Woman and Socialism
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Title: Woman and Socialism
Author: August Bebel
Translator: Meta Stern Lilienthal
Release date: October 30, 2014 [eBook #47244]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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[Transcriber’s Notes:
This e-text is a translation of August Bebel’s “Die Frau und der
Sozialismus”.
Table column headings that have been supplied by the transcriber
are enclosed in [square brackets].
Bold text is denoted by ~tilde~, italic text by _underscores_, and
gesperrt (spaced-out text) by #pound signs#.]
WOMAN AND SOCIALISM
BY
AUGUST BEBEL
Jubilee [Decor: 50th] Edition
AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION BY
META L. STERN (HEBE)
SOCIALIST LITERATURE CO.
15 Spruce Street, New York
1910
Copyright, 1910
by the
SOCIALIST LITERATURE COMPANY
New York
[Printer’s Logo]
The Co-Operative Press, 15 Spruce St., New York
CONTENTS
Page
Introduction 3
WOMAN IN THE PAST.
Chapter I.--_The Position of Woman in Primeval Society_ 9
1. Chief Epochs of Primeval History 9
2. Family Forms 14
3. The Matriarchate 20
Chapter II.--_Conflict between Matriarchate and
Patriarchate_ 28
1. Rise of the Patriarchate 28
2. Traces of the Matriarchate in Greek Myths and
Dramas 34
3. Legitimate Wives and Courtesans in Athens 37
4. Remnants of the Matriarchate in the Customs of
Various Nations 44
5. Rise of the State--Dissolution of the Gens in Rome 50
Chapter III.--_Christianity_ 56
Chapter IV.--_Woman in the Mediaeval Age_ 63
1. The Position of Women among the Germans 63
2. Feudalism and the Right of the First Night 66
3. The Rise of Cities--Monastic Affairs--Prostitution 69
4. Knighthood and the Veneration of Women 75
Chapter V.--_The Reformation_ 78
1. Luther 78
2. Results of the Reformation--The Thirty Years’ War 83
Chapter VI.--_The Eighteenth Century_ 88
1. Court Life in Germany 88
2. Commercialism and the New Marriage Laws 90
3. The French Revolution and the Rise of Industry 93
WOMAN AT THE PRESENT DAY.
Chapter VII.--_Woman as a Sex Being_ 96
1. The Sexual Impulse 96
2. Celibacy and the Frequency of Suicide 100
Chapter VIII.--_Modern Marriage_ 104
1. Marriage as a Profession 104
2. Decline of the Birthrate 106
3. Mercenary Marriage and the Matrimonial Market 110
Chapter IX.--_Disruption of the Family_ 116
1. Increase of Divorce 116
2. Bourgeois and Proletarian Marriage 124
Chapter X.--_Marriage as a Means of Support_ 132
1. Decline of the Marriage Rate 132
2. Infanticide and Abortion 135
3. Education for Marriage 140
4. The Misery of Present Day Marriages 147
Chapter XI.--_The Chances of Matrimony_ 153
1. The Numerical Proportion of the Sexes 153
2. Obstacles to Marriage--The Excess of Women 164
Chapter XII.--_Prostitution a Necessary Social Institution
of Bourgeois Society_ 174
1. Prostitution and Society 174
2. Prostitution and the State 178
3. The White Slave Trade 188
4. The Increase of Prostitution--Illegitimate
Motherhood 193
5. Crimes Against Morality and Sexual Diseases 204
Chapter XIII.--_Woman in Industry_ 209
1. Development and Extension of Female Labor 209
2. Factory Work of Married Women--Sweatshop Labor and
Dangerous Occupations 222
Chapter XIV.--_The Struggle of Women for Education_ 233
1. The Revolution in Domestic Life 233
2. The Intellectual Abilities of Women 239
3. Differences in Physical and Mental Qualities of Man
and Woman 245
4. Darwinism and the Condition of Society 253
5. Woman and the Learned Professions 258
Chapter XV.--_The Legal Status of Women_ 272
1. The Struggle for Equality Before the Law 272
2. The Struggle for Political Equality 280
THE STATE AND SOCIETY.
Chapter XVI.--_The Class-State and the Modern Proletariat_ 307
1. Our Public Life 307
2. Aggravation of Social Extremes 315
Chapter XVII.--_The Process of Concentration in
Capitalistic Industry_ 319
1. The Displacement of Agriculture by Industry 319
2. Increasing Pauperization--Preponderance of Large
Industrial Establishments 323
3. Concentration of Wealth 333
Chapter XVIII.--_Crisis and Competition_ 338
1. Causes and Effects of the Crises 338
2. Intermediate Trade and the Increased Cost of Living 343
Chapter XIX.--_The Revolution in Agriculture_ 347
1. Transatlantic Competition and Desertion of the
Country 347
2. Peasants and Great Landowners 349
3. The Contrast Between City and Country 358
THE SOCIALIZATION OF SOCIETY.
Chapter XX.--_The Social Revolution_ 363
1. The Transformation of Society 363
2. Expropriation of the Expropriators 366
Chapter XXI.--_Fundamental Laws of Socialistic Society_ 370
1. Duty to Work of All Able-bodied Persons 370
2. Harmony of Interests 375
3. Organization of Labor 380
4. The Growth of the Productivity of Labor 383
5. Removal of the Contrast between Mental and Manual
Work 392
6. Increase of Consumption 396
7. Equal Duty to Work for All 399
8. Abolition of Trade--Transformation of Traffic 405
Chapter XXII.--_Socialism and Agriculture_ 407
1. Abolition of the Private Ownership of Land 407
2. The Amelioration of Land 409
3. Changed Methods of Farming 414
4. Agriculture on a Large and Small Scale--Electric
Appliances 415
5. Vine-Culture of the Future 424
6. Measures to Prevent Exhaustion of the Soil 427
7. Removal of the Contrast between City and Country 431
Chapter XXIII.--_Abolition of the State_ 434
Chapter XXIV.--_The Future of Religion_ 437
Chapter XXV.--_The Socialist System of Education_ 440
Chapter XXVI.--_Literature and Art in Socialistic Society_ 451
Chapter XXVII.--_Free Development of Individuality_ 455
1. Freedom from Care 455
2. Changes in the Methods of Nutrition 457
3. The Communistic Kitchen 461
4. Transformation of Domestic Life 463
Chapter XXVIII.--_Woman in the Future_ 466
Chapter XXIX.--_Internationality_ 473
Chapter XXX.--_The Question of Population and Socialism_ 478
1. Fear of Over-Population 478
2. Production of Over-Population 481
3. Poverty and Fecundity 484
4. Lack of Human Beings and Abundance of Food 487
5. Social Conditions and Reproductive Ability 494
Conclusion 500
Introduction.
We are living in an age of great social transformations that are
steadily progressing. In all strata of society we perceive an
unsettled state of mind and an increasing restlessness, denoting a
marked tendency toward profound and radical changes. Many questions
have arisen and are being discussed with growing interest in ever
widening circles. One of the most important of these questions and
one that is constantly coming into greater prominence, is the _woman
question_.
The woman question deals with the position that woman should hold in
our social organism, and seeks to determine how she can best develop
her powers and her abilities, in order to become a useful member
of human society, endowed with equal rights and serving society
according to her best capacity. From our point of view this question
coincides with that other question: In what manner should society
be organized to abolish oppression, exploitation, misery and need,
and to bring about the physical and mental welfare of individuals
and of society as a whole? To us then, the woman question is only
one phase of the general social question that at present occupies
all intelligent minds; its final solution can only be attained by
removing social extremes and the evils which are a result of such
extremes.
Nevertheless, the woman question demands our special consideration.
What the position of woman has been in ancient society, what her
position is to-day and what it will be in the coming social order,
are questions that deeply concern at least one half of humanity.
Indeed, in Europe they concern a majority of organized society,
because women constitute a majority of the population. Moreover,
the prevailing conceptions concerning the development of woman’s
social position during successive stages of history are so faulty,
that enlightenment on this subject has become a necessity. Ignorance
concerning the position of woman, chiefly accounts for the prejudice
that the woman’s movement has to contend with among all classes of
people, by no means least among the women themselves. Many even
venture to assert that there is no woman question at all, since
woman’s position has always been the same and will remain the same
in the future, because nature has destined her to be a wife and a
mother and to confine her activities to the home. Everything that is
beyond the four narrow walls of her home and is not closely connected
with her domestic duties, is not supposed to concern her.
In the woman question then we find two contending parties, just as in
the labor question, which relates to the position of the workingman
in human society. Those who wish to maintain everything as it is,
are quick to relegate woman to her so-called “natural profession,”
believing that they have thereby settled the whole matter. They do
not recognize that millions of women are not placed in a position
enabling them to fulfill their natural function of wifehood and
motherhood, owing to reasons that we shall discuss at length later
on. They furthermore do not recognize that to millions of other women
their “natural profession” is a failure, because to them marriage has
become a yoke and a condition of slavery, and they are obliged to
drag on their lives in misery and despair. But these wiseacres are no
more concerned by these facts than by the fact that in various trades
and professions millions of women are exploited far beyond their
strength, and must slave away their lives for a meagre subsistence.
They remain deaf and blind to these disagreeable truths, as they remain
deaf and blind to the misery of the proletariat, consoling themselves
and others by the false assertion that it has always been thus and
will always continue to be so. That woman is entitled, as well as
man, to enjoy all the achievements of civilization, to lighten her
burdens, to improve her condition, and to develop all her physical
and mental qualities, they refuse to admit. When, furthermore, told
that woman--to enjoy full physical and mental freedom--should also
be economically independent, should no longer depend for subsistence
upon the good will and favor of the other sex, the limit of their
patience will be reached. Indignantly they will pour forth a bitter
endictment of the “madness of the age” and its “crazy attempts at
emancipation.” These are the old ladies of both sexes who cannot
overcome the narrow circle of their prejudices. They are the human
owls that dwell wherever darkness prevails, and cry out in terror
whenever a ray of light is cast into their agreeable gloom.
Others do not remain quite as blind to the eloquent facts. They
confess that at no time woman’s position has been so unsatisfactory
in comparison to general social progress, as it is at present. They
recognize that it is necessary to investigate how the condition of
the self-supporting woman can be improved; but in the case of married
women they believe the social problem to be solved. They favor the
admission of unmarried women only into a limited number of trades
and professions. Others again are more advanced and insist that
competition between the sexes should not be limited to the inferior
trades and professions, but should be extended to all higher branches
of learning and the arts and sciences as well. They demand equal
educational opportunities and that women should be admitted to all
institutions of learning, including the universities. They also
favor the appointment of women to government positions, pointing out
the results already achieved by women in such positions, especially
in the United States. A few are even coming forward to demand equal
political rights for women. Woman, they argue, is a human being and
a member of organized society as well as man, and the very fact that
men have until now framed and administered the laws to suit their
own purposes and to hold woman in subjugation, proves the necessity
of woman’s participation in public affairs.
It is noteworthy that all these various endeavors do not go beyond
the scope of the present social order. The question is not propounded
whether any of these proposed reforms will accomplish a decisive and
essential improvement in the condition of women. According to the
conceptions of bourgeois, or capitalistic society, the civic equality
of men and women is deemed an ultimate solution of the woman question.
People are either unconscious of the fact, or deceive themselves in
regard to it, that the admission of women to trades and industries
is already practically accomplished and is being strongly favored
by the ruling classes in their own interest. But under prevailing
conditions woman’s invasion of industry has the detrimental effect
of increasing competition on the labor market, and the result is a
reduction in wages for both male and female workers. It is clear
then, that this cannot be a satisfactory solution.
Men who favor these endeavors of women within the scope of present
society, as well as the bourgeois women who are active in the
movement, consider complete civic equality of women the ultimate
goal. These men and women then differ radically from those who, in
their narrow-mindedness, oppose the movement. They differ radically
from those men who are actuated by petty motives of selfishness
and fear of competition, and therefore try to prevent women from
obtaining higher education and from gaining admission to the better
paid professions. But there is no difference of class between them,
such as exists between the worker and the capitalist.
If the bourgeois suffragists would achieve their aim and would bring
about equal rights for men and women, they would still fail to
abolish that sex slavery which marriage, in its present form, is to
countless numbers of women; they would fail to abolish prostitution;
they would fail to abolish the economic dependence of wives. To the
great majority of women it also remains a matter of indifference
whether a few thousand members of their sex, belonging to the more
favored classes of society, obtain higher learning and enter some
learned profession, or hold a public office. The general condition
of the sex as a whole is not altered thereby.
The female sex as such has a double yoke to bear. Firstly, women
suffer as a result of their social dependence upon men, and the
inferior position alloted to them in society; formal equality before
the law alleviates this condition, but does not remedy it. Secondly,
women suffer as a result of their economic dependence, which is the
lot of women in general, and especially of the proletarian women,
as it is of the proletarian men.
We see, then, that all women, regardless of their social position,
represent that sex which during the evolution of society has been
oppressed and wronged by the other sex, and therefore it is to the
common interest of all women to remove their disabilities by changing
the laws and institutions of the present state and social order.
But a great majority of women is furthermore deeply and personally
concerned in a complete reorganization of the present state and social
order which has for its purpose the abolition of wage-slavery, which
at present weighs most heavily upon the women of the proletariat, as
also the abolition of sex-slavery, which is closely connected with
our industrial conditions and our system of private ownership.
The women who are active in the bourgeois suffrage movement, do not
recognize the necessity of so complete a transformation. Influenced
by their privileged social position, they consider the more radical
aims of the proletarian woman’s movement dangerous doctrines that
must be opposed. The class antagonism that exists between the
capitalist and working class and that is increasing with the growth
of industrial problems, also clearly manifests itself then within the
woman’s movement. Still these sister-women, though antagonistic to
each other on class lines, have a great many more points in common
than the men engaged in the class struggle, and though they march
in separate armies they may strike a united blow. This is true in
regard to all endeavors pertaining to equal rights of woman under
the present social order; that is, her right to enter any trade
or profession adapted to her strength and ability, and her right
to civic and political equality. These are, as we shall see, very
important and very far-reaching aims. Besides striving for these
aims, it is in the particular interest of proletarian women to work
hand in hand with proletarian men for such measures and institutions
that tend to protect the working woman from physical and mental
degeneration, and to preserve her health and strength for a normal
fulfillment of her maternal functions. Furthermore, it is the duty of
the proletarian woman to join the men of her class in the struggle
for a thorough-going transformation of society, to bring about an
order that by its social institutions will enable both sexes to
enjoy complete economic and intellectual independence.
Our goal then is, not only to achieve equality of men and women under
the present social order, which constitutes the sole aim of the
bourgeois woman’s movement, but to go far beyond this, and to remove
all barriers that make one human being dependent upon another, which
includes the dependence of one sex upon the other. _This_ solution
of the woman question is identical with the solution of the social
question. They who seek a complete solution of the woman question
must, therefore, join hands with those who have inscribed upon their
banner the solution of the social question in the interest of all
mankind--the Socialists.
The Socialist Party is the only one that has made the full equality of
women, their liberation from every form of dependence and oppression,
an integral part of its program; not for reasons of propaganda, but
from necessity. _For there can be no liberation of mankind without
social independence and equality of the sexes._
All Socialists will probably agree with the fundamental principles
herein expressed. But the same cannot be said in regard to the
manner in which we picture the realization of our ultimate aims,
that is, in regard to the particular form that institutions should
take to bring about that desired independence and equality for all.
As soon as we forsake the firm foundation of reality, and begin
to depict the future, there is a wide field for speculation. A
difference of opinion immediately arises as to what is probable or
improbable. Whatever, therefore, is stated in this book concerning
future probabilities, must be regarded as the personal opinion
of the author, and eventual attacks must be directed against his
person, because he assumes full responsibility for his statements.
Attacks, that are honestly meant and are objective in character,
will be welcome; those that distort the contents of this book or are
founded upon an untruthful interpretation of their meaning, will be
ignored. It remains to be said, that in the following chapters all
conclusions should be drawn which become necessary for us to draw,
as a result of our investigation of facts. To be unprejudiced is
the first requirement for a recognition of the truth, and only by
expressing without reserve that which is and that which is to be,
can we attain our ends.
Woman in the Past.
CHAPTER I.
The Position of Woman in Primeval Society.
1.--Chief Epochs of Primeval History.
It is the common lot of woman and worker to be oppressed. The forms
of oppression have differed in successive ages and in various
countries, but the oppression itself remained. During the course of
historic development the oppressed ones have frequently recognized
their oppression, and this recognition has led to an amelioration
of their condition; but it remained for our day to recognize the
fundamental causes of this oppression, both in regard to the woman
and in regard to the worker. It was necessary to understand the true
nature of society and the laws governing social evolution, before
an effective movement could develop for the purpose of abolishing
conditions that had come to be regarded as unjust. But the extent
and profoundness of such a movement depend upon the amount of
insight prevailing among those strata of society affected by the
unjust conditions, as also upon the freedom of action possessed by
them. In both respects woman, owing to custom, education and lack of
freedom, is less advanced than the worker. Moreover, conditions that
have prevailed for generations finally become a habit, and heredity
as well as education make them appear “natural” to both parties
concerned. That explains why women accept their inferior position
as a matter of course, and do not recognize that it is an unworthy
one, and that they should strive to obtain equal rights with men,
and to become equally qualified members of society.
But whatever similarities exist between the position of woman and
that of the workingman, woman has one precedence over the workingman.
~She is the first human being which came into servitude.~ Women
were slaves before men.
All social dependence and oppression is rooted in the economic
dependence of the oppressed upon the oppressor. Woman--so we are
taught by the history of human development--has been in this position
since an early stage.
Our understanding of this development is comparatively recent. Just
as the myth of the creation of the world, as taught by the Bible,
could not be maintained in face of innumerable and indisputable
facts founded upon modern, scientific investigation, it also became
impossible to maintain the myth of the creation and development of
man. Not all phases of the history of evolution have as yet been
elucidated. Difference of opinion still exists among scientists in
regard to one or another of the natural phenomena and their relation to
each other; but, on the whole, clearness and a general consension of
opinion prevails. It is certain that man has not made his appearance
upon the earth as a civilized being--as the Bible asserts of the
first human pair--but that in the long course of ages he gradually
evolved from a mere animal condition, and that he passed through
various stages during which his social relations as well as the
relations between man and woman experienced many transformations.
The convenient assertion that is resorted to daily by ignorant or
dishonest people, both in regard to the relation between man and
woman as also in regard to the relation between the rich and the
poor--the assertion that it has always been thus and will always
continue to be so--is utterly false, superficial and contrary to
the truth in every respect.
A cursory description of the relations of the sexes since primeval
days is of special importance for the purpose of this book. For it
seeks to prove that, if in the past progress of human development,
these relations have been transformed as a result of the changing
methods of production and distribution, it is obvious that a further
change in the methods of production and distribution must again
lead to a new transformation in the relation of the sexes. Nothing
is eternal, either in nature or in human life; change is the only
eternal factor.
As far as we can look backward along the line of human evolution,
we see the horde[1] representing the first human community. Only
when the horde increased in numbers to such an extent that it became
difficult to obtain the necessary means of subsistence, which
originally consisted of roots, seeds and fruit, a disbanding of the
members resulted, and new dwelling places were sought for.
