Women -- Employment -- United States; Women -- Social and moral questions; Women in politics -- United States
In the past, women have always looked upon marriage and family life as a
career; and the majority of men have found their most significant life
in the building up of the family institution. To-day, however, family
life as a career is everywhere called in question. Many women claim to
prefer educational opportunity, professional recognition or an
independent bank account to husband and children. Social service is
exalted; domestic service is debased. Why is it so much nobler to care
for other people's children in a social settlement, or in a school, than
to care for one's own in a home? Why should women mass themselves
together in vast groups as industrial workers, as teachers, as
suffragettes? We hear of women's work, of women's careers, of women's
clubs, associations and parties, of women's interests, movements,
causes. In November, 1911, two hundred and twenty women were arrested
in London for assaulting the English government in the supposed interest
of women. Why do women prefer social to domestic service?
Two reasons spring at once to the mind of any intelligent observer of
the life about him. The first is the complexity of our modern life; the
second is the nature of the institution of marriage.
A man or woman wishes to live with the one he or she loves. Sexual love
is in its very nature restricted, circumscribed, monopolistic--in a
word, monogamic. As has been said repeatedly in this volume, the human
unit is neither a man nor a woman; it is a man and a woman united in a
new personality through the unifying and blending power of love. To say
that this unit is exclusive and monogamic is simply saying that it
respects its own personality. It can no longer act simply as a man or a
woman; it is a family and it must act as such in order to satisfy its
own demands. A man can no more act independently of the woman he loves
than the heart can act independently of the lungs. The man and woman who
compose the new unit are not only flesh of one flesh, but they are one
soul, one life; they are a complete organism. And the life of this
organism must be persistent to realize its own aims. In all the higher
forms of existence, processes move slowly. For nine months a woman
carries her baby as a part of her own body; then for three years the
father and mother carry the child in their arms; for a score of years
they must support, protect and train it before they let it go to seek
its own. Hence sexual love must be persistent as well as monogamic.
From all this it follows that each half of the human unit must find the
major part of its adult life in devotion to the one it has chosen as its
complement. This is no hardship; it is divine opportunity, if love binds
the lives in harmonious unity. If love is lacking, then there is no new
organism; and such a case falls outside this discussion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account