Plato thanked the gods for eight favors bestowed upon him. As the first, he took it that they had granted him to be born a freeman, and not a slave; the second was that he was created a man, and not a woman. A similar thought finds utterance in the morning prayer of the Jews. They pray: "Blessed be Thou, our God and Lord of Hosts, who hast not created me a woman;" the Jewish women, on the other hand, pray at the corresponding place: "who hast created me after thy will." The contrast in the position of the sexes can find no more forcible expression than it does in the saying of Plato, and in the different wording of the prayer among the Jews. The male is the real being, the master of the female. With the views of Plato and the Jews, the larger part of men agree, and many a woman also wishes that she had been born a man and not a woman. In this view lies reflected the condition of the female sex.

Wholly irrespective of the question whether woman is oppressed as a female proletarian, as sex she is oppressed in the modern world of private property. A number of checks and obstructions, unknown to man, exist for her, and hem her in at every step. Much that is allowed to man is forbidden to her; a number of social rights and privileges, enjoyed by the former, are, if exercised by her, a blot or a crime. She suffers both as a social and a sex entity, and it is hard to say in which of the two respects she suffers more.

Of all the natural impulses human beings are instinct with, along with that of eating and drinking, the sexual impulse is the strongest. The impulse to procreate the species is the most powerful expression of the "Will to Live." It is implanted most strongly in every normally developed human being. Upon maturity, its satisfaction is an actual necessity for man's physical and mental health. Luther was perfectly right when he said: "He who would resist the promptings of Nature, and prevent their going as Nature wills and must, what else does he but endeavor to resist Nature's being Nature, that fire burn, water wet, that man eat, drink or sleep?" These are words that should be graven in granite over the doors of our churches, in which the "sinful flesh" is so diligently preached against. More strikingly no physician or physiologist can describe the necessity for the satisfaction of the craving for love on the part of a healthy being,—a craving that finds its expression in sexual intercourse.

It is a commandment of the human being to itself—a commandment that it must obey if it wishes to develop normally and in health—that it neglect the exercise of no member of its body, deny gratification to no natural impulse. Each member must fill the function, that it is intended for by Nature, on penalty of atrophy and disease. The laws of the physical development of man must be studied and observed, the same as those of mental development. The mental activity of the human being is the expression of the physiologic composition of its organs. The complete health of the former is intimately connected with the health of the latter. A disturbance of the one inevitably has a disturbing effect upon the other. Nor do the so-called animal desires take lower rank than the so-called mental ones. One set and the other are effects of the identical combined organism: the influence of the two upon each other is mutual and continuous. This holds good for man as for woman.

It follows that, the knowledge of the properties of the sexual organs is just as needful as that of the organs which generate mental activity; and that man should bestow upon the cultivation of both an equal share of care. He should realize that organs and impulses, found implanted in every human being, and that constitute a very essential part of his nature, aye, that, at certain periods of his life control him absolutely, must not be objects of secrecy, of false shame and utter ignorance. It follows, furthermore, that a knowledge of the physiology and anatomy of the sexual organs, together with their functions, should be as general among men and women as any other branch of knowledge. Equipped with an accurate knowledge of our physical make-up, we would look upon many a condition in life with eyes different from those we now do. The question of removing existing evils would then, of itself, force itself upon those before whom society, to-day, passes by in silence and solemn bashfulness, notwithstanding these evils command attention within the precincts of every family. In all other matters, knowledge is held a virtue, the worthiest and most beautiful aim of human endeavor—only not knowledge in such matters that are in closest relation with the essence and health of our own Ego, as well as the basis of all social development.

Kant says: "Man and woman only jointly constitute the complete being: one sex supplements the other." Schopenhauer declares: "The sexual impulse is the fullest utterance of the will to live, hence it is the concentration of all will-power;" again: "The affirmative declaration of the will in favor of life is concentrated in the act of generation, and that is its most decisive expression." In accord therewith says Mainlaender: "The center of gravity of human life lies in the sexual instinct: it alone secures life to the individual, which is that which above all else it wants.... To nothing else does man devote greater earnestness than to the work of procreation, and for the care of none other does he compress and concentrate the intensity of his will so demonstratively as for the act of procreation." Finally, and before all of these, Buddha said: "The sexual instinct is sharper than the hook wild elephants are tamed with; it is hotter than flames; it is like an arrow, shot into the spirit of man."[58]

Such being the intensity of the sexual impulse, it is no wonder that sexual abstinence at the age of maturity affects the nervous system and the whole organism of man, with one sex as well as the other, in such a manner that it often leads to serious disturbances and manias; under certain conditions even to insanity and death. True enough, the sexual instinct does not assert itself with equal violence in all natures, and much can be done towards curbing it by education and self-control, especially by avoiding the excitation resulting upon certain conversations and reading. It is thought that, in general, the impulse manifests itself lighter with women than with men, and that the irritation is less potent with the former. It is even claimed that, with woman, there is a certain repugnance for the sexual act. The minority is small of those with whom physiologic and psychologic dispositions and conditions engender such a difference. "The union of the sexes is one of the great laws of living Nature; man and woman are subject to it the same as all other creatures, and can not transgress it, especially at a ripe age, without their organism suffering more or less in consequence."[59] Debay quotes among the diseases, caused by the inactivity of the sexual organs, satyriasis, nymphomania and hysteria; and he adds that celibacy exercises upon the intellectual powers, especially with woman, a highly injurious effect. On the subject of the harmfulness of sexual abstinence by woman, Busch says:[60] "Abstinence has in all ages been considered particularly harmful to woman; indeed it is a fact that excess, as well as abstinence, affects the female organism equally harmfully, and the effects show themselves more pronouncedly and intensively than with the male organism."

It may, accordingly, be said that man—be the being male or female—is complete in the measure in which, both as to organic and spiritual culture, the impulses and manifestations of life utter themselves in the sexes, and in the measure that they assume character and expression. Each sex of itself reached its highest development. "With civilized man," says Klenke in his work "Woman as Wife," "the compulsion of procreation is placed under the direction of the moral principle, and that is guided by reason." This is true. Nevertheless, it were an impossible task, even with the highest degree of freedom, wholly to silence the imperative command for the preservation of the species,—a command that Nature planted in the normal, organic expression of the both sexes. Where healthy individuals, male or female, have failed in their life-time to honor this duty towards Nature, it is not with them an instance of the free exercise of the will, even when so given out, or when, in self-deception, it is believed to be such. It is the result of social obstacles, together with the consequences which follow in their wake; they restricted the right of Nature; they allowed the organs to wilt; allowed the stamp of decay and of sexual vexation—both in point of appearance and of character—to be placed upon the whole organism; and, finally, brought on—through nervous distempers—diseased inclinations and conditions both of body and of mind. The man becomes feminine, the woman masculine in shape and character. The sexual contrast not having reached realization in the plan of Nature, each human being remained one-sided, never reached its supplement, never touched the acme of its existence. In her work, "The Moral Education of the Young in Relation to Sex," Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell says: "The sexual impulse exists as an indispensable condition of life, and as the basis of society. It is the greatest force in human nature. Often undeveloped, not even an object of thought, but none the less the central fire of life, this inevitable instinct is the natural protector against any possibility of extinction."

Science agrees, accordingly, with the opinion of the philosophers, and with Luther's healthy common sense. It follows that every human being has, not merely the right, but also the duty to satisfy the instincts, that are intimately connected with its inmost being, that, in fact, imply existence itself. Hindered therein, rendered impossible to him through social institutions or prejudices, the consequence is that man is checked in the development of his being, is left to a stunted life and retrogression. What the consequences thereof are, our physicians, hospitals, insane asylums and prisons can tell,—to say nothing of the thousands of tortured family lives. In a book that appeared in Leipsic, the author is of the opinion: "The sexual impulse is neither moral nor immoral; it is merely natural, like hunger and thirst: Nature knows nothing of morals;"[61] nevertheless bourgeois society is far from a general acceptance of this maxim.

The opinion finds wide acceptance among physicians and physiologists that even a defectively equipped marriage is better than celibacy. Experience agrees therewith. In Bavaria there were, in 1858, not less than 4,899 lunatics, 2,576 (53 per cent.) of them men, 2,323 (47 per cent.) women. The men were, accordingly, more strongly represented than the women. Of the whole number, however, the unmarried of both sexes ran up to 81 per cent., the married only to 17 per cent., while of 2 per cent. the conjugal status was unknown. As a mitigation of the shocking disproportion between the unmarried and the married, the circumstance may be taken into consideration that a not small number of the unmarried were insane from early childhood. In Hanover, in the year 1856, there was one lunatic to every 457 unmarried, 564 widowed, 1,316 married people. Most strikingly is the effect of unsatisfied sexual relations shown in the number of suicides among men and women. In general, the number of suicides is in all countries considerably higher among men than among women. To every 1,000 female suicides there were in:[62]

But between the ages of 21 and 30, the figures for female suicides is in all European countries higher than for males, due, as Oettingen assumes, to sexual causes. In Prussia the percentages of suicides between the ages of 21 to 30 were on an average:

In Saxony there were to every 1,000 suicides between the ages of 21 to 30 these averages:

For widowed and divorced people also the percentage of suicides is larger than the average. In Saxony there are seven times as many suicides among divorced males, and three times as many among divorced females, as the average of suicides for males and females respectively. Again, suicide is more frequent among divorced and widowed men and women when they are childless. Of 491 widowed suicides in Prussia (119 males and 372 females) 353 were childless.

