Latest / SECRETS OF SUCCESS & WEALTH: Hidden Laws of Money, Power & Success / SCHOPENHAUER'S ESSAY ON WOMEN: Gender, Love & Human Nature — Arthur Schopenhauer
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Arthur Schopenhauer on women. These few words of Joey. Without women,
- 0:06Speaker 1: the beginning of our life would be deprived of help,
- 0:09Speaker 1: the middle of pleasures and the end of consolation more
- 0:12Speaker 1: exactly express, in my opinion, the true praise of woman
- 0:15Speaker 1: than Schiller's poem The Dignity of Women, which is the
- 0:18Speaker 1: fruit of much careful thought, and impressive because of its
- 0:21Speaker 1: antithesis and use of contrast. The same thing is more
- 0:25Speaker 1: pathetically expressed by Byron in Sardanapolis, Act I, s c. Two.
- 0:31Speaker 1: The very first of human life must spring from woman's breast.
- 0:34Speaker 1: Your first small words are taught you from her lips,
- 0:37Speaker 1: your first tears quenched by her, and your last size,
- 0:40Speaker 1: too often breathed out in a woman's hearing, when men
- 0:43Speaker 1: have shrunk from the ignoble care of watching the last
- 0:45Speaker 1: hour of him who led them. Both passages show the
- 0:48Speaker 1: right point of view for the appreciation of women. One
- 0:53Speaker 1: need only look at a woman's shape to discover that
- 0:55Speaker 1: she is not intended for either too much mental or
- 0:57Speaker 1: too much physical work. She pays the debt of life
- 1:01Speaker 1: not by what she does, but by what she suffers,
- 1:03Speaker 1: by the pains of child bearing, care for the child,
- 1:06Speaker 1: and by subjection, to man, to whom she should be
- 1:09Speaker 1: a patient and cheerful companion. The greatest sorrows and joys,
- 1:13Speaker 1: or great exhibition of strength are not assigned to her.
- 1:18Speaker 1: Her life should flow more quietly, more gently, and less
- 1:21Speaker 1: obtrusively than man's, without her being essentially happier or unhappier.
- 1:26Speaker 1: Women are directly adapted to act as the nurses and
- 1:29Speaker 1: educators of our early childhood for the simple reason that
- 1:32Speaker 1: they themselves are childish, foolish, and short sighted. In a word,
- 1:36Speaker 1: are big children all their lives, something intermediate between the
- 1:40Speaker 1: child and a man who is a man in a
- 1:42Speaker 1: strict sense of the word. Consider how a young girl
- 1:46Speaker 1: will toy day after day with a child, dance with it,
- 1:48Speaker 1: and sing to it. And then consider what a man
- 1:51Speaker 1: with the very best intentions in the world could do
- 1:54Speaker 1: in her place. With girls, Nature has had in view
- 1:57Speaker 1: what is called, in a dramatic sense, a strike effect,
- 2:00Speaker 1: for she endows them for a few years with a
- 2:02Speaker 1: richness of beauty and a fullness of charm at the
- 2:05Speaker 1: expense of the rest of their lives, so that they may,
- 2:09Speaker 1: during these years ensnare the fantasy of a man to
- 2:11Speaker 1: such a degree as to make him rush into taking
- 2:13Speaker 1: the honorable care of them in some kind of form
- 2:16Speaker 1: for a lifetime, a step which would not seem sufficiently
- 2:19Speaker 1: justified if he only considered the matter Accordingly, Nature has
- 2:23Speaker 1: furnished woman, as she has the rest of her creatures,
- 2:26Speaker 1: with the weapons and implements necessary for the protection of
- 2:29Speaker 1: her existence, and for just the length of time that
- 2:32Speaker 1: they will be of service to her, so that Nature
- 2:35Speaker 1: has proceeded here with her usual economy. Just as the
- 2:39Speaker 1: female aunt after coition loses her wings, which then becomes superfluous,
- 2:43Speaker 1: nay dangerous for breeding purposes, so for the most part
- 2:47Speaker 1: does a woman lose her beauty after giving birth to
- 2:49Speaker 1: one or two children, and probably for the same reasons.
