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16. WHAT IS EXPECTED FROM THE EQUALITY OF THE SEXES, AND WHAT WILL RESULT THEREFROM

IN almost all parts of the civilised world society is now in the phase of transition from the dominance of men to equality of the sexes. Of vital interest, therefore, is the question, what changes are likely to ensue when women acquire equal rights with men.

First of all let us consider the fears and the hopes that are entertained in connexion with the effects the acquisition of equal rights is expected to have upon women. In accordance with their personal attitude towards what is spoken of as the woman's question, some dread the destruction of feminine peculiarities, whilst others hope for a fuller unfolding of these. Both expectations will be fulfilled, although not in the precise way that is anticipated. Feminine peculiarities will vanish in so far as they are products of the Men's State. But inborn feminine peculiarities will undergo a richer development.

What we speak of to-day as feminine peculiarities are the specific peculiarities of women in the Men's State. Were men and women as different in their inborn aptitudes as is to-day generally assumed, there would be much less variation both in feminine characteristics and in masculine according as one sex or the other is dominant. The characteristics of women would be almost the same under both types of sexual

dominance, and there would be little or no difference in the ideal of manliness as between the Men's State and the Women's State. But our study of the history of mankind—a brief history, extending only through a few millenniums—has shown that what are termed sexual peculiarities vary according to the nature of sexual dominance. It follows that we must regard monosexual dominance as the decisive factor in the formation of the masculine and feminine peculiarities that are apparent in any epoch. The recognition of this fact undermines the foundation of most of the contemporary comparative psychology of the sexes.

The mere fact that the members of the respective sexes exhibit almost identical peculiarities as dominants or as subordinates, shows that there must be a very close similarity in the inborn psychical aptitudes of men and women. Seeing that masculine peculiarities where men rule resemble very closely feminine peculiarities where women rule, we may infer that the same great impulses are operative in the mentality of both sexes. The psychical trends that appear both in men and in women when one sex dominates the other, are universally human, and not specifically masculine or feminine.

Alike under masculine and under feminine dominance we have seen that there are two tendencies moulding the sexual types both physically and mentally. In the first place there is a tendency towards the artificial widening of the divergency between the sexes by the utmost possible stressing and encouragement of the differences between them. Secondly there is a tendency to promote a similarity of type within each of the respective sexes. In every possible way men are stand-

ardised in accordance with the accepted masculine model, and women are moulded to conform with the prevailing canons of femininity.[1] From childhood onwards, both sexes are continuously being adjusted to the accepted sexual standards. Apart from the deliberate educational influences that work in this direction, we have seen that the sexual division of labour varies according as men or women rule. This involves the working of occupational influences which tend to accentuate what are regarded as a "masculine" and a "feminine" stamp.

All these influences combine to favour the development of different capacities in the two sexes. The result is that such primary sexual aptitudes as may exist do not secure expression in accordance with their intrinsic strength, for they are modified by the need for adaptation to the masculine or feminine norms prescribed by the prevalent type of monosexual dominance. A good many years ago this became plain to the insight of Havelock Ellis, among others. Ellis wrote: "By showing us that under varying conditions men and women are, within certain limits, indefinitely modifiable, a precise knowledge of the life of men and women forbids us to dogmatise rigidly concerning the respective spheres of men and women" [quoted from the 5th edition of Man and Woman, p. 513]. W. Stern has given a general demonstration of the possibility of modifying inborn psychical aptitudes. Thus what manifests itself as a sexual difference is not wholly the outcome of congenital peculiarities, but is in part the expression of a compulsory adaptation brought about

[1] The authors believe themselves to have been the first to formulate these two laws, which are of the utmost importance in the study of the comparative psychology of the sexes. They will be fully considered in a subsequent work.

by the moulding of the natural aptitudes in accordance with the demands of the extant monosexual dominance. Thus the general tendency of monosexual dominance is to repress individual peculiarities in order to form two artificially divergent sexual types. The correlate of what is called sexual differentiation is a stereotyping of individuality.

