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Title: Socialism and Sex Author: Freedom Press, Anonymous Date: April, 1887 Language: en Topics: Freedom Press, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, sex Source: Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, Vol. 1, No. 7, online source http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=3130, retrieved on May 2, 2020. Notes: Freedom Press, London
"THAT will reconcile me to life," writes Emerson, "and renovate nature,
to see trifles animated by a tendency, and to know what I am doing." And
which of us, tortured and reduced well nigh to despair by the horrible
degradation of human dignity in the existing hypocritical and unnatural
sexual relations, does not feel the need for such a vision of the end
and meaning of our present pain, if still we are to fight on. This essay
by K. P.¹ is one of those jets of thought which pierce the misty
confusion of times when the air is full of the dust of out-worn forms
and faded beliefs with a ray of positive and reasoned conviction,
pointing the road to a new order in human life more in correspondence
with our consciousness of reality.
Following the method which is the recognized basis of rational
generalization concerning the future development of society among all
schools of scientific Socialists, the author of 'Socialism and Sex'
traces in rough outline the growth of certain broad tendencies in the
past, the form they have assumed in the present, and the indications
they afford as to their probable direction in the future. But he differs
from most scientific Socialists in taking the two fundamental functions
of animal life, nutrition and reproduction, as together and equally the
determining factors of social development among mankind. Economic
relations alone are not the main root from which all other relations
among men have sprung; sexual selection, he holds, has played an equal
part with the struggle for subsistence, in forming each variety of
social life. A particular method of sex relationship. and a particular
method of wealth distribution would seem always to have corresponded to
one another and existed simultaneously in every community, both
expressing the same fundamental idea of appropriation by horde, tribe,
group, family, or individual. Common possession, the supremacy of women,
the supremacy of men, have succeeded one another, both in the relation
of the sexes and in the relation of human beings towards wealth; and now
we find ourselves in a period of transition in which new relations of
both sorts are in process of formation; the relations of fundamental
human equality.
"The leading principle of modern socialism "(ie. the coming form of
economic relations) is that "a human being, man or woman, unless
physically or mentally disabled --- has no moral right to be a member of
the community --- unless he or she is laboring in some form for the
community." The main object of Socialism is to secure to each individual
a free field for his labor, and the supply of his needs in return for
his work. This is the economic independence which is essential to the
moral dignity of each man and woman in a free society. But our present
form of sexual relationship is an effectual bar to the attainment of
this economic independence by women.
At present the work of the majority of women, i,e., those who are
married, and are not actively engaged in productive labor, may be
divided into two classes.
Firstly, the difficult and onerous task of rearing children. A task
often fulfilled with a reckless or despairing ignorance, which is fatal
to the mother's health and happiness, and is actively injurious to the
community.
Secondly, home duties, i.e., cleaning and moving from one place to
another a variety of objects, mostly superfluous for human well-being,
and which might be thrown out of the window with more advantage to the
real dignity of life than the famous stone that Thoreau decided unworthy
of the expenditure of energy required to dust it. Very often a large
slice of such a woman's time is wasted over some muddling cooking, which
with a little organization might be accomplished (what is necessary of
it) with infinitely less labor. A handful of intelligent persons, with
adequate appliances, might easily perform the labor of food preparation
for a whole community; whereas, we have now, at least one woman in every
household spending half her day on it, generally with lamentably
inadequate results.
Among the rich, the activity of women is mostly expended in misdirecting
the labor of others.
A great deal of the second class of work is essentially degrading. It is
unnecessary, and it is inartistic. It creates nothing, it produces
nothing of real beauty and utility, and therefore it fails to satisfy
the strongest and most human instincts of the worker.
The method of remuneration is equally destructive to self-respect. In
both classes of employment, payment is doled out to the worker at, the
good pleasure of her lover. The more pressure she can put upon him the
more payment she can exact; and to an ungenerous and unscrupulous woman
there are no limits to this pressure but the generosity and
wealth-gaining powers of the man she exploits in virtue of her position
of economic dependence; whilst to a selfish man the woman appears merely
as the hired instrument of his pleasure and comfort, in fact, his
chattel-slave.
We live in days of the individual ownership of social wealth and the
individual ownership of women by men. it is no new observation that the
position of woman and wage-worker are very similar under these
conditions of universal exploitation. Both must labor, not at their own
pleasure, but at the pleasure of a master. The wage-worker can refuse
his employer's terms, but only at the risk of starvation, the woman is
bound to her lover by the same tie, and in both cases the current
morality of the masters preaches the submissive acquiescence of the
slave, and stigmatizes revolt as anti-social and foolish.