- 2:53Speaker 1: Then again we find that young girls in their hearts
- 2:55Speaker 1: regard their domestic or other affairs as secondary things, if
- 2:59Speaker 1: not as a mere jest. Love conquests and all that
- 3:04Speaker 1: these include, such as dressing, dancing, and so on, they
- 3:08Speaker 1: give their serious attention. The nobler and more perfect the
- 3:12Speaker 1: thing is, the later and slower is it in reaching maturity.
- 3:16Speaker 1: Man reaches the maturity of his reasoning and mental faculties
- 3:19Speaker 1: scarcely before he is eight and twenty woman when she
- 3:22Speaker 1: is eighteen, but hers is reason of very narrow limitations.
- 3:26Speaker 1: This is why women remain children all their lives, for
- 3:29Speaker 1: they always see only what is near at hand, cling
- 3:32Speaker 1: to the present, take the appearance of a thing for reality,
- 3:35Speaker 1: and prefer trifling matters to the most important. It is
- 3:39Speaker 1: by virtue of man's reasoning powers that he does not
- 3:42Speaker 1: live in the present only like the brute, but observes
- 3:45Speaker 1: and ponders over the past and future. And from this
- 3:47Speaker 1: spring discretion, care and that anxiety which we so frequently
- 3:51Speaker 1: notice in people. The advantages, as well as the disadvantages
- 3:56Speaker 1: that this entails, make woman, in consequence of her weaks
- 4:00Speaker 1: her reasoning powers, less of a partaker in them. Moreover,
- 4:04Speaker 1: she is intellectually short sighted, for although her intuitive understanding
- 4:08Speaker 1: quickly perceives what is near to her, on the other hand,
- 4:10Speaker 1: her circle of vision is limited and does not embrace
- 4:13Speaker 1: anything that is remote. Hence, everything that is absent or
- 4:16Speaker 1: past or in the future affects women in a less
- 4:19Speaker 1: degree than men. This is why they have greater inclination
- 4:23Speaker 1: for extravagance, which sometimes borders on madness. Women in their
- 4:28Speaker 1: hearts think that men are intended to earn money so
- 4:30Speaker 1: that they may spend it, if possible, during their husband's lifetime,
- 4:34Speaker 1: but at any rate after his death. As soon as
- 4:37Speaker 1: he has given them his earnings on which to keep house.
- 4:39Speaker 1: They are strengthened in this belief. Although all this entails
- 4:43Speaker 1: many disadvantages, yet it has this advantage that a woman
- 4:48Speaker 1: lives more in the present than a man, and that
- 4:50Speaker 1: she enjoys it more keenly if it is at all bearable.
- 4:54Speaker 1: This is the origin of that cheerfulness which is peculiar
- 4:56Speaker 1: to woman and makes her fit to divert man and
- 4:59Speaker 1: in case of need to console him when he is
- 5:01Speaker 1: weighed down by cares. To consult women in matters of difficulty,
- 5:06Speaker 1: as the Germans used to do in old times, is
- 5:08Speaker 1: by no means a matter to be overlooked. For their
- 5:12Speaker 1: way of grasping a thing is quite different from ours,
- 5:15Speaker 1: chiefly because they like the shortest way to the point,
- 5:18Speaker 1: and usually keep their attention fixed upon what lies nearest,
- 5:21Speaker 1: while we, as a rule, see beyond it for the
- 5:24Speaker 1: simple reason that it lies under our nose. It then
- 5:27Speaker 1: becomes necessary for us to be brought back to the
- 5:29Speaker 1: thing in order to obtain a near and simple view.