Taking into further consideration that, among the unmarried women, who are driven to suicide between the ages of 21 and 30, many a one is to be found, who takes her life by reason of being betrayed, or because she can not bear the consequences of a "slip," the fact remains that sexual reasons play a decided role in suicide at this age. Among female suicides, the figure is large also for those between the ages of 16 to 20, and the fact is probably likewise traceable to unsatisfied sexual instinct, disappointment in love, secret pregnancy, or betrayal. On the subject of the women of our days as sexual beings, Professor V. Krafft-Ebing expresses himself: "A not-to-be-underrated source of insanity with woman lies in her social position. Woman, by nature more prone than man to sexual needs, at least in the ideal sense of the term, knows no honorable means of gratifying the need other than marriage. At the same time marriage offers her the only support. Through unnumbered generations her character has been built in this direction. Already the little girl plays mother with her doll. Modern life, with its demands upon culture, offers ever slighter prospects of gratification through marriage. This holds especially with the upper classes, among whom marriage is contracted later and more rarely. While man—as the stronger, and thanks to his greater intellectual and physical powers, together with his social position—supplies himself easily with sexual gratification, or, taken up with some occupation, that engages all his energies, easily finds an equivalent, these paths are closed to single women. This leads, in the first place, consciously or unconsciously, to dissatisfaction with herself and the world, to morbid brooding. For a while, perhaps, relief is sought in religion; but in vain. Out of religious enthusiasm, there spring with or without masturbation, a host of nervous diseases, among which hysteria and insanity are not rare. Only thus is the fact explainable that insanity among single women occurs with greatest frequency between the ages of 25 and 35, that is to say, the time when the bloom of youth, and, along therewith, hope vanishes; while with men, insanity occurs generally between the ages of 35 and 50, the season of the strongest efforts in the struggle for existence.

"It certainly is no accident that, hand in hand with increasing celibacy, the question of the emancipation of woman has come ever more on the order of the day. I would have the question looked upon as a danger signal, set up by the social position of woman in modern society—a position that grows ever more unbearable, due to increasing celibacy; I would have it looked upon as the danger signal of a justified demand, made upon modern society, to furnish woman some equivalent for that to which she is assigned by Nature, and which modern social conditions partly deny her."[63]

And Dr. H. Plotz, in his work, "Woman in Nature and Ethnography,"[64] says in the course of his explanation of the results of ungratified sexual instincts upon unmarried women: "It is in the highest degree noteworthy, not for the physician only, but also for the anthropologist, that there is an effective and never-failing means to check this process of decay (with old maids), but even to cause the lost bloom to return, if not in all its former splendor yet in a not insignificant degree,—pity only that our social conditions allow, or make its application possible only in rare instances. The means consist in regular and systematic sexual intercourse. The sight is not infrequent with girls, who lost their bloom, or were not far from the withering point, yet, the opportunity to marry having been offered them, that, shortly after marriage, their shape began to round up again, the roses to return to their cheeks, and their eyes to recover their one-time brightness. Marriage is, accordingly, the true fountain of youth for the female sex. Thus Nature has her firm laws, that implacably demand their dues. No 'vita praeter naturam,' no unnatural life, no attempt at accommodation to incompatible conditions of life, passes without leaving noticeable traces of degeneration, upon the animal, as well as upon the human organism."

As to the effect that marriage and celibacy exercise upon the mind, the following figures furnish testimony. In 1882, there were in Prussia, per 10,000 inhabitants of the same conjugal status, 33.2 unmarried male and 29.3 female lunatics, while the percentage of the married ones was 9.5 for men, and 9.5 for females, and of the widowed, 32.1 males, and 25.6 females. Social conditions can not be considered healthy, that hinder a normal satisfaction of the natural instincts, and lead to evils like those just mentioned.

The question then rises: Has modern society met the demands for a natural life, especially as concerns the female sex? If the question is answered in the negative, this other rises: Can modern society meet the demands? If both questions must be answered in the negative, then this third arises: How can these demands be met?

"Marriage and the family are the foundation of the State; consequently, he who attacks marriage and the family attacks society and the State, and undermines both"—thus cry the defenders of the present order. Unquestionably, monogamous marriage, which flows from the bourgeois system of production and property, is one of the most important cornerstones of bourgeois or capitalist society; whether, however, such marriage is in accord with natural wants and with a healthy development of human society, is another question. We shall prove that the marriage, founded upon bourgeois property relations, is more or less a marriage by compulsion, which leads numerous ills in its train, and which fails in its purpose quite extensively, if not altogether. We shall show, furthermore, that it is a social institution, beyond the reach of millions, and is by no means that marriage based upon love, which alone corresponds with the natural purpose, as its praise-singers maintain.

With regard to modern marriage, John Stuart Mill exclaims: "Marriage is the only form of slavery that the law recognizes." In the opinion of Kant, man and woman constitute only jointly the full being. Upon the normal union of the sexes rests the healthy development of the human race. The natural gratification of the sexual instinct is a necessity for the thorough physical and mental development of both man and woman. But man is no animal. Mere physical satisfaction does not suffice for the full gratification of his energetic and vehement instinct. He requires also spiritual affinity and oneness with the being that he couples with. Is that not the case, then the blending of the sexes is a purely mechanical act: such a marriage is immoral. It does not answer the higher human demands. Only in the mutual attachment of two beings of opposite sexes can be conceived the spiritual ennobling of relations that rest upon purely physical laws. Civilized man demands that the mutual attraction continue beyond the accomplishment of the sexual act, and that it prolong its purifying influence upon the home that flows from the mutual union.[65] The fact that these demands can not be made upon numberless marriages in modern society is what led Barnhagen von Ense to say: "That which we saw with our own eyes, both with regard to contracted marriages and marriages yet to be contracted, was not calculated to give us a good opinion of such unions. On the contrary, the whole institution, which was to have only love and respect for its foundation, and which in all these instances (in Berlin) we saw founded on everything but that, seemed to us mean and contemptible, and we loudly joined in the saying of Frederick Schlegel which we read in the fragments of the 'Atheneum': Almost all marriages are concubinages, left-handed unions, or rather provisional attempts and distant resemblances at and of a true marriage, whose real feature consists, according to all spiritual and temporal laws, in that two persons become one."[66] Which is completely in the sense of Kant.

The duty towards and pleasure in posterity make permanent the love relations of two persons, when such really exists. A couple that wishes to enter into matrimonial relations must, therefore, be first clear whether the physical and moral qualities of the two are fit for such a union. The answer should be arrived at uninfluenced; and that can happen only, first, by keeping away all other interests, that have nothing to do with the real object of the union,—the gratification of the natural instinct, and the transmission of one's being in the propagation of the race; secondly, by a certain degree of insight that curbs blind passion. Seeing, however, as we shall show, that both conditions are, in innumerable cases, absent in modern society, it follows that modern marriage is frequently far from fulfilling its true purpose; hence that it is not just to represent it, as is done, in the light of an ideal institution.

How large the number is of the marriages, contracted with views wholly different from these, can, naturally, not be statistically given. The parties concerned are interested in having their marriage appear to the world different from what it is in fact. There is on this field a state of hypocrisy peculiar to no earlier social period. And the State, the political representative of this society, has no interest, for the sake of curiosity, in initiating inquiries, the result of which would be to place in dubious light the social system that is its very foundation. The maxims, which the State observes with respect to the marrying of large divisions of its own officials and servants, do not suffer the principle to be applied that, ostensibly, is the basis of marriage.

Marriage—and herewith the bourgeois idealists also agree—should be a union that two persons enter into only out of mutual love, in order to accomplish their natural mission. This motive is, however, only rarely present in all its purity. With the large majority of women, matrimony is looked upon as a species of institution for support, which they must enter into at any price. Conversely, a large portion of the men look upon marriage from a purely business standpoint, and from material view-points all the advantages and disadvantages are accurately calculated. Even with those marriages, in which low egotistical motives did not turn the scales, raw reality brings along so much that disturbs and dissolves, that only in rare instances are the expectations verified which, in their youthful enthusiasm and ardor, the couple had looked forward to.

And quite naturally. If wedlock is to offer the spouses a contented connubial life, it demands, together with mutual love and respect, the assurance of material existence, the supply of that measure of the necessaries of life and comfort which the two consider requisite for themselves and their children. The weight of cares, the hard struggle for existence—these are the first nails in the coffin of conjugal content and happiness. The cares become heavier the more fruitful the marriage proves itself, i. e., in the measure in which the marriage fulfils its purpose. The peasant, for instance, is pleased at every calf that his cow brings him; he counts with delight the number of young that his sow litters; and he communicates the event with pleasure to his neighbors. But the same peasant looks gloomy when his wife presents him with an increase to his own brood—and large this may never be—which he believes to be able to bring up without too much worry. His gloom is all the thicker if the new-born child is a girl.

