Sex & Character: Authorised Translation from the Sixth German EditionWeininger, Otto
Philosophy
Sex & Character: Authorised Translation from the Sixth German Edition
Weininger, Otto
Character; Sex; Sex (Psychology); Sexual ethics
The difference between the conviction of guilt in hysterical women and
in men, and the origin of the self-reproaches of the former, are of some
importance. When the hysterical woman realises that she has done or
thought something immoral, she tries to rectify it by some code which
she seeks to obey and to substitute in her mind in place of the immoral
thought. She does not really get rid of the thought which is too deeply
rooted in her nature; she does not really face it, try to understand it,
and so purge herself of it. She simply, from point to point, case by
case, tries to adhere to the moral code without ever transforming
herself, reforming her idea. The moral character in the woman is
elaborated bit by bit; in the male right conduct comes from moral
character. The vow remodels the whole man; the change takes place in the
only possible way, from within outwards, and leads to a real morality
which is not only a justification by works. The morality of the woman is
merely superficial and is not real morality.
The current opinion that woman is religious is equally erroneous. Female
mysticism, when it is anything more than mere superstition, is either
thinly veiled sexuality (the identification of the Deity and the lover
has been frequently discussed, as, for instance, in Maupassant’s
“Bel-Ami,” or in Hauptmann’s “Hannele’s Himmelfahrt”) as in numberless
spiritualists and theosophists, or it is a mere passive and unconscious
acceptance of man’s religious views which are clung to the more firmly
because of woman’s natural disinclination for them. The lover is readily
transformed into a Saviour; very readily (as is well known to be the
case with many nuns) the Saviour becomes the lover. All the great women
visionaries known to history were hysterical; the most famous, Santa
Teresa, was not misnamed “the patron saint of hysteria.” At any rate, if
woman’s religiousness were genuine, and if it proceeded from her own
nature, she would have done something great in the religious world; but
she never has done anything of any importance. I should like to put
shortly what I take to be the difference between the masculine and
feminine creeds; man’s religion consists in a supreme belief in himself,
woman’s in a supreme belief in other people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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