The Rights of Women and the Sexual Relations

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Copyright, 1891, by Karl Schmemann

Copyright. 1898, by Karl Schmemann

Part 1 Part 2 Contents

Preface

The following treatise comes from the pen of one of the most enlightened and humanitarian spirits of our time, whose libertarian and reformatory labors were not limited to his German fatherland and this republic, his adopted home, but extended to the entire civilized world by their unique and masterful many-sidedness. The author, who, after he had broken his fetters in despotic Europe, lived in this country during the larger and most fertile period of his life and brought to light his ripest spiritual treasures here, unfortunately remained unknown to the great majority of his American fellow-citizens. He counted as his friends only the most enlightened men of his time who could appreciate his quiet greatness. This remarkable fact, I believe, may be explained by the observations which the life-long friend of Karl Heinzen, Dr. Marie E. Zakrzewska of Boston, embodied in her autobiography, dedicated to the well-known American poetess, Mary L. Booth: "The German mind, so much honored in Europe for its scientific capacity, for its consistency regarding principles, and its correct criticism, is not dead here; but it has to struggle against difficulties too numerous to be detailed here; and therefore it is that the Americans don't know of its existence, and the chief obstacle is their different languages. A Humboldt must remain unknown here, unless he chooses to Americanize himself in every respect: and could he do this without ceasing to be Humboldt, the cosmopolitan genius?"

Among the friends of Heinzen referred to, Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, and Charles Sumner are especially to be mentioned. At the memorial gathering held on February 22, 1881 (Heinzen died November 12, 1880), Wendell Phillips said concerning him:

"I never met him on the streets without a feeling of the highest respect, and this respect I paid the rare, almost unexampled courage of the man. Mr. Heinzen in this respect stands almost alone among the immigrants to these shores. His idea of human right had no limitation. His respect for the rights of a human being as such was not to be shaken. The temptation to use his talent to gain reputation, money, power, at a time when, a poor emigrant, he lacked all these and was certain of acquiring them, was great; yet all these he laid calmly aside for the sake of the eternal principle of right, of freedom. He espoused the detested slave cause at a time when to do so meant poverty, desertion of fellow-countrymen, scorn, persecution even. Thus he acted in every cause. What seemed to him right, after the most unsparing search for truth, he upheld no matter at what cost. During the war, feeling that through ignorance or timidity on the part of Lincoln's government precious lives and treasures were being wasted, he was foremost among a few leading men who proposed the nomination of Fremont for the presidency. We had many private meetings and much correspondence with leading men in New York. I shall never forget some of these conversations with Mr. Heinzen. He was so far-seeing and sagacious; he was so ingenious and contriving; his judgment so penetrating.

"One other characteristic he had, belonging only to truly great men. There was a kind of serenity and dignity about him, as one sure of the right in the course which he took, in the principles which he stated. He was far in advance of other minds; but he was sure in his trust in human nature that all others would come, must come to the same point with himself. He could wait. Few possessing equal mental ability are able also to do this. The greatest courage is to dare to be wholly consistent. This courage Heinzen showed when a little yielding, so little as would have been readily pardoned on the ground of common-sense, would have gained him popularity, fame, money, power. He remained true to himself.

"Prominent men gained much from him, but never acknowledged their obligations. He shaped many minds that led and created public opinion. His indeed was a life of trial, gladly borne without murmur of complaint, and his reward must be in the future.

"When I think of that lofty life there come always to my mind those words of Tocqueville which Sumner loved to quote: 'Remember life is neither pain nor pleasure; it is serious business, to be entered upon with courage, with the spirit of self-sacrifice.' Surely if any life ever exemplified that ideal, it is the one we meet to remember and, as far as we can, to imitate—that of Karl Heinzen."

As a German-American writer has said of him, Heinzen was what Goethe called eine Natur; that is, a character of singularly original development, a man of one mould, who remained true to himself-in all conditions of life, and who valued this fidelity to self higher than all external positions and all the favors of the world. He knew of no loftier ambition than obedience to his own teachings: "Learn to' endure everything, only not slavery; learn to dispense with everything, only not with your self-respect; learn to lose everything, only not yourself. All! else in life is worthless, delusive, and fickle. Man's only sure support is in himself, in his individuality, resting in its own power and sovereignty." Besides he was a writer who knew how to wield his pen as almost none of his contemporaries, certainly not one of

the writers of the German tongue in this coun- try; who as none else knew how to express his thoughts in the most pregnant, incisive, and energetic form—a master of pure classical style.