We shall now show how, everywhere, marriages and births are completely controlled by the economic conditions. This is most classically exemplified in France. There, the allotment system prevails generally in the country districts. Land, broken up beyond a certain limit, ceases to nourish a family. The unlimited division of land, legally permissible, the French peasant counteracts by his rarely giving life to more than two children,—hence the celebrated and notorious "two child system," that has grown into a social institution in France, and that, to the alarm of her statesmen, keeps the population stationary, in some provinces even registering considerable retrogression. The number of births is steadily on the decline in France; but not in France only, also in most of the civilized lands. Therein is found expressed a development in our social conditions, that should give the ruling classes cause to ponder. In 1881 there were 937,057 children born in France; in 1890, however, only 838,059; accordingly, the births in 1890 fell 98,998 behind the year 1881. Characteristic, however, is the circumstance that the number of illegitimate births in France was 70,079 for the year 1881; that, during the period between 1881 and 1890, the number reached high-water mark in 1884, with 75,754; and that the number was still 71,086 strong in 1890. Accordingly, the whole of the decline of births fell exclusively upon the legitimate births. This decline in births, and, we may add, in marriages also, is, as will be shown, a characteristic feature, noticeable throughout the century. To every 10,000 French population, there were births in the years:

This amounts to a decline of births in 1890, as against 1801, of 114 to every 10,000 inhabitants. It is imaginable that such figures cause serious headaches to the French statesmen and politicians. But France does not stand alone in this. For a long time Germany has been presenting a similar phenomenon. In Germany, to every 10,000 population there were births in the years:

Accordingly, Germany too reveals, in the space of only 21 years, a decline of 49 births to every 10,000 inhabitants. Similarly with the other States of Europe. To every 10,000 population there were live births:

The decline in births is, accordingly, pretty general, only that, of all European States, it is strongest in France. Between 1886 and 1888, France had, to every 1,000 inhabitants, an average of 23.9 births, England 32.9, Prussia 41.27, and Russia 48.8.

These facts show that the birth of a human being, the "image of God," as religious people express it, ranks generally much cheaper than new-born domestic animals. What this fact does reveal is the unworthy condition that we find ourselves in,—and it is mainly the female sex which suffers thereunder. In many respects, modern views distinguish themselves but little from those of barbarous nations. Among the latter, new-born babes were frequently killed, and such a fate fell to the lot of girls mainly; many a half-wild race does so to this day. We no longer kill the girls; we are too civilized for that; but they are only too often treated like pariahs by society and the family. The stronger man crowds them everywhere back in the struggle for existence; and if, driven by the love for life, they still take up the battle, they are visited with hatred by the stronger sex, as unwelcome competitors. It is especially the men in the higher ranks of society who are bitterest against female competition, and oppose it most fiercely. That workingmen demand the exclusion of female labor on principle happens but rarely. A motion to that effect being made in 1877, at a French Labor Convention, the large majority declared against it. Since then, it is just with the class-conscious workingmen of all countries, that the principle, that working-women are beings with equal rights with themselves makes immense progress. This was shown especially by the resolutions of the International Labor Congress of Paris in 1889. The class-conscious workingman knows that the modern economic development forces woman to set herself up as a competitor with man; but he also knows that, to prohibit female labor, would be as senseless an act as the prohibition of the use of machinery. Hence he strives to enlighten woman on her position in society, and to educate her into a fellow combatant in the struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat from capitalism. True enough,—due to the ever more widespread employment of female labor in agriculture, industry, commerce and the trades—the family life of the workingman is destroyed, and the degenerating effects of the double yoke of work for a living, and of household duties, makes rapid progress in the female sex. Hence the endeavor to keep women by legislative enactments, from occupations that are especially injurious to the female organism, and by means of protective laws to safeguard her as a mother and rearer of children. On the other hand, the struggle for existence forces women to turn in ever larger numbers to industrial occupations. It is married woman, more particularly, who is called upon to increase the meager earnings of her husband with her work,—and she is particularly welcome to the employer.[67]

Modern society is without doubt more cultured than any previous one, and woman stands correspondingly higher. Nevertheless, the views concerning the relations of the two sexes have remained at bottom the same. Professor L. von Stein published a book,[68]—a work, be it said in passing, that corresponds ill with its title—in which he gives a poetically colored picture of modern marriage, as it supposedly is. Even in this picture the subaltern position of woman towards the "lion" man is made manifest. Stein says among other things: "Man deserves a being that not only loves, but also understands him. He deserves a person with whom not only the heart beats for him, but whose hand may also smooth his forehead, and whose presence radiates peace, rest, order, a quiet command over herself and the thousand and one things upon which he daily reverts: he wants someone who spreads over all these things that indescribable aroma of womanhood, one who is the life-giving warmth to the life of the house."

In this song of praise of woman lies concealed her own degradation, and along therewith, the low egotism of man. The professor depicts woman as a vaporous being, that, nevertheless, shall be equipped with the necessary knowledge of practical arithmetic; know how to keep the balance between "must" and "can" in the household; and, for the rest, float zephyr-fashion, like sweet spring-tide, about the master of the house, the sovereign lion, in order to spy every wish from his eyes, and with her little soft hand unwrinkle the forehead, that he, "the master of the house," perchance himself crumpled, while brooding over his own stupidity. In short, the professor pictures a woman and a marriage such as, out of a hundred, hardly one is to be found, or, for that matter, can exist. Of the many thousand unhappy marriages; of the large number of women who never get so far as to wed; and also of the millions, who, like beasts of burden beside their husbands, have to drudge and wear themselves out from early morn till late to earn a bit of bread for the current day,—of all of these the learned gentleman knows nothing. With all these wretched beings, hard, raw reality wipes off the poetic coloring more easily than does the hand the colored dust of the wings of a butterfly. One look, cast by the professor at those unnumbered female sufferers, would have seriously disturbed his poetically colored picture, and spoiled his concept. The women, whom he sees, make up but a trifling minority, and that these stand upon the plane of our times is to be doubted.

An oft-quoted sentence runs: "The best gauge of the culture of a people is the position which woman occupies." We grant that; but it will be shown that our so much vaunted culture has little to brag about. In his work, "The Subjection of Woman,"—the title is typical of the opinion that the author holds regarding the modern position of woman—John Stuart Mill says: "The lives of men have become more domestic, growing civilization lays them under more obligations towards women." This is only partly true. In so far as honorable conjugal relations may exist between husband and wife, Mill's statement is true; but it is doubtful whether the statement applies to even a strong minority. Every sensible man will consider it an advantage to himself if woman step forward into life out of the narrow circle of domestic activities, and become familiar with the currents of the times. The "chains" he thereby lays upon himself do not press him. On the other hand, the question arises whether modern life does not introduce into married life factors, that, to a higher degree than formerly, act destructively upon marriage.

Monogamous marriage became, from the start, an object of material speculation. The man who marries endeavors to wed property, along with a wife, and this was one of the principal reasons why daughters, after being at first excluded from the right to inherit, when descent in the male line prevailed, soon again reacquired the right. But never in earlier days was marriage so cynically, in open market, so to speak, an object of speculation; a money transaction, as it is to-day. To-day trading in marriage is frequently conducted among the property classes—among the propertyless the practice has no sense—with such shamelessness, that the oft-repeated phrase concerning the "sanctity" of marriage is the merest mockery. This phenomenon, as everything else, has its ample foundation. At no previous period was it, as it is to-day, hard for the large majority of people to raise themselves into a condition of well-being, corresponding to the then general conceptions; nor was at any time the justified striving for an existence worthy of human beings so general as it is to-day. He who does not reach the goal, feels his failure all the more keenly, just because all believe to have an equal right to enjoyment. Formally, there are no rank or class distinctions. Each wishes to obtain that which, according to his station, he considers a goal worth striving for, in order to come at fruition. But many are called and few are chosen. In order that one may live comfortably in capitalist society, twenty others must pine; and in order that one may wallow in all manner of enjoyment, hundreds, if not thousands, of others must renounce the happiness of life. But each wishes to be of that minority of favored ones, and seizes every means, that promise to take him to the desired goal, provided he does not compromise himself too deeply. One of the most convenient means, and, withal, nearest at hand, to reach the privileged social station, is the money-marriage. The desire, on the one hand, to obtain as much money as possible, and, on the other, the aspiration after rank, titles and honor thus find their mutual satisfaction in the so-called upper classes of society. There, marriage is generally considered a business transaction; it is a purely conventional bond, which both parties respect externally, while, for the rest, each often acts according to his or her own inclination. Marriage for political reasons, practiced in the higher classes, need here to be mentioned only for the sake of completeness. With these marriages also, as a rule, the privilege has tacitly existed—of course, again, for the husband to a much higher degree than for the wife—that the parties keep themselves scathless, outside of the bonds of wedlock, according as their whims may point, or their needs dictate. There have been periods in history when it was part of the bon ton with a Prince to keep mistresses: it was one of the princely attributes. Thus, according to Scherr, did Frederick William I. of Prussia (1713-1740), otherwise with a reputation for steadiness, keep up, at least for the sake of appearances, relations with a General's wife. On the other hand, it is a matter of public notoriety that, for instance, August the Strong, King of Poland and Saxony, gave life to 300 illegitimate children; and Victor Emanuel of Italy, the re galantuomo, left behind 32 illegitimate children. There is still extant a romantically located little German residence city, in which are at least a dozen charming villas, that the corresponding "father of his country" had built as places of recreation for his resigned mistresses. On this head thick books could be written: as is well known, there is an extensive library on these piquant matters.

