The innumerable new relations which the woman movement has established
between woman and the home, between woman and society, and all of the
interchanges of new spiritual forces which have been put in operation
because of these relations, cannot possibly take fixed form, at least
not so long as the woman movement remains “a movement”; in other words,
as long as everything is in a condition of flux, in a state of becoming,
all spiritual relationships between individuals must change their form.
Continual new, fine shades of feeling, not to be expressed in words,
determine every woman’s soul and every woman’s fate. And even ancient
feelings receive continually different nuances, different intonations. I
am, therefore, laying down no laws but merely recapitulating certain
suggestions based on what has previously been said in regard to the soul
of the modern woman, as seen in that portion of the present generation
whose age ranges between twenty and thirty years—that is to say, that
part of the generation which is decisive for the immediate future.
Since co-education is becoming more and more general, each sex is
beginning to have more esteem for the other, and woman, as well as man,
is beginning to found self-respect upon work. When all women by culture
and capacity for work have finally become strong-willed, self-supporting
co-workers in society, then no woman will give or receive love for any
extraneous benefit whatsoever. No outward tie and no outward gain
through love—this is the ultimate aim of the new sex morale as the most
highly developed modern young woman sees it.
The new woman is deeply convinced that the relation between the sexes
attains its true beauty and sanctity only when every external privilege
disappears on both sides, when man and woman stand wholly equal in what
concerns their legal right and their personal freedom.
She demands that the contrasts between legal and illegal, rich and poor,
boy and girl, shall disappear, and that society shall show the same
interest in the complete human development of all children. She knows
that when both sexes awake to a feeling of responsibility toward the
future generation, then the real concern of sexual morale becomes the
endeavor to give the race an ever more perfect progeny. And in order to
feel in its fulness this command, maidens as well as youths must
henceforth demand scientific instruction in sexual duties toward
themselves and their possible children.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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