A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. 3 of 3Howard, George Elliott
History
A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. 3 of 3
Howard, George Elliott
Families; Marriage -- History
conditions entirely favorable to the fostering of happy unions?
Under what better auspices can attachments be formed than when
young men and women are learning to gauge each other's character
through the varied social and intellectual rivalries of the years of
scholastic life?
[824] "Yet coeducation wisely managed is almost indispensable
to the training of noble men and women; for education in its
broadest sense takes account of all the influences that go to
form character. It is not wholly intellectual, but is moral
and social, and can best be carried forward, under a proper
_régime_, where young men and women are educated and trained
together."--LIVERMORE, _What Shall We Do with Our Daughters?_ 44
ff. _Cf._ KUHNOW, _Frauenbildung und Frauenberuf_, 7 ff.; and
especially WOLLSTONECRAFT, _Vindication of the Rights of Woman_,
361 ff., 381-413.
Educational equality, however, is but one aspect of the movement for
woman's liberation. There are other factors of the ideal partnership
of the sexes in the uplifting of society. Intellectual emancipation
is proceeding, and necessarily must proceed, hand in hand with
political and economic emancipation. The three movements are in
large measure blended and interdependent. The participation of
woman in the new vocations--industrial, artistic, professional, or
administrative--implies a great advance in mental training. It means
a distinct unfoldment of faculties and character. "No sociological
change equal in importance to this clearly marked improvement of
an entire sex has ever taken place in one century."[825] It is a
revolution in which one-half of the human race is becoming an equal
factor with the other in intellectual and economic production. At
last woman is gaining a share in the social consciousness; she is
entering into the social organization as a new and regenerative
force. Doubtless, in the process of readjusting new functions and
conditions to the old some temporary harm may ensue. Yet happily
the alarm is subsiding lest by her entrance on the new vocations
woman should permanently wreck her physical constitution, refuse to
marry, or cause industrial disaster through over-competition.[826]
With far greater justice a century ago it was complained that the
"intrusion of men-traders" into woman's work was driving her to
destitution and thus fostering the "social evil."[827] The callings
into which women are charged with "intruding" were, many of them,
women's callings before they were men's.
[825] STETSON, _Women and Economics_, 151. On the woman
labor question see the very enlightening discussion of OLIVE
SCHREINER, "The Woman's Movement of Our Day," _Harper's Bazar_,
XXXVI (1902), 3-8, 103-7, 222-27; and her "Woman Question,"
_Cosmopolitan_, XXVIII (1899-1900), 45-54, 182-92, emphasizing
the danger of woman's "sex-parasitism," through her economic
dependence. Compare GÜNTHER, _Das Recht der Frau auf Arbeit_, 6
ff.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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