That a spirit who could proclaim such principles was bound to throw his entire revolutionary energy on the side of the liberation of woman from the fetters of social and political slavery is a matter of course.

The treatise here submitted, which appeared for the first time in the German language in 1852 and later in an expanded form in 1875, is translated into English by an American lady of German descent, Mrs. Emma Heller Schumm, of Boston; and it is the intention of the publisher, in case the demand for this treatise should give him any encouragement, to continue the publication in English translation of the immortal treasures of

Heinzen's thought and thus make them accessible to the American reading public.

In this treatise the cause of the emancipation of woman finds its most brilliant championship, as it has hardly ever before been discussed with less reserve and greater freedom. I cherish the hope that its circulation will largely contribute towards enlightening the public on this most important question, in order thereby to hasten its speedy solution. The translator as well as the publisher would in that "case feel themselves amply rewarded for their unselfish labor, while the lofty intentions of the author would meet with their full realization.

Karl Schmemann.

Detroit, June, 1891.

Contents

CONTENTS.

PART I.

Page.

Part 1

PART I.

Page.

1. An Address to an Unknown Lady Reader | |1

2. Historical Review of the Legal Position of Women | |6

3. The Emancipation of Woman | |30

4. The Passive Prostitution of Women | |41

5. The Active Prostitution of Men | |47

6. The Excuses of Men | |55

7. Love and Jealousy | |62

8. Morality | |70

9. Marriage | |80

10. Adultery | |104

11. Divorce | |113

12. Is Marriage a Contract? | |121

13. Hanging a Woman | |128

14. Religion | |135

15. The Economic Independence of Woman | |149

16. Liberty and the Revolution the Allies of Women | |154

17. Conclusion | |162

18. Postscript | |167

19. Preface to Part II | |175

1. An Address to an Unknown Lady Reader

THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN AND THE SEXUAL RELATIONS.

AN ADDRESS TO AN UNKNOWN LADY READER.

Notwithstanding all reactionary precautions, there is a spirit of liberty breathing through the world that lifts the veil from all lies and the roofs from all dungeons in order to show mankind how much truth it has failed to grasp, and how much justice it has crushed. It is a sad task to accompany this spirit on its flight and to note the countless aberrations of mankind; but it is an imperative duty to report what has been observed, and to participate in the reformation of this degenerate world.

Not only from the dungeons of famous martyred men, also from the chambers of nameless martyred women time has removed the covering roof. More than one-half of your sex consists of martyrs, aye, the history of your sex is one continu story of martyrs. And while the oppressed of the stronger sex can read their sufferings in the fugitive history of states and nations, the sufferings of women find a place only in the long history of mankind.

This is beginning to be recognized, and among women themselves champions have at last arisen who demand that the age of slavery and suffering shall give place to an age of liberty and rights. Especially in America, the new Amazons who seek to humanize men, as those of history sought to slay them, form a very respectable phalanx.

And here, too, it is where a suitable battle-field is open to them, and where it is also possible to unite this battle-field with the arena of men. Especially in America, where so many questions are already solved which in Europe still call for the exertion of all forces, it is the part of men to occupy themselves with the important question of woman's emancipation; here more. than elsewhere men of truly democratic spirit ought to make it their task to bring the discussion on this interesting and much-derided theme to a conclusion. It is a glaring anomaly to rejoice over the emancipation of the slaves and to treat the emancipation of woman with ridicule.

I venture the attempt of contributing my mite to the proposed work. In so doing I shall strive to be as clear, as radical, as brief, as. just, but also as frank, as possible. In any case, dear reader, I am convinced that I have some new points of view to offer which deserve your attention.

But whoever you may be, in giving your attention to these pages may you be prevailed upon to publicly express your opinion on a common and important matter! But frankly, truthfully, and without reserve, as will be done here. False modesty is not only a weakness; it is also a fault, because it throws a suspicion on what it attempts to conceal. So long as we still shrink from speaking about human matters in a human manner we have not yet developed into true men and women; so long as we still play the hypocrite out of sheer "morality" we have not yet a conception of true morality; so long as we still seek for culture in the perversion of human nature we have no reason to boast of our culture. But in regard to the question of rights now under consideration, a radical straightforward examination of the relations of the two sexes to each other is an essential requisite for its solution.

