } | 20 ,, 23 | 9 }| 23 ,, 25 | 25 }| 45 25 ,, 39 | 27 }| +----------+------------- | 137 | 100 ==========+==========+=============
In his work “De la Prostitution dans la ville de Paris” Parent-Duchatelet gives the following figures: [357]
Paris, 1831.
Registered Prostitutes.
============+===========+============= Age. | Number. | Percentage. ------------+-----------+------------- 12 years | 1 } | 13 ,, | 3 } | 14 ,, | 8 } | 15 ,, | 17 } | 16 ,, | 44 } | 23.6 17 ,, | 55 } | 18 ,, | 101 } | 19 ,, | 115 } | 20 ,, | 216 } | 21 ,, | 204 } | 22 ,, | 249 }| 23 ,, | 240 }| 24 ,, | 207 }| 76.4 25 ,, | 193 }| 26 and over | 1,582 }| +-----------+------------- | 3,235 | 100.0 ============+===========+=============
C. J. Lecour gives the following table: [358]
Paris, 1855–1869.
Registered Prostitutes.
================+===========+============= Age. | Number. | Percentage. ----------------+-----------+------------- Below 18 years | 513 | 8 From 18 to 21 | 1,704 | 26.6 Over 21 | 4,190 | 65.4 +-----------+------------- | 6,407 | 100.0 ================+===========+=============
Dr. Augagneur gives the following ages for prostitutes admitted to the hospital: [359]
Lyons.
========+===============+================+========== Years. | Older Girls. | Younger Girls. | Total. --------+---------------+----------------+---------- 1877 | 520 (65.5%) | 274 (34.0%) | 794 1887 | 144 (68.2%) | 67 (31.8%) | 211 +---------------+----------------+---------- | 664 (66.07%) | 341 (33.73%) | 1,005 ========+===============+================+==========
S. Sighele gives the following figures: [360]
Italy.
Registered Prostitutes.
=======+=================+=========+============= Year. | Age. | Number. | Percentage. -------+-----------------+---------+------------- 1875 | From 16 to 20 | 2,455 | 26.98 | ,, 21 ,, 30 | 4,766 | 52.50 | 31 and over | 1,867 | 20.52 | +---------+------------- | | 9,088 | 100.00 | | | 1881 | From 17 to 20 | 2,953 | 31.90 | ,, 21 ,, 30 | 5,456 | 58.92 | 31 and over | 850 | 9.18 | +---------+------------- | | 9,259 | 100.00 | | | 1885 | Under 20 | 3,228 | 27.76 | From 20 to 30 | 4,589 | 54.70 | 31 and over | 1,471 | 17.54 | +---------+------------- | | 8,388 | 100.00 =======+=================+=========+=============
Dr. L. Fiaux gives the result of an official enquiry, as follows: [361]
Russia, 1889.
Out of a Total of 17,603 Prostitutes.
================+================== Age. | Percentage. ----------------+------------------ 15 and under | 0.3 } From 15 to 16 | 1.3 } ,, 16 ,, 17 | 3.5 } ,, 17 ,, 18 | 6.9 } 69.9 ,, 18 ,, 19 | 8.8 } ,, 19 ,, 20 | 10.8 } ,, 20 ,, 25 | 38.3 } 25 and over | 30.1 30.1 | ----- ----- | 100.0 100.0 ================+==================
Dr. A. Baumgarten gives the following figures: [362]
Vienna.
Prostitutes Not Registered.
=======+======================= Age. | Number to the 1,000. -------+----------------------- 13 | 4 14 | 19 16 | 94 17 | 97 18 | 111 19 | 119 20 | 83 +----------------------- | 527 =======+=======================
As these figures show, there is a considerable portion of the prostitutes who are minors, but they do not tell us of the number of adults who embraced the profession while they were yet under age. As to this point, Dr. Bonhoeffer gives the following, showing the age at which the prostitutes whom he examined began the practice of their profession: [363]
Breslau.
16 years old or under 30 } Between 17 and 18 years 44 } 54% ,, 19 ,, 20 ,, 28 } ,, 21 ,, 50 ,, 88 46% --- ---- 190 100%
Parent-Duchatelet gives the following table: [364]
Paris.
=================================+===========+============= Age at the Time of Registration. | Number. | Percentage. ---------------------------------+-----------+------------- 10 | 2 } | 11 | 3 } | 12 | 3 } | 13 | 6 } | 14 | 20 } | 15 | 51 } | 16 | 111 } | 50.4 17 | 149 } | 18 | 279 } | 19 | 322 } | 20 | 389 } | 21 | 303 } | Over 21 years | 1,610 | 49.6 |-----------+------------- | 3,248 | 100.0 =================================+===========+=============
Dr. Fiaux gives the following figures: [365]
Russia.
=================================+================ Age at the Time of Registration. | Percentage. ---------------------------------+---------------- 11 or younger | 1.2 } 13 to 15 | 9.0 } 15 ,, 16 | 12.9 } 80.5 16 ,, 18 | 30.8 } 18 ,, 21 | 26.6 } 21 and over | 19.5 19.5 | ----- ----- | 100.0 100.0 =================================+================
A large majority of prostitutes, then, have been placed upon the registers of the police while still under age. We may very well say, moreover, without fear of mistake, that a great part of those who are registered at a later period of life have already been among the clandestine prostitutes. Dr. Augagneur says: “How many of these women, devoted indefinitely to the life of a common prostitute, would not have fled all its horrors if a society, careless of the interests of its members, had furnished them with sufficient means of defense up to the age at which they all have succumbed,—under 21 years? When a woman has not prostituted herself before 21, she will not prostitute herself later. Look for exceptions to this rule and you will find that they are very few. The woman who is older and more experienced knows the consequences of her acts; less passionate, less weak, and less impressionable, she resists better a first temptation whose consequences she is fully aware of. [366]
However this may be, it is certain that a very great proportion of the prostitutes have taken up their profession, or have been seduced, while they were still very young. Upon this latter point the following figures enlighten us: [367]
England.
=======================================+=============== Age at which Prostitutes Were Seduced. | Number. ---------------------------------------+--------------- 11 | 3 } 12 | 5 } 13 | 16 } 14 | 79 } 15 | 189 } 16 | 184 } 58% 17 | 247 } 18 | 221 } 19 | 297 } 20 | 280 } 21 | 256 } 22 and over | 1,299 42% | ----- ---- | 3,076 100% =======================================+===============
In his work, “La prostitution clandestine”, Dr. L. Martineau informs us that the age at which the prostitutes whom he observed were deflowered is distributed as follows: [368]
France.
