A Woman's Philosophy of Woman; or, Woman affranchised.: An answer to Michelet, Proudhon, Girardin, Legouvé, Comte, and other modern innovatorsHéricourt, Madame d'
Philosophy
A Woman's Philosophy of Woman; or, Woman affranchised.: An answer to Michelet, Proudhon, Girardin, Legouvé, Comte, and other modern innovators
Héricourt, Madame d'
Women's rights -- France
There is a division among them on the question of morals. Olinde
Rodrigues and Bazard do not admit any _liaison_ of love outside of
marriage. M. Enfantine, on the contrary, claims the greatest liberty in
love.
We should add that he gives to this opinion a fixed and provisional value
only, since he says that the law of the relations of sexes can only be
established in a sure and definitive manner by the concurrence of the
woman; and since, on the other hand, he prescribes continence to his
closest followers, until the coming of the Woman, of which he regards
himself the precursor.
In addition, to give our readers a more precise idea of the sentiments of
the St. Simonians concerning woman, we will cite some passages of their
writings.
"The use of woman by man still exists," says M. Enfantin; "_this it is
that constitutes the necessity of our apostleship_. This use, this
subalternation _contrary to nature_, with respect to the future, results
on the one hand, in falsehood and fraud; on the other, in violence and
animal passions; it is necessary to put an end to these
vices."--(_Religion St. Simonienne_, 1832, p. 5.)
"Woman, as we have said, _is the equal of man_; She is now a slave; it
belongs to her master to affranchise her." (_Id._ p. 12.)
"There will be no definitive law and morality until woman shall have
spoken." (_Id._ p. 18.)
"In the name of God," exclaims M. Enfantin in his _Appel à la Femme_, "in
the name of God and of all the sufferings which Humanity, his loved
child, endures to-day in her flesh; in the name of the poorest and most
numerous class whose daughters are sold to Indolence and whose sons are
given up to War; in the name of all those men and of all those women, who
cast the glittering veil of falsehood or the filthy rays of debauchery
over their secret or public prostitution; in the name of St. Simon who
came to announce to man and woman _their moral, social and religious
equality_, I conjure woman to answer me!" (_Entretien du 7 Décembre_,
1831.)
On his side, Bazard concludes a pamphlet, published in January, 1832,
with these words:
"And we too have hastened the coming of woman; we too summon her with all
our might; but it is in the name of the pure love with which she has
imbued the heart of man, and which man is now ready to give her in
return; it is in the name of the dignity which is promised her in
marriage; it is lastly and above all, in the name of the most numerous
and poorest class, _whose servitudes and humiliations she has hitherto
shared_, and whom her enchanting voice can alone to-day have power
finally to release from the harsh imposition with which it is still
weighed down by the wrecks of the past."
Ah! you are to a great extent right, Enfantin and Bazard! So long as
woman is not free and the equal of man; so long as she is not everywhere
at his side, sorrows, disorders, war, the exploitation of the weak, will
be the sad lot of humanity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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