We have no written records of this almost animal-like stage, but
studies of the various stages of civilization among extinct and
living savages prove that such a stage has at one time existed. Man
has not stepped into life as a highly civilized being, upon a command
from the Creator, but has passed through a long, infinitely slow
process of evolution, and in the ups and downs of wavering periods
of development, and in a constant process of differentiation, in all
climes and in all quarters of the globe, has passed through many
stages until finally climbing the height of his present civilization.
And while in some parts of the globe great nations represent the most
advanced stage of civilization, we find other peoples in various
places representing varied stages of development. These present to us
a vivid picture of our own past, and point out to us along which roads
humanity has traveled in its long course of evolution. If we shall
at some time succeed in establishing general and definite aspects
according to which sociological investigations shall be conducted,
an abundance of facts will result, destined to cast a new light upon
the relations of men in the past and the present. Events will then
seem comprehensible and natural, that at present are quite beyond
our comprehension, and that superficial critics frequently condemn
as irrational, sometimes even as immoral. Scientific researches,
commenced by Backofen, and since continued by a considerable number
of learned men as Taylor, MacLennon, Lubbock and others, have
gradually lifted the veil from the earliest history of our race.
These investigations were elaborated by Morgan’s able book, and to
this again Frederick Engels has added a number of historic facts,
economic and political in character. Recently these researches have
been partly confirmed and partly corrected by Cunow.[2]
The clear and vivid descriptions given by Frederick Engels in his
splendid work, that is founded upon Morgan’s investigations, have
cast a flood of light upon many factors in the histories of peoples
representing various stages of development; factors that until that
time had seemed irrational and incomprehensible. They have enabled
us to obtain an insight into the gradual upbuilding of the social
structure. As a result of such insight we perceive that our former
conceptions in regard to marriage, family and state, have been
founded upon utterly false premises. But whatever has been proven
concerning marriage, family and state, is equally true in regard
to the position of woman, which, in the various stages of social
development, has differed radically from what is supposed to be
woman’s “eternal” position.
Morgan divides the history of mankind--and this division is also
adopted by Engels--into three chief epochs: savagery, barbarism and
civilization. Each of the two earlier periods he subdivides into a
lower, a medium and a higher stage, because these stages differ in
regard to fundamental improvements in the method of obtaining the
means of subsistence. Those changes which occur from time to time
in the social systems of nations as a result of improved methods of
production, Morgan considers one of the chief characteristics in
the progress of civilization, which is quite in keeping with the
materialistic conception of history as laid down by Karl Marx and
Frederick Engels. Thus the lowest stage in the period of savagery
represents the childhood of mankind. During this stage men still
were tree-dwellers, and fruit and roots constituted their chief
nourishment; but even then articulated language began to take form.
The medium stage of savagery begins with the consumption of small
animals such as fish, crabs, etc., for food, and with the discovery
of fire. Men begin to manufacture weapons, clubs and spears made of
wood and stone, and this means the inception of the hunt and probably
also of war among neighboring hordes, who contended with one another
for the sources of nourishment and the most desirable dwelling places
and hunting grounds. At this stage also cannibalism appears, which is
still met with among some tribes in Africa, Australia and Polynesia.
The higher stage of savagery is characterized by the invention of
the bow and arrow; the invention of the art of weaving; the making
of mats and baskets from bast and reeds, and the manufacture of
stone implements.
As the beginning of the lowest stage of barbarism, Morgan denotes the
invention of pottery. Man learns the domestication of wild animals
with the resultant production of meat and milk, and thereby obtains
the use of hides, horns and furs for the most varied purposes. Hand
in hand with the domestication of animals, agriculture begins to
develop. In the western part of the world corn is cultivated; in the
eastern part, almost all kinds of grain, with the exception of corn,
is grown. During the medium stage of barbarism we find an increasing
domestication of useful animals in the East, and in the West we
find an improved cultivation of nourishing plants with the aid of
artificial irrigation. The use of stones and sun-dried bricks for
building purposes is also originated at this time. Domestication
and breeding favor the formation of herds and flocks and lead to a
pastoral life, and the necessity of producing larger quantities of
nourishment for both men and animals leads to increased agriculture.
The result is a more sedentary mode of life with an accompanying
increase in provisions and greater diversity of same, and gradually
cannibalism disappears.
The higher stage of barbarism has been reached with the smelting of
iron ore and the invention of alphabetical writing. The invention of
the iron plough gives a new impetus to agriculture; the iron axe and
spade and hoe make it easier to clear the forest and to cultivate the
soil. With the forging of iron a number of new activities set in,
giving life a different shape. Iron tools simplify the building of
houses, ships and wagons. The malleation of metals furthermore leads
to mechanical art, to an improvement in the manufacture of arms,
and to the building of walled cities. Architecture is developed,
and mythology, poetry and history are conserved and disseminated by
means of alphabetical writing.
The Oriental countries and those situated about the Mediterranean
Sea--Egypt, Greece and Italy--are the ones in which this mode of
life was especially developed, and here the foundation was laid to
later social transformations that have had a decisive influence upon
the development of civilization in Europe and, in fact, in all the
countries of the globe.
[1] “The theory of natural rights and the doctrine of the social
contract, which places an isolated human being at the beginnings of
human development, is an invention utterly foreign to reality, and is
therefore worthless for the theoretical analysis of human institutions
as it is for a knowledge of history. Man should, on the contrary,
be classed with gregarious animals; that is, with those species
whose individuals are combined into permanent groups.”--(Edw. Meyer:
“The Origin of the State, in Its Relation to Tribal and National
Association.” 1907.)
[2] Backofen’s book was published in 1861. It was entitled, “The
Matriarchate; Studies of the Gynocratic Customs of the Old World in
Their Religious and Legal Aspects.” Publishers, Krais & Hoffmann,
Stuttgart. Morgan’s fundamental work, “Ancient Society, or Researches
in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery Through Barbarism
to Civilization,” was published in 1877 by Henry Holt & Co. “The
Origin of the Family,” by Frederick Engels, founded upon Morgan’s
investigations, was published by J. H. W. Dietz, Stuttgart, as
was also “Relationship Organizations of the Australian Negro; a
Contribution to the History of the Family,” by Henry Cunow, which
appeared in 1894.
2.--Family Forms.
The periods of savagery and barbarism were characterized by singular
social and sex relations, that differ considerably from those of
later times.
Backofen and Morgan have thoroughly investigated these relations.
Backofen carried on his investigations by a profound study of ancient
writings, with the purpose of gaining an understanding of various
phenomena presented in mythology and ancient history, that impress
us strangely and yet show similarity with facts and occurrences of
later days, even down to the present time. Morgan carried on his
investigations by spending decades of his life among the Iroquois
Indians in the State of New York, whereby he made new and unexpected
observations of the modes of family life and system of relationship
prevailing among them, and these observations served as a basis to
place similar observations, made elsewhere, in the proper light.
Backofen and Morgan discovered, independently from one another, that
in primeval society the relations of the sexes differed vastly from
those prevalent during historic times and among modern, civilized
nations. Morgan discovered, furthermore, as a result of his long
sojourn among the Iroquois of North America, and his comparative
studies to which these observations led him, that all existing
primitive peoples have family relations and systems of relationship
that differ markedly from our own, but which must have prevailed
generally among all peoples at a remote period of civilization.
At the time when Morgan lived among the Iroquois, he found that among
them existed a monogamous marriage, easily dissolved by either side,
termed by him the “pairing family.” But he also found that the terms
of relationship as father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister,
although there could be no doubt in our minds as to whom such terms
should apply, were not used in their ordinary sense. The Iroquois
addresses as sons and daughters not only his own children, but also
those of all his brothers, and these--his brothers’ children--call
him father. On the other hand, the Iroquois woman does not only
call her own children sons and daughters, but also those of all
her sisters, and again all her sisters’ children call her mother.
But the children of her brothers she calls nephews and nieces, and
these call her aunt. Children of brothers call one another brothers
and sisters, and so do children of sisters. But the children of a
woman and her brother call each other cousins. The curious fact then
presents itself that the terms of relationship are not determined
by the actual degrees of relationship, but the sex of the relative.
This system of kinship is not only fully accepted by all American
Indians as well as by the aborigines of India, the Dravidian tribes
of Deckan and the Gaura tribes of Hindostan, but similar systems must
have existed everywhere primarily, as has been proven by investigations
that were undertaken since those of Backofen. When these established
facts shall be taken as a basis for further investigations among
living savage or barbaric tribes, similar to the investigations made
by Backofen among various peoples of the ancient world, by Morgan
among the Iroquois and by Cunow among the Australian Negroes, it will
be shown that social and sex relations constituted the foundation
for the development of all nations of the world.
Morgan’s investigations have revealed still other interesting facts.
While the “pairing family” of the Iroquois is in contradiction to
the terms of relationship employed by them, it was shown that in the
Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) there existed up to the first half of the
nineteenth century a family form which actually corresponded to that
system of kinship that among the Iroquois existed only in name. But
the Hawaiian system of kinship again did not agree with the family
form prevailing there at the time, but pointed to another form of the
family, still more remote, and no longer in existence. There all the
children of brothers and sisters, without exception, were regarded
as brothers and sisters, and were considered the common children,
not only of their mother’s and her sisters’ or their father’s and
his brothers’, but of all the brothers and sisters of both their
parents.
The Hawaiian system of kinship then corresponded to a degree of
development that was still lower than the prevailing family form. We
are thus confronted by the peculiar fact, that in Hawaii as among
the North American Indians, two different systems of kinship were
employed that no longer corresponded to existing conditions, but
had been superseded by a higher form. Morgan expresses himself on
this phenomenon in the following manner: “The family is the active
element; it is never stationary, but progresses from a lower to a
higher form in the same measure in which society develops from a
lower to a higher stage. But the systems of kinship are passive. Only
in long intervals they register the progress made by the family in
course of time, and only then are they radically changed when the
family has done so.”
The prevalent conception that the present family form has existed
since times immemorial and must continue to exist lest our entire
civilization be endangered--a conception that is vehemently defended
by the upholders of things as they are--has been proven faulty and
untenable by the researches of these scientists. The study of primeval
history leaves no doubt as to the entirely different relation of the
sexes at an early period of human development from their present
relation, and when viewed in the light of our present-day conceptions,
they seem a monstrosity, a mire of immorality. But as each stage
in social development has its own methods of production, thus each
stage also has its own code of morals, ~which is only a reflection
of its social conditions~. Morals are determined by custom, and
customs correspond to the innermost nature, that is, to the social
necessities of any given period.
Morgan arrives at the conclusion that in the lowest stage of savagery
unrestricted sexual intercourse existed within the tribe, so that
all the women belonged to all the men and all the men belonged to
all the women; that is, a condition of promiscuity. All men practice
polygamy, and all women practice polyandry; there is a common ownership
of wives and husbands as also a common ownership of the children.
Strabo relates (66 B. C.) that among the Arabs brothers have sexual
intercourse with their sisters and sons with their mothers. Incest
was originally a requirement to make it possible for human beings
to multiply. This explanation must especially be resorted to if we
accept the biblical story of the origin of man. The Bible contains
a contradiction in regard to this delicate subject. It relates that
Cain, having killed his brother Abel, fled from the presence of the
Lord and lived in the land of Nod. There Cain knew his wife and she
conceived and bore a son unto him.
But whence came his wife? Cain’s parents were the first man and woman.
According to the Hebrew tradition, two sisters were born to Cain
and Abel, with whom they begot children. The Christian translators
of the Bible appear to have suppressed this unpleasant fact. That
promiscuity prevailed in a prehistoric stage, that the primeval horde
was characterized by unrestricted sexual intercourse, is also shown
in the Indian myth that Brama wedded his own daughter Saravasti. The
same myth is met with among the Egyptians and in the Norse “Edda.”
The Egyptian god Ammon was the husband of his mother and boasted of
the fact, and Odin, according to the “Edda” was the husband of his
own daughter Frigga.[3] Dr. Adolf Bastian relates: “In Swaganwara
the daughters of the Rajah enjoyed the privilege of freely choosing
their husbands. Four brothers who settled in Kapilapur made Priya,
the eldest of their five sisters, queen mother and ~married the
others~.”[4]
Morgan assumes that from the state of general promiscuity, a higher
form of sexual relation gradually developed, the consanguine family.
Here the marriage groups are arranged by generations; all the
grandfathers and grandmothers within a certain family are mutually
husbands and wives; their children constitute another cycle of
husbands and wives, and again the children of these when they have
attained the proper age. In differentiation then from the promiscuity
prevailing at the lowest stage, we here find one generation excluded
from sexual intercourse with another generation. But brothers and
sisters and cousins of the first, second and more remote grades are
all brothers and sisters and also husbands and wives. This family
form corresponds to the system of kinship that during the first half
of the last century still existed in Hawaii in name but no longer in
fact. According to the American and Indian system of kinship, brother
and sister can never be father and mother to the same child, but
according to the Hawaiian system they may. The consanguine family
also prevailed at the time of Herodotus among the Massagetes. Of
these he wrote: “Every man marries a woman but all are permitted to
have intercourse with her.”[5] Similar conditions Backofen proves
to have existed among the Lycians, Etruscans, Cretans, Athenians,
Lesbians and Egyptians.
According to Morgan, the consanguine family is succeeded by a third,
higher form of family relations, which he calls the “Punaluan
family”--“punaluan” meaning “dear companion.”
Morgan’s conception that the consanguine family, founded upon the
formation of marriage classes according to generations, which preceded
the Punaluan family, was the original form of family life, is opposed
by Cunow in his book referred to above. Cunow does not consider the
consanguine family the most primitive form of sexual intercourse
discovered, but deems it an intermediary stage leading to the true
gentile organization, in which stage the generic classification in
strata of different ages belonging to the so-called consanguine
family, runs parallel for a while with the gentile order.[6] Cunow
says, furthermore: The class division--every man and every woman
bearing the name of their class and their totem--does not prevent
sexual intercourse among relations on collateral lines, but it does
prevent it among relations of preceding and succeeding lines, parents
and children, aunts and nephews, uncles and nieces. Terms as uncle,
aunt, etc., denote entire groups.
Cunow furnishes proof in regard to the points in which he differs
from Morgan. But though he differs from Morgan in many respects, he
clearly defends him against the attacks of Westermarck and others.
He says: “Although some of Morgan’s theories may be proven to be
incorrect, and others partly so, to him still is due the credit of
having been the first to discover the identity existing between
the totem-groups of the North American Indians and the gentile
organizations of the Romans. He, furthermore, was the first to show
that our present family form and system of relationship is the outcome
of a lengthy process of evolution. We, therefore, are indebted to
him for having made further research possible, for having laid the
foundation upon which we may continue to build.” In the introduction
to his book he also states explicitly that his work is partly a
supplement to Morgan’s book on ancient society.
Westermarck and Starcke, to whom Dr. Ziegler especially refers,
will have to accept the fact that the origin and evolution of the
family are not in keeping with their bourgeois prejudices. Cunow’s
refutations should enlighten the most fanatical opponents of Morgan
as to the value of their opposition.
[3] Dr. Ziegler, professor of zoology at the university of Freiburg,
ridicules the idea of attaching any historical importance to myths.
This conception only proves the biased judgment of the scientist. The
myths contain a profound meaning, for they have sprung from the soul
of the people and are founded upon ancient customs and traditions
that have gradually disappeared but continue to survive in the myths
glorified by the halo of religion. If facts are met with that explain
the myth, there is good ground for attaching historical importance
to the same.
[4] Dr. Adolf Bastian, “Travels in Singapore, Batavia, Manila and
Japan.”
[5] Backofen: “The Matriarchate.”
[6] In the gentile order each gens has its totem, as lizard, opossum,
emu, wolf, bear, etc., from which the gens derives its name. The
totem animal is held sacred, and members of the gens may not kill
it or eat its flesh. The significance of the totem was similar to
that of the patron saint among the medieval guilds.
3.--The Matriarchate.
According to Morgan, the Punaluan family begins with the exclusion
of brothers and sisters on the mother’s side. Wherever a woman has
several husbands, it becomes impossible to determine paternity.
Paternity becomes a mere fiction. Even at present, with the
institution of monogamous marriage, paternity--as Goethe said in
his “Apprenticeship,” “depends upon good faith.” But if paternity
is dubious in monogamous marriage even, it is surely beyond the
possibility of determination where polyandry prevails. Only descent
from the mother can be shown clearly and undeniably; therefore,
children, during the term of the matriarchate, were termed “spurii,”
seed. As all social transformations are consummated infinitely slow
upon a low stage of development, thus also the transition from the
consanguine family to the Punaluan family must have extended through
a great length of time, and many retrogressions must undoubtedly
have occurred that could still be perceived in later days. The
immediate, external cause for the development of the Punaluan family
may have the necessity of dividing the greatly increased group for
the purpose of finding new soil for agricultural purposes and for
the grazing of herds. But it is also probable that with increasing
development, people gradually came to understand the harmfulness and
the impropriety of sexual intercourse between brother and sister
and close relatives, and that this recognition led to a different
arrangement of marriage relations. That this was the case is shown by
a pretty legend that, as Cunow tells us, was related to Gason among
the Dieyeris, a tribe of Southern Australia. This legend describes
the origin of the “Murdu,” the gentile organization, in the following
manner:
“After the creation fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and other
closely related persons married indiscriminately among themselves,
until the evil consequences of such marriages were clearly seen.
Thereupon the leaders held a council to consider what could be done,
and finally they begged Muramura, the great spirit, to bid them what
to do. Muramura bade them divide the tribe into many branches and
to name these after animals and inanimate objects to distinguish
them from one another; for instance, Mouse, Emu, Lizzard, Rain, etc.
The members of each group should not be permitted to marry among
themselves, but should choose their mates from another group. Thus
the son of an Emu should not marry the daughter of an Emu, but he
might marry the daughter of a Mouse, a Lizard, a Rain, or any other
family.” This tradition is more plausible than the biblical one, and
shows the origin of gentile organization in the simplest manner.
Paul Lafargue showed in an article published in the German periodical,
“Neue Zeit,” that names like Adam and Eva did not originally denote
individual persons, but were the names of gentes in which the Jews
were constituted in prehistoric days. By his argumentation Lafargue
elucidates a number of otherwise obscure and contradictory points
in the first book of Moses. In the same periodical M. Beer calls
attention to the fact that among the Jews a superstition still prevails
according to which a man’s mother and his fiancee must not have the
same name, lest misfortune, disease and death be brought upon the
family. This is a further proof of the correctness of Lafargue’s
conception. Gentile organization prohibited marriage between persons
belonging to the same gens. According to the gentile conception,
then, the fact that a man’s mother and his fiancee had the same name,
proved their belonging to the same gens. Of course, present-day Jews
are ignorant of the connection existing between their superstition
and the ancient gentile organization which prohibited such marriages.
These prohibitory laws had the purpose of avoiding the evils resulting
from close intermarriage, and though gentile organization among the
Jews has gone out of existence thousands of years ago, we still see
traces of the ancient tradition preserved. Early experiences in the
breeding of animals may have led to a recognition of the dangers of
inbreeding.
How far such experiences had been developed may be seen from the
first book of Moses, chapter 30, 32 stanza, where it is told how
Jacob cheated his father-in-law Laban by providing for the birth of
spotted lambs and goats that were to be his, according to Laban’s
promise. Thus ancient Israelites were applying Darwin’s theories in
practice long before Darwin’s time.