======+========== Age. | Number. ------+---------- 5 | 1 9 | 2 10 | 2 11 | 2 12 | 5 13 | 11 14 | 31 15 | 86 16 | 87 17 | 115 18 | 93 19 | 50 20 | 37 21 | 27 +---------- | 549 ======+========== 90% of a total of 607.
The facts already brought out give rise to the presumption that the ranks of prostitutes are in a very large measure recruited from the less well-to-do classes, where the neglect of children has assumed enormous proportions, and not from the more favored classes where the children are carefully guarded and kept away from unfavorable influences. The correctness of this conclusion is shown by a further examination. According to figures given in the “Reports” quoted above, only 44 out of 3,076 prostitutes, or 1.4%, came from the well-to-do classes. [369] In his “Sozialpolitisches Handbuch” Dr. Lux publishes the following table: [370]
Berlin, 1871–1878.
==========================================+==========+============= Profession of the Parents of Prostitutes. | Numbers. | Percentage. ------------------------------------------+----------+------------- Artisans | 1,015 | 48 Factory hands | 467 | 22 Lower officials | 305 | 14 Commerce and transportation | 222 | 11 Agriculture, etc. | 87 | 4 Soldiers | 26 | 1 +----------+------------- | 2,122 | 100 ==========================================+==========+=============
Dr. Bonhoeffer found that the fathers of the prostitutes whom he examined practiced the following professions: [371]
Breslau.
=======================+=====+======= Manufacture and trades | 72 | 42 Unskilled workmen | 32 | 19 Lower officials | 24 | 14 Commerce | 13 | 8 Transportation | 12 | 7 Lodginghouse-keepers | 6 | 3.5 Agriculture | 8 | 5 Traveling musicians | 2 | 1 Higher officials | 1 | 0.5 +-----+------- | 170 | 100.0 =======================+=====+=======
Dr. Fiaux gives the following figures: [372]
Russia.
==============================================+============= Classes from Which Prostitutes Are Recruited. | Percentage. ----------------------------------------------+------------- Peasants | 47.5 Bourgeois | 36.3 Wives and daughters of soldiers | 7.2 Other classes | 4.7 Foreign subjects | 1.5 Nobles and daughters of employes | 1.8 Merchants and considerable citizens | .5 Daughters of members of the clergy | .5 +------------- | 100.0 ==============================================+=============
As the table given above shows, the Russian prostitutes are recruited in greater numbers from the bourgeoisie than in the other countries of Europe. The Russian bourgeoisie, however, cannot be compared with that of other countries. It is more like the petty bourgeoisie, as the following quotation given by Dr. Fiaux proves: “The committee considers that the great mass of the women registered belong to the lower classes.” The fact that, of 100 prostitutes, 83 come from poor families, 16 from well-to-do families, and one from a rich family, proves the same thing.
After having given the professions of 3,332 fathers of prostitutes, [373] Parent-Duchatelet arrives at the following conclusion: ... “prostitutes born in Paris all proceed from the artisan class, and ... it is not true, as some persons have assured me, that there are to be found among them a number belonging to very distinguished families; ...” [374]
In speaking of the prostitutes born outside of Paris he says: “... there is a mass of facts more than sufficient to prove to us that, as far as the class of society from which prostitutes come is concerned, the departments do not differ in any way from Paris; we see upon the last table as upon the first, only working people and those little favored by fortune, who consequently cannot take care of the education of their daughters, nor watch them, and still less provide for their needs when they have reached a certain age, ...” [375]
We must particularize these unfavorable environmental influences. And the first fact that we meet is that a part of the young prostitutes have been incited to the profession by their parents. Parent-Duchatelet mentions 16 cases in which mother and daughter were both registered prostitutes [376]; and von Oettingen quotes the following from Dr. Tait: [377]
Edinburgh.
There were found among the prostitutes:
2 mothers with 4 daughters each, or 8 in all, 5 ,, ,, 3 ,, ,, ,, 15 ,, ,, 10 ,, ,, 2 ,, ,, ,, 20 ,, ,, 24 ,, ,, 1 daughter ,, ,, 24 ,, ,, 41 mothers with 67 daughters in all
In the second place it is necessary to speak of the abandonment of the children of the poor classes. No scientist of consequence admits that the moral ideas are innate, but simply that the new-born infant is more or less fitted to appropriate such ideas. It follows that one cannot expect much from a child whose moral education has been neglected in youth, however great natural capacity he may have been endowed with. From this it follows that where there is lack of education and care because of the death of the mother, or the alcoholism of the father, or because the father and mother are both at work away from home a great part of the day, or where the morality of the parents themselves is not great, the children run great risk of being lost. The following figures support this assertion:
Von Oettingen shows that, according to Dr. Ryan, 12,000 to 14,000 prostitutes in London became such as a consequence of a neglected childhood. [378] In the “Reports of the Select Committee,” etc., the following figures are found: [379] of 3,075 prostitutes 1,481 (48%) were orphans, and 921 (29%) were half-orphans. In his “La prostitution clandestine à Paris”, Dr. Commenge gives the following figures concerning the 2,368 prostitutes whom he observed during the years from 1878 to 1887: [380]
692 (29%) were orphans; 456 (19%) had lost their mother; 811 (35%) ,, ,, ,, father.
Out of a total of 190 cases Dr. Bonhoeffer shows 72 (38%) in which the education had been positively bad (criminality or prostitution on the part of the parents, neglect, lack of surveillance, etc.); 106 cases (56%) in which the education had been probably bad; and only 12 cases (6%) in which it was proved that the education had been good. [381]
For Russia Dr. Fiaux gives the following figures: [382] 3.6% of the prostitutes still had father and mother; 47.5% had parents who were separated, and 18.5% were without any family.
