Anarchism and Other Essays
Henrik Ibsen, the hater of all social shams, was probably the first
to realize this great truth. Nora leaves her husband, not--as the
stupid critic would have it--because she is tired of her
responsibilities or feels the need of woman's rights, but because she
has come to know that for eight years she had lived with a stranger
and borne him children. Can there be anything more humiliating, more
degrading than a life-long proximity between two strangers? No need
for the woman to know anything of the man, save his income. As to
the knowledge of the woman--what is there to know except that she has
a pleasing appearance? We have not yet outgrown the theologic myth
that woman has no soul, that she is a mere appendix to man, made out
of his rib just for the convenience of the gentleman who was so
strong that he was afraid of his own shadow.
Perchance the poor quality of the material whence woman comes is
responsible for her inferiority. At any rate, woman has no
soul--what is there to know about her? Besides, the less soul a
woman has the greater her asset as a wife, the more readily will she
absorb herself in her husband. It is this slavish acquiescence to
man's superiority that has kept the marriage institution seemingly
intact for so long a period. Now that woman is coming into her own,
now that she is actually growing aware of herself as being outside
of the master's grace, the sacred institution of marriage is
gradually being undermined, and no amount of sentimental lamentation
can stay it.
From infancy, almost, the average girl is told that marriage is her
ultimate goal; therefore her training and education must be directed
towards that end. Like the mute beast fattened for slaughter, she is
prepared for that. Yet, strange to say, she is allowed to know much
less about her function as wife and mother than the ordinary artisan
of his trade. It is indecent and filthy for a respectable girl to
know anything of the marital relation. Oh, for the inconsistency of
respectability, that needs the marriage vow to turn something which
is filthy into the purest and most sacred arrangement that none dare
question or criticize. Yet that is exactly the attitude of the
average upholder of marriage. The prospective wife and mother is
kept in complete ignorance of her only asset in the competitive
field--sex. Thus she enters into life-long relations with a man only
to find herself shocked, repelled, outraged beyond measure by the
most natural and healthy instinct, sex. It is safe to say that a
large percentage of the unhappiness, misery, distress, and physical
suffering of matrimony is due to the criminal ignorance in sex
matters that is being extolled as a great virtue. Nor is it at all
an exaggeration when I say that more than one home has been broken up
because of this deplorable fact.
If, however, woman is free and big enough to learn the mystery of sex
without the sanction of State or Church, she will stand condemned as
utterly unfit to become the wife of a "good" man, his goodness
consisting of an empty brain and plenty of money. Can there be
anything more outrageous than the idea that a healthy, grown woman,
full of life and passion, must deny nature's demand, must subdue her
most intense craving, undermine her health and break her spirit, must
stunt her vision, abstain from the depth and glory of sex experience
until a "good" man comes along to take her unto himself as a wife?
That is precisely what marriage means. How can such an arrangement
end except in failure? This is one, though not the least important,
factor of marriage, which differentiates it from love.
Ours is a practical age. The time when Romeo and Juliet risked the
wrath of their fathers for love, when Gretchen exposed herself to the
gossip of her neighbors for love, is no more. If, on rare occasions,
young people allow themselves the luxury of romance, they are taken
in care by the elders, drilled and pounded until they become
"sensible."
The moral lesson instilled in the girl is not whether the man has
aroused her love, but rather is it, "How much?" The important and
only God of practical American life: Can the man make a living? can
he support a wife? That is the only thing that justifies marriage.
Gradually this saturates every thought of the girl; her dreams are
not of moonlight and kisses, of laughter and tears; she dreams of
shopping tours and bargain counters. This soul poverty and
sordidness are the elements inherent in the marriage institution.
The State and Church approve of no other ideal, simply because it is
the one that necessitates the State and Church control of men and
women.
Doubtless there are people who continue to consider love above
dollars and cents. Particularly this is true of that class whom
economic necessity has forced to become self-supporting. The
tremendous change in woman's position, wrought by that mighty factor,
is indeed phenomenal when we reflect that it is but a short time
since she has entered the industrial arena. Six million women wage
workers; six million women, who have equal right with men to be
exploited, to be robbed, to go on strike; aye, to starve even.
Anything more, my lord? Yes, six million wage workers in every walk
of life, from the highest brain work to the mines and railroad
tracks; yes, even detectives and policemen. Surely the emancipation
is complete.
Yet with all that, but a very small number of the vast army of women
wage workers look upon work as a permanent issue, in the same light
as does man. No matter how decrepit the latter, he has been taught
to be independent, self-supporting. Oh, I know that no one is really
independent in our economic treadmill; still, the poorest specimen of
a man hates to be a parasite; to be known as such, at any rate.