Since we are discussing conditions that existed among the ancient
Jews, it will be well to quote a few further facts which prove that
in antiquity maternal law actually prevailed among them. Although in
the first book of Moses, 3, 16, is written in regard to woman: “And
thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee,”
in the first book of Moses, 2, 24, we find the lines: “Therefore
shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave
unto his wife and they shall be one flesh.” The same wording is
repeated in Matthew, 19, 5; Mark, 10, 7, and in the epistle to the
Ephesians, 5, 31. This command then is rooted in maternal law, for
which interpreters of the Bible had no explanation and, therefore,
presented it incorrectly.
Maternal law is likewise shown to have existed in the fourth book
of Moses, 32, 41. There it is said that Jair had a father of the
tribe of Juda, but his mother came from the tribe of Manasseh, and
Jair is explicitly called the son of Manasseh and became heir to
that tribe. In Nehemiah, 7, 63, we find still another example of
maternal law among the ancient Jews. There the children of a priest
who married one of the daughters of Barzillai, a Jewish clan, are
called the children of Barzillai. They are, accordingly, not called
by their father’s but by their mother’s name.
In the Punaluan family, according to Morgan, one or more series of
sisters of one family group married one or more series of brothers of
another family group. A number of sisters or cousins of the first,
second and more remote degrees were the common wives of their common
husbands, who were not permitted to be their brothers. A number of
brothers or cousins of various degrees were the common husbands of
their common wives, who were not permitted to be their sisters.
As inbreeding was thereby prohibited, this new form of marriage
was favorable to higher and more rapid development, and gave those
tribes that had adopted this family form an advantage over those
who maintained the old form of sex relations.
The following system of kinship resulted from the Punaluan family:
The children of my mother’s sisters are her children, and the
children of my father’s brothers are his children, and all are my
brothers and sisters. But the children of my mother’s brothers are
her nephews and nieces and the children of my father’s sisters are
his nephews and nieces, and all are my cousins. The husbands of my
mother’s sisters are still her husbands and the wives of my father’s
brothers are still his wives, but the sisters of my father and the
brothers of my mother are excluded from the family group, and their
children are my cousins.[7]
With increasing civilization sexual intercourse among brothers and
sisters is put under the ban, and this is gradually extended to all
collateral relatives on the mother’s side. A new consanguine family,
the gens, is evolved that originally consists of natural and remote
sisters and their children, together with their natural or remote
brothers on the mother’s side. The gens has a common ancestress to
whom the groups of female generations trace their descent. The men
do not belong to the gens of their wives, but to the gens of their
sisters. But the children of these men belong to the gens of their
mothers, because descent is traced from the mother. The mother is
considered the head of the family. Thus the matriarchate was evolved
that for a long time constituted the foundation of family relations
and inheritance. While the maternal law prevailed, women had a
voice and vote in the councils of the gens, they helped to elect
the sachems and leaders and to depose them. When Hannibal formed
an alliance with the Gauls against the Romans, he decided that in
case disputes should arise among the allies, the Gallic matrons
should be intrusted with the mission of arbitrating; so great was
his confidence in their impartiality.
Of the Lycians who recognized maternal law Herodotus tells us: “Their
customs are partly Cretan and partly Carian. But they have one custom
that distinguishes them from all other nations in the world. If you
ask a Lycian who he is, he will tell you his name, his mother’s
name, and so on in the line of female descent. Moreover, when a free
woman marries a slave, her children remain free citizens. But if a
man marries a foreign woman or takes unto himself a concubine, his
children are deprived of all civic rights, even though he be the
most eminent man in the state.”
At that time “matrimonium” was spoken of instead of “patrimonium,”
“mater familias” was said instead of “pater familias,” and one’s
native country was referred to as the motherland. Just as the earlier
family forms, the gens was founded on the common ownership of
property, that is, it was a communistic form of society. Woman was
the leader and ruler in this kinship organization and was highly
respected, her opinion counting for much in the household as well
as in the affairs of the tribe. She is peacemaker and judge, and
discharges the duties of religious worship as priestess.
The frequent appearance of queens and women rulers in antiquity,
and the power wielded by them even when their sons were the actual
rulers, which was the case in Egypt, for instance, was an outcome
of the matriarchate. During that period mythological characters
are chiefly feminine, as seen from the goddesses Astarte, Demeter,
Ceres, Latona, Isis, Frigga, Freya, Gerda, and many others. Woman is
invulnerable; matricide is deemed the most dreadful crime that calls
upon all men for vengeance. It is the common duty of all the men of
the tribe, to avenge an injury inflicted upon any member of their
kinship by a member of any other tribe. Defense of the women incites
the men to highest bravery. Thus the influence of the matriarchate
was perceived in all social relations of the ancient peoples, among
the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Greeks before
the heroic age, the Italic tribes before the founding of Rome, the
Scythians, the Gauls, the Iberians, the Cantabrians, the Germans,
and others. At that time woman held a position in society as she
has never held since. Tacitus says in his “Germania”: “The Germans
believe that within every woman dwells something holy and prophetic;
therefore they honor woman’s opinion and follow her advice.” Diodorus,
who lived at the time of Cæsar, was quite indignant over the position
of women in Egypt. He had heard that in Egypt not sons but daughters
supported their aged parents. He therefore spoke disparagingly of
the hen-pecked men at the Nile, who granted rights and privileges
to the weaker sex that seemed outrageous to a Greek or a Roman.
Under maternal law comparatively peaceful conditions prevailed.
Social relations were simple and narrow and the mode of life was a
primitive one. The various tribes kept aloof from one another and
respected each other’s domain. If one tribe was attacked by another
the men took up arms for defense and were ably supported by the
women. According to Herodotus, the women of the Scythians took part
in battles; virgins--so he claims--were not permitted to marry until
they had slain an enemy. Taken all in all, the physical and mental
differences between man and woman were not nearly as great in primeval
days as they are at present. Among almost all savage and barbarian
tribes, the differences in the size and weight of brains taken
from male and female individuals, are smaller than among civilized
nations. Also the women of these tribes are not inferior to the men in
physical strength and skill. Proof of this is furnished not only by
the writers of antiquity in regard to peoples living under maternal
law, but also by the Amazon regiments of the Ashantis and the King of
Dahome in Western Africa, that excel in ferocity and courage. What
Tacitus relates in regard to the women of the ancient Germans, and
Cæsar’s opinion of the women of the Iberians and the Scots, furnish
additional proof. Columbus was attacked near Santa Cruz by a troop
of Indians in a small sloop in which the women fought as bravely as
the men. This conception is furthermore confirmed by Havelock Ellis:
“Among the Andombies on the Congo, according to Mr. H. H. Johnstone,
the women, though working very hard as carriers and as laborers in
general, lead an entirely happy existence; they are often stronger
than the men and more finely developed, some of them, he tells us,
having really splendid figures. And Parke, speaking of the Manyuema
of the Arruwimi in the same region, says that they are fine animals
and the women very handsome; they carry loads as heavy as those of
the men and do it quite as well. In North America again an Indian
chief said to Hearne: Women were made for labor; one of them can
carry or haul as much as two men can do. Schellong, who has carefully
studied the Papuans in the German protectorate of New Guinea from
the anthropological point of view, considers that the women are more
strongly built than the men. In Central Australia again, the men
occasionally beat the women through jealousy, but on such occasions
it is by no means rare for the woman, single-handed, to beat the
man severely. At Cuba, the women fought beside the men and enjoyed
great independence. Among some races of India, the Pueblos of
North America, the Patagonians, the women are as large as the men.
So among the Afghans, with whom the women in certain tribes enjoy
a considerable amount of power. Even among the Arabs and Druses it
has been noted that the women are nearly as large as the men. And
among Russians the sexes are more alike than among the English or
French.”[8]
In the gens women sometimes ruled with severity, and woe to the man
who was too lazy or too clumsy to contribute his share to the common
sustenance. He was cast out and was obliged either to return to his
own gens, where he was not likely to be received kindly, or to gain
admission into another gens where he was judged less harshly.
That this form of matrimony has been maintained by the natives of
Central Africa to this very day was experienced by Livingstone, to his
great surprise, as related by him in his book, “Missionary Travels
and Researches in Southern Africa.” At the Zambesi he encountered the
Balonda, a strong and handsome Negro tribe, engaged in agricultural
pursuits, and was soon able to confirm the reports made to him by
Portugiese, which he had at first declined to believe, that the
women held a superior position among them. They are members of the
tribal council. When a young man marries, he must migrate from his
village into the one in which his wife resides. He must at the same
time pledge himself to provide his mother-in-law with kindling wood
for lifetime. The woman, in turn, must provide her husband’s food.
Although minor quarrels between man and wife occasionally occurred,
Livingstone found that the men did not rebel against female supremacy.
But he found, on the other hand, that when men had insulted their
wives, they were severely punished--by their stomachs. The man--so
Livingstone relates--comes home to eat, but is sent from one woman
to another and is not given anything. Tired and hungry, he finally
climbs upon a tree in the most populous part of the village and
exclaims, with a woe-begone voice: “Hark, hark! I thought I had
married women, but they are witches! I am a bachelor; I have not a
single wife! Is that just and fair to a lord like myself?!”
[7] Frederick Engels: “Origin of the Family.”
[8] Havelock Ellis: “Man and Woman.”
CHAPTER II.
Conflict between Matriarchate and Patriarchate.
1.--Rise of the Patriarchate.
With the increase in population a number of sister gentes arose
that again brought forth several daughter gentes. The mother gens
was distinguished from these as the phratry. A number of phratries
constituted the tribe. So strong was this social organization that
it still constituted the unit of military organization in the states
of antiquity, when the old gentile constitution had already been
abandoned. The tribe was subdivided into several branches, all having
a common constitution and in each of which the old gens could be
recognized. But as the gentile constitution prohibited intermarriage
among remote relatives even on the mother’s side, it undermined its
own existence. A social and economic development made the relation
of the various gentes to one another more and more complicated, the
interdict of marriage between certain groups became untenable and
ceased to be observed. While production of the necessities of life was
at its lowest stage of development, and destined to satisfy only the
simplest demands, the activities of men and women were essentially
the same. But with increasing division of labor there resulted not
only a diversity of occupations, but a diversity of possessions as
well. Fishing, hunting, cattle-breeding and agriculture, and the
manufacture of tools and implements, necessitated special knowledge,
and these became the special province of the men. Man took the lead
along these lines of development and accordingly became master and
owner of these new sources of wealth.
Increasing population and the desire for an extensive ownership of
land for agricultural and pastoral purposes, led to struggles and
battles over the possession of such land; it also led to a demand
for labor-power. An increase in labor-power meant greater wealth in
produce and flock. To procure such labor-power the rape of women was
at first resorted to, and then the enslavement of vanquished men,
who had formerly been killed. Thus two new elements were introduced
into the old gentile constitution that were incompatible with its
very nature.
Still another factor came into play. The division of labor and
the growing demand for tools, implements, weapons, etc., led to a
development of handicraft along distinct lines apart from agriculture.
A special class of craftsmen arose, whose interests in regard to the
ownership and inheritance of property diverged considerably from
those of the agricultural class.
As long as descent was traced from female lineage, members of the gens
became heirs to their deceased relatives on the mother’s side. All
property remained within the gens. Under the changed conditions the
father had become owner of flocks and slaves, weapons and produce, but
being a member of his mother’s gens he could not will his property
to his children, but had to leave same to his brothers and sisters
or to his sisters’ children. His own children were disinherited. A
strong desire for changing this state of affairs therefore began
to manifest itself, and it was changed accordingly. Polygamy and
polyandry gave way to the pairing family. A certain man lived with
a certain woman, and the children born from this relation were
their children. These pairing families developed gradually, being
hampered by the marriage interdicts of the gentile constitution, but
favored by the above enumerated economic causes. The old household
communities were not in keeping with the idea of private property.
Class and occupation became determining factors in the choice of a
place of residence. An increased production of commodities gave rise
to commerce among neighboring and more widely separated nations and
necessitated the development of finance. Man was the one to conduct
and control this development. His private interests, therefore,
were no longer harmonious to the old gentile organization; on the
contrary, they were frequently diametrically opposed to it. Therefore
this organization became of less and less importance, and finally
all that remained of the gens was the conducting of a number of
religious rites within the family group. The economic significance
was lost and the final dissolution of the gentile constitution only
remained a question of time.
With the breaking up of the old gentile organization the power and
influence of woman rapidly declined. The matriarchate disappeared
and the patriarchate took its place. Man, being an owner of private
property, had an interest in having legitimate children to whom he
could will his property, and ~he, therefore, forced upon woman the
prohibition of intercourse with other men~.
But for himself he reserved the right of maintaining as many concubines
as his means would permit beside his legitimate wife or wives, and
their offspring were regarded as legitimate children. The Bible
furnishes important evidence on this subject in two instances. In
the first book of Moses, 16, 1 and 2, it says: “Sarai, Abram’s wife,
bore him no children; and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose
name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram: Behold now, the Lord
hath restrained me from bearing; I pray thee, go in unto my maid;
it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to
the voice of Sarai.” The second noteworthy evidence is found in the
first book of Moses, 30, 1; it reads as follows: “And when Rachel
saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister, and
said unto Jacob: Give me children or else I die. And Jacob’s anger
was kindled against Rachel and he said: Am I in God’s stead who
has withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? And she said: Behold
my maid, Billah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees
that I may also have children by her. And she gave him Billah, her
handmaid, to wife, and Jacob went in unto her.”
Thus Jacob was not only married to two sisters, the daughters of
Laban, but both also gave him their handmaids to wives, a custom
that was not immoral according to the moral conceptions of the time.
His two chief wives he had married by purchase, having served their
father Laban seven years for each of them. At that time it was the
general custom among the Jews to purchase wives, but besides they
carried on a widespread robbery of women from nations conquered by
them. Thus, for instance, the Benjamites robbed the daughters of
Shiloh. The captured woman became a slave, a concubine. But she could
be raised to the position of a legitimate wife, upon fulfillment of
the following command: She had to cut her hair and nails and exchange
the garments in which she was captured with others given to her by
her captors. Thereupon she had to mourn for her father and mother
during an entire month, her mourning being destined to signify that
her people were dead to her. These regulations having been complied
with, she could enter into wedlock. The greatest number of women were
owned by King Solomon, who, according to the first book of Kings,
chapter 11, had no less than 700 wives and 300 concubines.
As soon as the patriarchate, that is, paternal descent, was established
in the gentile organization of the Jews, the daughters were excluded
from inheritance. Later this rule was modified in cases when a father
left no sons. This is shown in the fourth book of Moses, 27, 2–8.
There it is told that when Zelophehad died without leaving sons,
his daughters complained bitterly that they should be excluded from
their father’s inheritance that was to pass to the tribe of Joseph.
Moses decides that in this case the daughters should be heirs to
their father. But when, according to an old custom, they decide to
choose husbands from another tribe, the tribe of Joseph complain that
thereby they are losing an heritage. Thereupon Moses decides that the
heiresses may choose freely, but that they must make their choice
from among the men in their father’s tribe. So it was in behalf of
property that the old marriage laws were annulled. As a matter of
fact, in the days of the old Testament, i. e., in historical times,
the patriarchal system was prevalent among the Jews, and the clan
and tribal organization were founded on descent in the male line, as
was the case with the Romans. According to this system the daughters
were excluded from inheritance. Thus we read in the first book of
Moses, 31, 14 and 15, the complaint of Lea and Rachel, daughters
of Laban: “Is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our
father’s house? Are we not counted of him strangers? For he hath
sold us and hath quite devoured also our money.”
Among the ancient Jews, as among all other nations where the
matriarchate was succeeded by the patriarchate, women were utterly
devoid of rights. Marriage was a purchase of the woman. Absolute
chastity was demanded of her; but not so of the man, who moreover
was entitled to have several wives. If the man had cause to believe
that the woman had lost her virginity prior to marriage, he was not
only entitled to cast her off, she might also be stoned to death.
The same punishment was meted out to the adulteress; but the man was
subjected to the same punishment only then when he committed adultery
with a Jewish matron. According to the first book of Moses, 24,
1–4, a man was entitled to cast off a woman he had just married
if she found no favor in his eyes, even though his displeasure be
only a whim. Then he might write her a bill of divorcement, give it
in her hand and send her out of his house. A further proof of the
degraded position of woman among the Jews may be gathered from the
fact that to this day women attend services in the synagogue in a
space separated from the men, and are not included in the prayer.[9]
According to the Jewish conception, woman is not a member of the
congregation; in religion and politics she is a mere cipher. When
ten men are assembled they may hold services, but women are not
permitted to do so, no matter how many of them are assembled.
In Athens, Solon decreed that a widow should marry her nearest
relation on her father’s side, even if both belong to the same gens,
although such marriages were forbidden by an earlier law. Solon
likewise decreed that a person holding property need not will it to
his gens but might, in case he were childless, will it to whomsoever
he pleased. We see, then, that man, instead of ruling his property,
is being ruled by it.
With the established rule of private property the subjugation of
woman by man was accomplished. As a result of this subjugation, woman
came to be regarded as an inferior being and to be despised. ~The
matriarchate implied communism and equality of all. The rise of the
patriarchate implied the rule of private property and the subjugation
and enslavement of woman.~ The conservative Aristophanes recognized
this truth in his comedy, “The Popular Assembly of Women,” for he has
the women introduce communism as soon as they have gained control
of the state, and then proceeds to caricature communism grossly in
order to discredit the women.
It is difficult to show how the details of this great transformation
were accomplished. This ~first great revolution~ that took place
in human society was not accomplished simultaneously among all the
civilized nations of antiquity, and has probably not developed
everywhere along the same lines. Among the tribes of Greece, the
new order of things attained validity primarily in Athens.
Frederick Engels holds the opinion that this great transformation
was brought about peaceably, and that, all preliminary conditions
making such a change desirable being given, a mere vote on the matter
in the gentes sufficed to put the patriarchal system in place of
the matriarchal system. Backofen, on the other hand, believes--his
opinion founded on ancient writers--that the women vehemently opposed
this social transformation. He considers many myths of the Amazon
kingdoms that are met with in the histories of Oriental countries,
in South America and China, proofs of the struggle and opposition
of women against the new order.
With the rise of male supremacy the women were deprived of their
former position in the community. They were excluded from the council
and lost their determining influence. Men compelled women to be
faithful in marriage without recognizing a similar duty on their
part. When a woman is faithless, she commits the worst deception
to which a citizen of the new order can fall a victim; she brings
another man’s children into his house to become the heirs of his
property. That is why among all the ancient peoples adultery, when
committed by a woman, was punishable by death or slavery.
[9] In the oldest quarter of Prague is an old synagogue, built during
the sixth century, the oldest synagogue in Germany. Upon descending
about seven steps into the dusky chamber, the visitor beholds a row
of small loop-holes on the opposite wall leading into an utterly dark
room. Upon inquiry we are told by the guide that this is the woman’s
room, where the women attended services. Modern synagogues are less
gloomy, but the separation of men and women is still maintained.
2.--Traces of the Matriarchate in Greek Myths and Dramas.
Although the women were thus deprived of their former influential
position, the customs connected with the ancient cults continued
to dominate the minds for centuries; only their deeper meaning was
gradually lost, and it remained for the present time to investigate
them. Thus it was customary in Greece that women appealed for
advice and help to the goddesses only. The annual celebration of
the Thesmophoria clearly derived its origin from matriarchal times.