With regard to the cause given for prostitution Dr. Augagneur says as follows: “The majority of prostitutes are born to prostitution at the same time that they are to puberty. Their moral sense, if such may be called that which no one has ever tried to awaken, is not shocked by their situation; they have prostituted themselves without shame and without regret. They have left normal and respectable society without being really aware of its existence, without the desire of ever returning thither. They have lacked the things necessary to make them respectable women—instruction in virtue, the example of their relatives, the suspicious surveillance of their mothers, and material well-being. The daughters of the people are not, at the day of their birth, of a clay inferior to that of the daughters of the bourgeoisie or of the nobility; they are naturally no less intelligent, no more perverse. And yet if you examine the civil status of a hundred prostitutes, you will find that 95 at least have sprung from the lowest strata of society. The existing social inequality, that is to say, is alone responsible for this unequal distribution.” [383]
Finally I will cite once more the opinion of Parent-Duchatelet, which is of great value, since this author is the most able sociologist who has treated of this subject. He says: “The misconduct of parents, and the bad examples of every kind which they give to their children, must be considered with regard to many girls, and especially those of Paris, as one of the causes determining their mode of life. The dossiers of each girl constantly make mention of disorder in the household, of fathers who are widowers living with concubines, of lovers of mothers widowed or married, of fathers and mothers separated, etc. What surveillance can such parents exercise over their children, and if they judge it proper to give a reprimand, or give good advice, what authority could such observations have in their mouths?
“Thus the depravity, the indifference, the necessitous position of many people of the last class provoke, or do not or cannot prevent, the corruption of the children; we may say in general with regard to a good number of prostitutes, what observation continually teaches us of criminals, that they have for the most part an ignoble origin.” [384]
In the third place, we must name as a cause of the demoralization in youth bad housing conditions. One of the most pronounced characteristics of the child is his propensity to imitate. Hence it follows that the fact that a whole family must live and sleep in one or two rooms has the most harmful consequences for the sexual morality of the children. Sexual life has no longer any secrets for the child of the poor classes at an age at which this life is still a thing unknown to the children of the well-to-do classes.
I will give here some figures to show how small the dwellings of this class are. According to an investigation made in Berlin in 1895 there were 4,718 dwellings without fireplaces, and occupied by 13,700 persons; more than 200,000 dwellings consisted of a single room with a fireplace, and 22,160 of these were occupied by more than 6 persons. There was the following percentage of “overcrowding” (in official statistics this means more than 6 persons in one room with fireplace, and more than 8 persons in two rooms with fireplace, or in one room with kitchen attached): in Königsberg 10.6; in Halle 10.3; in Breslau 9.9; in Lübeck 8.75; in Görlitz 6.91; in Leipzig 7.85; in Altona 7.62; in Munich, 4.41; in Kiel 4.46; in Mannheim 11.8. In 1890 there were living in overcrowded dwellings the following number of persons to the 1,000: in Berlin 784; in Munich 533; in Breslau 754. [385]
According to the investigation made in 1890 there were in Vienna 23,921 dwellings consisting of a single room, with 64,621 occupants, and 103,433 dwellings of two rooms, with 411,314 occupants. These two groups include 44% of the dwellings and 35% of the population. Professor von Philippovich, in the article from which these data have been taken, shows that in the districts inhabited by the Viennese working-men, Ottakring, Meidling, and Favoriten, 29.3%, 30.8%, and 31.26% respectively of the dwellings of one or two rooms were “overcrowded” (i.e. 3 to 5 persons in a room). [386]
The 1899 census of the Netherlands gave the following results: There were 307,937 dwellings consisting of one inhabited room each, and occupied by 1,172,014 persons (22.7% of the population); and there were 334,355 dwellings consisting of two rooms each (including kitchens, alcoves, and covered passages), occupied by 1,497,353 persons (29% of the population). [387]
The detailed statement shows the situation still better. There were 45,641 dwellings of only one room, with 4 persons in each; 62,548 dwellings of more than one room with 5 or 6 persons; 41,877 dwellings of only one room, occupied by 6 or more persons; 45,363 dwellings of 2 rooms which were occupied by 3 or 4 persons; 20,582 dwellings of two rooms with from 4 to 6; and 706 dwellings of two rooms with 6 occupants or more. [388]
What is often lacking besides is space to place a sufficient number of beds, or even the means of procuring them. In a great number of cases children of different sexes must sleep together in one bed, or even with adults. It also often happens that the inhabitants of these already insufficient dwellings are obliged to take night-lodgers. There are the following percentages of dwellings with lodgers: in Leipzig, 17.5; in Breslau, 12.5; and in Berlin, 15.8. [389] In Vienna 6.4% of the population are night-lodgers, and in Berlin 6.1% [390].
It goes without saying that among these persons lodging together there are some who are demoralized and dangerous to children. In his work, “Verbrechen und Prostitution”, P. Hirsch depicts these dangers as follows: “Think in how narrow a space an entire family is penned up together, so that at times a separation of the sexes is scarcely possible, at a time when the sexual instinct of the growing children is already beginning to develop. The children unhappily only too often are present at the most intimate occurrences and early lose all feeling of shame. How can decency and good morals be learned by children whose parents are obliged to take prostitutes as lodgers? Who shall protect these unfortunates from moral contamination? Often a word will be spoken in their presence, or an occurrence take place, which they are not yet, perhaps, able to understand. But the childish nature is receptive to such impressions, and what happens in their presence falls upon fruitful soil, and what has remained fixed in their memory from earliest youth, will, if later their sensuality is once aroused, bear terrible fruit. We are astonished when we hear a twelve or thirteen year old girl use language which we are accustomed to hear only from prostitutes who have followed their trade for years; we are astonished at the sophistication of persons still quite young, and are inclined at once to pass an unfavorable judgment upon them. Truly our judgment would be quite different, we should have sympathy with them, and should be made to reflect, if we came to know the holes in which these poor creatures passed their childhood.” [391]
As a cause of the demoralization of young girls we must note, finally, child labor. In the first place there are children who are sent to sell flowers, matches, etc., and this causes them to be neglected and to frequent bad company. With regard to this Hirsch says: “One has only to get into conversation with the children who sell flowers, matches, and the like on the streets of the great cities in the evening, or to overhear their talk, to be astonished at their sophistication. One would hardly believe with what shamelessness such boys speak of sexual matters with growing girls in the same situation, without blushing and quite as a matter of course, since they have been accustomed to it from earliest childhood. It is no wonder that from these circles a considerable contingent is furnished to the ranks of prostitution and crime....” [392]
A second cause is work in factories, by which girls are brought into contact with adults who, from their often coarse manners and language, and their lack of moral sentiments, corrupt these children for their whole lives. After having spoken of the other dangers which threaten the morality of children, Lecour says: “If she has escaped these dangers the child, placed too young as an apprentice, will meet other perils. There will be the contact with girls who are older and already corrupted, and workmen who respect neither youth nor innocence, who boast of debauchery, propagate immorality, and dishonor the daughters of their comrades. There will be, perhaps, the impure domination of the proprietor or foreman.” [393]
Let us now look at the influences which demoralize adult women. In the first place we must speak of the influence of profession. The following figures serve to show which are the professions from which prostitutes are recruited most: [394]
Berlin, 1855.