There are three rocks upon which the truthfulness of the world, especially of the masculine world, is wont to come to grief and to change into the most intolerable and contemptible hypocrisy: the Revolution, Religion, and Love. Thousands-want the revolution and. feign legality; thousands are without religion and go to church; thousands seek the clandestine satisfaction of their sexual desires, while outwardly they mani the most studied indifference towards the feminine sex. You will not have to accuse the author of these pages of hypocrisy. He has given complete expression to his opinions regarding the revolution; he has done so regarding religion; and he is now doing so regarding the two sexes. Give him your support by reciprocating his frankness, help him to examine the nature and the needs of both sexes, in order thereby to establish the claims which your sex has to make. You will share with me the satisfaction that he who speaks his convictions openly and completely before all the world, and in spite of all the world, not only acts more nobly, but also more successfully, than all the reserve of prudence and all the hypocrisy of cowardice are able to act.

The object to be gained here is not only to purify humanity and the sense of justice from the dross of a false morality and vulgar prejudice; nor is our task limited to the rescue of love and marriage, which are in danger of perishing entirely in this venal and pious world; it is at the same time also necessary to open up to your sex a perspective view of the position which the era of liberty, towards which our development is tending, will assign to it in society. It will be seen that the right, the happiness, and the lot of woman is still more dependent on the attainment of complete liberty than that of man, who at least finds a partial compensation for liberty in the struggle for it, and that the relation of the two sexes to each other can reach its true form only at the summit of political development from which we are still far enough removed, even in North America.

2. Historical Review of the Legal Position of Women

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE LEGAL POSITION OF WOMEN.

As a rule history considers women only in so far as they occasionally exert an apparent influence upon the history of men. The feminine half of humanity is usually overlooked like a superfluous appendage. The women are weak, they are silent, they patiently suffer, they do not rebel, and that is sufficient to expose them to disregard, to make them historically irresponsible. It would be of great interest to write a history from a radical point of view of the position which women have occupied among the different nations and in different ages in a social, political, and literary respect. I would undertake to do this work if I were sufficiently well read, and if the necessary material were not wanting to me as well as the leisure to make exhaustive use of the latter. I shall therefore content myself with giving from scant notes and recollections a brief survey, in order at least to uphold the leading idea that the position of women, dependent upon the general state of civilization and liberty of a people, can become an entirely just and honorable one only in that distant future in which the subordination of the right of brutal strength to the right of humane thought will have become a reality.

In the historical retrospect, in which we cannot always proceed chronologically, but merely according to the stages of civilization of various nations, we begin with the savage. It will be immaterial for the purpose whether we take examples of the Africa of to-day, or whether we trace the oldest nations of history back to their savage state. Savages are very much alike everywhere, and that all nations have at one time been in the savage state even those do not doubt who believe that man has been placed ready made into the world by a "God," the sum of all wisdom and civilization. To the savage physical strength is synonymous with right, and since the man has by nature more physical strength and aggressive passion than woman, the submission of the latter to the former is self evident. (Among animals nature seems to have equalized this relation somewhat, as the females of some species are larger than the males.) The savage associates the woman with himself because his sexual needs require her, and he controls her because he is the stronger. This control is carried to such an extent that the body of the woman is actually treated as a piece of furniture, and in some places is even guarded against foreign touch by some barbaric tailoring. With most savages the woman, besides being a concubine, is at the same time the slave and beast of burden of the man. Polygamy is likewise in accordance with this state of barbarity; polyandry, on the other hand, is found rarely, — rather as a consequence of the presumption of the stronger, adultery is almost everywhere treated as a crime only on the part of women, while masculine adultery does not exist at all. But in spite of polygamy a selection is to be observed even among savages, a distinction of and temporary union with a single person. Rousseau, it is true, disputes this by maintaining that among Savages every woman had the same value; it can be shown, however, by facts as well as by à priori demonstration that even the rudest savage has an eye and discrimination for superiority and qualities suitable to him in this or that woman, and feels the need of uniting himself more closely with the one he prefers. The analogy of animals also points that way, as there is among many animals an entirely exclusive conjugal relation at least during the breeding period. Why special stress is laid on these facts will become clear in the discussion of marriage.

