Unorganised, ordinary and therefore badly paid work, done by woman,
diminishes the wages of man and his opportunity of work. Work in a
factory unfits the woman for the conduct of the household, for her
duties as a mother. In the turmoil, heat, and rush of the factory her
nerves are destroyed and with them her finer emotions. The woman loses
not only the right hand, but also the right heart for family life. Badly
conditioned women make marriage more difficult for the man; through
celibacy, his mortality is increased. Low wages, or times of lack of
employment, cause bad dwellings, bad clothes, and bad nourishment. The
tortured or ill-conditioned woman is not able to prepare anything good
with the small amount of money which the man may earn. From all of this
come intemperance and disease. Through these causes, combined with those
already noted, the population of factory districts degenerates, in
republican Switzerland, not less than in absolutistic Russia.
It is true that such limitations of work in many cases are felt, as
well by the single woman as by the family. The restriction of child
labour may bring immediate discomfort. But all this is a passing evil.
It can be corrected, as soon as it is clearly seen in what direction the
advance along all the line is being made. This kind of progress moves in
zigzag fashion. What decides whether temporary limitation of freedom
makes for progress or not is whether one finds, in turning from the
individual, or small groups, to the great whole, that the last is
gaining, that in the future, freedom and happiness for all will be
increased by this temporary limitation of freedom.
In other relations of life it is a just law that he who goes into a game
must abide by its rules. But this rule cannot be applied to that very
cruel game which we call life. We do not go into it of our own will.
Children have the right not to be obliged to suffer for the mistakes and
errors of their parents. How this suffering can be best avoided in case
of an inharmonious marriage must be decided by the different
individuals, as a question belonging to them alone. As I have already
shown, change of custom in relation to the time, age, and motives for
marriage is the surest protection for the children, a protection that
will gradually be extended. Under a serious conviction of woman's duty
as a member of her sex, it will be regarded as a crime for a young wife
voluntarily to ill-treat her person, either by excessive study, or
excessive attention to sports, by tight-lacing, or consumption of
sweets, by smoking or the use of stimulants, by sitting up at night,
excessive work, or by all the thousand other ways by which these
attractive simpletons sin against nature, until nature finally loses all
patience with them.
It must be demanded of the laws of society that they hinder involuntary
crimes of unprotected women against their feminine nature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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