Factory-workers } 73 } Seamstresses, laundry-workers } Industrial 16 } 61 % Day-laborers } workers 23 } Workers at home } 32 } Domestics 22 9 ,, Without declared profession 70 30 ,, --- ------ 236 100 ,,
1873.
Factory workers } Industrial 355 } Workers at home and saleswomen } workers 936 } 64.3 % Caretakers of stores } 139 } Domestics 794 35.7 ,, ----- -------- 2,224 100.0 ,,
1898.
Workwomen, seamstresses, and saleswomen 66 43.4 % Domestics 78 51.3 ,, With their parents 7 } 5.3 ,, Nurses of children 1 } -------- 100.0 ,,
In the “Reports of the Select Committee, etc.” we find the following: [395]
England.
Domestics 1,589 60.7 % Seamstresses, dressmakers, and other industrial professions 967 36.9 ,, Barmaids 64 2.4 ,, ----- -------- 2,620 100.0 ,,
Breslau, 1901. [396]
Domestics 72 38 % Factory workers 37 20 ,, Seamstresses 28 15 ,, Saleswomen 14 7 ,, Dressmakers 8 4 ,, Barmaids, flower-girls, hairdressers 13 7 ,, Dancers 4 2 ,, Without profession and living at home 14 7 ,, --- ------ 190 100 ,,
In Parent-Duchatelet’s “La Prostitution à Paris” figures are found showing that domestic servants, in proportion to their number, furnish the largest contingent of prostitutes, and that working-women who try to provide for their needs with the needle furnish also a very great proportion. [397] Dr. Jeannel shows that in 1859, out of 298 prostitutes registered in Bordeaux, 40% had been domestics, and 37% workwomen who had tried to live by sewing. [398] Out of a total of 6,842 clandestine prostitutes in Paris (from 1878 to 1887) Dr. Commenge found that 2,681 (39.18%) had been domestics, and 1,326 (19%) seamstresses. [399]
Dr. Baumgarten gives the following table of percentages for 1,721 prostitutes:
Vienna.
Servants 58.00 Working by the day 16.00 Cashiers 14.00 Factory workers 5.50 Office employees 0.38 Children’s nurses 0.36 Singers 0.28 Hairdressers and models 5.48 ------ 100.00
Dr. Fiaux gives the following figures: [400]
Russia.
Servants 45.0 % Seamstresses 8.4 ,, Factory workers 3.7 ,, Laundresses 1.4 ,, Governesses and nurses 1.3 ,, Merchants, bakers, and others 1.3 ,, Cigar-sellers 0.7 ,, Singers, circus-performers, and other artists 0.3 ,, Practicing different trades and professions 2.7 ,, Kept mistresses 2.0 ,, Without fixed profession 6.4 ,, Living upon the labor of their husbands 1.7 ,, Living in their family, or with their parents more or less remote 22.3 ,,
These statistics show that a quite considerable number of the prostitutes have been workwomen in factories. (In Russia manufacturing is very little developed—hence the low figures there.) We may accept it as indisputable that this labor has in general very disadvantageous consequences for the morality of the workwomen.
In his work, “The Condition of the Working Class in England”, Engels depicts these consequences in the following terms: “The collecting of persons of both sexes and all ages in a single workroom, the inevitable contact, the crowding into a small space of people to whom neither mental nor moral education has been given, is not calculated for the favorable development of the female character. The manufacturer, if he pays any attention to the matter at all, can interfere only when something scandalous actually occurs; the permanent, less conspicuous influence of persons of dissolute character, upon the more moral, and especially upon the younger ones, he cannot ascertain and consequently cannot prevent. The language used in the workshops was characterized by many witnesses in the report of 1833 as ‘indecent’, ‘bad’, ‘filthy’, etc. (Cowell, evid., pp. 35, 37, and in many other places). It is the same process upon a small scale which we have already witnessed upon a great one in the great cities. The centralization of population has the same influence upon the same persons, whether it affects them in a great city or in a small factory. The smaller the mill, the closer the packing, and the more unavoidable the contact; and the consequences are not wanting. A witness in Leicester says that he would rather let his daughter beg than have her go into a factory; that they are perfect gates of hell; that most of the prostitutes of the town had the mills to thank for their present condition (Power, evid., p. 8). Another in Manchester ‘did not hesitate to assert that three-fourths of the young factory employees of from 14 to 20 years of age were unchaste’ (Cowell, evid., p. 57). Commissioner Cowell expresses it as his opinion, that the morality of the factory operatives is somewhat below the average of the working class in general (p. 82). And Dr. Hawkins says (Rept. p. 4), ‘An estimate of sexual morality cannot readily be reduced to figures, but if I may trust my own observations and the general opinion of those with whom I have spoken, as well as the whole tenor of the testimony furnished me, the aspect of the influence of factory life upon the morality of the youthful female population is most depressing.’” [401]
And then it happens at times that the proprietors or their foremen by abusing their power force the working-girls who please them to yield to their desires. Engels says of this: “It is a matter of course that factory-servitude, like any other, and to an even greater degree, confers the ‘jus primæ noctis’ upon the master. In this respect also the employer is sovereign over the persons and charms of his employees. The threat of dismissal suffices to overcome all resistance in nine cases out of ten, if not in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, in girls who, in any case have no strong inducements to chastity. If the master is mean enough, and the official report mentions several such cases, his mill is also his harem; and the fact that not all manufacturers use their power, does not in the least change the position of the girls. In the beginning of the manufacturing industry, when most of the employers were upstarts without education or consideration for the social hypocrisy, they let nothing interfere with the exercise of their vested rights.” [402]
Besides factory workers domestics form a very considerable percentage of the prostitutes. As the Berlin statistics cited above show the percentage of workers has diminished and that of domestics has increased. According to Dr. Blaschko the cause of the diminution of the percentage of factory workers is to be found not only in the fact that, the year 1898 being very prosperous, poverty did not come in as an important factor in the same measure as formerly, but also in the raising of the intellectual and moral plane of the Berlin working-women. It is impossible to speak of a similar raising of the plane of the domestics. The nature of their occupations prevents their forming associations; they are therefore deprived of the moral effect of the trades union. [403] The causes of the importance of the contingent furnished to prostitution by the domestics are of different kinds. Besides the reason I have just mentioned, the fact is to be noted that it is not from among the most intelligent and best of the working classes that domestic servants are ordinarily drawn. For these prefer the less dependent position of working-woman to that of domestic. In the second place there is the influence of the occupation itself. (There are still others, of which I shall speak later.)