The savage state is followed by the semi-civilized period, in which man settles down and forms a family life, and in accordance with it the woman plays the part of a member of the family, but of course without any independence whatever. On the contrary, in spite of her position in the family, she is deprived of all liberty, confined in a harem, and jealously watched. She exchanges open slavery for secret slavery; she remains now as before the tool of the man, only according to more definite rules and laws of external etiquette. In the harem the preference of individuals, already apparent among savages, becomes more strongly marked, although here also it does not lead to a real monogamic union. This state of things is, however, specifically oriental. But the degradation of women in the orient was so manifold that their social position cannot be designated by one word. With the Babylonians the marriageable maidens were taken tothe market, examined by the men like any other ware, and bid for. It was also customary in the temple of Mylitta that every woman must extend her favors to strangers for money, which went into the pockets of the priests. Zoroaster abolished polygamy among the Persians after the institution of the harem had reached its highest development. It is well known that polygamy and traffic with women existed also among the Jews. The Mosaic price for a pretty woman was about five dollars. If the man wished to get rid of the woman he threw her out of the house.

In the next stage we find the woman as inde housewife, with more liberty of action, and more highly respected. The Homeric descriptions show this stage in its best light. The woman is no longer under surveillance, as in the harem, where the man visits her when it suits his pleasure and fancy, but she has also free access to the man. She has control of the department of the interior, is the hostess of the house, and does the honors in receiving guests. But in spite of this more favored position, the rights which are granted woman are rooted in the interests and the will of the man, not in a true ethical recognition. The dependence of women was, on the contrary, still so great in this stage that the sons had the power to remarry their mothers to whomsoever they pleased; men could keep concubines as they liked, etc.

A further development marks the transition of private control of woman to public or political control of her. In this respect the Spartans took the lead with a truly classical despotism. With them every regard for nature, for humanity, for morality, for liberty disappeared before the regard for that State which Lycurgus seems to have called to life in order to show that mankind could furnish an energetic mind with the material for the realization of every extravagance. Women served the Spartans only for the bearing of children, of young Spartans. If children could be brought into the world by a mill or some other kind of machine, the Spartans would have abolished women, and introduced in their place State child factories. According to the purely political or patriotic purpose, which called for merely warlike manhood and coarse republican insensibility, the women received a thoroughly masculine training, and in order to guard them against the danger of effeminating the men and of occupying them too much by their charms, they were trained after their marriage for the manufacture of wool, and treated like factory implements. Woman, as such, did not exist in Sparta; her femininity was rather a fault, and this fault was corrected through barbarity. Marriage proper was unknown to the Spartans. The men could visit the women only for afew minutes; the object was merely to beget children. Weak or old men, by virtue of their right of control over their wives, brought them good breeders, and if any one was especially pleased with a woman he would ask, not her, but her husband, for the permission to beget a "noble child" with her — all this was done for State purposes, which had crowded out every other consideration, and would not allow the question of the existence of an independent inclination on the part of woman to be raised at all.

The Spartans furnish the classic example of that error which sacrifices to the enthusiasm for a political end, the end of all political endeavor, namely humanity, because they neglected to take human nature into their council. As long as the world stands women have been the victims of this error on the one side, and of Sultanic brutality on the other, and it is doubtful whether they have more reason to complain of the Sultans or of the Spartans.

The treatment of women took on a milder and more humane form with the more civilized and more æsthetical Athenians. But a real appreciation of woman was unknown even among that people who adored the ideal of the fair sex in the goddess of love, who had the most humane conception of love among all the nations, whose mythology developed into the most beautiful and most attractive romances of love, and who often depicted in their poetry the feminine excellences with the clearest perception. Also among the Athenians the State was in a certain sense the despot; the State which received especial weight by contrast with foreign foes, was the worldly deity to which everything was sacrificed except its priests, and these priests were, of course, the men, the women were the victims. The Athenians also regarded the State as an end, not as means to an end; they made it an object of religion rather than the mere framework of the body social. This State, this republic, was moreover continually called into question, now by native, now by foreign tyrants. But who was to save the State, in whose hands was placed its safety? In the hands of those whom nature had endowed with the requisite strength, the warlike passion. Who were they? The men! Consequently — women were less able, less privileged, less worthy than men. This sort of logic develops very naturally in practice, even if it is not expressly established, and the "right of the stronger" is the whole secret of it.