The inside history of most of the German princely courts and noble families is to the informed an almost uninterrupted chronique scandaleuse, and not infrequently has it been stained with crimes of blackest dye. In sight of these facts, it certainly is imperative upon the sycophantic painters of history, not only to leave untouched the question of the "legitimacy" of the several successive "fathers and mothers of their country," but also to take pains to represent them as patterns of all virtues, as faithful husbands and good mothers. Not yet has the breed of the augurs died out; they still live, as did their Roman prototypes, on the ignorance of the masses.

In every large town, there are certain places and days when the higher classes meet, mainly for the purpose of match-making. These gatherings are, accordingly, quite fitly termed "marriage exchanges." Just as on the exchanges, speculation and chaffer play here the leading role, nor are deception and swindle left out. Officers, loaded with debts, but who can hold out an old title of nobility; roues, broken down with debauchery, who seek to restore their ruined health in the haven of wedlock, and need a nurse; manufacturers, merchants, bankers, who face bankruptcy, not infrequently the penitentiary also, and wish to be saved; finally, all those who are after money and wealth, or a larger quantity thereof, government office-holders among them, with prospects of promotion, but meanwhile in financial straits;—all turn up as customers at these exchanges, and ply the matrimonial trade. Quite often, at such transactions, it is all one whether the prospective wife be young or old, handsome or ugly, straight or bent, educated or ignorant, religious or frivolous, Christian or Jew. Was it not a saying of a celebrated statesman: "The marriage of a Christian stallion with a Jewish mare is to be highly recommended"?[69] The figure, characteristically borrowed from the horse-fair, meets, as experience teaches, with loud applause from the higher circles of our society. Money makes up for all defects, and outweighs all vices. The German penal code punishes[70] the coupler with long terms of imprisonment; when, however, parents, guardians and relatives couple their children, wards or kin to a hated man or woman only for the sake of money, of profit, of rank, in short, for the sake of external benefits, there is no District Attorney ready to take charge, and yet a crime has been committed. There are numerous well organized matrimonial bureaus, with male and female panders of all degrees, out for prey, in search of the male and female candidates for the "holy bonds of matrimony." Such business is especially profitable when the "work" is done for the members of the upper classes. In 1878 there was a criminal trial in Vienna of a female pander on the charge of poisoning, and ended with her being sentenced to fifteen years in the penitentiary. At the trial it was established that the French Ambassador in Vienna, Count Bonneville, had paid the pander 12,000 florins for procuring his own wife. Other members of the high aristocracy were likewise highly compromised through the trial. Evidently, certain Government officials had left the woman to pursue her dark and criminal practices for many years. The "why" thereof is surely no secret. Similar stories are told from the capital of the German Empire. During recent years, it is the daughters and heirs of the rich American capitalist class, who, on their side, aspire after rank and honors, not to be had in their own American home, that have become a special subject of matrimonial trading for the needy noblemen of Europe. Upon these particular practices characteristic light is thrown by a series of articles that appeared in the fall of 1889 in a portion of the German press. According thereto, a chevalier d'industry nobleman, domiciled in California, had recommended himself as a matrimonial agent in German and Austrian papers. The offers that he received amply betray the conception concerning the sanctity of marriage and its "ethical" side prevalent in the corresponding circles. Two Prussian officers of the Guards, both, as they say themselves, belonging to the oldest nobility of Prussia, declared that they were ready to enter into negotiations for marriage because, as they frankly confessed, they owed together 60,000 marks. In their letter to the pander they say literally: "It is understood that we shall pay no money in advance. You will receive your remuneration after the wedding trip. Recommend us only to ladies against whose families no objections can be raised. It is also very desirable to be introduced to ladies of attractive appearance. If demanded, we shall furnish, for discreet use, our own pictures to your agent, after he shall have given us the details, and shown us the pictures, etc. We consider the whole affair strictly confidential and as a matter of honor (?), and, of course, demand the same from you. We expect a speedy answer through your agent in this place, if you have one. Berlin, Friedrichstrasse 107, December 15, 1889. Baron v. M——, Arthur v. W——."

An Austrian nobleman also, Karl Freiherr v. M—— of Goeding in Moravia, seized the opportunity to angle for a rich American bride, and to this end sent to the swindle-bureau the following letter:

"According to a notice in the papers of this place, you are acquainted with American ladies who wish to marry. In this connection I place myself at your service, but must inform you that I have no fortune whatever. I am of very old noble stock (Baron), 34 years old, single, was a cavalry officer and am at present engaged in building railroads. I should be pleased to inspect one or more pictures, which, upon my word of honor, I shall return. Should you require my picture, I shall forward same to you. I also request you to give me fuller information. Expecting a speedy answer in this matter, I remain, very respectfully, your Karl Freiherr v. M——, Goeding, Moravia, Austria, November 29, 1889."

A young German nobleman, Hans v. H——, wrote from London that he was 5 feet 10 tall, of an old noble family, and employed in the diplomatic service. He made the confession that his fortune had been greatly reduced through unsuccessful betting at the horse races, and hence found himself obliged to be on the lookout for a rich bride, so as to be able to cover his deficit. He was, furthermore, ready to undertake a trip to the United States forthwith.

The chevalier d'industry in question claimed that, besides several counts, barons, etc., three Princes and sixteen dukes had reported to him as candidates for marriage. But not noblemen only, bourgeois also longed for rich American women. An architect, Max W—— of Leipsic, demanded a bride who should possess not only money, but beauty and culture also. From Kehl on the Rhine, a young mill-owner, Robert D——, wrote that he would be satisfied with a bride who had but 400,000 marks, and he promised in advance to make her happy.

But why look so far, when at hand the quarry is rich! A very patriotic-conservative Leipsic paper, which plumes itself very particularly upon its Christianity, contained in the spring of 1894 an advertisement, that ran thus: "A cavalry officer of the Guards, of large, handsome build, noble, 27 years of age, desires a financial marriage. Please address, Count v. W. I., Post Office General Delivery, Dresden." In comparison with the fellow who makes so cynical an offer, the street-walker, who, out of bitter necessity, plies her trade, is a paragon of decency and virtue. Similar advertisements are found almost every day in the papers of all political parties—except the Social Democratic. A Social Democratic editor or manager, who would accept such or similar advertisements for his paper, would be expelled from his party as dishonorable. The capitalist press is not troubled at such advertisements: they bring in money: and it is of the mind of the Emperor Vespasian,—non olet, it does not smell. Yet all that does not hinder that same press from going rabid mad at "the marriage-undermining tendencies of Socialism." Never yet was there an age more hypocritical than the one we are living in. With the view to demonstrate the fact once more, the above instances were cited.

Bureaus of information for marriage,—that's what the advertisement pages of most of the newspapers of our day are. Whosoever, be it male or female, finds near at hand nothing desirable, entrusts his or her heart's wants to the pious-conservative or moral-liberal press, that, in consideration of cash and without coaxing, sees to it that the kindred souls meet. With illustrations, taken on any one day from a number of large newspapers, whole pages, could be filled. Off and on the interesting fact also crops out that even clergymen are sought for husbands, and, vice versa, clergymen angle for wives, with the aid of advertisements. Occasionally, the suitors also offer to overlook a slip, provided the looked-for woman be rich. In short, the moral turpitude of certain social circles of our society can be pilloried no better than by this sort of courtship.

State and Church play in such "holy matrimony" a by no means handsome role. Whether the civil magistrate or clergyman, on whom may devolve the duty to celebrate the marriage, be convinced that the bridal couple before him has been brought together by the vilest of practices; whether it be manifest that, neither in point of age nor that of bodily or mental qualities, the two are compatible with each other; whether, for instance, the bride be twenty and the bridegroom seventy years old, or the reverse; whether the bride be young, handsome and joyful, and the bridegroom old, ridden with disease and crabbed;—whatever the case, it concerns not the representative of the State or the Church; it is not for them to look into that. The marriage bond is "blessed,"—as a rule, blessed with all the greater solemnity in proportion to the size of the fee for the "holy office."

When, later, such a marriage proves a most unfortunate one—as foreseen by everybody, by the ill-starred victim, in most instances the woman, herself,—and either party decides to separate, then, State and Church,—who never first inquire whether real love and natural, moral impulses, or only naked, obscene egotism tie the knot—now raise the greatest difficulties. At present, moral repulsion is but rarely recognized a sufficient ground for separation; at present, only palpable proofs, proofs that always dishonor or lower one of the parties in public esteem, are, as a rule, demanded; separation is not otherwise granted. That the Roman Catholic Church does not allow divorces,—except by special dispensation of the Pope, which is hard to obtain, and, at best, only from board and bed—only renders all the worse the conditions, under which all Catholic countries are suffering. Germany has the prospect of receiving, in the not too far distant future, a civil code that shall embrace the whole Empire. It is, therefore, a side-light upon our times that, although even the superficial observer must reach the conclusion that at no previous period have unhappy marriages been so numerous as now—a natural consequence of our whole social development—the new draft for a civil code still renders divorce materially difficult. It is but a fresh instance of the old experience,—a social system, in the throes of dissolution, seeks to keep itself up by artificial means and compulsion, and to deceive itself upon its actual state. In declining Rome, marriage and births were sought to be promoted by premiums: in the German Empire, whose social order stands under a constellation similar with that of the decaying Empire of the Caesars, it is now sought to prevent the ever more frequent desire for the dissolution of marriage by means of forcible constraints.