Even in later days Greek women still celebrated this festival in
honor of Demeter, which lasted for five days, and in which no man
was allowed to participate. A festival of the same character was
held annually in Rome in honor of Ceres. Demeter and Ceres were the
goddesses of fecundity. In Germany, similar festivals were observed
up to the Christian middle ages. These were consecrated to Frigga,
the ancient German goddess of fecundity, and here also men were
excluded from participation.
In Athens, the matriarchate had to make way to the patriarchate at
an early period, but apparently not without strong opposition on the
part of the women. The tragedy of the transformation is pathetically
presented in the “Eumenides” by Aeschylus. The following is a synopsis
of the story: Agamemnon, King of Mycenae, husband of Klytaemnestra,
on his expedition to Troy, sacrifices his daughter Iphigeneia, in
obedience to a command of the oracle. The mother is enraged over the
sacrifice of her child that, in accordance with natural law, does not
belong to her husband, and during Agamemnon’s absence she accepts
Aeghistus as her husband, thereby not committing any objectionable act
according to the ancient laws. When Agamemnon returns to Mycenae,
after an absence of many years, he is murdered by Aeghistus, whom
Klytaemnestra has incited to this deed. Orestes, son of Agamemnon and
Klytaemnestra, upon a command from Apollo and Minerva, avenges his
father’s death by killing his mother and Aeghistus. The Eumenides,
representing the old maternal law, prosecute Orestes for the murder
of his mother. Apollo and Minerva--the latter, according to the
myth, not having been born by a mother, since she sprang from the
head of Zeus in full armor--defend Orestes, for they represent the
new paternal law. The case is brought before the areopagus and the
following dialogue ensues in which the two conflicting views are
expressed:
Eumenides: The prophet (Apollo) bade thee then become a matricide?
Orestes: Aye; and I never yet my destiny regretted.
Eumenides: When judgment will be given thou wilt not speak thus.
Orestes: Perhaps. But from his grave my father will send aid.
Eumenides: What hopest from the dead thou, who hast killed thy
_mother_?
Orestes: She had been guilty of a double, bloody crime.
Eumenides: How so? Explain unto the judges what you mean.
Orestes: She killed her husband and she thereby killed my father.
Eumenides: Her crime she expiated now, but you still live.
Orestes: Why did you fail to prosecute her while she lived?
Eumenides: _She was no blood relation to the man she killed._
Orestes: But I, so you assert, am of my mother’s blood.
Eumenides: Did she, thou bloody one, not bear thee ’neath her
heart? Wouldst thou thy mother’s sacred blood deny?
The Eumenides accordingly do not recognize the right of the father
and husband. They proclaim maternal law. That Klytaemnestra caused
the murder of her husband seems unimportant to them, for he was a
stranger to her. But they demand punishment of the matricide, for by
killing his mother, Orestes committed the most unpardonable crime that
could be committed under the dominance of the gentile organization.
Apollo, on the other hand, holds the opposite point of view. Upon a
command from Zeus he has induced Orestes to murder his own mother
to avenge the patricide, and before the judges he thus defends the
deed:
Then say I, listen ye unto my word of justice:
The mother is not procreatrix to her child;
She only the awakened life doth keep and bear.
The father is the procreator; she but keeps
The forfeit for her friend, unless a god destroy it
I will submit a proof that cannot be denied.
For one can have a father, yet no mother have.
Minerva, daughter of the great Olympian Zeus,
Within the darkness of a mother’s womb ne’er rested,
And yet no goddess e’er gave birth to fairer offspring.
According to Apollo, then, procreation gives the father a superior
right, while the view that had prevailed until then proclaimed the
mother, who gives life to the child by her own blood, the child’s
sole possessor, and deemed the child’s father a mere stranger to
her. Therefore, the Eumenides reply to the views of Apollo:
Thou overthrowest forces of remotest days....
Thou, the young god, wouldst us, the ancient ones, dethrone.
The judges prepare to pronounce their verdict; half of them favor
the old law and the other half favor the new, giving an equal number
of votes to both sides. There Minerva seizes a ballot from the altar
and casting it into the urn she exclaims:
Mine is the right to utter final judgment here,
And for Orestes I cast in the urn this stone;
For unto me no mother was who gave me birth,
Therefore with all my heart all manly things I praise
Excepting marriage. For I am my father’s quite.
Less criminal I deem the murder of this woman,
Because her husband she has killed, the home’s maintainer.
Though even be the vote, Orestes is victorious.
Another myth depicts the fall of the matriarchate in the following
manner: During the rule of Cecrops, a double miracle occurred.
Simultaneously an olive-tree sprang from the earth at one place, and
a well at another. The frightened king sent a messenger to Delphi to
question the oracle concerning the meaning of these miracles. The reply
was: The olive-tree represents Minerva, the water represents Neptune,
and the citizens may decide after whom of the two deities they choose
to name their city. Cecrops summoned the popular assembly, in which
both men and women were entitled to vote. The men voted for Neptune,
and the women for Minerva, and since the women had a majority of one
vote, Minerva was victorious. Thereupon Neptune became infuriated
and let the sea flood the lands of the Athenians. To appease the
fury of the god, the Athenians then inflicted threefold punishment
upon their women. They were to be disfranchised, their children were
no longer to bear their mother’s name, and they themselves should
no longer be called Athenians.[10]
Thus the new order was established. The father became the head of
the family. The patriarchate conquered the matriarchate.
[10] Backofen: “The Matriarchate.”
3.--Legitimate Wives and Courtesans in Athens.
Just as the transition from the matriarchate to the patriarchate was
accomplished in Athens, it was accomplished elsewhere as soon as a
similar degree of development had been attained. Woman was restricted
to her home and isolated in special rooms, known as “gynacontis,” in
which she dwelt. She even was excluded from social intercourse with
the men who visited the house; in fact, this was the special object
of her isolation. In the Odyssee we find this change in customs
expressed. Thus Telemachus forbids his mother to be present among
her suitors, and utters this command:
But go now to the home, and attend to thy household affairs;
To the spinning wheel and the loom, and bid thy maids be assiduous
At the task that to them were allotted. To speak is the privilege of men,
And mine is especially this privilege, for I am the lord of the
house![11]
This was the prevailing conception in Greece at the time. Even widows
were subjected to the rulership of their nearest male relatives, and
were not even free to choose a husband. Weary of the long waiting
imposed upon them by the clever Penelope, the suitors send to
Telemachus their spokesman, Antonioos, who thus voices their demand:
See now, the suitors inform thee that thou in thy heart mayest know it
And that all the Achæans may of the fact be informed.
Send thy mother hence, and command her to take as her husband
Whom she chooses to take, and whom her father selects.[12]
At this period woman’s freedom has come to an end. When she leaves
the house she must veil her face--not to waken the desires of some
other man. In the Oriental countries where sexual passions are
stronger, as a result of the hot climate, this method of isolation
is still carried to the extreme. Among the ancients, Athens served
as a pattern of the new order. The woman shares the man’s bed, but
not his table. She does not address him by his name, but calls him
master; she is his servant. She was not allowed to appear in public
anywhere, and when walking upon the streets was always veiled and
plainly dressed. When she committed adultery she was, according to
Solon’s law, condemned to pay for her sin either with her life, or
with her liberty. Her husband was entitled to sell her as a slave.
The position of Greek women of those days is powerfully expressed
in Medea’s lamentation:
“Of all creatures that have soul and life
_We women are indeed the very poorest_.
By our dowery we’re obliged to purchase
A husband--and what then is far worse still,
_Henceforward our body is his own_.
Great is the danger; will his nature be
Evil or good? Divorce is to the woman
A deep disgrace. _Yet she may not say nay_
Unto the man who was betrothed to her.
And when she comes to lands with unknown customs,
She has to learn--for no one teaches her--
To understand the nature of her husband.
And when we have succeeded in all this,
And our loved one gladly with us dwells,
Then our lot is fair. But otherwise
I’d rather far be dead.--Not so the man.
If in his home he is not satisfied,
He finds _outside the home_ what pleases him,
With friends and with companions of his age;
But we must always seek to please but _one_.
They say that we in peace and safety dwell,
While they must go forth to the battlefield.
Mistaken thought! _I rather thrice would fight,
Than only once give birth unto a child!_”
Very different was the man’s lot. While the man compelled the woman
to abstain absolutely from relations with other men, for the purpose
of insuring the legitimacy of his heirs, he was not inclined to
abstain from relations with other women. Courtesanship developed.
Women noted for their beauty and intellect, usually foreigners,
preferred a free life in the most intimate association with men to
the slavery of marriage. Nor was their life deemed a loathsome one.
The name and the fame of these courtesans who associated with the
foremost men of Greece and took part in their intellectual discussions
and in their banquets, have come down to us through history, while
the names of the legitimate wives are lost and forgotten. One of
these was Aspasia, the friend of the famous Pericles, who later
made her his wife. Phryne had intimate relations with Hyperides,
and served Praxiteles, one of the foremost sculptors of Greece, as
a model for his statue of Venus. Danae was the mistress of Epicure,
Archæanassa was Plato’s. Lais of Corynth, Gnethanea and others
were equally famous courtesans. Every one of the famous Greeks had
intercourse with these courtesans. It was part and parcel of their
life. The great orator Demosthenes in his oration against Neaera thus
characterized the sexual relations of Athenian men: “We marry women
to have legitimate children and to have faithful guardians of our
homes, we maintain concubines for our daily service and comfort, and
courtesans for the enjoyment of love.” The wife was only destined
to bear offspring and, like a faithful dog, to guard her master’s
house. But the master himself lived to suit his pleasure. In many
cases it is so still.
To satisfy the demand for mercenary women, especially among the younger
men, prostitution developed, an institution that had not been known
during the dominance of the matriarchate. Prostitution differs from
free sexual intercourse by the fact that the woman yields her body
in return for material gain, be it to one man or to a number of men.
Prostitution exists wherever a woman makes the selling of her charms
a trade. Solon, who formulated the new laws for Athens and is famed
as the founder of these laws, introduced the public brothel, the
“deikterion.” He decreed that the price should be the same to all
visitors. According to Philemon this was one obolus, about 6 cents
in American money. The “deikterion” was a place of absolute safety,
like the temples in Greece and Rome and the Christian churches in
the middle ages. It was under the immediate protection of the public
authorities. Until about 150 B. C. the temple in Jerusalem was the
general rallying-point of the prostitutes.
For the boon bestowed upon Athenian men by his founding of the
“deikterion,” one of Solon’s contemporaries thus sings his praise:
“Solon, be praised! For thou didst purchase public women for the
welfare of the city, to preserve the morals of the city that is
full of strong, young men, who, without thy wise institution, would
indulge in the annoying pursuit of the better class women.” We will
see that in our own day exactly the same arguments are being advanced
to justify the existence of prostitution and its maintenance as an
institution sanctioned by the state. Thus the state laws approved
of deeds committed by men as being their natural right, while the
same deeds were branded as criminal and despicable when committed by
women. It is a well-known fact that even to-day there are a great
many men who prefer the company of a pretty offendress to the company
of their wife and who, nevertheless, enjoy the reputation of being
“pillars of society” and guardians of those sacred institutions, the
family and the home. To be sure, the Greek women frequently seem to
have taken vengeance upon their husbands for their oppression. If
prostitution is the complement of monogamic marriage on the one hand,
adultery of wives and cuckoldom of husbands are its complements on
the other. Among the Greek dramatists, Euripides seems to have been
the most pronounced woman-hater, since in his dramas he preferably
holds up the women to ridicule and scorn. What accusations he hurls
at them can best be seen from a passage in “The Thesmophoria” by
Aristophanes,[13] where a Greek woman assails him in the following
manner:
With what calumny doth he (Euripides) not vilify us women?
When e’er hath silent been the slanderer’s tongue?
Where there’s an audience, tragedy and chorus,
We are described as man-mad traitoresses,
Fond of the cup, deceitful, talkative.
We’re wholly bad, to men a tribulation.
Therefore, when from the play our husbands come,[14]
They look distrustfully at us and search about
If somewhere not a lover is concealed,
And henceforth we no longer are permitted
To do what harmlessly we did before.
Such wicked things he tells the men about us,
That when a woman only makes a garland,
They think she is in love; or when at home
She works about and dropping something, breaks it,
The husband promptly asks: “For whom this broken glass?
Quite evidently for the guest from Corinth.”
It is not surprising that the eloquent Greek woman thus serves
the defamer of her sex. But Euripides could hardly have made such
accusations nor would they have found belief among the men, had it
not been well known that they were justified. Judging by the final
sentences of the above quoted harangue it seems that the custom,
well known in Germany and other countries, whereby the master of
the house honors his guest by placing his own wife or daughter at
the guest’s disposal, did not prevail in Greece. Of this custom,
that was still observed in Holland in the fifteenth century, Murner
says: “It is the custom in the Netherlands that whosoever hath a
dear guest, unto him he giveth his wife in good faith.”[15]
The increasing class struggle in the Greek states and the deplorable
conditions that existed in many of these small communities led Plato
to an investigation of the best constitution of the state and its
institutions. In his “State,” that he conceives as an ideal one, he
demands that among the highest class of citizens, the guardians,
women should hold a position of absolute equality. Like the men,
they should take part in military exercises and should perform all
civic duties, only should the lighter tasks be alloted to them on
account of the weakness of their sex. He holds that the natural
abilities are the same with both sexes, that woman is only weaker
than man. He further demands that the women should belong to all the
men in common as should also the children, so that no father might
know his child nor a child its father.[16]
The views of Aristoteles are more in keeping with the bourgeois
conceptions. According to his “Politics,” every woman should have
the right of freely choosing her husband. She should be subservient
to him, yet she should have the privilege of giving him good advice.
Thucydides expresses a view that meets with the approval of all
Philistines. He says: “To that wife is due the highest praise of
whom one speaks neither well nor ill outside of her home.”
While such views prevailed women were bound to sink lower and lower
in the esteem of men. A fear of excess of population even led men
to avoid intimate intercourse with women. An unnatural satisfaction
of sexual desires was the result. The Greek states consisted mainly
of cities having very limited landed property, and it therefore was
impossible to maintain the population at their accustomed nourishment
beyond a given number. This fear of excess of population caused
Aristotle to advice the men to shun their wives and to indulge in
sodomy instead. Before him Socrates had already extolled sodomy
as a mark of superior culture. Finally the foremost men of Greece
indulged in this unnatural passion. The esteem of woman sank to
its lowest level. Bawdy houses containing male prostitutes were
maintained, beside those containing female prostitutes. It was in
such a social atmosphere that Thucydides could say of woman that
she was worse than the sea raging in storm, worse than the fire’s
fierce glow and the mountain torrent’s rushing stream. “If it is a
god who invented woman, whoever he be, let him know that he is the
nefarious originator of the greatest evil.”
While the men of Greece practiced sodomy, the women drifted into the
opposite extreme, indulging in the love of their own sex. This was
especially the case among the inhabitants of the island of Lesbos,
wherefore this aberration was called Lesbian love and is still called
so, since it is by no means extinct but continues to exist among us.
The chief representative of this “love” was the celebrated poetess
Sapho, “the Lesbian nightinggale,” who lived about 600 B. C. Her
passion is fervently expressed in her Ode to Venus:
“Thou who rulest all, upon flowers enthroned,
Daughter of Zeus born of foam, o thou artful one,
Hark to my call!
Not in anguish and bitter suffering, O goddess,
Let me perish!--”
Still more passionate is the sensuality expressed in the ode to the
beautiful Athis.
While in Athens and other Greek states the patriarchal system
prevailed, in Sparta, Athens’ greatest rival, we still find the
matriarchate, a condition which had become entirely foreign to most
Greeks. Tradition has it that one day a Greek asked a Spartan how
the crime of adultery was punished in Sparta; whereupon the Spartan
replied: “Stranger, there are no adulterers in our midst.” “But if
there should be one?” quoth the stranger. “Then,” said the Spartan
mockingly, “his penalty would be to give an ox, so tall that he could
stretch his neck across the Taygetus and drink from the Eurotas.”
Upon the astonished query of the stranger how an ox could be so
tall, the Spartan laughingly replied: “How can there be an adulterer
in Sparta?!” The dignified self-consciousness of the Spartan women
finds expression in the reply given to a stranger by the wife of
Leonidas. The stranger said to her: “You Lacedemonian women are the
only ones who rule over men.” To this she replied: “And we are the
only women who bring forth men.”
The freedom enjoyed by women during the matriarchate heightened
their beauty and increased their pride, their dignity and their
self-reliance. There is a uniformity of opinion among ancient
writers that these attributes were highly developed in women during
the matriarchal period. The condition of servitude that followed
naturally had a deteriorating influence. The change is manifested
even in the difference of dress that marks the two periods. The dress
of the Doric woman hung loosely from her shoulders, leaving her arms
and the lower part of her legs uncovered. It is the dress worn by
Diana as she is represented in our museums, a free and daring figure.
But the Ionic dress covers the figure completely and restrains the
motions. The manner in which women dress was and is to this day a
proof of their dependence and a cause of their helplessness to a far
greater extent than is generally assumed. The style of dress worn
by women to this day makes them clumsy and gives them a feeling of
weakness that is expressed in their carriage and their character.
The Spartan custom of permitting girls to go about naked until
maturity--a custom that was made possible by the climate of the
country--had the effect, so an ancient writer tells us, of teaching
them simplicity of taste and regard for the care of their bodies.
According to the views of the time, this custom did not shock the
sense of decency or arouse physical passions. The girls also took
part in all physical exercises just like the boys. Thus a strong,
self-respecting race was reared, conscious of their worth, as is
shown in the reply given to the stranger by the wife of Leonidas.
[11] Homer’s “Odyssee.”
[12] Homer’s “Odyssee.”
[13] “Comedies by Aristophanes.”
[14] The theatre, to which Greek women were not admitted.
[15] “German History of Manners and Civilization,” by Johann Scherr.
Sudermann deals with the same subject in his drama, “Honor.”
[16] Plato: “The State.”
4.--Remnants of the Matriarchate in the Customs of Various Nations.
Certain customs are closely linked with the vanished matriarchate
that modern writers have erroneously termed “prostitution.” In
Babylon, for instance, it was a religious duty for young girls
upon reaching maturity to go to the temple of Mylitta and there
yield to some man, making a sacrifice of their virginity. Similar
customs were observed in the Serapis of Memphis, in honor of the
goddess Anaitis in Armenia, in Tyrus and Sydon in honor of Astarte
or Venus. The Egyptian festivals of Isis were accompanied by the
same religious rites. This sacrifice of virginity was deemed an
atonement to the goddess for the exclusiveness of surrender to one
man in marriage. “For woman is not endowed with all the beauties
nature has bestowed upon her, to fade in the arms of a single man.
The law of substance condemns all restrictions, hates all fetters,
and considers exclusiveness a crime against its divinity.”[17] The
continued good will of the goddess must be purchased by this sacrifice
of virginity to a stranger. In conformity with this conception the
Libyan maidens earned their dowery by their surrender. According
to the matriarchate they enjoyed sexual liberty before marriage,
and the men, far from taking offense at this pursuit, in choosing
a wife gave preference to the girl who had been most desired. The
same condition existed among the Thracians at the time of Herodotus.
