Woman : $b a vindicationLudovici, Anthony M. (Anthony Mario)
Philosophy
Woman : $b a vindication
Ludovici, Anthony M. (Anthony Mario)
Sex; Women
Woman’s respect for Man, her whole attitude of awe towards him, must of
necessity fall to pieces when the order which it is his duty to Life to
establish by means of his social instinct, either collapses, or proves
in any way inadequate. Because, although Woman is constantly seeking to
lure Man to specialize in his reproductive instinct, she never respects
the man whom she thus succeeds in forcing to betray his other trusts;
and knows perfectly well, unconsciously, that only that man who remains
positive both to his social and his reproductive instinct, is of any
use to the world and ultimately to her and her child.
For Man to fail in the exercise of his social instinct brings him
into just as bad repute with decent women as when he fails in his
reproductive instinct. Women realize that he cannot be wholly positive
to Life without the exercise of both, and although they may make a mad
and delirious rush into voluptuous pastimes with the man of degenerate
social instincts—as they are doing at present, for instance—the more
far-seeing among them, the more sensitive and apprehensive of their
sex, will have a sense of insecurity and dissatisfaction which will
make them look anxiously around and wonder whether all is well with
Life and the world.
This is not the place to discuss the Woman’s Suffrage Movement; but the
above adumbrates my view of the deepest causes that underlay this most
interesting, most significant and most symptomatic agitation of recent
years. It was by no means the most frivolous, the most superficial, and
the most pretentious women who were militants in this movement. All
frivolous, superficial and pretentious women nowadays are to be found
only shoulder to shoulder with degenerate man wherever and whenever he
is “enjoying himself,” and whiling away his empty existence in a whirl
of still more empty pleasure.
For the present I must proceed with the consideration of Man’s social
instinct in its relation to Woman.
In addition to the task of imposing order on chaos and of creating
the foundations of civilized society, it is the social instinct of
man that has always been responsible for the contriving of all codes
of morality, however diverse, however conflicting. It is the social
instinct in lesser men that keeps them moral. For immorality is, in the
first place, a crime against society.
Social life—and all healthy human life is social life—cannot flourish
unless it is well ordered; unless, that is to say, it follows certain
well chosen rules of conduct, diet, amusement and the like. Where
man’s social instinct begins to decline, therefore, he is not only
ceasing from being positive to social life, but he is actually immoral.
Of all this the best women, the most sensitive women, are vaguely,
unconsciously aware. As the custodians of Life, they cannot respect, or
feel confidence in, men whose social instincts are declining.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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