Thus people remain against their will chained to each other through life. One party becomes the slave of the other, compelled to submit out of "conjugal duty" to that other's most intimate embraces, which, perhaps, it abhors worse than insult or ill-treatment. Fully justified is Montegazza's dictum:[71] "There is probably no worse torture than that which compels a human being to put up with the caresses of a person it does not love."

We ask, Is such a marriage—and their number is infinite—not worse than prostitution? The prostitute has, to a certain degree, the freedom to withdraw from her disgraceful pursuit; moreover, she enjoys the privilege, if she does not live in a public house, to reject the purchase of the embraces of him who, for whatever reason, may be distasteful to her. But a sold married woman must submit to the embraces of her husband, even though she have a hundred reasons to hate and despise him.

When in advance, and with the knowledge of both parties, marriage is contracted as a marriage for money or rank, then, as a rule, matters lie more favorably. The two accommodate themselves mutually, and a modus vivendi is established. They want no scandal, and regard for their children compels them to avoid any, although it is the children who suffer most under a cold, loveless life on the part of their parents, even if such a life does not develop into enmity, quarrel and dissension. Often accommodation is reached in order to avoid material loss. As a rule it is the husband, whose conduct is the rock against which marriage is dashed. This appears from the actions for divorce. In virtue of his dominant position, he can indemnify himself elsewhere when the marriage is not pleasing to him, and he can not find satisfaction in it. The wife is not so free to step on side-roads, partly because, as the receiving sex, such action is, for physiologic reasons, a much more risky one on her part; then, also, because every infraction of conjugal fidelity is imputed a crime to her, which neither the husband nor society pardons. Woman alone makes a "slip"—be she wife, widow or maid; man, at worst, has acted "incorrectly." One and the same act is judged by society with wholly different standards, according as it be committed by a man or a woman. And, as a rule, women themselves judge a "fallen" sister most severely and pitilessly.[72]

As a rule, only in cases of crassest infidelity or maltreatment, does the wife decide upon divorce. She is generally in a materially dependent position, and compelled to look upon marriage as a means of support: moreover, as a divorced wife, she finds herself socially in no enviable situation: unless special reasons render intercourse with her desirable, she is considered and treated by society as a neuter, so to speak. When, despite all this, most actions for divorce proceed from wives, the circumstance is an evidence of the heavy moral torture that they lie under. In France, even before the new divorce law came into effect (1884), by far the more numerous actions for separation from bed and board came from women. For an absolute divorce they could apply only if the husband took his concubine into the married home, against the will of his wife. Actions for separations from bed and board occurred:[73]:

But not only did women institute by far the larger number of actions; the figures show that these increased from period to period. Furthermore, so far as reliable information before us goes, it appears that actions for absolute divorce also proceed preponderatingly from wives. In the Kingdom of Saxony, during the period of 1860-1868, there were instituted, all told, 8,402 actions for divorce; of these, 3,537 (42 per cent.) were by men, 4,865 (58 per cent.) by wives.

In the period from 1871 to 1878, there were actions for divorce in Saxony[74]:

The fact that divorce, as a rule, hurts women more, did not restrain them in Saxony either from instituting most of the actions. The total actions for divorce increased, however, in Saxony, as in France, much faster than population. In Switzerland, during the year 1892, there were granted 1,036 applications for divorce. Of these, wives had instituted 493, husbands 229, and both parties 314.

Statistics teach us, however, not alone that wives institute the larger number of actions for divorce; they also teach us that the number of divorces is in rapid increase. In France, divorce has been regulated anew by law since 1884. Since then, divorces have greatly increased from year to year. The number of divorces, and years they fell in, were as follows:

In Vienna there were, from 1870 to 1871, 148 divorces; they increased from year to year; from 1878 to 1879 they ran up to 319 cases.[75] But in Vienna, being a preponderatingly Catholic city, divorce is hard to obtain. That notwithstanding, about the year 1885 a Vienna Judge made the remark: "Complaints on the ground of broken marriage vows are as frequent as complaints for broken window-panes." In England and Wales there was, in 1867, 1 divorce to every 1,378 marriages, but in 1877 there was 1 to every 652 marriages; and in 1886, 1 to as few as 527. In the United States the number of divorces for 1867 was 9,937, and for 1886 as many as 25,535. The total number of divorces in the United States between 1867 and 1886 was 328,716, and the fault fell in 216,176 cases upon the husband, in 112,540 upon the wife.

Relatively speaking, the largest number of divorces occurs in the United States. The proportion between marriages and divorces during the period of 1867 to 1886 stood for those States in which an accurate record is kept:

In the other States of the Union, from which less accurate returns are at hand, the proportion seems to be the same. The reasons why in the United States divorces are more frequent than in any other country, may be sought in the circumstance, first, that divorce is there more easily obtained than elsewhere; secondly, that women occupy in the United States a far freer position than in any other country, hence are less inclined to allow themselves to be tyrannised by their marital lords.[76]

In Germany there was, by judicial decision, 1 dissolution of marriage—

According to Dr. S. Wernicke, there were to every 1,000 marriages, divorces in:

It would be an error to attempt to arrive at any conclusion touching the different conditions of morality, by deductions from the large discrepancy between the figures for the different countries cited above. No one will dare assert that the population of Sweden has more inclination or cause for divorce than that of Belgium. First of all must the legislation on the subject be kept in mind, which in one country makes divorce difficult, in another easier, more so in some, less in others. Only in the second instance does the condition of morality come into consideration, i. e., the average reasons that, now the husbands, then the wives, consider determining factors in applying for separation. But all these figures combine in establishing that divorces increase much faster than population; and that they increase while marriages decline. About this, more later.

On the question how the actions for divorce distribute themselves among the several strata of society, there is only one computation at our disposal, from Saxony, but which is from the year 1851.[77] At that time, to each 100,000 marriages, there were actions for divorce from the stratum of

Accordingly, the actions for divorce were at that period in Saxony 50 per cent. more frequent in the higher than in the lower social strata.

The increasing number of divorces signifies that, in general, the marriage relations are becoming ever more unfavorable, and that the factors multiply which destroy marriage. On the other hand, they also furnish evidence that an ever larger number of spouses, women in particular, decide to shake off the unbearable oppressing yoke.

But the evils of matrimony increase, and the corruption of marriage gains ground in the same measure as the struggle for existence waxes sharper, and marriage becomes ever more a money-match, or be it, marriage by purchase. The increasing difficulty, moreover, of supporting a family determines many to renounce marriage altogether; and thus the saying that woman's activity should be limited to the house, and that she should fill her calling as housewife and mother, becomes ever more a senseless phrase. On the other hand, the conditions can not choose but favor the gratification of sexual intercourse outside of wedlock. Hence the number of prostitutes increases, while the number of marriages decreases. Besides that, the number increases of those who suffer from unnatural gratification of the sexual instinct.

Among the property classes, not infrequently the wife sinks, just as in old Greece, to the level of a mere apparatus for the procreation of legitimate offspring, of warder of the house, or of nurse to a husband, wrecked by debauchery. The husbands keep for their pleasure and physical desires hetairae—styled among us courtesans or mistresses—who live in elegant abodes, in the handsomest quarters of the city. Others, whose means do not allow them to keep mistresses, disport themselves, after marriage as before, with Phrynes, for whom their hearts beat stronger than for their own wives. With the Phrynes they amuse themselves; and quite a number of the husbands among the "property and cultured classes" is so corrupt that it considers these entertainments in order.[78]

In the upper and middle classes of society, the money matches and matches for social position are the mainspring of the evils of married life; but, over and above that, marriage is made rank by the lives these classes lead. This holds good particularly with regard to the women, who frequently give themselves over to idleness or to corrupting pursuits. Their intellectual food often consists in the reading of equivocal romances and obscene literature, in seeing and hearing frivolous theatrical performances, and the fruition of sensuous music; in exhilarating nervous stimulants; in conversations on the pettiest subjects, or scandals about the dear fellow mortals. Along therewith, they rush from one enjoyment into another, from one banquet to another, and hasten in summer to the baths and summer retreats to recover from the excesses of the winter, and to find fresh subjects for talk. The chronique scandaleuse recruits itself from this style of life: people seduce and are seduced.

In the lower classes money-matches are unknown, as a rule, although they occasionally do play a role. No one can wholly withdraw himself from the influence of the society he lives in,—and the existing social conditions exercise a particularly depressing influence upon the circumstances of the lower classes. As a rule, the workingman weds out of inclination, but there is no lack of causes to disturb his marriage. A rich blessing of children brings on cares and troubles; but too often want sets in. Sickness and death are frequent guests in the workingman's family. Lack of work drives misery to its height. Many a circumstance pares off the worker's earnings, or temporarily robs him wholly of it. Commercial and industrial crises throw him out of work; the introduction of new machinery, or methods of work, casts him as superfluous on the sidewalk; wars, unfavorable tariffs and commercial treaties, the introduction of the new indirect taxes, disciplinary acts on the part of the employer in punishment for the exercise of his convictions, etc., destroy his existence, or seriously injure it. Now one thing, then another happens, whereby, sometimes for a shorter, sometimes for a longer period, he becomes an unemployed, i. e., a starving being. Uncertainty is the badge of his existence. When such blows of fortune happen, they at first produce dissatisfaction and bitterness, and in the home life this mood finds its first expression when daily, every hour, demands are made by wife and children for the most pressing needs, needs that the husband can not satisfy. Out of despair, he visits the saloon, and seeks comfort in bad liquor. The last penny is spent. Quarrel and dissension break out. The ruin of both marriage and the family is accomplished.