True enough, women who distinguished themselves by their intellect or virtue were highly respected. among the Athenians, and the appreciation of the most excellent of men was assured them, But the Aspasias were not numerous, even in Athens, and such exceptions as social life offered did not mitigate the unfavorable position in which the law and public opinion placed woman. Already the classification which was made of them (as partly also of men) can give an idea of how dependent and devoid of rights they were. They consisted, as we know, of three classes, the slaves, the freed women (out of which class the courtesans generally were recruited), and the free born Athenian ladies. It is self-evident that the first two classes occupied a subordinate position also with regard to the last class. But with regard to the men even these free born ladies were semi-slaves. The laws of Solon furnish the best estimate of their position. They acknowledge neither any right nor any inclination on the part of the woman. Fathers, brothers, and guardians could promise their daughters, sisters, and wards to whom they pleased. The relatives of rich heiresses had a legal right to ask them in marriage, in order that the riches might remain in the family. If a man died childless, his nearest relatives were entitled to his property. Women, daughters and sisters, who were discovered in a dishonorable act, could be sold as slaves by their fathers and brothers. Irregularities on the part of men were, by the way, not considered as adultery. Solon says: "Take a single legitimate, free born daughter for your wife, in order to beget children." With this he exhausted his whole conception of marriage and conjugal morality. He might have said: "According to our laws and ideas, the begetting of legitimate children is limited to the marriage relation between the man and the free born woman; aside from this, however, the man can keep as many concubines as he likes. But the woman would have to pay for any outside love affair with her liberty or her life."

It was also customary for a time, among the Athenians, to lend their wives. Thus even Socrates is said to have lent his Xantippe to Alkibiades, for which, indeed, according to the reports that are current about this lady, he may not have had need of great self-denial.

These, with regard to women, truly barbaric Solonic laws originated for the most part in patri conceptions. According to these, among other things, marriages were allowed inside the family, in case they were sanctioned or ordered by the patriarch; and the power of the head of the family was so great that the father could decide over the life or death of his new-born children, or could deprive them completely of all family rights.

It is of interest to take note here of the view the Greek writers held of women and their position, as well as of marriage. I will, therefore, interpose a few significant passages, not indeed from the poets, but from political and_ philosophical prose writers.

Demosthenes says very briefly and with a true Solonic spirit: "The married woman is an instrument for the procreation of legitimate children and the management of the household." The cynical, statesmanlike disdain to which the greatest orator gives utterance in these words throws a very clear light on the then existing conceptions of the rights and dignity of woman. Demosthenes stands on a level with Diogenes, who called woman a necessary evil.

Thucydides is of the opinion that "those wives deserve the highest praise of whom neither good nor bad is spoken outside of the house" — a domestic plant, so to speak, a vegetating stay-at-home, who will serve her husband as an instrument as well as possible, but is not to concern herself about anything else. This sentiment of Thucydides has often since been echoed, and those who did so have entirely overlooked that they repeated in one word a stupidity and a barbarity.

Xenophon thinks rather humanely of women, but still they appear to him as beings whom men, out of regard or pity, must take into their care. He thus expressed his opinion of their inferiority in his "Symposium": "Zeus has left the women whom he had loved behind him in the class of the mortals, but the men to whom he was devoted he exalted among the gods." Perhaps this proof admits of a refutation by the gallantry that it was no longer necessary to promote lovable women among the gods.

Aristoteles has a higher opinion of woman than Xenophon. He says among other things: "The ruling intelligence is to be attributed to man as the leader. All the other virtues are common to both sexes. Woman is subordinate to man, but still free, and the right to give good counsel (!) cannot be denied her. She furnishes the material which man utilizes."

"Woman is not at all to be regarded as a means for the furtherance of man's selfish ends."

"Husband and wife ought to work together for their support. They go hand in hand, they both accumulate property, their union rests on common benefits and pleasures."

Aristoteles demands that the husband should stake his possessions and his life in the defence of his wife, and should stand by her faithfully and firmly unto death. With regard to chastity he imposes the same obligation on the husband as on the wife.

Most of all, Plato occupied himself with woman. He brings forth much that is contradictory and extravagant. The most important of that which comes under consideration here is condensed in the following, which occasionally gives evidence of so coarse a conception of the sexual relations that it is hard to understand how the poetical Plato could have come by it.

According to him, man and woman share alike in the highest principle, reason, but the powers and capacities under the control of reason are physically as well as psychically weaker in woman, and she is therefore less able to approach perfection, which is the result of the harmony of all forces. (The logic of this proof can perhaps be made plain by the following example. The hawk and the dove are both equally intelligent, but the beak and the claws of the dove are much weaker than those of the hawk. It follows that the dove is less perfect as a dove than the hawk is as a hawk.) It is clear that Plato does not apply the human or feminine standard to the qualities of woman, but the masculine, a senseless presumption which even to-day inspires the judgment of most men. Plato's point of view is shown even still more plainly in the fancy (in the "Phædrus") that men who have led a dissolute life are changed into women after death — a poor compliment to the sex of whom Goethe says: "The eternal womanly draws us on."