A general breach, by all men, of the law, destroys men immediately: the
breach by women destroys the men of the following generation. The
evasion of the law by a few men and women does not destroy the human
race, but deprives the offender of rational human nature.
The breach of this law by men began years ago in the classes which could
use violence with others; and, spreading on its way, it has reached our
day, and has now attained madness, the ideal contained in a breach of
the law, the ideal expressed by Prince Blokhin, and shared by Renan and
the whole educated world: work will be done by machines, and men will be
bundles of nerves enjoying themselves.
There has been scarcely any breach of the law by women. It has only
manifested itself in prostitution, and in private cases of crime
destroying progeny. Women of the wealthy classes have fulfilled their
law, while men did not fulfil theirs; and therefore women have grown
stronger, and have continued to govern, and will govern, men, who have
deviated from their law, and who, consequently, have lost their reason.
It is generally said that women (the women of Paris, especially those
who are childless) have become so bewitching, using all the means of
civilization, that they have mastered man by their charms.
This is not only wrong, but it is just the reverse of the truth. It is
not the childless woman who has mastered man, it is the mother, the one
who has fulfilled her duty, while man has not fulfilled his.
As to the woman who artificially remains childless, and bewitches man by
her shoulders and curls, she is not a woman, mastering man, but a woman
corrupted by him, reduced to the level of the corrupted man, who, as
well as he, has deviated from her duty, who, as well as he, has lost
every reasonable sense of life.
This mistake also produces the astounding nonsense which is called
"woman's rights." The formula of these rights is as follows:--
"You men," says woman, "have deviated from your law of true labour, and
want us to carry the load of ours. No: if so, we also, as well as you,
will make a pretence of labour, as you do in banks, ministries,
universities, and academies; we wish, as well as you, by the pretence of
division of work, to profit by other people's work, and to live, only to
satisfy our lust." They say so, and in deed show that they can make that
pretence of labour not at all worse, but even better, than men do it.
The so-called question of women's rights arose, and could only arise,
among men who had deviated from the law of real labour. One has only to
return to it, and that question must cease to exist. A woman who has her
own particular, inevitable labour will never claim the right of sharing
man's labour,--in mines, or in ploughing fields. She claims her share
only in the sham labour of the wealthy classes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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