Socialism; Women -- Social and moral questions; Women and socialism
Among other things the authors discuss the vanity of woman and
express the view that among people at a low stage of development
men are the vain sex, which may be observed even to-day on the
Hebrides, Madagascar and among the tribes about the Orinoco river,
as also on many islands of the Polynesian Archipelago and among a
number of African and South Sea Island tribes; while among nations
of high stage of development, women are the vain sex. But why is
this so? The answer is simple. Among peoples at a low stage of
development, matriarchal conditions prevail or have been abandoned
but recently. Here woman’s position is such that she is relieved of
the necessity of wooing man. The man woos her, and for this purpose
he adorns himself, he becomes vain. Among peoples at a higher stage
of development, especially among all civilized nations, man does not
woo woman, but woman woos man. It rarely occurs that woman takes the
initiative and literally offers herself to a man; modesty forbids
that. But the offer nevertheless is made by manner and dress, the
luxury of her personal adornment and her coquetry. Such conduct is
forced upon her by the fact that there are more women than men and
by the social necessity of regarding marriage as a means of support
and as the only institution by means of which she may satisfy her
sexual impulse and obtain social recognition. Here again we find
~purely economic and social causes~ bringing forth qualities, now
in the man and now in the woman, that we are accustomed to regard
as quite independent of social and economic causes. From this we
may draw the conclusion that when society has reached a state of
development in which every form of dependence of one sex upon the
other will cease, ~vanity and the follies of fashion will disappear
as will many other vices that we deem ineradicable to-day, because
we believe them to be inherent in human nature~.
In regard to Schopenhauer it must be said that he, as a philosopher,
is as biased in his judgment of women as the majority of our
anthropologists and medical men who regard her only as a sex being,
never as a social being. Schopenhauer had never been married. He
failed to contribute his share that one more woman might fulfill
the purpose in life that he prescribed to women. This leads us to
another, no more pleasant phase of the question.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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