Let us take up another picture. Both—husband and wife—go to work. The little ones are left to themselves, or to the care of older brothers and sisters, themselves in need of care and education. At noon, the so-called lunch is swallowed down in hot haste,—supposing that the parents have at all time to rush home, which, in thousands of cases is impossible, owing to the shortness of the hour of recess, and the distance of the shop from the home. Tired out and unstrung, both return home in the evening. Instead of a friendly, cheerful home, they find a narrow, unhealthy habitation, often lacking in light and air, generally also in the most necessary comforts. The increasing tenement plague, together with the horrible improprieties that flow therefrom, is one of the darkest sides of our social order, and leads to numerous evils, vices and crimes. Yet the plague increases from year to year in all cities and industrial regions, and it draws within the vortex of its evils ever new strata of society: small producers, public employes, teachers, small traders, etc. The workingman's wife, who reaches home in the evening tired and harassed, has now again her hands full. She must bestir herself at breakneck speed in order but to get ready the most necessary things in the household. The crying and noisy children are hurried off to bed; the wife sits up, and sews, and patches deep into the night. The so-much-needed mental intercourse and encouragement are absent. The husband is often uneducated and knows little, the wife still less; the little they have to say to each other is soon got through with. The husband goes to the saloon, and seeks there the entertainment that he lacks at home; he drinks; however little that be that he spends, for his means it is too much. At times he falls a prey to gambling, which, in the upper circles of society also, claims many victims, and he loses more than he spends in drink. The wife, in the meantime, sits at home and grumbles; she must work like a dray-horse; for her there is no rest or recreation; the husband avails himself of the freedom that accident gives him, of having been born a man. Thus disharmony arises. If, however, the wife is less true to duty, she seeks in the evening, after she has returned home tired, the rest she is entitled to; but then the household goes back, and misery is twice as great. Indeed, we live "in the best world possible."

Through these and similar circumstances, marriage is shattered ever more among the working class also. Even favorable seasons of work exert their destructive influence: they compel him to work Sundays and overtime: they take from him the hours he still had left for his family. In many instances he has to travel hours to reach the shop; to utilize the noon recess for going home is an impossibility; he is up in the morning at the very earliest, when the children are still sound asleep, and returns home late, when they are again in the same condition. Thousands, especially those engaged in the building trades in the cities, remain away from home all week, owing to the vastness of the distance, and return only on Saturdays to their family. And yet it is expected of family life that it thrive under such circumstances. Moreover, female labor is ever on the increase, especially in the textile industry, whose thousands of steam weaving and spinning looms are served by cheap woman and children's hands. Here the relations of sex and age have been reversed. Wife and child go into the mill, the now breadless husband sits at home and attends to household duties. In the United States, that, due to its rapid large-capitalist development, produces all the evils of European industrial States in much larger dimensions, a characteristic name has been invented for the state of things brought on by such conditions. Industrial places that employ women mainly, while the husbands sit at home, are called "she-towns."

The admission of women to all the manual trades is to-day conceded on all hands. Capitalist society, ever on the hunt for profit and gain, has long since recognized what an excellent subject for exploitation is woman—more docile and submissive, and less exacting woman—in comparison with man. Hence the number of trades and occupations, in which women are finding employment increases yearly. The extension and improvement of machinery, the simplification of the process of production through the ever minuter subdivision of labor, the intenser competition of capitalists among themselves, together with the competitive battle in the world's market among rival industrial countries,—all these continue to favor the ever further application of female labor. It is a phenomenon noticeable in all industrial countries alike. But in the same measure that the number of working-women increases, competition among the workingmen is thereby intensified. One branch of industry after another, one branch of work after the other, is being taken by working-women, who are ever more displacing the men. Numerous passages in the reports of factory inspectors, as well as in the statistical figures on the occupation of working-women, go to confirm the fact.

The condition of the women is worst in the industrial branches in which they preponderate, for instance, the clothing and underwear industry, those branches, in general, in which work can be done at home. The inquiry into the condition of the working-women in the underwear and confectionery industries, ordered in 1886 by the Bundesrath, has revealed the fact that the wages of these working-women are often so miserable that they are compelled to prostitute their bodies for a side-source of income. A large number of the prostitutes are recruited from the strata of ill-paid working-women.

Our "Christian" Government, whose Christianity, as a rule, is looked for in vain there where it should be applied, and is found where the same is superfluous and harmful,—this Christian Government acts exactly like the Christian capitalists, a fact that does not astonish him who knows that the Christian Government is but the agent of our Christian capitalists. The Government only with difficulty decides in favor of laws to limit woman-labor to a normal measure, or to wholly forbid child-labor;—on the same principle that that Government denies many of its own employes both the requisite Sunday rest and normal hours of work, and in that way materially disturbs their family life. Post Office, railroad, penitentiary and other Government employes often must perform their functions far beyond the time limit, and their salaries stand in inverse ratio to their work. That, however, is, to-day, the normal condition of things, still considered quite in order by the majority.

Seeing, furthermore, that rent, in comparison to the wages and earnings of the workingmen, the lower Government employes and the small men included, is much too high, these must exert themselves to the utmost. Lodgers are taken into these homes, only males in some, females in others, often both. The young and the old live together in narrow quarters, without separating the sexes, and are crowded together even during the most private acts. How the sense of shame, or morality fares thereby, horrifying facts proclaim. The increasing brutalization of the youth, so extensively discussed, is due mainly to the conditions prevalent in our industrial system, with which the wretchedness of the home is closely connected. And, as to the children, what must be upon them the effect of industrial labor! The very worst imaginable, both physically and morally.

The ever increasing industrial occupation of married women also is accompanied with fatal results. Especially is this the case in connection with pregnancy and child-birth, as also during the early life of the child when it depends upon the nourishment of the mother. A number of ailments arise during pregnancy that affect destructively both the fruit and the organism of the woman, and cause premature and still-born births, upon all of which more later. After the child is born, the mother is compelled to return as quickly as possible to the factory, lest her place be taken by a competitor. The inevitable results to the little ones are: neglected care, improper or total lack of nourishment. They are drugged with opiates to keep them quiet. The further results are: a vast mortality, or stunted development; in short, the degeneration of the race. The children often grow up without having enjoyed true motherly and fatherly love, or having on their part, felt filial affection. Thus is the proletariat born, thus does it live and die. And the "Christian" Government, this "Christian" society wonders that rudeness, immorality and crime cumulate.

When, in the early sixties of last century, due to the American Civil War for the emancipation of the negroes, many thousands of workingmen in the English cotton industries were out of work, physicians made the remarkable discovery that, despite great want among the population, mortality among children had declined. The cause was simple. The children now enjoyed the mother's nourishment and better care than they had ever had during the best seasons of work. The same fact was attested by physicians during the crisis of the seventies in the United States, especially in New York and Massachusetts. The general lack of employment compelled the women to rest from labor, and left them time for the care of their children. Similar observations were also made by Dr. v. Recherberg during the inquiry into the condition of the weavers of the region of Zittau in Saxony, as shown by him in a work that he wrote during the summer of 1890.

In the home-industries, which romantic economists love to represent as idyllic, conditions are no better. Here the wife is chained to her husband, at work early and late into the night, and the children are from an early age hitched on. Crowded into the narrowest space imaginable, husband, wife and family, boys and girls, live together, along with the waste of materials, amidst the most disagreeable dusts and odors, and without the necessary cleanliness. The bedrooms are of a piece with the sitting and working rooms: generally dark holes and without ventilation, they would be sufficiently unsanitary if they housed but a part of the people huddled into them. In short, the conditions of these places are such as to cause the skin to creep of anyone accustomed to a life worthy of a human being.

The ever harder struggle for existence often also compels women and men to commit actions and tolerate indignities that, under other circumstances, would fill them with disgust. In 1877 it was authentically established in Munich that, among the prostitutes, registered by and under the surveillance of the police, there were not less than 203 wives of workingmen and artisans. And how many are not the married women, who, out of distress, prostitute themselves without submitting to a police control that deeply lacerates the sense of shame and dignity!

But we have wandered somewhat from our subject. It was shown that the number of actions for divorce is on the increase in all countries of civilization, and that the majority of these actions proceed from wives. This steadily rising figure of actions for divorce is a sign of the decay of bourgeois marriage, which is answering its purpose ever less. But a still much worse sign of its decay is the circumstance that, simultaneously, the number of marriages is in almost all these countries steadily on the decline. Experience tells that high prices for corn in one single year have an unfavorable effect both upon the number of marriages and that of births. Long industrial crises, and increasing deterioration of the general economic condition must, accordingly, have a lasting evil effect. This is confirmed by the statistics of marriages for almost all countries in civilization.

In France, marriages between 1881-1890 cast the following picture on the canvas. Marriages were contracted in—

There is, accordingly, a considerable decrease of marriages.