It is easy to understand how the occupation of domestic has a demoralizing influence. Not only do young girls, often ignorant and without education, come to live in surroundings of a sort to pervert them, but there is also their dependence upon people who only demand that their work shall be well done, the lack of civilizing influences, and the isolation that deprives them of contact with their fellows, all of which lowers their moral plane. [404]
Aside from the two groups cited there are still other occupations which may exercise a demoralizing influence, such as that of barmaid, etc. [405]
Before closing our observations upon demoralizing environment as a cause of prostitution, we must fix our attention upon the evil influences to which many women are exposed, those, that is, who must provide for their own needs and do not live at home. The smallness of their wages does not permit them to rent a room by themselves but they are obliged to content themselves with a bed simply. This brings at once great moral disadvantages. But further, this arrangement drives the persons in question into the street when not at work, since often the landlords do not allow them in the house except during the night. The harmful consequences of this are sufficiently obvious. [406]
b. The maternity of girls and concubinage are among the causes of prostitution. Parent-Duchatelet gives the following figures: [407]
Paris.
Having come from the provinces to conceal themselves in Paris and to find resources there 280 Brought to Paris and abandoned by soldiers, traveling salesmen, students, and other persons 404 Domestics seduced by their masters and dismissed by them 289 Simple concubines during a longer or shorter period who have lost their lovers, and do not know what else to do 1,425 ----- Total 2,398
46% of a total of 5,183.
In the “Reports of the Select Committee”, etc. we find given as cause of prostitution: [408]
England.
Concubines abandoned by their lovers 360 Girls seduced under promise of marriage 806 ----- 1,166
37.9% of a total of 3,076.
In his “Minderjährige Verbrecher” L. Ferriani gives the following: [409]
Italy.
Seduction by a lover 1,653 ,, ,, employer 927 ----- 2,580
24.7% of a total of 10,422.
The statistics cited show, then, that the cause named occupies a quite considerable place in the etiology of prostitution. This cause is entirely a consequence of the existing social conditions, which maintain the dependent position of woman, and of marriage, which brings it about that every woman living with a man as with a husband is despised, even when the union is due to inclination, and that life is made very hard for her, especially if a child is born of the union. However, it must be added, that this applies especially to the women of the middle classes, and that “free love” and the child that is the fruit of it, are not at all so despised among the proletariat, for, as we have seen above, the bases of the present legal monogamy have not so great an importance there. [410]
However this cause of prostitution only makes itself felt when the woman to whom it applies is also deprived of all pecuniary means. And so we come to the third category in the etiology of prostitution.
c. Poverty. As the statistics already cited have shown, almost all prostitutes spring from the classes without fortune, and the great majority of them have been at first working-women or domestics, and consequently have belonged to families without fortune. If such women, for any reason whatever, cannot find work, they are thrown into poverty. As this happens constantly in society, poor women find themselves forced into prostitution. The facts are there to prove it. In treating of the etiology of prostitution Parent-Duchatelet gives the following figures: [411]
Paris.
Excess of poverty, absolute destitution 1,441 Loss of father and mother; expulsion from home; complete desertion 1,255 To support aged and infirm parents 37 Eldest of the family having neither father nor mother, to support brothers and sisters, and sometimes nieces and nephews 29 Widows and deserted wives, to raise a large family 23 ----- 2,785
53% of a total of 5,183.
The author says among other things: “Poverty, often pushed to the most frightful extreme, is still one of the most active causes of prostitution. How many girls abandoned by their families, without parents, without friends, unable to find refuge anywhere, are obliged to have recourse to prostitution in order not to die of hunger! One of these unfortunates, still susceptible to feelings of honor, strove to the last extremity before taking up a part which she regarded as extreme, and when she came to register herself it was shown that she had not eaten anything for three days.” [412]
“One would hardly believe that the career of prostitution has been embraced by certain women as a means of fulfilling their duty as daughter or mother; yet nothing is more true. It is not unusual to see married women who have lost their husbands or been deserted by them, become prostitutes with the sole purpose of not leaving a numerous family to die of hunger. It is still more common to find young girls who, not earning by their labor enough to provide for the wants of their aged and infirm parents, ply the trade of prostitute in the evening to make up what is lacking. I have found the marks peculiar to these two classes of prostitutes too often not to be convinced that they are more numerous in Paris than one would believe.” [413]
In the “Reports of the Select Committee, etc.”, which I have already quoted several times, are found the following figures: [414]
England.
To provide for the needs of her mother 11 ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, idle husbands 35 As a consequence of poverty or lack of work 164 --- 210
6.8% of a total of 3,076.
(We must take into consideration the fact that in the case of many of the 37.9% who are put down in this same set of tables as seduced, poverty was a contributory cause.)
Ferriani gives the following table: [415]
Italy.
Deserted by husband, parents, or other members of the family 794 Death of husband, parents, or other persons contributing to their support, or other cause of poverty 2,139 To provide for the wants of children, parents, or other sick or needy members of the family 393 ----- 3,326
31.9% of a total of 10,422.
Dr. Blaschko shows that the forced idleness among garment makers during some months of each year causes an increase of prostitution. [416]
As we have seen in the first part of this work, it has been proved at various times that crime against property increases or diminishes according as the economic situation is favorable or unfavorable. If poverty is one of the causes of prostitution it must follow that the number of prostitutes will vary at the same times as the general condition. Statistics prove that this is what does actually happen. However, we need only take into consideration the figures for registered prostitutes; if we had at our disposal the figures for clandestine prostitution they would naturally show still greater modifications.
Berlin. [417]
=====+=============+============= | Number of | To 100,000 Year.| Prostitutes | of the | Registered. | Population. -----+-------------+------------- 1869 | 1709 | 223 1870 | 1606 | 203 1871 | 1625 | 197 1872 | 1701 | 198 1873 | 1742 | 195 1874 | 1956 | 210 1875 | 2241 | 232 1876 | 2386 | 242 1877 | 2547 | 248 1878 | 2767 | 262 1879 | 3033 | 277 1880 | 3186 | 284 1881 | 3465 | 298 1882 | 3900 | 326 1883 | 3769 | 306 1884 | 3724 | 293 1885 | 3598 | 273 1886 | 3000 | 230 1887 | 3063 | 216 1888 | 3392 | 231 1889 | 3703 | 244 1890 | 4039 | 255 1891 | 4364 | 273 1892 | 4663 | 288 1893 | 4794 | 292 =====+=============+=============
Leaving aside the abnormal years, 1870 and 1871, we perceive that the prosperous years 1872 and 1873 give very low figures. After this period times become worse and worse, while the number of prostitutes sustains a considerable increase. From the year 1882 economic conditions began to improve, and the figures for prostitution correspondingly fell, to rise again very noticeably during the unfavorable years 1889 to 1892.