“They do not guard the maidens, but give them complete freedom to
have relations with whomever they choose. But the married women
are closely guarded. They buy them from their parents for a large
portion.” The Hierodules in the temple of Venus in Corynth were far
famed. There more than a thousand girls were assembled, constituting
the chief attraction for Greek men. Of the daughter of King Cheops
of Egypt the legend relates, that she had a pyramid built from the
proceeds obtained by the abandonment of her charms.
We still find similar conditions in existence in the Marquesas
Islands, in the Philippines and Polynesia, and, according to Waitz,
among various African tribes. Another custom, which was maintained
on the Balearic Islands up to recent times and that expressed the
right of all men to every woman, was that in the bridal night all
the men related to the bride, were admitted to her successively in
accordance with their ages. The groom came last. Among other peoples
this custom has been changed to that effect, that one man representing
the others, the high priest or chieftain of the tribe, exercises this
privilege with the bride. The Claimars in Malabar engage putamares
(priests) to deflour their wives. It is the duty of the chief priest
(namburi) to render this service to the king (zamorin) upon his
marriage, and the king pays for it with fifty pieces of gold.[18]
In India and on various islands of the Pacific either the priests or
the tribal chiefs (kings) perform this office.[19] It is the same
in Senegambia, where the tribal chief practices the defloration
of virgins as one of his official duties and receives presents in
return. Among other peoples the defloration of the virgin--sometimes
even of female babies--is accomplished by idols constructed for
this purpose. We may assume that the “jus primae noctis” (right of
the first night), which was in practice in Europe until far into
the middle ages, derived its origin from the same tradition. The
landlord, considering himself master over his serfs, practiced the
right of the tribal chief that had come down to him. We will return
to this subject later on.
Remnants of the matriarchate are also seen in a peculiar custom
of South American tribes, that has likewise been met with among
the Basques, a people that have preserved many ancient customs and
practices. Here the father takes to his bed, instead of the mother,
after the birth of a child, feigns being in labor-pain, and lets the
woman care for him. The custom designates that the father recognizes
the newly born child as his own. The same custom is said to exist
among several tribes of mountaineers in China, and it existed until
a recent date in Corsica.
In the records of German colonies submitted to parliament (during
its session 1904–05) there is a report of the South-West-African
region that contains the following passage: “The tribal chief in a
Herero village cannot decide upon the slightest matter without the
advice of his council, and not only the men but generally ~the women
also~ give their advice.” In the report of the Marshall Islands it
says: “Rulership over all the islands of the Marshall groups was
never concentrated upon a single chief.... ~but as there is no female
member of this class (The Irody) living, and the child inherits
nobility and station from the mother only, The Irodies will become
extinct with the death of their chiefs~.” The manner of expression
and description used by the informants shows how utterly foreign the
conditions they describe are to them and that they fail to understand
them.[20]
Dr. Henry Weislocky, who for many years lived among the Gypsies
of Transylvania and finally was adopted into one of their tribes,
reports,[21] that two of the four tribes in whose midst he lived,
the Ashani and the Ishale, observed maternal law. If the migratory
Gipsy marries, he enters the clan of his wife, and to her belong
all the furnishings of the Gipsy household. Whatever wealth she has
belongs to her and to her clan, the man is a stranger. In accordance
with maternal law the children also remain in their mother’s clan.
Even in modern Germany remnants of the matriarchate survive. The
“Westdeutsche Rundschau” (published in Westphalia) reports in the
issue of June 10, 1902, that in the parish of Haltern the laws of
inheritance were still subject to the old maternal law of the gentes.
The children inherit from their mother. Until now all attempts at
reforming this antiquated custom had failed.
How little the present family form and monogamic marriage can be
regarded as eternal or exceedingly ancient, can furthermore be gathered
from the wide-spread existence of marriage by purchase, marriage by
rape, polygamy and polyandry. In Greece, too, woman became an article
of purchase. As soon as she entered the house of her lord and master
she ceased to exist for her family. This was symbolically expressed
by burning before her husband’s house the gaily decorated carriage
that had brought her there. Among the Ostiaks in Siberia the father
still sells his daughter and bargains with the envoys of the groom
over the sum that is to be paid. Among several African tribes the
custom still exists--as in Jacob’s day--that a man wooing a maiden
enters the service of his prospective mother-in-law. Marriage by
purchase still exists in our very midst, in fact, in bourgeois society
it is more generally established than at any other time. The money
marriages, so prevalent among our propertied classes, are nothing
more than marriage by purchase. As a symbol of the purchase whereby
the woman becomes the man’s property, the bridal gift, which it is
customary for the man to give his fiancee, may also be regarded.
Beside marriage by purchase we find marriage by rape. Robbery of
women was practiced not only by the ancient Jews, but practically
by all nations of antiquity. The best-known historical example is
the rape of the Sabines, by the Romans. Robbery of women became the
custom quite naturally wherever women were scarce or where polygamy
existed, as everywhere in the Orient. There especially this custom
was wide-spread during the duration of the Arabian realm from the
seventh to the twelfth century before Christ.
In a symbolical way marriage by rape is still practised among the
Araucanians in the southern part of Chile. While the would-be
bridegroom’s friends bargain with the girl’s father, the man himself
slinks about the house and tries to catch the girl. As soon as he has
grasped her he lifts her on his horse and carries her away toward
the forest. Thereupon men, women and children set up a loud clamor
and try to prevent the flight. But as soon as the man has succeeded
in reaching the shelter of the forest the woman is considered his
wife. This is the case even if the robbery was perpetrated against
the parents’ will. Similar customs are met with among Australian
tribes.
Among civilized nations the custom of wedding journeys still serves
as a reminder of the ancient rape of women; the bride is abducted
from her paternal hearth. In the same way the exchange of wedding
rings is a symbol of the old submissiveness of woman and her being
chained to the man. This custom originated in Rome. The bride received
an iron ring from her husband to signify that she was chained to
him. Later on this ring was made of gold, and much later still the
exchange of rings was introduced to signify the mutual bond.
Polygamy has existed and still exists among the Orientals; but owing
to the limited number of women that are at a man’s disposal, and
owing to the expense of their maintenance, it is at present practised
only by the privileged and propertied classes. The counter-part of
polygamy is polyandry. This is found especially among the mountaineers
of Thibet, the Garras living at the boundary of India and China,
the Baigas in Godwana, the Nairs in the southernmost part of India,
and also among the Eskimos and Aleuts. Descent is determined on the
mother’s side--as must needs be the case--and the children belong to
her. The woman’s husbands usually are brothers. If an oldest brother
marries, the other brothers thereby become husbands to his wife. But
she has the right to take other husbands beside these. The men also
are entitled to several wives. From what conditions polyandry sprang
is as yet unexplained. As the tribes practising polyandry without
exception live either in mountainous regions of a high altitude or in
the frigid zone, polyandry may perhaps be explained by a phenomenon
that Tarnowsky has pointed out.[22] Tarnowsky was told by reliable
travelers that a lengthy sojourn on high altitudes greatly diminishes
sexual desire, which reawakens with renewed vigor upon descending.
This diminution of sexual desire, so Tarnowsky believes, might
explain the slow increase in population in mountainous regions, and
by becoming hereditary might be one of the symptoms of degeneration
leading to perversity.
Continuous living in high altitudes or in frigid zones might in the
same manner signify that polyandry did not make extraordinary demands
on women. Women themselves are influenced accordingly by their
nature, since among Eskimo girls menstruation, as a rule, does not
set in until the nineteenth year, while in the torrid zone it sets
in with the ninth or tenth year, and in the temperate zone between
the fourteenth and sixteenth year. It is generally known that hot
countries have a stimulating effect upon sexual desire; that is why
polygamy is especially prevalent in hot countries. In the same way
cold lands, and high altitudes having a similar climate, may have
a restrictive influence. It is also a matter of experience that
conception is less frequent when a woman has cohabitation with several
men. The increase in population is, therefore, weak where polyandry
exists, and is adapted to the difficulty of obtaining food in cold
climes and high altitudes. This goes to show that even in regard to
this strange custom of polyandry, the relations of the sexes are in
the last instance determined by the methods of production. It still
remains to be investigated whether the frequent killing of female
infants is practised among the tribes living in mountainous regions
or in the frigid zone, as has been reported of Mongolian tribes
living in the mountainous regions of China.
[17] Backofen: “The Matriarchate.”
[18] K. Kautsky: “Origin of Marriage and the Family.” Kosmos, 1883.
[19] Mantagazza: “Love in Human Society.”
[20] Similar conditions are still met with in Camerun and in other
parts of Western Africa. A German naval surgeon who studied the
land and people from his own observations sends us the following
information: “Among a great many tribes the right of inheritance is
founded on maternity. Paternity is a matter of indifference, only
children of the same mother consider one another brothers and sisters.
A man does not will his property to his own children, but to his
sisters’ children, his nephews and nieces, who can be shown to be
his nearest blood relations. A chief of the Way tribe explained to
me in broken English: ‘My sister and I surely are blood relations,
for we are children of the same mother. My sister again surely is
the blood relation of her son. So her son is my heir, and when I
die he will be king of my town.’ ‘And your father?’ I asked. ‘I do
not know what that is, my father,’ he replied. When I then went on
to ask him whether he had no children of his own, he was convulsed
with laughter and replied that with them not men but only women had
children. I can assure you,” our informant goes on to say, “that even
the heir of King Bell in Camerun is not his son, but his nephew. The
children of Bell, many of whom are being trained in German cities,
are but the children of his wives, while their fathers are unknown.
One of them I might lay claim to myself.”--How are the people who
deny the existence of maternal law impressed by this description of
present-day conditions?! Our informant is a keen observer who goes
to the bottom of things. But few who live among these savages do
so. Therefore we are given such false descriptions of the alleged
“immorality” of the natives.
[21] H. v. Weislocky: “Sketches of the Life of the Transylvanian
Gypsies.”
[22] Tarnowsky: “Pathological Phenomena of Sexual Desire.”
5.--Rise of the State.--Dissolution of the Gens in Rome.
After the dissolution of the matriarchal gens, the patriarchal gens
took its place with considerably diminished functions. The chief
function of the patriarchal gens was the strict observation of
common religious and funeral rites and mutual aid and protection.
It entailed the right, and sometimes the duty, to marry within
the gens; the latter being the case especially in regard to rich
heiresses and orphans. The gens also controlled all the remaining
common property.
With the rise of private property and the right of inheritance
connected with it, class distinctions and class antagonism came
into existence. In the course of time the propertied members made
common cause against the propertyless ones. The former sought to
gain control of the administrative positions and to make them
hereditary. Finance had become a necessity and entailed conditions
of indebtedness that had previously been unknown. Struggles against
external enemies, internal conflicts of interest, and the varied
interests and relations created by agriculture, industry and trade,
necessitated a complicated system of laws and the formation of public
bodies destined to keep the social machine in orderly motion and
to settle disputes. The same was true concerning the relations of
masters and slaves, debtors and creditors. Thus a power was needed
to control all these relations, to conduct, regulate, arbitrate,
protect and punish. ~The state came into existence as a necessary
product of the new social order based on conflicting interests.~
Its direction naturally was assumed by those who had the greatest
interest in its founding and who, thanks to their social power,
were most influential: ~the propertied classes~. Thus aristocracy
of wealth and democracy opposed one another, even where complete
equality of political rights was maintained.
During the old matriarchal system no written law existed. Conditions
were simple and custom was hallowed. In the new, far more complicated
order, written law became one of the urgent necessities and special
officials were needed for its administration. But as the legal
relations became more and more complicated, a special class of
persons arose, devoted exclusively to the study of law and having a
special interest in still further complicating them. The jurists,
the lawyers, came into existence, and owing to the importance of the
law to the body social, they soon became one of the most influential
estates. The new civic jurisprudence in the course of time found
its most classic expression in the Roman state, that explains the
influence exerted by Roman law down to the present time.
We see then that the state organization is the natural outcome of a
society divided into a great variety of occupations and having varied,
frequently opposing and contending, interests. An inevitable result
was oppression of the weaker members. This truth was recognized by
the Nabataeans, an Arabian tribe, who, according to Diodorus, issued
the command neither to sow nor to plant, to drink no wine, and to
build no houses, but to live in tents, for if they did all these
things they might be ~compelled to obey by a superior power~ (the
state). Among the Rechabites, the descendants of the father-in-law
of Moses, we find similar decrees.[23] In fact, Mosaic law is framed
in a manner destined to prevent ~the Jews from developing beyond
the stage of an agricultural society, because their lawmakers
feared that it might bring about the downfall of their democratic,
communistic organization~. For the same reasons the “holy land”
was selected in a territory that was bounded on the one side by a
mountain range which was difficult of access, the Libanon, and on
the other, especially in the East and South, by barren lands and a
desert, making isolation possible. For the same reasons, moreover,
the Jews were kept at a distance from the sea, which is favorable to
commerce, colonization and the acquirement of wealth. For the same
reasons there were strict laws forbidding mingling and intermarriage
with other nations; and the poor laws, the agrarian laws, the year of
jubilee, all were institutions destined to prevent the acquirement
of great fortunes by individuals. The Jews were to be prevented
from becoming a state-forming nation. That is why the old gentile
constitution founded on tribal organization was maintained by them
until their dissolution, and has left its traces among them even
to-day.
Apparently the Latin tribes who participated in the foundation of Rome
had already superseded the matriarchal development. As previously
stated, they robbed the women who were wanting among them from the
tribe of the Sabines and called themselves Quirites after these. At a
much later date the Roman citizens in the popular assembly were still
addressed as Quirites. “Populus Romanus” designated the free population
of Rome generally; but “populus Romanus quiritium” designated Roman
citizenship by descent. The Roman gens was patriarchal; the children
inherited from their natural parent. In case there were no children
the property fell to relatives on the man’s side, and if these were
wanting, it fell to the gens. By marriage the woman lost all rights
of inheritance to her father’s property and that of her father’s
brothers. She withdrew from her gens, and thus neither she nor her
children could inherit from her father or his brothers. Otherwise
the hereditary portion would have been lost to the paternal gens.
The division into gentes and phratries for centuries remained the
foundation of military organization and the enactment of civic
rights. But with the decay of the patriarchal gentes and the decline
of their significance, conditions became more favorable to Roman
women. They not only obtained the right of inheritance, they also
obtained the right to control their own fortunes; they accordingly
held a far more favorable position than their Greek sisters. This
freer position gradually won by them, gave the elder Cato--born
234 B. C.--cause for the following complaint: “If the head of each
family, following the example of his ancestors, would seek to
maintain his wife in proper submissiveness, the entire sex would
not give so much trouble publicly.” When a few tribunes in the year
195 B. C., moved to repeal a law enacted previously, for the purpose
of restricting the luxury of women in dress and personal adornment,
he stormed: “If each of us had maintained his manly authority with
his own wife, we would have less bother here with all the women.
Our power that has been shattered in the home, now is being broken
and trampled upon in the forum too by the unruliness of women, and
because we are incapable of resisting them individually, we fear
them all together. Our ancestors decided that women should not even
attend to their private affairs without the control of a guardian,
that they should be subject to their fathers, brothers, husbands.
But we submit to it that they take possession of the republic and
interfere with the popular assembly. If you give free reign to the
imperious natures of these unruly creatures, do not imagine that
they will recognize any limits of their tyranny. The truth is that
they desire freedom, nay, dissoluteness, in all things, and when
they have begun to be our equals, they will soon be our superiors.”
At the time Cato delivered this speech the father was guardian to
his daughter during his lifetime, even when she was married, unless
he appointed another guardian. When the father died the nearest
male relative assumed the guardianship. The guardian had the right
to transfer this guardianship to whomever and whenever he pleased.
Originally then the Roman woman had no will of her own before the law.
The forms of marriage ceremonies were varied and underwent many
changes in the course of the centuries. The most ceremonious marriage
ceremony was performed by the high priest in the presence of at
least ten witnesses, whereupon the bridal pair ate a cake made of
flour, salt and water as a symbol of their union. This ceremony has
a strong resemblance to the eating of the sacramental wafer at the
celebration of the Lord’s Supper. A second form of marriage was
merely by taking possession. If a woman had lived with her chosen
husband under the same roof for one year, with the consent of her
father or guardian, the marriage was legalized. A third form was
a sort of mutual purchase. The man and woman exchanged some coins
and promised to be husband and wife. At the time of Cicero[24]
free divorce to both partners in the marriage contract was already
established, and it was even denied that an announcement of the
divorce was necessary. But the “lex Julia de adulteriis” prescribed
that a divorce must be solemnly announced. This law was caused by
the frequent occurrence that women, having committed adultery and
then having been called to account, claimed to have divorced their
husbands. Justinian (The Christian)[25] prohibited divorce, except
when both parties wished to enter a monastery. But his successor,
Justinian II., found it necessary to introduce it again.
As Rome grew in wealth and power, vice and licentiousness of the
worst kind replaced the moral austerity of its early days. Rome
became the center from which lewdness, debauchery and sensual finesse
spread over the entire civilized world of that period. Especially
during the time of the emperors, and frequently encouraged by the
emperors themselves, the debauchery assumed forms that could only
have been inspired by insanity. Men and women vied with each other
in immorality. The number of public brothels increased rapidly, and
besides the “Greek love” (sodomy) was practised more and more by the
men. At one time the number of male prostitutes in Rome was greater
than the number of female prostitutes.
The courtesans appeared in great pomp, surrounded by their admirers,
on the streets and the promenade, in the circus and theater, sometimes
reclining on couches carried by Negroes, holding a mirror in their
hand, decked with jewels, partly nude, fanned by slaves, surrounded
by a swarm of boys, eunuchs and flute-players, with grotesque dwarfs
bringing up the rear.
These debaucheries assumed such dimensions in the Roman empire, that
they threatened its very existence. The bad example set by men, was
followed by women. There were women, so Seneca[26] reports, who did
not count years by the consuls, as was customary, but by the number
of their husbands. Adultery was general, and in order to escape the
severe penalties attached to it, women had themselves registered as
prostitutes. Even some of the most aristocratic ladies of Rome were
among these.
Besides these debaucheries, civil wars and the system of the latifundia
caused such a marked decline of the marriage and birth-rate, that
the number of Roman citizens and patricians was greatly diminished.
In the year 16 B. C. Augustus enacted the so-called Julian law;[27]
that placed a penalty upon the unmarried state of Roman citizens
and patricians, and rewarded them for having children. Whoever had
children was deemed of higher station than childless or unmarried
persons. Unmarried persons could not inherit property from anyone
except their nearest relatives. People who had no children could
only claim half of an inheritance, the other half was turned over to
the state. Women who had been convicted of adultery, were compelled
to give a part of their dowery to their deceived husbands. This
provision caused some men to marry with a desire for adultery on the
part of their wives. That caused Plutarch to remark: “Romans do not
marry to have heirs, but to become heirs.” Later on the Julian law
was still increased in severity. Tiberius issued an edict that no
woman whose grandfather, father or husband had been or was a Roman
knight, might prostitute herself. Married women, who had their names
entered in the lists of prostitutes, should be banished from Italy.
For the men, of course, no such punishments existed. As Juvenal
reports, husband-murder by poison was a frequent occurrence in Rome
of his day.
[23] “Mosaic Law,” by John David Michaelis.
[24] Born 106 B. C.
[25] From 527 to 565 A. D.
[26] Seneca lived from 2 to 65 A. D.
[27] Augustus, the adopted son of Caesar, was by adoption a member
of the Gens Julia, from which the Julian law derived its name.