- 5:33Speaker 1: This is why women are more sober in their judgment
- 5:35Speaker 1: than we, and why they see nothing more in things
- 5:38Speaker 1: than is really there, while we, if our passions are roused,
- 5:42Speaker 1: slightly exaggerate, or add to our imagination. It is because
- 5:46Speaker 1: women's reasoning powers are weaker that they show more sympathy
- 5:49Speaker 1: for the unfortunate than men, and consequently take a kindlier
- 5:53Speaker 1: interest in them. On the other hand, women are inferior
- 5:57Speaker 1: to men in matters of justice, honesty, and conscientiousness, again
- 6:03Speaker 1: because their reasoning faculty is weak. Things clearly visible and
- 6:06Speaker 1: real and belonging to the present exercise a power over
- 6:10Speaker 1: them which is rarely counteracted by abstract thoughts, fixed maxims,
- 6:14Speaker 1: or firm resolutions. In general, by regard for the past
- 6:17Speaker 1: and future, or by consideration for what is absent and remote. Accordingly,
- 6:22Speaker 1: they have the first and principal qualities of virtue, but
- 6:25Speaker 1: they lack the secondary qualities, which are often a necessary
- 6:28Speaker 1: instrument in developing it. Women may be compared in this
- 6:32Speaker 1: respect to an organism that has a liver but no
- 6:34Speaker 1: gall bladder, so that it will be found that the
- 6:37Speaker 1: fundamental fault in the character of women is that they
- 6:40Speaker 1: have no sense of justice. This arises from their deficiency
- 6:44Speaker 1: in the power of reasoning already referred to and reflection,
- 6:48Speaker 1: but is also partly due to the fact that nature
- 6:50Speaker 1: has not destined them, as the weaker sex, to be
- 6:53Speaker 1: dependent on strength but on cunning. This is why they
- 6:57Speaker 1: are instinctively crafty and have an ineradicable tendon and sy
- 7:00Speaker 1: to lie for. As lions are furnished with claws and teeth,
- 7:04Speaker 1: elephants with tusks, bores with fangs, bulls with horns, and
- 7:08Speaker 1: the cuttlefish with its dark, inky fluid, so nature has
- 7:11Speaker 1: provided woman for her protection and defense with the faculty
- 7:14Speaker 1: of dissimulation. And all the power which nature has given
- 7:17Speaker 1: to man in the form of bodily strength and reason
- 7:20Speaker 1: has been conferred on woman in this form. Hence, dissimulation
- 7:24Speaker 1: is innate in woman, and almost as characteristic of the
- 7:27Speaker 1: very stupid as of the clever. Accordingly, it is as
- 7:31Speaker 1: natural for women to dissemble at every opportunity as it
- 7:34Speaker 1: is for those animals to turn to their weapons when
- 7:36Speaker 1: they are attacked, and they feel in doing so that
- 7:38Speaker 1: in a certain measure, they are only making use of
- 7:41Speaker 1: their rights. Therefore, a woman who is perfectly truthful and
- 7:44Speaker 1: does not dissemble is perhaps an impossibility. This is why
- 7:49Speaker 1: they see through dissimulation in others so easily. Therefore, it
- 7:52Speaker 1: is not advisable to attempt it with them. From the
- 7:56Speaker 1: fundamental defect that has been stated, and all that it
- 7:58Speaker 1: involves spring falseness, faithlessness, treachery, ungratefulness, and so on. In
- 8:05Speaker 1: a court of justice, women are more often found guilty
- 8:08Speaker 1: of perjury than men. It is indeed to be generally
- 8:12Speaker 1: questioned whether they should be allowed to take an oath
- 8:14Speaker 1: at all. From time to time there are repeated cases
- 8:18Speaker 1: everywhere of ladies who want for nothing, secretly pocketing and