Another point worth alluding to is that the extent of sexual differentiation has hitherto been believed to be determined by the level of civilisation. Fehlinger[2] adduces in proof of such a contention the fact that in the days of Tacitus the Teutons were but little differentiated in matters of sex, whereas there was a high degree of differentiation in this respect among oriental nations. We have learned, however, in this book that the degree of differentiation between the sexes is quite independent of the level of civilisation, and that it is exclusively determined by the relationships of power between the sexes. Under monosexual dominance, sexual differentiation is at its height; where equality of rights prevails, there is a minimum of sexual differentiation. In the Germany of Tacitus' days, the rights of the sexes were fairly equal, whereas among the orientals the dominance of men was in force.

We are therefore entitled to expect of the establishment of equal rights for the sexes that it will involve a slow but sure disappearance of the artificial sexual differentiation that has been induced by monosexual dominance, and that it will provide fuller opportunities for the development of individual peculiarities—including sexual peculiarities in so far as these are inborn. Liepmann, the well-known gynecologist, has shown that until quite recently, owing to the constrict-

[2] "Archiv für Frauenkunde," 1918.

ing character of women's clothing, it was hardly possible to find a woman with normal bodily development. This observation is equally applicable to women's minds. Feminine peculiarities in the Men's State are just as obviously malformations of the feminine psyche, as the figure produced by wearing a constricting corset is a caricature of the feminine body. New generations of women will arise, women who will not have developed under the conditions that prevail where men hold sway, but under those that will prevail when the sexes have equal rights. The more freely women are able to develop, the more will natural qualities preponderate in place of the artificial peculiarities fostered by monosexual dominance. To this extent, therefore, those are right who expect, in the new order, a fuller evolution of feminine peculiarities. But these will not be the peculiarities known to us to-day; they will be genuinely inborn.

The liberation of women will signify liberation for men also, an enfranchisement from the slavery of the prescribed sexual ideal of "manliness." The general accusation against the dominance of men has been that it did violence to women and involved the martyrdom of the female sex. People have been prone to overlook that concurrently an ideal was forcibly imposed upon the masculine nature, that violence was done to the individuality of men, and that their freedom of development was restricted. Enfantin is quite wrong in maintaining that "the brutal rule of males has led to an exaggeration of masculine individualism." Monosexual dominance subordinates individual development to sexual development; and the latter development is not free, but has to follow the lines imposed by the prevailing type of dominance. Shelley saw to the root

of the matter when he exclaimed: "Can man he free if woman be a slave?"[3]

Men have often been blamed for oppressing women. But we have to remember the truth embodied in the following passage from Rosa Mayreder:[4] "The female protagonists of the woman's movement are too apt to rail against men without qualification, forgetting what they owe to the kindness, the magnanimity, and the justice of individual men. If these individual men have found it impossible to make their own personal attitude towards women prevail throughout the social order, it was because they could not make headway against the majority, any more than this has been possible for those exceptional women who excelled the average of their sex." During the days when monosexual dominance attains its apogee, neither men nor women can prevail against the majority. When men hold sway, the mass of males perforce follow the laws of their own dominance just as blindly as the mass of females accept the laws of their own subordination. The result is as unhappy for men as for women. The ties between the sexes are so intimate that neither sex in the mass can repine or rejoice alone. The unhappiness, the martyrdom, of one sex casts its shadow upon the other and is a hindrance to the latter's joy. From one point of view it is an advantage for women as compared with the working class, that the martyrdom of women entails the martyrdom of men, whereas the capitalists are not necessarily involved in the miseries of the workers.

Equality of rights will bring the golden age of the highest possible development of individuality and the

[3] Laon and Cythna, canto ii, stanza 43, line I.

[4] Op. Cit., p. 211.

highest attainable sexual happiness. It will bridge the gulf which monosexual dominance opens between the sexes, the gulf across which spiritual and sexual harmony can to-day so rarely be established.

The epoch of the transition from monosexual dominance to equality is, ostensibly at least, the period when the struggle between the sexes is most intense. The fight to maintain traditions that are hallowed by ancient custom is natural enough, but in the end proves futile. Evolution marches inexorably over all the traditions in its path, be they never so venerable. That path is strewn with the ruins of scientific errors and false popular beliefs which are apt to seem quaint to a later age. We may instance two assertions dating from the eighteen-eighties. Scherr[5] ' wrote: "As for the craze of women becoming students, a craze imported from America and Russia, we can safely allow it to burn itself out. It is simply a fashion in the moral (or immoral) sphere, just as the wearing of chignons is a fashion in the physical sphere." E. Reich[6] wrote: "The butter falls off the bread and belief in beauty is destroyed when female students imperil the streets of our university towns."

