But from the new Judaism the new Christianity may be pressing forth; mankind waits for the new founder of religion, and, as in the year one, the age presses for a decision. The decision must be made between Judaism and Christianity, between business and culture, between male and female, between the race and the individual, between unworthiness and worth, between the earthly and the higher life, between negation and the God-like. Mankind has the choice to make. There are only two poles, and there is no middle way.
CHAPTER XIV
WOMAN AND MANKIND
At last we are ready, clear-eyed and well armed, to deal with the question of the emancipation of women. Our eyes are clear, for we have freed them from the thronging specks of dubiety that had hitherto obscured the question, and we are armed with a well-founded grasp of theory, and a secure ethical basis. We are far from the maze in which this controversy usually lies, and our investigation has got beyond the mere statement of different natural capacity for men and women, to a point whence the part of women in the world-whole and the meaning of her relation to humanity can be estimated. I am not going to deal with any practical applications of my results; the latter are not nearly optimistic enough for me to hope that they could have any effect on the progress of political movements. I refrain from working out laws of social hygiene, and content myself with facing the problem from the standpoint of that conception of humanity which pervades the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.
This conception is in great danger from woman. Woman is able, in a quite extraordinary way, to produce the impression that she herself is really non-sexual, and that her sexuality is only a concession to man. But be that as it may, at the present time men have almost allowed themselves to be persuaded by woman that their strongest and most markedly characteristic desire lies in sexuality, that it is only through woman that they can hope to satisfy their truest and best ambitions, and that chastity is an unnatural and impossible state for them. How often it happens that young men who are wrapped up in their work are told by women to whom they appeal and who would prefer to have them paying them attention, or even as sons-in-law, that “they ought not to work too hard,” that they ought to “enjoy life.” At the bottom of this sort of advice there lies a feeling on the woman’s part, which is none the less real because it is unconscious, that her whole significance and existence depend on her mission as a procreating agent, and that she goes to the wall if man is allowed to occupy himself altogether with other than sexual matters.
That women will ever change in this respect is doubtful. There is nothing to show that she ever was different. It may be that to-day the physical side of the question is more to the fore than formerly, since a great deal of the “woman movement” of the times is merely a desire to be “free,” to shake off the trammels of motherhood; as a whole the practical results show that it is revolt from motherhood towards prostitution, a prostitute emancipation rather than the emancipation of woman that is aimed at: a bold bid for the success of the courtesan. The only real change is man’s behaviour towards the movement. Under the influence of modern Judaism, men seem inclined to accept woman’s estimate of them and to bow before it.
Masculine chastity is laughed at, and the feeling that woman is the evil influence in man’s life is no longer understood, and men are not ashamed of their own lust.
It is now apparent from where this demand for “seeing life,” the Dionysian view of the music-hall, the cult of Goethe in so far as he follows Ovid, and this quite modern “coitus-cult” comes. There is no doubt that the movement is so widespread that very few men have the courage to acknowledge their chastity, preferring to pretend that they are regular Don Juans. Sexual excess is held to be the most desirable characteristic of a man of the world, and sexuality has attained such pre-eminence that a man is doubted unless he can, as it were, show proofs of his prowess. Chastity, on the other hand, is so despised that many a really pure lad attempts to appear a blasé roué. It is even true that those who are modest are ashamed of the feeling; but there is another, the modern form of shame—not the eroticist’s shame, but the shame of the woman who has no lover, who has not received appraisement from the opposite sex. Hence it comes that men make it their business to tell each other what a right and proper pleasure they take in “doing their duty” by the opposite sex. And women are careful to let it be known that only what is “manly” in man can appeal to them: and man takes their measure of his manliness and makes it his own. Man’s qualifications as a male have, in fact, become identical with his value with women, in women’s eyes.
But God forbid that it should be so; that would mean that there are no longer any men.
Contrast with this the fact that the high value set on women’s virtue originated with man, and will always come from men worthy of the name; it is the projection of man’s own ideal of spotless purity on the object of his love.
But there should be no mistaking this true chastity for the shivering and shaking before contact, which is soon changed for delighted acquiescence, nor for the hysterical suppression of sexual desires. The outward endeavour to correspond to man’s demand for physical purity must not be taken for anything but a fear lest the buyer will fight shy of the bargain; least of all the care which women so often take to choose only the man who can give them most value must not deceive any one (it has been called the “high value” or “self-respect” a girl has for herself)! If one remembers the view women take of virginity, there can be very little doubt that woman’s one end is the bringing about of universal pairing as the only means by which they acquire a real existence; that women desire pairing, and nothing else, even if they personally appear to be as uninterested as possible in sensual matters. All this can be fully proved from the generality of the match-making instinct.
In order to be fully persuaded of this, woman’s attitude towards the virginity of those of her own sex must be considered.
It is certain that women have a very low opinion of the unmarried. It is, in fact, the one female condition which has a negative value for woman. Women only respect a woman when she is married; even if she is unhappily married to a hideous, weak, poor, common, tyrannical, “impossible” man, she is, nevertheless, married, has received value, existence. Even if a woman has had a short experience of the freedom of a courtesan’s life, even if she has been on the streets, she still stands higher in a woman’s estimation than the old maid, who works and toils alone in her room, without ever having known lawful or unlawful union with a man, the enduring or fleeting ecstasy of love.
Even a young and beautiful girl is never valued by a woman for her attractions as such (the sense of the beautiful is wanting in woman since they have no standard in themselves to measure it by), but merely because she has more prospect of enslaving a man. The more beautiful a young girl is, the more promising she appears to other women, the greater her value to woman as the match-maker in her mission as guardian of the race; it is only this unconscious feeling which makes it possible for a woman to take pleasure in the beauty of a young girl. It goes without saying that this can only happen when the woman in question has already achieved her own end (because, otherwise, envy of a contemporary, and the fear of having her own chances jeopardised by others, would overcome other considerations). She must first of all attain her own union, and then she is ready to help others.
Women are altogether to blame for the unpleasant associations which are so unfortunately connected with “old maids.” One often hears men talking respectfully of an elderly woman; but every woman and girl, whether married or single, has nothing but contempt for such a one, even when, as is often the case, they are unconscious that it is so with them. I once heard a married woman, whose talents and beauty put jealousy quite out of the question, making fun of her plain and elderly Italian governess for repeatedly saying that: “Io sono ancora una virgine” (that she was still