CHAPTER III.
Christianity.
While in the Roman empire the marriage and birthrate were permitted
to decline more and more, the Jews maintained far different customs.
The Jewess was not entitled to choose her own husband; he was chosen
for her by her father. But she regarded marriage as a duty which she
faithfully performed. The Talmud advises: “When thy daughter has
attained maturity, set one of thy slaves free and betroth her to
him.” The Jews likewise faithfully obeyed the commandment of their
God: “Be fruitful and multiply.” Accordingly the Jews have steadily
increased in spite of persecution and oppression; they are staunch
opponents of Malthusianism. Tacitus said of them: “They firmly hold
together and readily assist one another, but are hostile and full
of hatred against all others. They never eat or sleep with enemies,
and though very much inclined to sensual passion, they refrain from
pairing with foreign women. Yet they are eager to increase their
tribe. To destroy their offspring is a sin to them; and the souls
of those who have been killed in battle or executed, they consider
immortal. Therefore they combine love for propagation with a contempt
for death.” But Tacitus hated and despised the Jews because they,
regardless of their paternal creed, eagerly accumulated wealth. He
calls them “the meanest people,” “an ugly nation.”
Under Roman rule, the Jews became more and more closely linked with
one another, and during the long time of suffering they were doomed
to endure from this time on through the entire middle ages, that
intimate family life developed among them, which still is regarded
as a sort of model by bourgeois society. In Roman society meanwhile,
that process of decay and dissolution took place that brought the
empire to an end. The debauchery bordering on madness was opposed
by the opposite extreme, rigorous self-denial. Asceticism now
assumed religious forms, as the debaucheries had previously done.
Eccentric fanaticism made propaganda for it. The boundless luxury
and extravagance of the ruling classes was in striking contrast with
the want and misery of the millions and millions of people who were
brought to Italy into servitude by the conquering Romans from all
the countries of the world known at that time. Among these there
also were ever so many women, torn from their homes, their parents,
their husbands and children, who were most deeply afflicted by their
misfortune and longed for liberation. Many Roman women who were
thoroughly disgusted by what was going on about them, were in a
similar mental state. Any change in their position seemed desirable.
A profound longing for change, for redemption, manifested itself in
wide circles, and the Redeemer seemed to approach. The conquest
of the Jewish realm and Jerusalem by the Romans, resulted in the
destruction of national independence, and brought forth idealists
among the ascetics of that country who predicted the coming of a
new kingdom with freedom and happiness for all.
Christ came and Christianity developed. It personified opposition
against the beastly materialism that prevailed among the rich and
mighty ones in the Roman empire; it represented rebellion against
the oppression and disdain of the masses. But since it sprang from
Judaism that knew woman only as an oppressed being, and since it
was biased by the biblical conception that she is the source of all
evil, it preached the disdain of woman; it preached abstinence and
destruction of the flesh, that was sinning so much at the time, and
with ambiguous expressions pointed to a coming kingdom--conceived
by some as a celestial, by others as an earthly kingdom--that would
bring universal peace and justice. In the mire of the Roman realm,
the seeds of these doctrines were planted in fertile soil. Woman,
hoping for liberation and redemption from her position like all the
other unfortunates, gladly and eagerly embraced the new faith. Until
this day no great and important movement has taken place in all the
world in which women did not figure as heroines and martyrs. They
who praise Christianity as a great achievement of civilization,
should not forget that to woman it owed many of its victories. Her
eagerness to make converts played an important part both in the
Roman empire and among the barbarian peoples of the middle ages.
Through her efforts those in power often were converted. Thus, for
instance, it was Chlotilde who induced Chlodwig, King of the Franks,
to embrace Christianity. It was Bertha, Queen of Kent, and Gisela,
Queen of Hungary, who introduced Christianity in their countries. The
conversion of many prominent men was due to the influence of women.
But Christianity rewarded woman poorly. Its doctrines contain the
same disdain of woman that is met with in all the religions of the
Orient. It commands her to be an obedient servant to man, and even
to-day women must promise obedience to their husbands before the
marriage altar. Let us hear how the Bible and Christianity speak
of woman and marriage.
The ten commandments of the old testament are addressed exclusively to
the man. In the ninth commandment the woman is mentioned together with
the domestic servants and domestic animals. The man is warned not to
covet his neighbor’s wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant,
nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is his neighbor’s. Woman
then is an object, a piece of property, that man should not desire
if in someone else’s possession. Jesus, who belonged to a sect that
maintained rigorous asceticism and practised voluntary emasculation,
when asked by his disciples whether it were well to marry, replied:
All men cannot receive this saying save they to whom it is given.
For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s
womb; and there are some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men; and
there be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom
of heaven’s sake.
According to this, then, emasculation is agreeable to God, and
renunciation of love and marriage is a worthy deed. St. Paul, who
may be called the founder of Christianity even more so than Jesus
himself, St. Paul, who removed this creed from the narrow Jewish
sectarianism and gave it its international character, writes to the
Corynthians: Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me:
it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid
fornication, let every man have his own wife and let every woman
have her own husband.
“Matrimony is a degraded station; to marry is good, not to marry is
better.” “Walk in the spirit and resist the temptations of the flesh.”
“The flesh conspires against the spirit and the spirit conspires
against the flesh.” They, whom Christ has won, have crucified their
flesh with all its passions and desires.------
He was true to his own views and refrained from marriage. This hatred
of flesh is ~the hatred of woman, but also the fear of woman~, who
is represented as man’s seducer. In this spirit the apostles and
fathers of the church preached; in this same spirit the church
used its influence during the entire middle ages, by establishing
monasteries and introducing celibacy of priests, and it is still
using its influence in the same direction.
According to Christianity woman is ~impure~. She is the seducer who
brought sin into the world and wrought man’s destruction. Therefore
the apostles and fathers of the church regarded marriage as a
necessary evil, as prostitution is regarded at present. Tertullian
exclaims: “Woman, you ought to go about clad in mourning and rags,
your eyes filled with tears of remorse, to make us forget that you
have been mankind’s destruction. Woman, you are the gate to hell!”
And: “Celibacy must be chose, even though the human race should
perish.” Hieronymus says: “Matrimony is always a vice, all that can
be done is to excuse it and to sanctify it; therefore it was made
a religious sacrament.” Origines declares: “Matrimony is impure
and unholy; a means of sensual passion.” To escape the temptation
he emasculated himself. Augustin teaches: “The married people will
shine in heaven like radiant stars, while their parents (their
procreators) will be like dark stars.” Eusebius and Hieronymus are
agreed that the teaching of the Bible: “Be fruitful and multiply,”
is no longer suited to the times, and does not concern Christians.
Hundreds of similar sayings by the most influential teachers of
the church might be quoted, to prove that they all taught in the
same spirit. By their continuous teaching and preaching they have
disseminated those unnatural views about everything pertaining to
sex and the sex relation, which after all is a ~law of nature, and
the fulfillment of which is one of the most important duties in the
plan of life~. Modern society is still suffering from the effects
of these doctrines, and is but slowly recovering from them.
St. Peter exclaims with energy: “Wives, obey your husbands!” St. Paul
writes to the Ephesians: “The husband is the head of the wife, as
Christ also is the head of the church.” And to the Corinthians:
“The man is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of
the man.”
According to this any fool of a man may deem himself better than
the most excellent woman, and as a matter of fact it has been so
in practice until this day. Against the higher education of women
St. Paul also raises his voice. In the first Epistle to Timothy 2, 11,
etc., he says: “Let a woman learn in quietness with all subjection.
But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to have dominion over a man,
but to be in quietness”; and in the Epistle to the Corinthians, 14,
34 and 35: “Let the women keep silence in the churches; for it is
not permitted unto them to speak. But let them be in subjection as
also saith the law. And if they would learn anything let them ask
their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for a woman to speak
in the church.” St. Thomas of Aquino (1227 to 1274) says: “Woman
is a rapidly growing weed, an imperfect being. Her body attains
maturity more rapidly only because it is of less value, and nature is
engaged less in her making. Women are born to be eternally maintained
under the yoke of their lords and masters, endowed by nature with
superiority in every respect, and therefore destined to rule.”
Such doctrines are not characteristic of Christianity only. As
Christianity is a mixture of Judaism and Greek philosophy, and as
both are rooted in the more ancient civilizations of India, Babylon
and Egypt, the inferior position alloted to woman by Christianity was
common to all the civilized nations of antiquity after the passing
of the matriarchate. In the Indian book of laws of Manu we find the
following: “The cause of dishonor is woman; the cause of hostility is
woman; the cause of worldly things is woman; therefore woman should
be shunned.” Beside the degradation of woman, the fear of woman is
repeatedly naively expressed. Thus it is further stated in Manu:
“Women are ever inclined by nature to seduce men; therefore a man
should never, even in the company of his closest female relative,
sit in a lonely spot.” The Indian conception, the old testament,
and the Christian conception, all unite in declaring woman the
seducer. Every condition of oppression entails the degradation of
the oppressed. The oppression of woman has been maintained until
this day; but among the Oriental peoples, whose social development
has been retarded, it has been maintained more rigorously than among
the Christian nations. Yet the factor that made for improvement in
the position of women among Christian nations was not Christianity
itself, but ~the civilization of the Western countries attained in
the struggles against the Christian conception~.
Christianity is not the cause that woman’s position is superior
to-day to what it had been at the time of the origin of Christianity.
Only reluctantly has it been compelled to abandon its true attitude
toward woman. They who are enthusiastic over the “redeeming mission
of Christianity,” of course, hold a different view. They claim that
Christianity has liberated woman from her former degraded position,
and they base this claim especially upon the cult of the Holy Virgin,
which they consider a token of respect for woman. The Catholic
Church which maintains this cult, might hardly share this opinion.
The above-quoted sayings of the saints and the fathers of the church
which could easily be multiplied, all express hostility to woman
and marriage. The Council at Macon during the sixth century, which
indulged in serious discussion as to whether woman had a soul, and
finally decided in her favor by a majority of one, also disproves the
claim that Christianity was favorable to women. The introduction of
celibacy of priests by Gregory VII,[28] the purpose of which was to
create a power by having an unmarried priesthood that would not be
withdrawn from the service of the church by any family interests, was
made possible only by that fundamental view of the church, that all
desires of the flesh are sinful. Many reformers, especially Calvin
and the Scotch ministers, have raved so vehemently against the “lust
of the flesh,” that they left no doubt in regard to the hostile
attitude of Christianity toward women.[29] By introducing the cult of
the Virgin Mary, the Catholic Church, with wise calculation, merely
put this cult in place of the cult of the ancient goddesses, that
existed among all the peoples who were converted to Christianity at
that time. Mary replaced Cybel, Mylitta, Aphrodite and Venus among
the Southern nations, and Freia, Frigga and others among the German
tribes. She was only endowed with a Christian, spiritual idealism.
[28] Among others the parish priests of the Diocese of Mayence thus
protested against this ordinance: “You bishops and abbots possess
great riches, elegant hunting outfits and enjoy royal banquets; we
poor, simple priests have but a wife for our comfort. Abstinence
may be a virtue, but it is forsooth severe and hard.”--Yves Guyot,
“Les Théories sociales du Christianisme.”
[29] A great many instances in evidence of this are furnished by
Buckle in his “History of Civilization in England.”
CHAPTER IV.
Woman in the Mediaeval Age.
1.--The Position of Women among the Germans.
The robust, physically healthy, coarse but unsophisticated peoples
that during the first centuries after Christ came from the North and
East, flooding like mighty ocean waves the enervated Roman empire in
which Christianity had gradually come into power, vehemently resisted
the ascetic teachings of the Christian preachers, who were obliged to
make allowances for these healthy natures. The Romans were surprised
to find that the customs of these peoples differed considerably from
their own. Tacitus takes note of this fact in regard to the Germans,
of whom he thus expresses his approval: “Their marriage laws are
severe and none of their customs are more laudable than this one, for
they are practically the only barbarians who content themselves with
one wife. Among this numerous people one rarely hears of adultery,
and when it does occur, it is promptly punished, the men themselves
being permitted to inflict the punishment. Naked, her hair clipped,
thus the man drives the adulteress out of the village before the
eyes of her relatives, for a sin against virtue is not condoned.
There nobody laughs over vice and to seduce and being seduced are
not considered a sign of good breeding. The youths marry late;
therefore they maintain their strength. The maidens, too, are not
married off hastily, and they are of the same stature as the men,
and present the same healthful glow of youth. Of equal age, equally
strong, they wed, and the strength of the parents is transmitted to
the children.”
Evidently Tacitus depicted the matrimonial relations of the ancient
Germans in a somewhat too rosy hue, to set them before the Romans as
an example. They indeed severely punished the woman who committed
adultery, but the punishment was not inflicted upon the man who
committed adultery. At the time of Tacitus, the gens still flourished
among the Germans. Tacitus, being accustomed to the more advanced
Roman conditions that made the old gentile organization and its
foundations seem strange and incomprehensible to him, wonderingly
relates that among the Germans a mother’s brother regards his nephew
as a son, and that some considered the bond of blood relation between
an uncle on the mother’s side and his nephew as being even more
sacred than the bond between father and son. For this reason, so he
furthermore relates, when hostages were asked for, it was considered
a stronger security when a man gave his sister’s son instead of his
own. Upon this subject Engels remarks: “When the member of a gens
gave his own son as a hostage and he was sacrificed by a breach of
the agreement, it was the father’s own concern. But if his sister’s
son had been sacrificed a sacred gentile right had been violated.
The nearest gentile relation by duty bound to protect the boy or
youth, had caused his death. He should either not have pledged him,
or should have kept his agreement.”[30] Engels shows that in other
respects among the Germans at the time of Tacitus, the matriarchate
had already been replaced by the patriarchate. The children inherited
from their father. In the absence of children, brothers and uncles on
both the father’s and mother’s side were the lawful heirs. That the
mother’s brother was admitted to a share in the inheritance, although
inheritance was determined by descent on the father’s side, can be
explained by the fact that the old law had but recently disappeared.
Memories of the old law also caused that profound respect of the
German for the female sex, which so greatly surprised Tacitus. He
also observed that the courage of the men was kindled to the utmost
by the women. The thought of seeing their women led into captivity
and servitude was most terrible to the ancient Germans and impelled
them to the utmost resistance. But the women also were animated by
a spirit that greatly impressed the Romans. When Marius would not
permit the captured Teuton women to become priestesses of Vesta (the
goddess of virgin chastity) they committed suicide.
At the time of Tacitus the Germans possessed fixed abodes. There was
an annual division of the soil, which was determined by lot, and
the wood, the streams and the pasture-ground were considered common
property. Their mode of life was extremely simple; their wealth
consisted mainly of cattle; coarse woolen cloaks or the hides of
animals constituted their clothing. Women and some men of rank wore
linen under-garments. Metal tools and weapons were manufactured only
by those tribes who lived in too remote parts for the importation of
Roman products of industry. In minor matters decisions were rendered
by the council of chiefs; in more important matters by the popular
assembly. Originally the chiefs were elected, though usually from
one particular family. But the transition to the patriarchal system
favored the heredity of the position, and finally led to the formation
of a hereditary nobility that later on developed into kingship. As
in Greece and Rome, the German gens perished by the rise of private
property, the development of industry and commerce, and intermarriage
with members of foreign tribes and nations. The gens was replaced
by the mark community, a democratic organization of free peasants
that constituted a firm bulwark against the encroachments of church
and nobility for many centuries, and did not quite disappear even
then when the feudal state had come into power and the free peasants
had been forced into a condition of servitude. The mark community
was represented by the heads of the families. Wives, daughters and
daughters-in-law were excluded from the council. The times had passed
in which women conducted the affairs of the tribe--an incident
which greatly amazed Tacitus, and which he describes with remarks
of scorn. In the fifth century the Salic law repealed the right of
inheritance of women to patrimonial estates.
Every male member of the mark community was entitled, upon marriage,
to share in the common soil. Usually grandparents, parents and
children lived under one roof in a household community, and so it
frequently occurred that for the purpose of obtaining an additional
share, a son who had not yet attained the marriageable age was joined
in wedlock with some maiden of marriageable age by proxy, the father
acting as husband in place of the son.[31] Newly married couples
were given a cartload of beachwood and wood to build a log cabin.
Upon the birth of a daughter, parents also received one cartload
of wood; upon the birth of a son they received two. The female sex
accordingly was considered worth only half as much as the male sex.
The marriage ceremony was simple. Religious rites were unknown. A
mutual agreement was sufficient, and as soon as the couple had entered
the nuptial bed, the marriage was contracted. Only in the ninth
century that custom arose according to which a religious ceremony
was necessary to legalize a marriage, and as late as the sixteenth
century, marriage was made a sacrament of the Catholic Church by a
decision of the council of Trent.
[30] Engels: “Origin of the Family.”
[31] The same custom was met with in Russia during the rule of Mir.
2.--Feudalism and the Right of the First Night.
With the rise of the feudal state the position of a great many
commoners became considerably worse. The victorious leaders of the
army abused their power by taking possession of large tracts of land.
They considered themselves entitled to the common property, and did
not hesitate to distribute it among their followers, slaves, serfs or
freed men, either for temporary use or with the right of inheritance.
Thereby they created for themselves a court and military nobility,
devoted to them in all things. The establishment of a large realm
of the Franks destroyed the last traces of gentile organization.
The council of the chiefs was replaced by the leaders of the army
and the newly created nobility.
Gradually the great mass of the commoners were driven into a condition
of exhaustion and pauperism, as a result of the continuous wars of
conquest and the disputes of their rulers, for which they had to bear
the heaviest burdens. They could no longer serve in the militia.
In their place the lords and noblemen recruited vassals, and the
peasants placed themselves and their possessions under the protection
of a worldly or spiritual lord--for the church had succeeded in
becoming a great power within a few centuries--in return for which
they paid rent and taxes. Thus the free farms were transformed into
leased property, and as time went by new duties were constantly
imposed. Having once come into this dependent position, it was not
long before the peasants were deprived of their personal liberty as
well. Bondage and serfdom expanded more and more. The feudal lord
held almost unrestricted sway over his serfs. His was the right to
compel any man who had attained the eighteenth and any girl who had
attained the fourteenth year, to become married. He could prescribe
to both men and women whom they were to marry, even in the case of
widows and widowers. As lord of his subjects, he considered himself
entitled to sexual intercourse with his female serfs, and his power
was expressed in the “jus primae noctis” (the right of the first
night). This right might also be practiced by his representative
(major domo) unless the right were waived upon payment of a tax. The
terms “bed-tribute,” “virgin’s tribute,” etc., betray the nature of
these taxes.
It has frequently been denied that this right of the first night
existed. The knowledge of its existence is uncomfortable to some
people, because it was still practiced at a time that they like to
represent as a model for virtuousness and piety. We have already shown
that this right of the first night was a custom which had its origin
in the time of the matriarchate. When the old gentile organization
disappeared, the custom of surrendering the bride in the bridal
night to the members of her kinship was still maintained. But in the
course of time the right was restricted and finally practiced only
by the chief or priest. It was transferred upon the feudal lord as
a result of his power over the people who lived upon the land owned
by him, and he might practice this right if he so chose, or waive
it in return for a payment in kind or in money. How real was this
right of the first night may be seen by the following passage from
a tale by Jacob Grimm: “The groom shall invite the manager of the
estate to the wedding and he shall also invite the manager’s wife.