Many other hopes and fears have arisen in connexion with the movement towards equal rights for the sexes. On the one hand people have dreaded that family life will be broken up or at any rate injured, that sexual morality will decay,[7] and that births will be greatly restricted. There are not a few persons who will still

[5] Geschichte der deutschen Frauen, p. 308.

[6] Die Emanzipation der Frauen.—This work contains abundant material similar to that quoted in the text.

[7] Kisch, in his work Die sexuelle Untreue der Frau, writes: "The emancipation of women involves great dangers for the maintenance of conjugal fidelity by the wife."

be found to share Proudhon's[8] alarms: "Whither will the emancipation of women inevitably lead? To the dissolution of marriage, the break-up of family life, free love, promiscuity—in a word, to pornocracy. Were the equality of the sexes to be realised, society would rest rather upon the foundation of love than of justice." On the other hand, hopes have been entertained that the liberation of women from male oppression, in conjunction with the full development of women's peculiarities, will lead to the enrichment of culture, to the improvement of social customs, and to the increase of altruism and social helpfulness, so that society will receive the impress of motherliness and womanly kindliness.

The outcome of our researches enables us to decide with a considerable degree of probability to what extent these hopes and fears will be realised. There is no serious reason to expect that family life will be profoundly disordered by the liberation of women; on the contrary, we may anticipate that it will attain a climax of intimacy and happiness. Among the Egyptians, and also among the Chamorros and the Cingalese, marriage and family life were notably tender and intimate. This suffices to suggest that the liberation of women is unlikely to have an injurious influence upon family life. We may suppose, rather, that the influence upon family life will be in the direction of its perfectionment.

The dread of a decline in sexual morality is perhaps even more ill-founded. It is true that during the transition from monosexual dominance to equal rights, sexual morality will undergo a fundamental change; duplex sexual morality, with its differing standards for

[8] La pornocratic ou les femmes dans les temps modernes.

the two sexes, its favouring of the dominant sex and its disfavouring of the subordinate sex, will give place to a moral code which will be the same for both sexes alike. Such sexual freedom as is granted, will be granted both to men and to women; such restrictions as are imposed, will be equally imposed on the members of both sexes. We have already learned that it is impossible to decide to-day whether the trend of sexual morality when the rights of the sexes become equal will be towards polygamy or towards monogamy. The problem is rendered all the more obscure because the long-enduring war has had a shattering influence upon sexual morality quite independently of the relationships of power between the sexes. The authors incline to think that when the crisis in sexual morality issuing from this war has been overcome, the monogamic trend is likely to gain the upper hand. However this may be, the morality of sexual equality will betoken a higher stage of ethical development than the duplex sexual morality characteristic of monosexual dominance. Duplex sexual morality is an ethic of injustice, mendacity, and sexual degeneration, on the one hand, and an ethic of sexual atrophy or hypocrisy, on the other. Duplex morality is always immorality under the mask of morality. It pretends to be monogamy, while it really is polygamy. In truth monogamy, the highest and noblest form of sexual relationships, only becomes possible when the sexes have equal rights. The monogamy of monosexual dominance can never be anything more than a hollow mockery. The highest perfection of sexual morality will only be attained when the sexes have equal rights.

Even polygamy, as the sanctioned form of sexual relationships for both sexes, is more moral than the

duplex sexual morality which is in essentials nothing other than masked polygamy. Avowed polygamy is more moral because it is established upon truth instead of hypocrisy, upon justice instead of injustice. Sexual freedom for both sexes is a higher ethical form than sexual freedom for one sex and sexual bondage for the other. We must not imagine that sexual bondage is equivalent to sexual morality for the subject sex. The more conspicuous the contrast between the freedom of one sex and the thralldom of the other in sexual matters, the more profoundly immoral are both sexes. For instance, the more one-sided the way in which sexual freedom is a privilege of the male sex, the greater the danger that man's freedom will degenerate into libertinage, into immorality. But the more immoral man is, the weaker he becomes. "The libertine exercises himself in a practice whose peculiarity is this, that it can be more vigorously performed without any exercise at all" (Hippel). But sexual weakness in men inevitably leads to sexual immorality in women. "Is it not a shame that a young man should give the first draught of his love to a whore, and reserve only the dregs for an honest maiden? Have we the right to think ill of the latter when in her turn she is on the look-out for a fresh bottle?" And if she looks out for a fresh bottle, there is considerable risk that she may enter the pathways of the unnatural sexual life, may have recourse to self-gratification or to Lesbian love (Metschnikoff).

