Socialism: Positive and NegativeLa Monte, Robert Rives
Philosophy
Socialism: Positive and Negative
La Monte, Robert Rives
Socialism
"Again reciprocity of conjugal rights and duties is desirable for
parenthood. If marriage have a proprietary character, neither the owner
nor the owned is entirely fit to develop free personalities in his or
her children. Moreover the idea of marital ownership more or less
involves that of parental ownership, and the latter, as we have seen, is
incompatible with a high type of parenthood. The custom of proprietary
marriage inevitably leads, for example, to restrictions upon female
education. Now just in so far as a woman's education is limited is she
handicapped as an educator of her children. It is unfortunate that in
the _emancipation of woman_ agitation of the past half-century the
reformers failed to emphasize the social as adequately as the
individualistic need of change. If women are to be fit wives and mothers
they must have all, perhaps more, of the opportunities for personal
development that men have. All the activities hitherto reserved to men
must at least be open to them, and many of these activities, certain
functions of citizenship[21] for example, must be expected of them.
Moreover, whatever the lines may be along which the fitness of women to
labor will be experimentally determined, the underlying position must be
established that for the sake of individual and race character she is to
be a producer as well as a consumer of social values.[22] As soon as
this ethical necessity is generally recognized the conditions of modern
industry will become much better adapted to the needs of women workers
than they are now, the hygiene of workshop, factory, and office will
improve, and child bearing and rearing will no longer seem incompatible
with productive activity" (pages 345-347).
Here follows the paragraph upon which the Reverend Doctor Morgan Dix and
other clerical defenders of the economic conditions that cause marital
and non-marital prostitution pounced with such avidity:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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