In his work “Statistik der gerichtlichen Polizei im Königreiche Bayern und in einigen anderen Ländern”, Dr. Mayr also gives convincing proofs of the parallelism between the changes in the economic situation and prostitution. [418]
However it is not only forced unemployment leading to great poverty that is one of the causes of prostitution; we must also consider as such the fact that the wages paid to women are often so small that it is impossible for them to pay even their necessary expenses, and are thus obliged to find some supplementary source of income.
In his work already quoted, “Die wirthschaftlichen Ursachen der Prostitution”, Pappritz fixes the minimum that a working woman in Berlin must have for her strictly necessary expenses at 600 marks a year. Most of the women working in factories generally earn but 500 marks. The average earnings in 1897 were 457 for dressmakers, and 354 for those who made the button-holes (hand labor). And yet the wages paid in Berlin were not the lowest—the average for all Germany was 322 marks. [419]
It will not be very difficult to quote several authors who, in treating of this subject as regards Germany, have expressed themselves in the same way. But I must be brief, and hence shall content myself with citing a passage from Dr. Frankenstein’s “Die Lage der Arbeiterinnen in den deutschen Grossstädten”, in which he sums up the result of his studies upon this subject: “A very great proportion of the working-women of our great cities receive wages that are not sufficient to provide the most indispensable necessities of life, and find themselves for this cause in the dilemma either of seeking a supplementary trade in prostitution, or of falling into the unavoidable consequences of bodily and spiritual destruction.” [420]
It is evident that the same thing is true of all the countries where capitalism reigns. Here is what Faucher, for example, says in his “Études sur l’Angleterre”: “Work with the needle is so poorly paid in London that the young persons who give themselves up to it earn only three or four shillings a week, working sixteen or eighteen hours a day. The wages of a fancy needle worker, for a hard day, are from 50 to 60 centimes, while linen workers generally get 30 centimes for stitching a shirt. Nothing more frightful could be imagined than the existence of these poor girls. They must get up at four or five o’clock in the morning, at all seasons of the year, to go to work, or to receive the orders of the merchants. They work without relaxation until midnight in small rooms, where they are crowded together by fives and sixes for economy in the use of fuel and light. If they are admitted to a dressmaker’s or linen draper’s establishment, they are ill-fed, and under pretext of pressure of business are kept at their task day and night, with only four or five hours of sleep, which are further regularly limited on Saturday. This sedentary life and constant confinement ages them before their time, when phthisis spares them. Is it to be wondered at if some, frightened and disheartened at finding the way of virtue so hard, hold out their arms to prostitution?” [421]
Against these long, hard days and small wages are to be set the easy life and often quite considerable returns—at least in the beginning of their career—which prostitutes enjoy. Moreau-Christophe in his “Du Problème de la Misère” says that in London there are prostitutes who earn $100 to $150 a week, and that the average earnings are $10 a week. [422]
To conclude I wish to call attention to the opinion of Parent-Duchatelet concerning this state of things in Paris. He says: “Of all the causes of prostitution, particularly in Paris, and probably in the other large cities, there is none more active than the lack of work, and the poverty inevitably consequent upon insufficient wages. What do our dressmakers, seamstresses, menders, and in general all those who work with the needle, earn? If we compare the wages of the most capable of them with what those of only moderate abilities can make, we shall see that it is not possible for these last to procure the mere necessaries of life. And if we then compare the price of their labor with that of their dishonor we shall not be surprised that so great a number fall into a life of shame made all but inevitable.” [423]
Not only does poverty, taken in the sense of the lack of the actual necessaries of life, act as a cause of prostitution, but also that relative poverty which prevents women from enjoying luxuries which seem necessities, like jewelry and fine clothes. With these same women laziness also plays a part.
Now the general opinion with regard to these factors is that they belong exclusively to the individual nature, that they are innate to some women, and that they consequently have nothing to do with the social environment. In my opinion this is entirely erroneous. Mankind are born with certain needs. The non-satisfaction of these needs causes death or the wasting away of the organism. These needs are what we call the strict necessities. All the other wants are awakened by the environment: that is to say, each possesses them in germ, but they are latent as long as the surroundings do not develop them. For example, no one would suffer from abstaining from tobacco if he did not see someone smoking; no woman would want expensive clothes if others did not wear them; etc. The desire to dress expensively, to wear jewelry, etc., is not at all, then, an individual quality of certain working-women; the germ of this want is innate in each individual, without any exception though in different degrees. The present order of society, by permitting certain women to spend immense sums for senseless luxury, awakens in others the desire to imitate them as far as possible. Since these last have not the means necessary to shine, they seek them where they may find them, and as there is only the way of prostitution, many follow it. We may add to this that a great number of men use their money and their distinguished manners to decide those who hesitate. This is, therefore, also one of the reasons why the ranks of prostitution are so often recruited from among dressmakers and domestics, i.e. from among those who come into direct contact with the luxury of others. [424] Another cause which makes women desire expensive and useless things is their low degree of culture, which shows them nothing more preferable than the possession of luxury. And where women who have all the leisure and the means necessary to busy themselves with more serious matters set the example of frivolity, we ought not to be surprised that those without the same advantages try to follow their example.
The same is true of idleness. If each person who is capable of it would do a certain amount of work, any normal individual would be ashamed to pass the day doing nothing. But the fact that there are women who are esteemed though they remain idle, awakens in other women, who are obliged to work long and hard, the desire to do nothing also. As prostitution opens to them the means of remaining unoccupied, they have recourse to it to satisfy their desire.
The irony which comes out so often in the social life shows itself here; the rich women who despise prostitutes never suspect that they themselves are in part the cause of the fall of the others, and that placed in the same poor surroundings they themselves would not act differently. [425]
All those who rank the causes last cited among individual factors base their opinion upon the thesis, equally strange and false, that there are two kinds of persons: those who by birth are destined to command and to enjoy, and those who are destined only to obey, to work, and not to enjoy at all. Looked at from this point of view the person who rejects these conditions constitutes an individual anomaly.