On the other hand those women who, where the duplex sexual morality of monosexual dominance prevails, preserve their own chastity, do little to raise the general level of sexual morality if their personal purity is all they care about, while ignoring the morality of

their sexual mate. This merely fosters duplex sexual morality. It follows that duplex sexual morality is the acme of immorality, inasmuch as its canon is the union of an impure man with a pure woman. Such a canon implies the most brutal of all conceivable profanations of the sanctuary of love. A sexual union between an immoral man and an immoral woman is far more moral than the union of impurity with purity. In the former case no harm is done to morality, but in the latter case morality is savagely violated. Purity is treated with contempt when it is not considered too good to sacrifice to a rake. Such purity is degraded to a slave's virtue.

To-day we are still too profoundly enmeshed in the ideology of duplex sexual morality to be able to detach the notion of morality from its one-sided application to the female sex. We thoughtlessly speak of a nation as highly moral if the purity of its women is conspicuous— at least in externals. Its men may be as immoral as you please in sexual matters, yet this does not disturb our general estimate of the nation's morality. But when the phase of equal rights for the sexes has been entered upon, new conceptions of morality will become established. The morality of men will be judged by the same standards as the morality of women.

The abolition of duplex sexual morality will be a most valuable and most wonderful achievement, and it is one which we are entitled to expect with confidence from the establishment of equal rights for the sexes. With the disappearance of the duplex code there will disappear the source of disharmonies between the sexes which menace with pain and unhappiness the joys of the most intimate union between man and woman. Furthermore, as the writers have repeatedly endeav-

oured to show elsewhere, the conditions of procreation will therewith be notably improved.

The abolition of prostitution will go hand in hand with the abolition of duplex sexual morality. We have learned that there is no prostitution under the dominance of women. Thus the liberation of women is accompanied by the development of a tendency to do away with prostitution. Herein likewise there is a great advance towards Morality. Even more important, however, may be considered the gain to the public health and the improvement in the quality of the offspring. Prostitution is one of the most destructive evils from which mankind suffers, one of the greatest hindrances to the advance of humanity.

Enfantin prophesied that a woman would free the world from the curse of prostitution.[9] He wrote: "We all hope that the future will bring a woman, the Messiah of her sex, who will free the world from prostitution as Jesus freed it from slavery. I regard myself as the precursor of this woman; I am to her what John the Baptist was to Jesus. This is for me the whole of life; this is the tie connecting all my doings and all my thoughts; my faith is centred upon women. God has sent me to summon woman to her liberation." Enfantin put his trust in the female Messiah who was to bring salvation from prostitution. Not in vain would he have grounded his hopes upon the female sex. For it will not be one woman who will deliver mankind from prostitution; the deliverance will come from the female sex as a whole, the sex which, on its way towards equal rights, will take up the struggle against prostitution.

[9] Quoted by Reinhold Jaeckel, Die Stellung des Sozialismus zur Frauenfrage im 19ten Jahrhundert.

Only the female sex will be able, through the establishment of equal rights or of feminine dominance, to do away with prostitution. The example of the State of Wyoming shows that equality of rights suffices. Wyoming was the first American State to proclaim the equality of the sexes. In this State to-day, though nothing like a century has passed since women began to participate in dominion, prostitution no longer exists. Quite recently in Germany, Marie Elisabeth Laders has adjured women, in connexion with the impending reform of the criminal code, to concentrate their attention upon the abolition of what is termed "professional unchastity." If the co-regency of women were to do nothing more than effect the eradication of this sexual plague, its inauguration would have been sufficiently justified.