In the German Empire, the number of marriages was highest after the close of the war between Germany and France, during which they had stood still. In 1872 there were 423,900 marriages contracted, but in 1876 they numbered only 366,912, and during the worst year of the crisis, the year 1879, they dropped to 335,113. They have since risen again slowly, and numbered in

Although in the year 1892 the population of Germany was larger by 8,000,000 heads than in 1872, the number of marriages was not even as large as in 1874 when it amounted to 400,282. In the period between 1871-1880, there were, to an average of 1,000 inhabitants in Germany, 8.6 marriages; in the period between 1881-1888, only 7.8.

In Prussia, to the average 10,000 inhabitants, there married—

A similar, partly even more unfavorable picture than in Germany, is furnished by the statistical tables for other European countries.

Out of every 10,000 persons, there married—

These figures are interesting in more respects than one. In the first place, they prove that, in all the countries named, the number of marriages declines. Like Germany, all these countries show the highest frequency of marriage in the beginning of 1872, and then follows a drop in most of them. Hungary comes out best; Ireland, on the contrary, worst, showing the smallest figures of all. The ejectment of the Irish population from their lands, and the ever greater concentration of the same in the hands of the large landlords, express themselves clearly in the figures given.[79]

Industrial conditions have a marked effect upon the number of marriages. As the former has, on an average, become ever more unfavorable since the middle of the seventies, the decline in marriages is not astonishing. But not the industrial conditions only, also the manner in which the property relations develop affects marriages in a high degree, as just seen in Ireland. The Year-Book of Schmoller for 1885, section 1, gives information on the statistics of population of the Kingdom of Wuertemberg, from which it appears strikingly that with the increase of large age declines, while the number of unmarried men between the ages of 40 and 50 rises:

There can be no doubt: small landed property favors marriages: it makes a living possible for a larger number of families, although the living be modest. Large landed property, on the contrary, works directly against marriage, and promotes celibacy. All the figures here quoted prove, accordingly, that, not morals, but purely material causes are the determining factor. The number of marriages, like the moral conditions of a commonwealth, depends upon its material foundations.

The fear of want, the mental worry lest the children be not educated up to their station,—these are further causes that drive the wives, in particular, of all ranks to actions that are out of keeping with nature, and still more so with the criminal code. Under this head belong the various means for the prevention of pregnancy, or, when, despite all care, this does set in, then the removal of the unripe fruit—abortion. It were an error to claim that these measures are resorted to only by heedless, unconscionable women. Often, rather, it is conscientious women, who wish to limit the number of children, in order to escape the dilemma of either having to deny themselves their husbands, or of driving them to paths that they are naturally inclined to. It often is such women who prefer to undergo the dangers of abortion. Besides these, there are other women, especially in the higher walks of life, who, in order to conceal a "slip," or out of aversion for the inconveniences of pregnancy, of child-birth and of nursing, perhaps, out of fear of sooner losing their charms, and then forfeiting their standing with either husband or male friends, incur such criminal acts, and, for hard cash, find ready medical and midwife support.

To conclude from diverse indications, artificial abortion is coming ever more into practice; nor is the practice new. Artificial abortion was in frequent use among the ancient peoples, and is, to this day, from the most civilized down to the barbarous. According to Jules Roget,[80] the women of Rome took recourse to abortion for several reasons: They either sought to destroy the evidence of illicit relations—a reason that even to-day is often at its bottom; or they wished to be able to indulge their excesses without interruption. There were also other reasons: they wished to avoid the changes that pregnancy and child-birth work upon woman's physique. Among the Romans, a woman was old from twenty-five years to thirty. Accordingly, she sought to avoid all that might impair her charms. In the Middle Ages, abortion was punishable with severe bodily chastisement, often even with death; the free woman, guilty thereof, became a serf. At present, abortion is especially in use in the United States. In all large cities of the Union, there are institutions in which girls and women are prematurely delivered: many American papers contain the advertisements of such places: abortion is talked of there almost as freely as of a regular birth. In Germany and Europe, opinion on the subject is different: the German criminal code, for instance, makes the act of both the principal and the accessory a penitentiary offense.[81]

Abortion is, in many cases, accompanied by the most serious results. The operation is dangerous; death not infrequently occurs; often the result is a permanent impairment of health. "The troubles of troublesome pregnancy and child-birth are infinitely less than the sufferings consequent upon artificial abortion."[82] Barrenness is one of its most common consequences. All that, notwithstanding, abortion is practiced also in Germany, ever more frequently, and for the reasons given. Between 1882-1888, the number of cases in Berlin, of which the criminal courts took cognizance, rose 155 per cent. The chronique scandaleuse of the last years dealt frequently with cases of abortion, that caused great sensation, due to the circumstance that reputable physicians and women, prominent in society, played a role in them. Furthermore, to judge from the rising number of announcements in our newspapers, the institutions and places increase in which married and unmarried women of the property class are offered an opportunity to await the results of a "slip" in perfect secrecy.

The dread of a large increase of children—due to the smallness of means, and the cost of bringing up—has, among all classes and even peoples, developed the use of preventatives into a system, that here and yonder has grown into a public calamity. It is a generally known fact that, in all strata of French society, the "two-child system" is in force. In few countries of civilization are marriages relatively as numerous as in France, and in no country is the average number of children so small, and the increase of population so slow. The French capitalist, like the small-holder and allotment peasant, pursues the system; the French workingman follows suit. In many sections of Germany the special situation of the peasants seems to have led to similar conditions. We know a charming region in Southwest Germany, where, in the garden of every peasant, there stands the so-called "Sevenbaum," whose properties are applied to abortive purposes. In another district of the same country the regular two-child system prevails among the peasants: they do not wish to divide the places. Moreover, striking is the measure in which literature, that treats with and recommends the means of "facultative sterility," increases in Germany both in volume and demand,—of course, always under the colors of science, and in allusion to the alleged threatening danger of over-population.

Along with abortion and the artificial prevention of conception, crime plays its role. In France, the murder of children and their exposure is perceptibly on the increase, both promoted by the provision of the French civil code that forbids all inquiry after the paternity of the child. Section 340 of the Code Civil decrees: "La recherche de la paternite est interdite;" on the other hand, Section 314 provides: "La recherche de la maternite est admise." To inquire after the paternity of a child is forbidden, but is allowed after its maternity,—a law that glaringly brings out the injustice contemplated towards the seduced woman. The men of France are free to seduce as many women and girls as they are able to; they are free from all responsibility; they owe no support to the child. These provisions were instituted under the pretext that the female sex should be frightened against seducing the men. As you see, everywhere it is the weak man, this limb of the stronger sex, who is seduced, but never seduces. The result of Section 340 of the Code Civil was Section 312, which provides: "L'enfant conÇu pendant le marriage a pour pere le mari."[83] Inquiry after the paternity being forbidden, it is logical that the husband, crowned with horns, rest content with having the child, that his wife received from another, considered his own. Inconsistency, at any rate, can not be charged to the French capitalist class. All attempts to amend Section 340 have so far failed. Lately, February, 1895, the Socialist deputies in the French Chamber of Deputies presented a bill intended to put an end to the disfranchised position of the seduced or betrayed woman. Whether the attempt will be crowned with success is doubtful.

On the other hand, the French capitalist class—sensible of the cruelty it committed in so framing the law as to make it impossible for the deceived woman to turn for support to the father of her child—sought to make up for its sins by establishing foundling asylums. According to our famous "morals," there is no paternal feeling towards the illegitimate child; that exists only for "legitimate heirs." Through the foundlings' asylums the mother also is taken from the new-born child. According to the French fiction, foundlings are orphans. In this way, the French capitalist class has its illegitimate children brought up, at the expense of the State, as "children of the fatherland." A charming arrangement. In Germany, things bid fair to be switched on the French track. The provisions in the bill for a civil code for the German Empire contain maxims on the legal status of illegitimate children, strongly in contrast with the humane law still in force.

According to the bill, a dishonored girl—even if blameless, or seduced with the promise of subsequent marriage, or induced to consent to coition through some criminal act—has no claim against the seducer except as indemnity for the costs of delivery, and for support during the first six weeks after the birth of the child, and then only within the bounds of what is strictly necessary. Only in some of the cases of the worst crimes against morality, can a slight money indemnity be granted to the seduced girl, at the discretion of the court, and without the necessity of proving actual damages. The illegitimate child has no claim upon the seducer of his mother, except for the merest necessaries of life, and then only until its fourteenth year. All claims of the child on its father are, however, barred if, within pregnancy, any other man cohabit with its mother. The plaintiff child has, moreover, to prove that its mother has not accepted the embraces of any other man.

Menger, the expositions in whose treatise[84] we here follow, justly raises against the bill the serious charge that it only accrues to the advantage of the well-to-do, immoral men, seducers of ignorant girls, often girls who sin through poverty, but leaves these fallen girls, together with their wholly guiltless children, entirely unprotected, aye, pushes them only deeper into misery and crime. Menger cites, in this connection, the provisions of the Prussian law. According thereto, an unmarried woman or widow of good character, who is made pregnant, is to be indemnified by the man according to his means. The indemnity shall, however, not exceed one-fourth of his property. An illegitimate child has a claim upon its father for support and education, regardless of whether his mother is a person of good character: the expenditure, however, shall be no higher than the education of a legitimate child would cost to people of the peasant or of ordinary citizen walks of life. If the illicit intercourse occurred under promise of future marriage, then, according to the further provisions of Prussian law, the Judge is duly to award the woman, pronounced innocent and a wife, the name, standing and rank of the man, together with all the rights of a divorced woman. The illegitimate child has, in such cases, all the rights of children born in wedlock. We may await with curiosity to see whether the provisions of this bill, so hostile to woman, will acquire the force of a civil code of law in Germany. But retrogression is the key-note in our legislation.