The manager shall bring a cartload of wood to the wedding, and his
wife shall bring a quarter of a roasted pig. When the wedding is
over, the groom shall let the manager lie with his wife for the first
night, or he shall redeem her with five shillings and six pence.”
Sugenheim[32] holds the opinion that the right of the first night
was given to the feudal lord because his serfs, in order to marry,
needed his consent. In Béarn this practice led to the custom that all
first-born children of marriages in which the “jus primae noctis”
had been practiced, were regarded as of free estate. Later on this
right was generally redeemable by the payment of a tax. According
to Sugenheim, the bishops of Amiens stubbornly maintained this tax
until the beginning of the fifteenth century. In Scotland the right
of the first night was declared redeemable by payment of a tax by
King Malcolm III at the close of the eleventh century. In Germany it
existed much longer. According to the records of the Swabian monastery
Adelberg of the year 1496, the serfs living in the community of
Boertlingen, could redeem the right if the groom gave a bag of salt
and the bride gave 1 lb 7 shillings in a dish “large enough that she
might sit in it.” In other localities the brides might redeem it by
giving the feudal lord so much butter or cheese “as was the size of
their seat.” Elsewhere they had to give a dainty leather chair “in
which they just fitted.” According to a description of the Bavarian
judge of the court of appeals, Mr. Welsh, a tax for redeeming the jus
primae noctis still existed in Bavaria in the eighteenth century.
Engels furthermore reports that among the Scots and Welsh the jus
primae noctis was maintained thruout the middle age, but since here
the gentile organization continued to exist, it was not the feudal
lord or his representative who practiced this right, but the chieftain
of the clan, and by him it was practiced as representative of all
the husbands unless a tribute was paid.
So there can be no doubt as to the existence of the right of the
first night, not only in medieval days, but even down to modern
times, and that it held a place in the feudal code of laws. In Poland
noblemen arrogated the right to deflour any maiden who chanced to
please them, and if someone protested against this usage, they
condemned him to receive one hundred blows with a cane. Land-lords
and their employees still consider the sacrifice of virginal honor
to their lust a matter of course, not only in Germany, but in the
entire southern and south eastern portion of Europe, as is asserted
by those who are acquainted with the land and the people.
During feudalism it was in the interest of the feudal lord that
his serfs should become married, for the children became his serfs
also, adding to the number of his workers and increasing his income.
Therefore both worldly and spiritual masters encouraged marriage
among their subjects. The question assumed a different aspect tho
as far as the church was concerned, when an unmarried person was
likely to will his property to the church. But this only applied to
free men of low estate, whose conditions grew steadily worse as a
result of the conditions described herein, and who gave over their
possessions to the church to seek protection and peace within the
walls of the monasteries. Others again placed themselves under the
protection of the church by paying a tax or by rendering services.
But in this way the fate they had sought to escape frequently befell
their descendants; they gradually came into bondage or were made
novices for the monasteries.
[32] History of the abolition of serfdom in Europe until the middle
of the nineteenth century.
3.--The Rise of Cities.--Monastic Affairs.--Prostitution.
The cities which had begun to flourish with the eleventh century,
favored the increase of population in their own interest by
facilitating residence and marriage. They became places of refuge
to the rural population seeking to escape unbearable oppression,
and to fugitive serfs. But at a later day these conditions changed
again. As soon as the cities had obtained power, and a class of
mechanics in comfortable circumstances had come into existence,
a feeling of hostility manifested itself against new-comers who
tried to settle down as mechanics, since they were regarded as
undesirable competitors. Barriers were erected against the new-comers;
heavy taxes were levied upon them if they would obtain the right
of residence and become qualified as master-workmen. Trades were
limited to a certain number of master-workmen and their journeymen,
thereby forcing thousands into a condition of servitude, celibacy
and vagabondage. When during the sixteenth century the cities began
to decline,--owing to conditions that will be discussed later
on,--it was quite in keeping with the narrow views of the time that
residence and the right to independently practice a trade were made
still more difficult. The tyranny of the feudal lords constantly
increased, until many of their subjects preferred to abandon their
miserable lives for the freer life of beggar, tramp or robber, the
latter being favored by the large forests and the poor condition of
the highways, or, making the most of the numerous warfares of the
time, they became mercenary soldiers, selling their services wherever
the pay was highest and the booty most promising. Male and female
rabble flooded the country, becoming a public nuisance. The church
helped to increase the general depravity. The forced celibacy of the
clergy alone led to sexual debauchery, and this was still heightened
by the constant association with Italy and Rome.
Rome was not only the capital of Christianity, being the residence
of the popes, it was also, true to its traditions under the heathen
emperors, a new Babel, the European high-school of immorality, and
the papal court was its most distinguished center. The Roman empire
at its dissolution had left to Christian Europe all its vices. These
were cultivated in Rome and from there penetrated into Germany,
favored by association of the clergy with Rome. The numerous
clergy, consisting to a great extent of men whose sexual desires
were increased to the utmost by a lazy and luxurious life, and whom
enforced celibacy drove to illegitimate or unnatural satisfaction
of their desires, transmitted this immorality to all strata of
society. The clergy became a pestilential danger to the virtue of
women in cities and villages. Monasteries and nunneries,--and there
were countless numbers of them,--frequently differed from public
brothels only inasmuch as life within them was still more licentious
and dissolute. Crimes, especially infanticide, were frequently
committed there with impunity, because only those were permitted to
pass judgment who were more often than not connected with the crimes.
Sometimes peasants tried to protect their wives and daughters from
being seduced by clergymen, by refusing to accept as pastor any one
who would not consent to keeping a concubine. This circumstance led
a bishop of Constance to impose a concubine tax upon the clergy of
his diocese. Such conditions explain the historically authenticated
fact, that during the mediæval age described by one writer of romance
as a pious and virtuous age, for instance in 1414, at the council
of Constance, no less than 1500 prostitutes were present.
But these conditions by no means made their appearance only at the
decline of the middle age. They appeared at an early date and gave
cause for constant complaints and ordinances. Thus Charlemagne issued
an ordinance in the year 802, in which it says: “the nunneries shall
be closely guarded. The nuns shall not roam about but shall be
carefully watched, neither shall they live in discord and quarrels
with one another, and under no circumstances shall they disobey
their mothers superior. Where they have monastic rules they shall
absolutely abide by them. They shall not be given to covetousness,
drunkenness and prostitution, but shall lead a just and temperate
life. Neither shall any man enter their convent except to attend
mass, and then he shall immediately depart again.” Another ordinance
of the year 869 declared: “if priests keep ~several~ wives or shed
the blood of Christians or heathens, or break the canonical law, they
shall be divested of their priesthood because they are worse than
the laity.” The fact that in those days the priests were forbidden
to have several wives, shows that in the ninth century polygamy
was not rare. Indeed there were no laws forbidding it. Even later,
at the time of the minnesingers, during the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, it was not considered objectionable to have several wives.
In a poem by Albrecht of Johansdorf in the collection “Love-songs’
Springtime,” we find the following stanza:[33]
Particularly detrimental to the moral condition of the age were the
crusades, that kept tens of thousands of men away from their homes
for years, and led them to become acquainted with customs in the
Eastern Roman empire that had until then been unknown in Western
Europe. The position of women became especially unfavorable, not
only as a result of the many hindrances to marriage and permanent
residence, but also because their numbers by far exceeded the male
population. The chief cause of this was the numerous wars and the fact
that commercial traveling in those days was a dangerous undertaking.
Moreover the death rate among men was higher than among women, as a
result of their intemperate living, which was especially manifested
during the plague that frequently ravaged the population in the
middle age. Thus there were 32 plague years in the period from 1326
to 1400; 41 from 1400 to 1500, and 30 from 1500 to 1600.[34]
Hosts of women roamed about on the highways as musicians, dancers,
magicians, in the company of wandering scholastics and priests, and
flooded the markets and fairs. They formed special divisions in the
troops of foot-soldiers where they were organized in guilds according
to the spirit of the age, and were assigned to the different ranks
according to age and beauty. By severe penalty they were forbidden
to yield to any man outside of the prescribed circle. In the camp
they had to help the baggage-carriers to gather in hay, straw and
wood, to fill up holes and ditches and to clean the camp. During
sieges it was their task to fill up the ditches with brushwood,
branches and tufts of grass to facilitate the attack; they helped to
place the guns in position and to drag them along when they became
stuck in the muddy roads.[35] To give some relief to these numerous
helpless women, so called beguinages, that were maintained by the
municipality, were erected in many cities from the middle of the
thirteenth century on. Here the women were given homes and were
encouraged to lead decent lives. But neither their institutions nor
the nunneries could shelter all those who sought help and protection.
The hindrances to marriage, the journeys of noblemen and other worldly
and spiritual lords who came into the cities with their hosts of
knights and attendants, the young men within the cities and, last
but not least, the married men who were not troubled much by moral
scruples but believed that variety was the spice of life,--all these
created a demand for prostitutes in the medieval towns. As every trade
in those days was organized into guilds and submitted to definite
regulations, so also was prostitution. In all the larger cities
brothels were maintained that were municipal, state or church property
and whose profits went to fill these respective treasuries. The women
in these houses had a senior-mistress elected by themselves, whose
duty it was to maintain order and who was especially charged with the
task of seeing to it that no competitors outside of the guild harmed
the legitimate trade. If such competitors were caught, they had to
pay a legal fine. Thus the inhabitants of a brothel in Nuremberg
complained to the magistrate about the competition of women who were
not members of their guild: “that other keepers also maintain women
who go upon the streets at night and harbour married men and others,
and who ply their trade in a much coarser way, and that such were a
disgrace and should not be permitted in this praiseworthy town.”[36]
The brothels enjoyed special protection; breach of the peace in their
vicinity was punished more severely than elsewhere. This female guild
was also entitled to appear at festivals and in processions in which
it was customary for all the guilds to participate. They were even
sometimes invited as guests to princely and official banquets. The
brothels were considered desirable “for the protection of married
women and the honor of virgins.” This was the same argument which
was resorted to in order to justify the maintenance of brothels by
the state in Athens. Nevertheless barbarous persecutions of the
prostitutes were met with, that came from the same men whose demand
and whose money maintained the prostitutes. Thus Charlemagne decreed
that a prostitute should be brought nude upon the market place and
be flogged there. He himself, the “most Christian” king and emperor
had no less than six wives simultaneously. His daughters, evidently
following their father’s example, were not models of virtue either.
Their mode of life gave him many unpleasant hours, and they brought
several illegitimate children into his house. Alkuin, a friend and
advisor to Charlemagne, warned his pupils of “the crowned doves who
fly thru the Palatinate at night,” meaning the emperor’s daughters.
The same communities that officially organized and protected the
brothels and granted all sorts of privileges to the prostitutes
inflicted the hardest and most cruel punishments upon a poor forsaken
girl who had gone wrong. The infanticide who, driven to despair, had
killed her own offspring was subjected to cruel death, while no one
bothered about the unscrupulous seducer. Perhaps he sat among the
judges who pronounced the death sentence on the unfortunate victim.
The same is possible still.[37] Adultery of wives was also severely
punished; to be put in the pillory was the least she might expect.
But adultery of husbands was concealed by the cloak of Christian
forbearance.
In Wuerzburg it was customary for the brothel-keeper to take an oath
before the magistrate, pledging faith and allegiance to the city and
that he would diligently enlist women. Similar oaths were taken in
Nuremberg, Ulm, Leipsic, Cologne, Frankfort, and others. In Ulm the
brothels were abolished in 1537; but in 1551, the guilds moved to
reinstate them “to avoid a worse state of affairs.” When strangers
of note visited a city, prostitutes were placed at their disposal
at the city’s expense. When King Ladislaus entered Vienna in 1452,
the magistrate sent a committee of public prostitutes to meet him,
clad in transparant gauze that disclosed their beautiful shapes.
Emperor Charles V, upon entering Antwerp, was also received by a
committee of nude girls, a historic scene that Hans Makart depicted
in a large painting which is now on exhibition in the museum at
Hamburg. Such occurrences created no scandal in those days.
[33]
Would he not be fickle
Who would choose to have a second wife
Beside his virtuous one? Speak, Sir, would you?--
Let it to men be granted but to women not!
[34] Dr. Charles Buecher: “The Woman Question in Mediæval Times.”
[35] Dr. Charles Buecher: “The Woman Question in Medieval Times.”
[36] Joh. Scherr, History of the German Woman, 4th ed. Leipsic, 1879.
[37] Leon Richter in “La femme libre” reports a case where a servant
girl was convicted of infanticide by the father of her child, a pious
lawyer, who was a member of the court. After the girl’s conviction
it became known that the lawyer himself was the murderer and that
she was innocent.
4.--Knighthood and the Veneration of Women.
Phantastic writers of romance and scheming persons have endeavored
to depict the mediæval age as an especially virtuous one, and as
one imbued with a profound veneration of women. The time of the
minnesingers, from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, is dwelt
upon to furnish proof to this assertion. The poetic courtship of
the knights, that was first introduced by the Moriscos in Spain, is
supposed to prove that women were highly honored at that time. But
let a few facts be remembered. Firstly, the knights only constituted
a very small portion of the population, and in the same way their
ladies constituted a small portion of the women. Secondly, only a
very limited number of the knights practiced this knightly courtship;
and thirdly, the true nature of this custom has been considerably
misunderstood or distorted. The time when knighthood was in flower,
was the age of the rule of brute force in Germany; it was the age
in which all bonds of law and order were broken, and the knights
practiced extortion, plundering and highway-robbery without restraint.
Such an age of brute force is not one in which mild and poetic
sentiments predominate. On the contrary. This age was destined
to shatter the respect for the female sex that might still have
remained. The knights, in the country as well as in the towns, were
mostly coarse, brutal fellows, whose chief passion, besides warfare
and excessive drinking, was the unrestricted satisfaction of their
sexual desires. The chroniclers of that time tell of incessant acts
of violence and ravishment committed by the nobility of town and
country, who controlled the municipal governments throughout the
thirteenth, fourteenth and into the fifteenth centuries. Because
the knights conducted the courts in the towns, and the feudal lords
passed judgment in the rural districts, the injured persons rarely
obtained redress of their grievances. It is a great exaggeration
then to assume that their customs of courtship caused the ancient
nobility to treat women with special respect and to regard them as
superior beings.
A small minority of the knights seem to have been enthusiastic over
feminine beauty, but their enthusiasm was by no means platonic but
pursued very material aims. Even that clown among the romantic
admirers “of lovely women,” Ulrick of Lichtenstein of ridiculous
memory, was a platonic lover only so long as he was compelled to
be. In the main, this romantic worship of woman was nothing but
deification of the mistress at the expense of the legitimate wife;
it was nothing but courtesanship, as it has existed in Greece at the
time of Pericles, transplanted into medieval Christianity. The mutual
seduction of wives was frequently practiced among the knights also,
as it is still practiced in certain circles of our bourgeoisie.
The open manifestation of sensuality, characteristic of that age,
constituted a frank recognition of the fact that the natural desires
implanted in every healthy, adult human being rightfully seek
satisfaction. In that respect it expressed a victory of healthy
nature over the ascetic teachings of Christianity. But on the other
hand it must again be emphasized, that this recognition came into
consideration for the one sex only, while the other sex was treated
on the assumption that it could not and dare not have the same
impulses. The slightest transgression by women of the moral laws
laid down for them by men, was punished with unmerciful severity.
Women, as a result of constant oppression and a singular education,
have become so accustomed to the conception of their rulers, that
they still consider this condition quite natural. Were there not
also millions of slaves who considered slavery a natural condition
and who would never have liberated themselves had not the liberators
sprung from the slave owning class? When Prussian peasants were to
be emancipated from serfdom, they petitioned the government not to
emancipate them, “for who should provide for them when they were aged
or ill?” And do we not meet with the same situation in the modern
labor movement? How many workingmen still permit their exploiters
to influence them and lead them at will!
The oppressed needs some one to animate and inspire him, because he
lacks the initiative for independence. It was thus in the present
day movement of the proletariat, and it is the same in the struggle
for the emancipation of women. Even the bourgeoisie, that enjoyed a
relatively more favorable position in its struggle for independence,
found its leaders and spokesmen among the nobility and clergy.
Whatever the shortcomings of the middle ages may have been, it
possessed a healthy sensuality which sprang from the strong, buoyant
nature of the people, and which Christianity could not suppress.
The hypocritical prudery and concealed lasciviousness of our day,
that fears to call a spade a spade and to speak of natural things
in a natural way, was foreign to that age. Neither was it familiar
with that piquant ambiguity to which we resort in speaking of what
we dare not name, because to be prudish and unnatural has become
customary with us, and which is all the more dangerous because such
language allures, but does not satisfy, allows us to surmise but does
not express clearly. Our social conversations, our novels and our
theaters abound with these piquant ambiguities, and their effect is
manifested. This spiritualism of the roué, concealed by religious
spiritualism, has a powerful influence.
CHAPTER V.
The Reformation.
1.--Luther.
The healthy sensuality of the middle ages found its classic exponent
in Luther. We are here not so much concerned with the religious
reformer, but with Luther, the man. In regard to all human relations,
Luther’s strong, unsophisticated nature clearly manifested itself,
and caused him to express freely and without reserve his desire for
love and enjoyment. His position as a former Roman clergyman had
opened his eyes and had taught him from experience how contrary to
all the laws of nature were the lives of monks and nuns. Therefore
he roundly condemned the celibacy of priests and monks. Luther
says: “Unless specially endowed by a rare, divine grace, a woman
can no more dispense with a man, than she can dispense with food,
drink, sleep and other natural needs. In the same way a man cannot
do without a woman. The cause is that the desire to propagate the
race is as deeply implanted by nature as the desire for food and
drink. Therefore God has given unto the human body limbs, veins,
circulation and all that serves this end. He who opposes this, and
will not let nature take her course, what does he do but seek to
prevent nature from being nature, fire from burning, water from
moistening, human beings from eating, drinking and sleeping?” In his
sermon on marriage, he says: “Just as it is not within my power not
to be a man, so it is not in thy power to do without a man, for it
is not free will or advice but a natural necessity that every man
must have a woman and that every woman must have a man.” But Luther
does not only express himself so strongly in favor of marriage and
the necessity of sexual relations, he also expresses himself as
opposed to it that the church and marriage should have anything in
common. He says in regard to this: “Know that marriage is something
extrinsic as any other worldly action. As I may eat, drink, sleep,
walk, ride and deal with any heathen, Jew, Turk or heretic, ~so to
one of these I may also become and remain married. Do not observe
the laws of fools that forbid such marriages.~... Heathens are men
and women, well and wisely created by God, just as well as St. Peter
and St. Paul and St. Luke, not to speak of any false and wanton
Christian.” Luther furthermore, like other reformers, opposed all
restrictions to marriage, and favored permitting divorcees to marry,
which was opposed by the church. He says: “in regard to matters of
marriage and divorce among us I say, ~let the jurists dispose of
them, and let them be subject to worldly rule, since matrimony is a
worldly, extrinsic thing~.” In accordance with this view, it was not
until the end of the seventeenth century that a religious ceremony
was considered essential to a legal marriage among Protestants. Until
then the so called conscience marriage sufficed, that is, a marriage
founded upon the mutual agreement to regard one another as husband and
wife and to live in matrimonial relations with one another. According
to German law such marriages were legal. Luther even went so far as
to adjudge to the unsatisfied party in a marriage contract--even if
the party were the woman--the right to seek satisfaction outside
of marriage, “in order to do justice to nature that can not be
resisted.”[38] In this matter Luther sets forth opinions that would
rouse many of our present day respectable men and women, who always
point to Luther in their pious zeal, to vehement indignation. In
his treatise “on married life,” II, 146, Jena 1522, he says: “if a
healthy woman is joined in wedlock to an impotent man and could not
nor would for her honor’s sake openly choose another, she should
speak to her husband thus: See, my dear husband, thou hast deceived
me and my young body and endangered my honor and salvation, before
God there is no honor between us. Suffer that I maintain a secret
marriage with thy brother or closest friend while thou remainest my
husband in name. That thy property may not fall heir to strangers;
willingly be deceived by me as you have unwillingly deceived me.” It
should be the husband’s duty, Luther goes on to say, to consent to
such arrangement. “If he will not she has the right to abandon him
and go into another country and marry another man. In the same way
if a woman will not perform her conjugal duty, the man has the right
to seek another woman; only he should first tell his wife.”[39] We
see, the opinions set forth by the great reformer are very radical
and even immoral, when viewed in the light of our age, abounding
with prudery and hypocrisy. But Luther only expressed the popular
conceptions of his age. The following is told by Jacob Grimm: “If
a man cannot satisfy his wedded wife, let him take her gently upon
his back and carry her to his neighbors. There let him set her down
softly, without anger or rudeness but upon mutual agreement, and
let him appeal to his neighbors to help his wife in her need. If
they will not or can not, then let him send her to the nearest fair.