Those whose views concerning men and women are the reflection of existing institutions, may readily incline to believe that ethical motives determine the hostility of the sexually healthy and free woman towards prostitution. There is no ground for such an opinion. As far as any inborn moral excellence is concerned, woman is no more competent than man to fight against prostitution. We showed in an earlier chapter that the dominance of women, no less than the dominance of men, has a tendency to originate prostitution. Under monosexual dominance, the tendency is always towards the establishment of a class of prostitutes belonging to the subordinate sex. Where duplex sexual morality prevails, the general trend under masculine dominance is towards the establishment of female prostitution, and under feminine dominance towards the establishment of male prostitution. Simultaneously, the dominant sex carries on a campaign against the prostitution

of its own members. The natural instinct of women makes them endeavour to Protect men in sexual matters. Above all they do their utmost to safeguard young men from sexual dangers. Consequently women, when their liberation takes place and when their natural inclinations have free play, attack the prostitution of the Men's State, the prostitution of women, which is a danger to masculine morality. By natural inclination, women will be less hostile to male prostitution. But only the former of these two trends lies within the realm of physiological possibilities. The prostitution of women can be eradicated; but the prostitution of men cannot be established, owing to the inadequate sexual potency of men. As women win to equal rights, therefore, prostitution will completely disappear, because the equal but opposite tendencies of the two sexes will counterbalance one another.

Here is an additional reason for the belief that it is not a loftier morality that makes women hostile to prostitution. The free woman is not content with attacking prostitution, which she regards as a focus of immorality; with no less vigour she conducts an onslaught on institutions which in the Men's State are esteemed highly moral. The most notable instances of this are the endeavour to remove the disabilities which in the Men's State are imposed upon illegitimate children, and the movement to demand the right to procure abortion. We know that both these movements take effect where free women are dominant. There are no historical data to show how far the two trends are fulfilled where the sexes have equal rights. We know that under the dominance of men disabilities are imposed on illegitimate children, and that the right to procure abortion is denied. There may be a doubt,

therefore, whether, when the sexes have equal rights, illegitimate children will secure equality of position with legitimate children, and whether the right to procure abortion will be conceded.

There is, however, a psychological factor at work, one which may lead us to expect that both these demands of free women will be granted when equality of rights is established. Equality of rights implies equal justice for men and for women; it implies that neither favour nor disfavour shall be shown to the members of either sex. Now there can be no doubt that women are unfairly treated as compared with men when the illegitimate child and its mother are allotted an inferior position, and when the right to procure abortion is refused. Havelock Ellis says with perfect truth that so long as motherhood can be treated as a crime it is impossible to contend that women have won to their due place in social life. We may presume, therefore, that equality of rights, doing away with the injustice of treating the members of one sex differently from those of another, will necessarily involve the redress of both the before-mentioned grievances.

As regards the fear that the liberation of women will result in an undue curtailment of offspring, reference has already been made to the experience of the ancient Egyptians as an indication to the contrary. The number of the offspring is determined by very different factors than the relationships of power between the sexes. We have seen, however, that enormous eugenic advantages are to be expected from the establishment of equal rights. In this connexion, in addition to the advantages which will result from the abolition of duplex sexual morality and from doing away with prostitution, we have to think of the benefit

that will accrue from the change in the age ratio in marriage that will ensue upon the establishment of equal rights. Under masculine dominance, men marry too late and women too early. As we have shown in various writings, both these factors tend to lower the quality of the offspring. Under equality of sexual rights there will be an equalisation of the age at which men and women mate and reproduce their kind. There will be a great increase in the number of married couples in which the partners are of approximately the same age. A notable improvement in the quality of the offspring will ensue. In addition we have to remember that the equalisation of age in marriage will promote both physiological harmony and spiritual understanding. We may look therefore, not only for eugenic advantages to the offspring, but also for a considerable enhancement of happiness in married life.

Furthermore, equality of rights will encourage the development of the paternal sentiment. The epigram of Franz Servaes, "Fatherhood is no less holy and natural than motherhood," will attain the dignity of a general moral rule.

Equality of rights will bring about far-reaching changes in public life. Where monosexual dominance prevails, whether masculine or feminine, society invariably has a subjective monosexual orientation, and might masters right. Under equality for the sexes, one of the most notable characteristics of monosexual dominance, the adoption of different criteria for the two sexes, will have vanished. Thus will be rendered possible the realisation of the supreme ideal that might and right shall be one. Where the sexes are equal, Pascal's saying will be fulfilled that justice will be power and power justice. Proudhon held that sexual

equality would undermine the universal principle of justice, the very foundation of society. We shall find the precise opposite of this to be true. Monosexual dominance is indissolubly associated with the tendency to injustice. Equality of rights for the sexes, on the other hand, is the embodiment of the principle of justice.