Perhaps it will be objected that without admitting the existence of individual causes it will be impossible to explain why, though a great number of women live under the conditions named, only a small fraction prostitute themselves. Those who reason in this way commit the error already spoken of, of thinking circumstances the same when they really differ. There are no two persons who live under exactly the same conditions, how much less thousands. To give one example only: all the women who earn only the strict necessities of life have not been raised in the same environment. Those who have grown up in favorable surroundings have perhaps so great an aversion to prostitution that they prefer a life of poverty to one of abundance procured by prostitution. It is possible that these women would prefer suicide to selling themselves, if they came to a state of complete destitution. Secondly it is necessary that a woman should not be too ugly, or the possibility of her earning her living by prostitution is excluded. No one would claim, however, that feminine beauty is one of the causes of prostitution; placed in another environment a woman would not prostitute herself simply because of her beauty.
Although the reasons already given refute in great measure the supposed objection, it must be confessed that the question is not thus entirely answered. Just as all the beings of a certain species differ among themselves, so these women differ naturally as to their innate qualities. The one will have more decided and more numerous wants than the other, she will be less laborious, more frivolous, etc. (qualities which in themselves have nothing to do with prostitution), and, other things being equal, she will be more exposed to the temptation to become a prostitute. All this is perfectly true, but it has nothing to do with the etiology of a social phenomenon like prostitution. For we are here in the presence of two distinct problems; why, of two persons placed in the same situation (supposing that to be possible), the one is more in danger of becoming a prostitute than the other; and, second, what are the causes of the social phenomenon which is called prostitution? The answer to the first question must be that in part at least it is because people differ as to the intensity of their characteristics and of their appetites. The answer to the second is the social conditions.
When two persons of different height are fording a river, and the shorter steps into a hole and is drowned, should we have the right to say that the difference between the height of persons is one of the reasons why people are drowned? I think not. The only reason why there are people who are drowned is that a man cannot live in water—which in no way excludes the fact that a short person runs more danger of drowning than a tall one.
Now as to prostitution—the atmosphere in which certain women live is the cause of their fall, which does not prevent its being true that some of them run more risk than others. The truth of this assertion may be proved by an observation of the facts. Among women who are not prostitutes also there are more who are lazy, frivolous, etc. than those who are not. And though the former have not prostituted themselves, if they had lived in bad surroundings and in poverty they would have run more risk than the latter. If all women were exactly equal prostitution would be as general as it is now; only in this case it would be in every case the environment which would decide what woman became a prostitute, whereas in reality there are, alongside of the environment, individual differences which determine which ones run more risk than the others.
Those who believe that there are here individual causes at work always take the point of view that society is not an organism but a collection of individuals, and that consequently an examination of the individual will suffice to explain social phenomena. It is by the study of prostitution, for example, as a social phenomenon that we bring out the fact that individual differences do not play any part in the etiology of prostitution.
d. Among the causes of prostitution must not be forgotten the fact that many persons have pecuniary interests in it. Without this many women would never have become prostitutes or would not have remained such, and the opportunity for a man to procure the services of a prostitute would not be so good. Capital has settled down on this as upon every place from which profits are to be drawn. The profession of the keeper of a house of ill-fame being extremely lucrative, great sums have been invested in it. In order to furnish the necessary material for these capitalists an international commerce has been created, whose ramifications extend over almost the whole world, and in which large sums are employed, the “white-slave trade.” [426] Often before their entrance into these houses the prostitutes have already plied their trade, but many innocent girls become the dupes of the false promises of these traffickers and are given over to the keepers of houses of prostitution. In his “Der Mädchenhandel” Dr. Hatzig says: “The girls, in so far as they do not give themselves up voluntarily as objects of traffic, are generally enticed with illusory promises of a glittering future.... Advantageous positions in foreign countries are as a rule offered to them, while nothing is said of the unchaste object of the business. To this especially is to be ascribed the enormous exportation of Hungarian girls into Russia, to whom engagements as dancers in St. Petersburg are promised. When the unhappy victims have once arrived at their destination they would hardly venture to escape from the hands of the slave-trader. In helpless case, deprived of the protection of friends and country, they submit to their fate and are sold to houses of prostitution.” [427]
Once fallen into the hands of the keeper of such an establishment it is almost impossible for these women to free themselves. He holds them in all sorts of ways. For example, he will exchange their clothes for others not proper to wear in the street, and will charge them so high a price that they are in his debt; often they do not understand the language of the country; etc. Legally slavery is abolished, but in reality it always exists for these women. [428]
e. The ignorance of a part of the women, a consequence of the environment in which they were brought up, is also one of the causes of prostitution, and no inconsiderable one. Dr. Richelot gives the following figures: [429]
London (1837–1854).
==================================================+=========== Prostitutes Arrested. | --------------------------------------------------+----------- Not able to read or write | 34.98% Able to read only or to read and write imperfectly| 61.29% Able to read and write well | 3.51% Having a higher education | .22% +----------- | 100.00% ==================================================+===========
Manchester (1840–1855).
===================================================+=========== Unable to read or write | 51.61% Able to read only, or to read and write imperfectly| 47.60% Able to read and write well | .78% Having a higher education | .01% (?) +----------- | 100.00% ===================================================+===========
In the “Reports of the Select Committee, etc.” the following table is given: [430]
England.
==================================+========+====== Unable to read and write | 1,213 | 40% Able to read only | 464 | 15% Able to read and write imperfectly| 1,016 | 33% Able to read and write well | 371 | 12% +--------+------ | 3,064 | 100% ==================================+========+======
Parent-Duchatelet gives the following figures: [431]
Paris.
==========================+=======+====== Unable to sign their name | 2,503 | 56% Able to sign, but badly | 1,868 | 42% Able to sign well | 110 | 2% --------------------------+-------+------ | 4,481 | 100% ==========================+=======+======
Dr. Commenge gives the following: [432]
Paris (1878–1887).
======================================+=======+========= Unregistered Prostitutes. | | --------------------------------------+-------+--------- Able to read and write | 4,297 | 68.12% Able to read and sign their name | 988 | 15.66% Able to read but not to write or sign | 11 | 0.18% Unable to read or write | 1,012 | 16.04% --------------------------------------+-------+--------- | 6,308 | 100.00% ======================================+=======+=========
From an examination of the statistics given it is evident that the number of illiterates is very large, however they may be decreasing in number now that primary education for the children of the poorer classes is becoming more and more general. Knowing how to read and write, however, proves very little as to the culture of the individual. The statistics only show the number of prostitutes who are totally illiterate, and we must certainly count many of the others as well among the ignorant.