There shall she appear, becomingly dressed and adorned, wearing a
gold embroidered veil as a token that she may be wooed. If after
all she returns from the fair still unsatisfied, then may the devil
help her!”
The peasant of the middle age primarily sought marriage for the
purpose of having heirs, and if he was unable to beget them himself,
being a practical man, he left this pleasure to another without
having particular moral scruples about it. The main object was to
attain his purpose. We repeat: Man does not control his property,
he is controlled by it.
The above quotations from the writings and sermons of Luther are of
special importance because the views in regard to marriage expressed
in them are diametrically opposed to those maintained by the church
to-day. Luther and the other reformers went still further in matters
pertaining to marriage but, it must be admitted, for opportunistic
reasons, in order to please such sovereigns whose lasting support
and good will they sought to win and to maintain. The landgrave of
Hessia, Philip I, who was in sympathy with the reformation, had a
legal wife, but fell in love with another woman who refused to yield
to his entreaties unless he would marry her. It was a delicate
case. To become divorced from his wife without good and sufficient
reason would imply a great scandal; to be married to two women
simultaneously was a shocking occurrence with a Christian sovereign of
the newer era, bound to create a still greater scandal. Nevertheless
amorous Philip chose the latter alternative. It only was necessary
to determine that this step was not in opposition to the teachings
of the Bible, and to obtain the consent of the reformers, especially
Luther and Melanchton. The landgrave then opened negotiations with
Butzer, who consented to the plan and promised to win Luther and
Melanchton. Butzer explained his view by pointing out that to have
several wives simultaneously was not in conflict with the gospel,
since Paul, who had mentioned many who shall not inherit the kingdom
of God, had said nothing about those who have two wives. Paul had
decreed that a bishop and his servants should not have more than one
wife. If it had been necessary that no man should have more than one
wife, he would have stated this and would have forbidden polygamy.
Luther and Melanchton declared themselves in accordance with these
views and consented to the double marriage, after the landgrave’s
wife had also given her consent under the condition “that he should
perform his conjugal duty toward her even more than heretofore.”[40]
Luther had been previously troubled by the question whether bigamy
was permissible when asked to give his consent to the double marriage
of Henry VIII of England. That can be seen from a letter which he
wrote to the Saxon chancellor Brink in January 1524. In this letter
he wrote that on principle he, Luther, could not object to bigamy
since it was not in conflict with the Holy Scripture,[41] but that
he considered it offensive when occurring among Christians, for
there were some things from which Christians should refrain even
if they were not forbidden. After the marriage of the landgrave,
which actually took place during March 1540, he wrote (April 10) in
reply to a letter of appreciation from him: “I am glad that Your
Grace is pleased by the advice we have given; but we should prefer
to have secrecy maintained. Otherwise the coarse peasants, seeking
to follow the example set by the landgrave, might present the same
or even better causes, which would give us no end of trouble.”
Melanchton probably had fewer scruples in giving his consent to the
double marriage of the landgrave, for he had previously written to
Henry VIII, that every sovereign was entitled to introduce polygamy
in his realm. But the double marriage of the landgrave caused so much
unpleasant notoriety in his country, that in 1541 he had a pamphlet
distributed in which polygamy was defended on the ground that it was
not in opposition to the Holy Scripture. But conceptions had been
greatly modified since the ninth or twelfth century when polygamy
was accepted without averse criticism. The double marriage of the
landgrave of Hessia was however not the only one that gave offense
to wide circles. Such princely double marriages were repeated both
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as will be shown.
When Luther declared the satisfaction of sensual desire to be a law
of nature, he only expressed what his contemporaries thought and what
the men claimed as their privilege. By the reformation, which did
away with the celibacy of the clergy and abolished the monasteries
in the Protestant countries, he gave to hundreds of thousands of
men and women the possibility to seek legitimate satisfaction of
their natural desires. Hundreds of thousands of others, of course,
remained excluded from this possibility by the existing forms of
property and the laws founded upon them.
The reformation was the protest of the rising bourgeoisie against
the constraint of feudal conditions in church, state and society.
This rising bourgeoisie struggled for liberation from the narrow
bonds of the guild, the court and the papal anathema; it strove for
centralization of the powers of the state, simplification of the
extravagant church affairs, and the abolition of the numerous abodes
of idle persons, the monasteries.
Luther represented these endeavors of the bourgeoisie upon the
religious field. When he stood for the freedom of marriage, it was
the bourgeois marriage that was realized only in our day by the civil
marriage laws, and the freedom of migration and freedom of choice
in trade and domicile. We will see to what extent the position of
woman was modified by these changes. During the reformation this
change of development had not yet been reached. While on the one
hand the reformation made marriage possible for many people, on the
other hand free sexual intercourse was subjected to the most bitter
persecution. While the Catholic clergy had maintained a certain
tolerance toward sexual excess, the Protestant clergy, having been
provided for itself, declaimed against it with redoubled zeal.
War was waged against the public brothels that were declared to
be the devil’s dens. Prostitutes were persecuted as daughters of
Satan, and every woman who had “fallen” was considered a paragon of
wickedness and was subjected to relentless persecution. The merry,
life loving townsman of the middle ages became a bigoted, austere,
sombre philistine, who lived miserly that his later day bourgeois
descendants might live all the more extravagantly. The honorable
citizen with his stiff cravat, his narrow intellectual horizon, his
severe but hypocritical morality, became the prototype of society.
Legitimate wives who had not favored the sensuality tolerated by
the Catholicism of the middle ages, were generally better pleased
by the Puritan spirit of Protestantism. But other causes that had
an unfavorable influence on conditions in Germany generally, also
influenced the position of women unfavorably.
[38] Dr. Carl Hagen--Germany’s Literary and Religious Conditions
during the Reformation.
[39] Dr. Carl Hagen.
[40] John Janssen--History of the German People.
[41] This is true and can be explained from the fact that the Bible had
its origin at a time when polygamy prevailed both among the Eastern
and Western people; but in the sixteenth century it nevertheless
was in direct opposition to custom.
2.--Results of the Reformation.--The Thirty Years’ War.
Transformations in the conditions of production, exchange and finance,
that were brought about especially by the discovery of America, and
the discovery of the passage to India, resulted in a great social
reaction for Germany. Germany ceased to be the center of European
commerce. The German trades and manufactures declined. At the same
time the religious reformation had destroyed the political unity of
the nation. Under the cloak of the reformation, the German princes
sought to emancipate themselves from imperial rule. On the other
hand, these princes oppressed the nobility and favored the cities
to serve their own ends. Some of the cities voluntarily placed
themselves under the rule of the princes, driven to this step by
conditions that were steadily growing worse. The bourgeoisie upon
seeing their income threatened, tried to make the restrictions that
were intended to guard them against undesirable competition more and
more rigorous, and the princes willingly conceded their demands. The
ossification of conditions increased, but the general impoverishment
increased likewise.
Another result of the reformation were the religious struggles and
persecutions--used by the princes to serve their own political and
economic ends--that raged in Germany with some interruptions for
over a century, and finally ended with its complete exhaustion at
the end of the Thirty Years’ War. Germany had become a vast field of
corpses and ruins. Entire countries and provinces had been devastated,
hundreds of cities and thousands of villages partly or completely
destroyed, and many of them had been wiped from the surface of the
earth forever. In many places the population had been reduced to a
third, a fourth, a fifth, even an eighth or a tenth of its original
number. Such was the case in Nuremberg, and in the entire Franconian
province. In this utmost need, in order to increase the population
in the depopulated towns and villages, the unusual measure was
occasionally resorted to of permitting one man to have two wives. Men
had been decimated by the wars, but there was a superabundance of
women. On the 14th of February 1650, the Franconian district council
at Nuremberg decreed that “men under 60 should not be admitted into
monasteries”; it furthermore decreed that “those clergymen who were
not members of an order should become married.” Moreover, “every
man should be permitted to wed two wives, but the men should be
frequently reminded and exhorted from the pulpits to employ good
judgment and discretion, that a married man who ventured to maintain
two wives should not only provide well for both of them, but should
also endeavor to avoid ill feeling between them.” So even the pulpits
were employed to make propaganda for the double marriage and to lay
down rules of conduct for the men.
Commerce and industry almost came to a standstill during this long
period; in many instances they were almost completely destroyed and
picked up but very gradually. A large portion of the population had
become demoralized and brutalized and disaccustomed to all regular
work. During the wars, troops of mercenary soldiers had crossed
Germany from one end to the other, plundering, destroying, ravishing
and murdering, a terror alike to friend and foe. After the wars
countless numbers of beggars, robbers and vagabonds maintained the
population in constant terror and made commerce and all traffic
difficult or impossible. To the female sex especially it was a time
of great suffering. In this period of dissoluteness the contempt
of woman had increased to the utmost, and the general condition of
unemployment weighed most heavily upon her shoulders. Like the male
vagabonds, thousands of women populated the highways and forests
and filled the alms-houses and prisons. All these sufferings were
still increased by the forcible expulsion of numerous peasant
families by the greedy nobility. Since the reformation the nobility
had become more and more subjected to princely rule, and by holding
court and military positions their dependence on the princes had
constantly increased. Now they tried to reimburse themselves for
the losses sustained through the princes by robbing the peasants.
To the princes, on the other hand, the reformation offered the
desired excuse to acquire the property of the church, which they
proceeded to do on a large scale. Prince August of Saxony, for
instance, had, at the end of the sixteenth century, acquired no
less than 300 ecclesiastical estates.[42] His brothers and cousins,
the other Protestant sovereigns, above all those of the House of
Hohenzollern, did likewise. The nobility followed their example by
appropriating the remaining communal property, and by driving both
free peasants and serfs from hearth and home and taking possession of
their estates. The unsuccessful peasant revolts during the sixteenth
century gave them the desired pretext for such action, and after the
attempt had once succeeded, new pretexts were constantly found to
continue this forcible method. Various schemes and distortions of
justice were resorted to, made easy by the Roman law which had been
established in Germany in the meantime, to increase the property of
the nobility by forcing the peasants to sell theirs at lowest prices,
or by simply expropriating them. Entire villages and the farms of
entire districts were usurped in this manner. To quote just a few
examples: Of 12,543 knightly peasant estates which still existed
in the province of Mecklenburg during the Thirty Years’ War, only
1,213 remained in the year 1848. In the province of Pomerania 12,000
farms were abandoned since 1628. The transformations in the methods
of farming that took place during the seventeenth century gave a
further impulse to the nobility to expropriate the peasants and to
transform the last remnants of communal property into their private
estates. The rotation of crops had been introduced, which provided
for changes in the cultivation of the soil in definite periods of
time. Tilled land was occasionally transformed into pasture which
favored cattle-breeding and made it possible to diminish the number
of workers.
In the cities conditions were not much better than in the country.
Formerly women had been permitted to acquire the title of
master-workman and to employ journeymen and apprentices without any
opposition from the male craftsmen. They were even compelled to join
the guilds to force them to meet the same conditions of competition.
So there were independent women workers among the linen-weavers, the
cloth-weavers, the carpet-weavers and tailors. There were female
gold-smiths, girdle-makers, harness-makers, etc. We find women employed
as furriers in Frankfort and the Silesian cities; as bakers in the
cities along the Rhine; as girdle-makers and embroiders of coats
of arms in Cologne and Strassburg; as harness-makers in Bremen; as
cloth-shearers in Frankfort as tanners in Nuremberg; as gold-smiths
in Cologne.[43] But as the circumstances of the craftsmen grew more
and more unfavorable, a sentiment of ill will against the female
competitors arose. In France, women were excluded from the trades
at the close of the fourteenth century; in Germany, not until the
close of the seventeenth century. At first they were forbidden to
become master-workmen--with the exception of widows--later on they
were also excluded from becoming assistants. Protestantism, by
abolishing the ostentatious Catholic cult, had seriously injured or
entirely destroyed a number of artistic crafts, and these were the
very crafts in which many women had been employed. The confiscation
and secularization of church property resulted in a decline of
charitable work, and widows and orphans were the main sufferers.
The general economic decline that manifested itself during the
sixteenth century, as a result of all the enumerated causes, and
lasted through the seventeenth century, caused the marriage laws
to become more and more severe. Journeymen and people employed in
menial service (men and maid servants) were prohibited entirely
from marrying, unless they could prove that there was no danger of
their future families becoming a burden to the community in which
they lived. Marriages contracted in opposition to the legal premises
were punished frequently severely, sometimes barbarously. According
to Bavarian law, for instance, the penalties were imprisonment and
public flogging. Illegal marriages, that became more frequent as
the marriage laws became more severe, were subjected to especially
violent persecution. All minds were ruled by the prevailing fear of
over-population, and to diminish the numbers of beggars and vagabonds,
the various rulers enacted one law upon another, and each was more
severe than the preceding one.
[42] John Janssen--History of the German People.
[43] Dr. Carl Buecher--The Woman Question in the Middle Age.
CHAPTER VI.
The Eighteenth Century.
1.--Court Life in Germany.
Following the example set by Louis XIV. of France, most of the
princely courts, that were very numerous in Germany in those days,
indulged in an extravagance of outward display, especially in the
maintenance of concubines, that were in no relation to the size and
productiveness of their small domains. The history of the courts of
the eighteenth century constitutes one of the ugliest chapters of
history. One ruler tried to excel the other in hollow conceit, mad
extravagance and costly military sport. But it was especially in the
affairs with their courtesans that the wildest excesses were indulged
in. It is hard to tell which of the many German courts excelled in
this extravagant mode of living that had a corrupting influence on
public life. It was one to-day and another to-morrow. None of the
German states were spared this disgrace. The nobility imitated the
sovereigns and in the capitals the bourgeoisie imitated the nobility.
If the daughter of a bourgeois family was fortunate enough to please
one of the gentlemen of the court or His Serene Highness himself, in
nineteen cases out of twenty she considered herself highly favored,
and the family willingly consented to her becoming a princely or royal
concubine. Among the families of the nobility the same was the case if
one of their daughters found favor with the sovereign. Wide circles
were dominated by an utter lack of character and modesty. It was
worst of all in the two chief cities of Germany, Vienna and Berlin.
Although during a great part of the century Vienna was ruled by Maria
Theresa, known for her moral austerity, she was powerless against
the doings of the rich, profligate nobility and an eagerly imitative
bourgeoisie. By establishing purity commissions, that resulted in an
extensive system of espionage, she caused much bitterness and made
herself ridiculous. The results amounted to nothing. In frivolous
Vienna during the second half of the eighteenth century, proverbs
were circulated like the following: “one should love one’s neighbor
like meself; that means, one should love one’s neighbor’s wife like
one’s own”; or, “If the wife turns to the right the husband may turn
to the left; if she takes to herself a man servant, let him take a
lady friend.” How frivolously marriage and adultery were viewed at
that time, may be seen from a letter written by the poet Christian
von Kleist to his friend Gleim in 1751. It contains the following
passage: “I suppose you heard of the adventure of the landgrave
Henry. He has sent his wife to his country seat and intends to get a
separation from her because he found her with the Prince of Holstein.
The margrave would have acted more wisely if he had kept the affair
secret instead of causing all Berlin and half of the world to speak
of him. Besides, ~one should not judge a natural occurrence so
severely~, especially one who is not over virtuous himself. Disgust
is bound to result in matrimony, and by their acquaintance with other
amiable persons ~all men and women are induced to be faithless. How
can we be punished for something we have been forced to do?~” In
1772 the British ambassador, Lord Malmesbury, wrote the following
in regard to conditions in Berlin: “moral depravity prevails among
both sexes of all classes. To this is added a general insufficiency
of means, due partly to the heavy taxes imposed by the king, and
partly to the love of luxury introduced by his grandfather. The men
lead a dissolute life notwithstanding their limited means, and the
women are shameless harlots. They deliver themselves up to the one
able to pay the highest price; modesty and true love are foreign to
them.”
The worst conditions existed in Berlin during the rule of Frederick
William II. from 1786 to 1797. He set his people the worst possible
example. His court chaplain, Zoellner, even degraded himself by
marrying the king to his courtesan, Julie von Voss, although he had
another wife; and when she died soon after in childbirth, Zoellner
again consented to marry the king to another one of his courtesans,
the Countess Sophie von Doenhoff. Other rulers had set an equally bad
example at the beginning of the century. In July, 1706, Duke Louis of
Wurtemberg married, as an additional wife, his courtesan, Gravenitz,
the “corrupter of the country,” as she is still called in Wurtemberg.
His cousin, Duke Leopold, still excelled him in profligacy, for he
had three wives simultaneously, two of which were sisters. Of his
thirteen children he joined two in marriage. The doings of these
sovereigns caused much comment among their subjects, but that was all.
The marriage of the Duke of Wurtemberg with Graevenitz was annulled
by imperial intervention. But she entered into a mock marriage with
a profligate count, and thereupon remained for twenty years more
the duke’s concubine and the “corrupter of the country.”
2.--Commercialism and the New Marriage Laws.
The increasing power of sovereigns and the formation of larger states
had led to the institution of standing armies. These standing armies
and the extravagant mode of life indulged in at most of the courts,
could not be maintained without heavy taxation, and to make such
taxation possible a large, taxable population was required. Therefore
governments from the eighteenth century on, especially those of the
larger states, adopted measures for increasing the population and
for heightening the taxability of the inhabitants. The foundation
for such measures had been established by the social and economic
transformations referred to above, i. e., the discovery of America,
the discovery of the passage to India, and the circumnavigation
of Africa. This transformation first manifested itself in Western
Europe, but later in Germany also. The newly opened thoroughfare
had created new commercial relations of an extent undreamt of until
then. Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands and England were the first
to profit by the transformation; but France and eventually Germany
also were benefited by it. Of all these countries Germany was most
retarded in development, as a result of the numerous religious wars
and its political disunity. The establishment of a world market and
the constant opening of new markets for the products of European
in
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