- 8:22Speaker 1: taking away things from shop counters. Nature has made it
- 8:25Speaker 1: the calling of the young, strong and handsome men to
- 8:28Speaker 1: look after the propagation of the human race, so that
- 8:31Speaker 1: the species may not degenerate. This is the firm will
- 8:35Speaker 1: of nature, and it finds its expression in the passions
- 8:38Speaker 1: of women. This law surpasses all others in both age
- 8:42Speaker 1: and power. Woe then to the man who sets up
- 8:45Speaker 1: rights and interests in such a way as to make
- 8:47Speaker 1: them stand in the way of it. For whatever he
- 8:50Speaker 1: may do or say, they will, at the first significant
- 8:53Speaker 1: onset be unmercifully annihilated. For the secret unformulated, nay, unconscious,
- 8:59Speaker 1: but in no night moral of woman is we are
- 9:02Speaker 1: justified in deceiving those who because they care a little
- 9:05Speaker 1: for us, that is to say, for the individual. Imagine
- 9:07Speaker 1: they have obtained rights over the species. The constitution, and
- 9:12Speaker 1: consequently the welfare of the species have been put into
- 9:15Speaker 1: our hands and entrusted to our care through the medium
- 9:18Speaker 1: of the next generation, which proceeds from us. Let us
- 9:21Speaker 1: fulfill our duties conscientiously. But women are by no means
- 9:25Speaker 1: conscious of this leading principle in the abstract. They are
- 9:28Speaker 1: only conscious of it in the concrete, and have no
- 9:30Speaker 1: other way of expressing it than in the manner in
- 9:32Speaker 1: which they act when the opportunity arrives, so that their
- 9:37Speaker 1: conscience does not trouble them so much as we imagine,
- 9:40Speaker 1: for in the darkest depths of their hearts they are
- 9:42Speaker 1: conscious that in violating their duty towards the individual, they
- 9:45Speaker 1: have all the better fulfilled it towards the species, whose
- 9:47Speaker 1: claim upon them is infinitely greater. A fuller explanation of
- 9:52Speaker 1: this matter may be found in h. Forty four in
- 9:54Speaker 1: my chief work, The World as Will and Representation. Because women,
- 9:59Speaker 1: in truth exist entirely for the propagation of the race,
- 10:03Speaker 1: and their destiny ends here. They live more for the
- 10:05Speaker 1: species than for the individual, and in their hearts take
- 10:08Speaker 1: the affairs of the species more seriously than those of
- 10:11Speaker 1: the individual. This gives to their whole being in character
- 10:14Speaker 1: a certain frivolousness, and altogether a certain tendency which is
- 10:18Speaker 1: fundamentally different from that of man. And this it is
- 10:22Speaker 1: which develops that discord in married life, which is so
- 10:25Speaker 1: prevalent and almost the normal state. It is natural for
- 10:28Speaker 1: a feeling of mere indifference to exist between men, but
- 10:32Speaker 1: between women it is actual enmity. This is due perhaps
- 10:35Speaker 1: to the fact that the potter's hatred of the potter.
- 10:38Speaker 1: Professional rivalry in the case of men is limited to
- 10:41Speaker 1: their everyday affairs, but with women embraces the whole sex,
- 10:45Speaker 1: since they have only one kind of business. Even when
- 10:49Speaker 1: they meet in the street, they look at each other
- 10:51Speaker 1: like old rival factions. And it is quite evident when
- 10:55Speaker 1: two women first make each other's acquaintance, that they exhibit
- 10:58Speaker 1: more constraint and dissimulation than two men placed in similar circumstances.