It is clear that ignorance alone does not lead to prostitution. But it is clear that many prostitutes would not have become such, or would not have lent an ear to the flattering offers of good positions, etc., if they had known what an abominable life awaited them.
Among the secondary causes of prostitution must certainly also be classed:
f. Alcoholism. Not only have many women been seduced when they had drunk too much, and so have become prostitutes, but the demoralization which is the result of the constant abuse of alcohol may have the same effect. [433]
g. Degeneracy. According to some physicians (among whom are Professors Lombroso and Tarnowsky, to cite only the most famous) the cause of prostitution is not to be found first in the environment, but in a pathological (or atavistic) condition. These authors have examined a certain number of prostitutes, and have drawn from this examination the conclusion that the stigmata of degeneracy often found in them indicate a state which is the cause of their misconduct; prostitution is in large part kept up by born prostitutes. [434]
There is one objection to be made to such a manner of proceeding, namely that we must in the very beginning give a precise definition of the social phenomenon which is called prostitution. This definition, which can perhaps be given only by the sociologist and not by the biologist, will show us at the outset that it is very difficult to represent anyone as born with a tendency to commit sexual acts for economic reasons. So Professor Lombroso understands a totally different thing by prostitution from what it really is. He says: “Sometimes in the beginning marriage does not even exist and prostitution is the general rule” [435] and as an example he cites that the Naïrs live in complete promiscuity. According to Professor Lombroso, then, everywhere that there is no marriage there is prostitution. In other words, according to him all nature is one grand brothel, in which, aside from the married women, all the females would be prostitutes! Truly Professor Lombroso has some sociological views all his own.
These authors claim, then, that prostitutes often present stigmata of degeneracy. An examination of the figures shows, however, that 63% of all the prostitutes examined show almost no such stigmata. [436]
For 63% of them then degeneracy cannot be the cause, nor does it follow that it is the cause in the remaining 37% of cases. For many women with these stigmata are not found at all among the ranks of prostitution. To bring out the real import of the researches in question we must put beside them the results of an examination of non-prostitutes. It is for this reason that I wish to call attention to the work of Dr. P. Näcke, “Verbrechen und Wahnsinn beim Weibe”, in which the author arrives at the result that only 3% of the normal women examined by him failed to show signs of degeneracy. [437] It seems to me, then, that when we find figures so low among normal women the thesis of Professor Lombroso is not proved.
If his conclusion were true, prostitutes would be drawn from all classes of society, for degeneracy is present in all classes. But, as we have seen above, they are drawn almost exclusively from the poorer classes. Professor Lombroso thinks he has refuted this argument (which is enough to overthrow his whole theory) by saying: “The woman who, coming from the lower classes, ends by becoming the inmate of a brothel, in the upper classes becomes an incorrigible adultress....” [438] Consequently according to Lombroso there is no difference between a prostitute and an adultress. It is not necessary to combat such singular ideas: they refute themselves.
Nevertheless the theory named is not without importance for the problem of prostitution. The following quotation, taken from a recent study of Dr. Bonhoeffer shows what its importance is: “We have no more right to speak of prostitution as inborn than we should have to speak of a born drinker. The disposition brought about through the defective psychical condition is inborn. But whether a psychically defective female individual will become a prostitute is in a certain sense dependent upon chance and external conditions.” [439]
There are persons who are born with psychic defects. These persons adapt themselves to their environment only with difficulty, and have a smaller chance than others to succeed in our present society, where the fundamental principle is the warfare of all against all. Hence they are more likely to seek for means that others do not employ (prostitution, for example). If the defect of a woman has relation especially to the sexual sphere, so that she feels, for example, extraordinary sexual desires, the danger of her becoming a prostitute is very great. [440] Even when the environment in which such persons live is very favorable, it is nevertheless certain that their actions will be different from those of others, though it does not at all follow that they will infallibly become prostitutes. It is certain that these morbid cases are rare in general, and very rare among prostitutes. [441] Parent-Duchatelet says: “Finally there are girls who give themselves up to prostitution in consequence of a licentiousness which one can explain only by the action of a mental disease ...; but in general these Messalinas are rare; I have only found one opinion upon this fact, and it has been abundantly confirmed by my own researches.” [442]
This theory, that the principal cause of prostitution is to be found in innate psychic defectiveness, contains, as Dr. Blaschko says (in his “Die Prostitution im XIX Jahrhundert”), “a small grain of truth in a mass of exaggerations.” It is only a very small proportion of prostitutes who have gone into the profession for this reason, and it is certain that they would not have done so if circumstances had not contributed to bring it about. [443]
We have now arrived at the end of our observations upon prostitution. In our opinion it has been shown that it is partly the inevitable complement of the existing legal monogamy, and partly the result of the bad conditions under which many young girls grow up, the consequence of the physical and mental misery in which the women of the proletariat live, and the consequence also of the inferior position of woman in our present society. When we make exception of a few cases where a certain degeneracy enters in beside the effect of the unfavorable environment, the prostitution of today is, then, the consequence of existing social conditions, which, in their turn, spring from the economic system of our time.
It may be objected that prostitution has presented itself under other economic systems. I am not ignorant of this, but I know also that 3 × 4 = 12, and 2 × 6 = 12 also; that is to say that two different causes may produce the same result. The prostitution of our day may be the consequence of capitalism while that of earlier periods may have been the consequence of the mode of production of those times. Further, an examination of the epochs in which prostitution was a general phenomenon (it never reached proportions as great as under capitalism) [444] shows us that they did not differ much from our own in those matters which concern the question in hand, namely, the inferior position of woman, and the strong contrasts in fortunes.
Many authors who have taken up the question of prostitution declare that it is as old as humanity itself. If we understand by prostitution what it really is, and not what imagination makes it out to be, this assertion is absolutely false. Prostitution is of very ancient date, but it has not always existed. Westermarck, one of the authors best qualified to pronounce an opinion upon this matter, says: “Prostitution is rare among peoples living in a state of nature and unaffected by foreign influence. It is contrary to a woman’s natural feelings as involving a suppression of individual inclinations.” [445] I advise those who, in spite of everything, wish still to maintain that prostitution belongs to all time and all places, to investigate the peoples among whom the matriarchate exists. If they are so unfamiliar with sociology, let them look for prostitution in the country. They will find none; prostitution exists only in the cities.