The woman considers her position as worker transitory, to be thrown
aside for the first bidder. That is why it is infinitely harder to
organize women than men. "Why should I join a union? I am going to
get married, to have a home." Has she not been taught from infancy
to look upon that as her ultimate calling? She learns soon enough
that the home, though not so large a prison as the factory, has more
solid doors and bars. It has a keeper so faithful that naught can
escape him. The most tragic part, however, is that the home no
longer frees her from wage slavery; it only increases her task.
According to the latest statistics submitted before a Committee "on
labor and wages, and congestion of population," ten per cent. of the
wage workers in New York City alone are married, yet they must
continue to work at the most poorly paid labor in the world. Add to
this horrible aspect the drudgery of housework, and what remains of
the protection and glory of the home? As a matter of fact, even the
middle-class girl in marriage can not speak of her home, since it is
the man who creates her sphere. It is not important whether the
husband is a brute or a darling. What I wish to prove is that
marriage guarantees woman a home only by the grace of her husband.
There she moves about in HIS home, year after year, until her aspect
of life and human affairs becomes as flat, narrow, and drab as her
surroundings. Small wonder if she becomes a nag, petty, quarrelsome,
gossipy, unbearable, thus driving the man from the house. She could
not go, if she wanted to; there is no place to go. Besides, a short
period of married life, of complete surrender of all faculties,
absolutely incapacitates the average woman for the outside world.
She becomes reckless in appearance, clumsy in her movements,
dependent in her decisions, cowardly in her judgment, a weight and a
bore, which most men grow to hate and despise. Wonderfully inspiring
atmosphere for the bearing of life, is it not?
But the child, how is it to be protected, if not for marriage? After
all, is not that the most important consideration? The sham, the
hypocrisy of it! Marriage protecting the child, yet thousands of
children destitute and homeless. Marriage protecting the child, yet
orphan asylums and reformatories overcrowded, the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Children keeping busy in rescuing the little
victims from "loving" parents, to place them under more loving care,
the Gerry Society. Oh, the mockery of it!
Marriage may have the power to bring the horse to water, but has it
ever made him drink? The law will place the father under arrest, and
put him in convict's clothes; but has that ever stilled the hunger of
the child? If the parent has no work, or if he hides his identity,
what does marriage do then? It invokes the law to bring the man to
"justice," to put him safely behind closed doors; his labor, however,
goes not to the child, but to the State. The child receives but a
blighted memory of his father's stripes.
As to the protection of the woman,--therein lies the curse of
marriage. Not that it really protects her, but the very idea is so
revolting, such an outrage and insult on life, so degrading to human
dignity, as to forever condemn this parasitic institution.
It is like that other paternal arrangement--capitalism. It robs man
of his birthright, stunts his growth, poisons his body, keeps him in
ignorance, in poverty, and dependence, and then institutes charities
that thrive on the last vestige of man's self-respect.
The institution of marriage makes a parasite of woman, an absolute
dependent. It incapacitates her for life's struggle, annihilates her
social consciousness, paralyzes her imagination, and then imposes its
gracious protection, which is in reality a snare, a travesty on human
character.
If motherhood is the highest fulfillment of woman's nature, what
other protection does it need, save love and freedom? Marriage but
defiles, outrages, and corrupts her fulfillment. Does it not say to
woman, Only when you follow me shall you bring forth life? Does it
not condemn her to the block, does it not degrade and shame her if
she refuses to buy her right to motherhood by selling herself? Does
not marriage only sanction motherhood, even though conceived in
hatred, in compulsion? Yet, if motherhood be of free choice, of
love, of ecstasy, of defiant passion, does it not place a crown of
thorns upon an innocent head and carve in letters of blood the
hideous epithet, Bastard? Were marriage to contain all the virtues
claimed for it, its crimes against motherhood would exclude it
forever from the realm of love.
Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of
hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all
conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful moulder of human
destiny; how can such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that
poor little State and Church-begotten weed, marriage?
Free love? As if love is anything but free! Man has bought brains,
but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. Man has
subdued bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue
love. Man has conquered whole nations, but all his armies could not
conquer love. Man has chained and fettered the spirit, but he has
been utterly helpless before love. High on a throne, with all the
splendor and pomp his gold can command, man is yet poor and desolate,
if love passes him by. And if it stays, the poorest hovel is radiant
with warmth, with life and color. Thus love has the magic power to
make of a beggar a king. Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other
atmosphere. In freedom it gives itself unreservedly, abundantly,
completely. All the laws on the statutes, all the courts in the
universe, cannot tear it from the soil, once love has taken root.
If, however, the soil is sterile, how can marriage make it bear