Nevertheless, K. P., and we are heartily at one with him, preaches
immediate revolt in the matter of sex relationship among those
individuals who are mentally prepared for the change. A sudden and
universal alteration in this matter is likely to cause more suffering
than a mode of change "whereby society would grow accustomed to the new
type by its appearance as a more and more frequent variation."
But what is this new type of sex-relationship corresponding to the
"economic independence" of all the members of the new economic
organization of society?
Women are divided by nature, says K. P., into two classes: those who are
fulfilling the task of child-bearing and child-rearing, and those who
are not; many women passing from one class to the other in the course of
their lives.
The first class are engaged in social work, which, if it is efficiently
performed, unfits them during the time so occupied to take an active
part in other productive labor; and equally with other workers they are
entitled to the supply of their needs from the common stock.
The second class are on the same economic footing as men, and K. P.
believes that they will mentally and physically be able to maintain that
footing. He adduces examples which have come under his own observation
as to the work efficiently done by healthy peasant women in southern
Germany, Switzerland, and Northern Italy, and adds, "the student of
civilization will find that there was a time when the woman physically
was on a par with the man, while mentally she was his superior."
We look forward with deep interest to the publication of the evidence
which K. P. informs us he has collected on these points.
The sex relationship of these economically independent men and women
would be "a relation solely of mutual sympathy and affection; its power
and duration would vary according to the feelings and wants of
individuals." "When marriage is no longer regarded as a profession for
women, and nigh the only way in which they can gain the comrade-ship of
men and a wider life --- when the relations of men and women are
perfectly free, and they can meet on an equal footing --- then so far
from this free sexual-relationship leading to sensuality and loose
living, we hold it would be the best safe-guard against it. Men and
women having many friends of the opposite sex with whom they were on
terms of close friendship, would be in less danger of mistaking fancy or
friend-ship for love, and the relation of lovers would be far less
readily entered upon than at present, when in some social circles man
and woman must be lovers or exhibit no sign of affection. Every man and
woman would probably ultimately choose a lover from their friends, but
the men or women who being absolutely free would choose more than one,
would certainly be the exceptions ; --- exceptions, we believe,
infinitely more rare than under our present legalized monogamy,
accompanied as it is by socially unrecognized polygamy and polyandry ---
by the mistress and the prostitute."
"The sex-relationship of the future will not be regarded~' (necessarily
and essentially) "as a union for the birth of children." Lovers "will
not have children without the mature consideration and desire of the
woman, if not of both."
So far, we have rather noted the contents of 'Socialism and Sex,' than
commented upon them, for the greater part of this pamphlet is both in
manner and spirit the finest declaration which has appeared in English
of Anarchist belief with regard to the difficult and delicate question
of which it treats. We summarize for our readers only that that they may
be thereby incited to read the whole for themselves.
Nevertheless, we have one thing against the author. Doubtless,
motherhood is a social function claiming adequate remuneration from the
community, doubtless, under certain conditions the population question
invites serious attention; but is it conceivable that in a free
Socialist society there is likely to be even the shadow of an excuse for
entertaining such a repulsive idea as that of the positive and active
interference of the public --- " the state " --- in a matter so personal
and delicate?
Anyone who has studied the feelings of women on this subject will admit
that it is, to say the least, extremely improbable that a large number
of them in a condition of economic and social freedom would insist upon
producing a dozen, or even half-a-dozen children. The majority would be
content with two or three; and the small number whose maternal impulses
craved larger fulfillment would be counter-balanced by that other
minority who would prefer to have no children at all. Most women at the
present time marry in absolute ignorance of physiology; this ignorance
being fostered by our corrupt morality as a safeguard of "virtue," i.e.,
unreasoning submission and self-repression. Consequently, they accept an
unlimited number of children as "God's will," without permitting their
own reason, or even their own feeling, any part in the matter. A
condition of things already breaking down and hardly likely to outlive
the slavery of women.
We fail, therefore, Anarchist theory apart, to see the practical force
of K. P's position with regard to "state sanctioned births." For the
rest, his essay is the utterance of one who, with clean hands and a pure
heart, dares to scale the heights of truth, and to approach every side
of life with the reverence of sincerity.
Whenever I find my dominion over myself not enough for toe, and
undertake the direction of toy neighbor also, I overstep the truth, and
come into false relations to him. I may have so much more skill or
strength than he, that he cannot ex-press adequately his sense of wrong,
but it is a lie and hurts like a lie both him and me. Love and nature
cannot maintain the assumption; it must be executed by a practical lie,
namely, by force. --- Emerson.