Between the years of 1830-1880, there were 8,563 cases of infanticide before the French court of assizes, the figures rising from 471 in 1831, to 980 in 1880. During the same period, 1,032 cases of abortion were tried, 41 in 1831, and in 1880 over 100. Of course, only a small part of the abortions came to the knowledge of the criminal court; as a rule, only when followed by serious illness or death. In the cases of infanticide, the country population contributed 75 per cent., in the cases of abortion the cities 65 per cent. In the city, the women have more means at command to prevent normal birth; hence, the many cases of abortion and the small number of infanticides. It is the reverse in the country.

Such is the composition of the picture presented by modern society in respect to its most intimate relations. The picture differs wide from that that poets and poetically doused phantasists love to paint it. Our picture, however, has this advantage,—it is true. And yet the picture still calls for several strokes of the brush to bring out its character in full.

In general, there can be no difference of opinion touching the present and average mental inferiority of the female sex to the male. True enough, Balzac, by no means a woman-lover, claims: "The woman, who has received a male education, possesses in fact the most brilliant and fruitful qualities for the building of her own happiness and that of her husband;" and Goethe, who knew well both the men and women of his times, expresses himself in Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (confessions of a pure soul): "Learned women were ridiculed, and also the educated ones were disliked, probably because it was considered impolite to put so many ignorant men to shame." We agree with both. Nevertheless, the fact is no wise altered that, in general, women stand intellectually behind the men. This difference is compulsory, because woman is that which man, as her master, has made her. The education of woman, more so than that of the working class, has been neglected since time immemorial; nor are latter-day improvements adequate. We live in days when the aspiration after exchange of thought grows in all circles, in the family also; and there the neglected education of woman is felt as a serious fault, and it avenges itself upon the husband.

The object of the education of man—at least it is so claimed, although due to the mistaken methods, the object is often missed, perchance, also, is not meant to be reached—aims at the development of the intellect, the sharpening of the powers of thought, the broadening of the field of practical knowledge, and the invigoration of the will-power, in short, at the cultivation of the functions of the mind. With woman, on the contrary, education, so far as at all attended to in a higher degree, is mainly aimed at the intensification of her feelings, at formality and polite culture—music, belles-letters, art, poetry—all of which only screw her nervous sensitiveness and phantasy up to a higher pitch. This is a mistaken and unhealthy policy. In it the fact transpires that the powers, which determine the measure of woman's education, are guided only by their ingrained prejudices regarding the nature of the female character, and also by the cramped position of woman. The object must not be to develop still further the sentimental and imaginative side of woman, which would only tend to heighten her natural inclination to nervousness; neither should her education be limited to etiquette and polite literature. The object, with regard to her as to man, should be to develop their intellectual activity and acquaint them with the phenomena of practical life. It would be of greatest benefit to both sexes if, in lieu of a superfluity of sentiment, that often becomes positively uncanny, woman possessed a good share of sharpened wit and power for exact reasoning; if, in lieu of excessive nervous excitation and timidity, she possessed firmness of character and physical courage; in lieu of conventional, literary refinement, in so far as she at all has any, she had a knowledge of the world, of men and of the powers of Nature.

Generally speaking, what is termed the feeling and spirituality of woman has hitherto been nurtured without stint, while her intellectual development has, on the contrary, been grossly neglected and kept under. As a consequence, she suffers of hypertrophy of feeling and spirituality, hence is prone to superstition and miracles,—a more than grateful soil for religious and other charlataneries, a pliant tool for all reaction. Blockish men often complain when she is thus affected, but they bring no relief, because often they are themselves steeped up to the ears in prejudices.

By reason of woman's being almost generally as here sketched, she looks upon the world differently from man. Hence, again, a strong source of contrariety between the two sexes.

Participation in public life is to-day one of the most essential duties of a man; that many men do not yet understand this does not alter the fact. Nevertheless, the number of those is ever increasing who realize that public institutions stand in intimate connection with the private lot of the individual; that his success or failure, together with that of his family, depend infinitely more upon the condition of public affairs than upon his own personal qualities and actions. The fact is beginning to receive recognition that the greatest efforts of the individual are powerless against evils that lie in the very condition of things, and that determine his state. On the other hand, the struggle for existence now requires much greater efforts than before. Demands are now made upon man that engage ever more his time and strength. The ignorant, indifferent wife stands dumb before him, and feels herself neglected. It may be even said that, the mental difference between man and woman is to-day greater than formerly, when the opportunities for both were slight and limited, and lay more within the reach of her restricted intellect. Furthermore, the handling of public affairs occupies to-day a large number of men to a degree before unknown; this widens their horizon; but it also withdraws them ever more from the mental sphere of their homes. The wife deems herself set back, and thus another source of friction is started. Only rarely does the husband know how to pacify his wife and convince her. When he does that, he has escaped a dangerous rock. As a rule the husband is of the opinion that what he wants does not concern his wife, she does not understand it. He takes no pains to enlighten her. "You don't understand such matters," is his stereotyped answer, the moment the wife complains that she is neglected. Lack of information on the part of wives is promoted by lack of sense on the part of most husbands. More favorable relations between husband and wife spring up in the rank of the working class in the measure that both realize they are tugging at the same rope, and that there is but one means towards satisfactory conditions for themselves and their family,—the radical reformation of society that shall make human beings of them all. In the measure that such insight gains ground among the wives of the proletariat, then, despite want and misery, their married life is idealized: both now have a common aim, after which they strive; and they have an inexhaustible source of mutual encouragement in the mutual interchange of views, whereto their joint battle leads them. The number of proletarian women who reach this insight is every year larger. Herein lies a movement, that is in process of development, and that is fraught with decisive significance for the future of mankind.

In other social strata, the differences in education and views—easily overlooked at the beginning of married life, when passion still predominates—are felt ever more with ripening years. Sexual passion cools off, and its substitution with harmony of thought is all the more needful. But, leaving aside whether the husband has any idea of civic duties and attends to the same, he, at any rate, thanks to his occupation and constant intercourse with the outer world, comes into continuous touch with different elements and opinions, on all sorts of occasions, and thus floats into an intellectual atmosphere that broadens his horizon. As a rule, and in contrast with his wife, he finds himself in a state of intellectual molting, while she, on the contrary, due to her household duties, which engage her early and late, is robbed of leisure for further education, and, accordingly, becomes mentally stunted and soured.

The domestic wretchedness in which the majority of wives live to-day, is correctly depicted by the bourgeois-minded Gerhard von Amyntor in his "Marginal Notes to the Book of Life."[85] In the chapter entitled "Deadly Gnat-bites" he says among other things:

"Not the shocking events, that none remain unvisited by, and that bring, here the death of a husband, yonder the moral downfall of a beloved child; that lie, here in a long and serious illness, yonder in the wrecking of a warmly nursed plan;—not these undermine her (the housewife's) freshness and strength. It is the small, daily-recurring marrow and bone-gnawing cares.... How many millions of brave little house-mothers cook and scour away their vigor of life, their very cheeks and roguish dimples, in attending to domestic cares until they become crumpled, dried and broke-up mummies. The ever-recurring question, what shall be cooked to-day? the ever-recurring necessity of sweeping, and beating, and brushing, and dusting is the continuously falling drop that slowly, but surely, wears away mind and body. The kitchen-hearth is the place where the saddest balances are drawn up between income and expense, where the most depressing observations are forced upon the mind on the rising dearness of the necessaries of life, and on the ever increasing difficulty to earn the needed cash. On the flaming altar, where the soup kettle bubbles, youth and mental ease, beauty and good humor are sacrificed; and who recognizes in the old care-bent cook, the one-time blooming, overbearing, coy-coquette bride in the array of her myrtle crown? Already in antiquity the hearth was sacred, near it were placed the Lares and patron deities. Let us also hold sacred the hearth at which the dutiful German bourgeois house-wife dies a slow death, in order to keep the house comfortable, the table covered and the family in health." Such is the consolation offered in bourgeois society to the wife, who, under the present order of society, is miserably going to pieces.

Those women, who, thanks to their social condition, find themselves in a freer state, have, as a rule, a one-sided, superficial education, that, combined with inherited female characteristics, manifests itself with force. They generally have a taste for mere superficialities; they think only about gew-gaws and dress; and thus they seek their mission in the satisfaction of a spoiled taste, and the indulgence of passions that demand their pay with usury. In their children and the education of these they have hardly any interest: they give them too much trouble and annoyance, hence are left to the nurses and servants, and are later passed on to the boarding-schools. At any rate their principal task is to raise their daughters as show-dolls, and their sons as pupils for the jeunesse dore (gilded youth) out of which dudedom recruits its ranks—that despicable class of men that may be fairly put upon a level with procurers. This jeunesse dore furnishes the chief contingent to the seducers of the daughters of the working class. They look upon idleness and squandering as a profession.

[58] Mainlaender, "Philosophie der ErlÖsung," Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1886, E. Koenitzer.