- 11:03Speaker 1: This is why an exchange of compliments between two women
- 11:06Speaker 1: is much more ridiculous than between two men. Further, while
- 11:10Speaker 1: a man will, as a rule, address others, even those
- 11:14Speaker 1: inferior to himself, with a certain feeling of consideration and humanity,
- 11:18Speaker 1: it is unbearable to see how proudly and disdainfully a
- 11:21Speaker 1: lady of rank will, for the most part, behave towards
- 11:24Speaker 1: one who is in a lower rank, not employed in
- 11:26Speaker 1: her service, when she speaks to her. This may be
- 11:30Speaker 1: because differences of rank are much more precarious with women
- 11:33Speaker 1: than with us, and consequently more quickly change their line
- 11:37Speaker 1: of conduct and elevate them. Or because while a hundred
- 11:39Speaker 1: things must be weighed in our case, there is only
- 11:42Speaker 1: one to be weighed in theirs, namely with which man
- 11:45Speaker 1: they have found favor. And again, because of the one
- 11:47Speaker 1: sided nature of their vocation, they stand in closer relationship
- 11:51Speaker 1: to each other than men do, and so it is
- 11:54Speaker 1: they try to render prominent the differences of rank. It
- 11:57Speaker 1: is only the man whose intellect is clouded by his
- 12:00Speaker 1: sexual instinct that could give that stunted, narrow shouldered, broad hipped,
- 12:04Speaker 1: and short legged race the name of the fair sex,
- 12:06Speaker 1: for the entire beauty of the sex is based on
- 12:09Speaker 1: this instinct. One would be more justified in calling them
- 12:12Speaker 1: the unesthetic sex than the beautiful. Neither for music, nor
- 12:17Speaker 1: for poetry, nor for fine art have they any real
- 12:20Speaker 1: or true sense and susceptibility. And it is mere mockery
- 12:23Speaker 1: on their part in their desire to please if they
- 12:26Speaker 1: affect any such thing. This makes them incapable of taking
- 12:30Speaker 1: a purely objective interest in anything, and the reason for
- 12:33Speaker 1: it is i fancy. As follows, a man strives to
- 12:37Speaker 1: get direct mastery over things, either by understanding them or
- 12:41Speaker 1: by compulsion. But a woman is always and everywhere driven
- 12:45Speaker 1: to indirect mastery, namely through a man, all her direct
- 12:48Speaker 1: mastery being limited to him alone. Therefore, it lies in
- 12:52Speaker 1: woman's nature to look upon everything only as a means
- 12:55Speaker 1: for winning man, and her interest in anything else is
- 12:58Speaker 1: always a simulated one, a mere roundabout way to gain
- 13:01Speaker 1: her ends, consisting of coquetry and pretense. Hence Rousseau said,
- 13:06Speaker 1: women in general love no art, understand none, and have
- 13:10Speaker 1: no genius. Letra a daelembert. Every One who can see
- 13:14Speaker 1: through a sham must have found this to be the case.
- 13:18Speaker 1: One need only watch the way they behave at a concert,
- 13:21Speaker 1: the opera, or the play. The childish simplicity, for instance,
- 13:25Speaker 1: with which they keep on chattering during the finest passages
- 13:28Speaker 1: in the greatest masterpieces. If it is true that the
- 13:31Speaker 1: Greeks forbade women to go to the play, they acted
- 13:34Speaker 1: in a right way, for they would at any rate
- 13:36Speaker 1: be able to hear something. In our day, it would
- 13:39Speaker 1: be more appropriate to substitute let the woman keep silent
- 13:43Speaker 1: in the theater, for let the woman keep silent in church.
- 13:46Speaker 1: And this might perhaps be put up in big letters
- 13:48Speaker 1: on the curtain. Nothing different can be expected of women
- 13:52Speaker 1: if it is born in mind that the most eminent
- 13:53Speaker 1: of the whole sex have never accomplished anything in the
- 13:56Speaker 1: fine arts that is really great, genuine and original, or
- 13:59Speaker 1: given to the world any kind of work of permanent value.
- 14:03Speaker 1: This is most striking in regard to painting, the technique
- 14:06Speaker 1: of which is as much within their reach as within ours.
- 14:09Speaker 1: This is why they pursue it so industriously. Still, they
- 14:13Speaker 1: have not a single great painting to show, for the
- 14:16Speaker 1: simple reason that they lack that objectivity of mind, which
- 14:19Speaker 1: is precisely what is so directly necessary in painting. They
- 14:23Speaker 1: always stick to what is subjective. For this reason, ordinary
- 14:27Speaker 1: women have no susceptibility for painting at all. For nature
- 14:31Speaker 1: makes no leaps, and Huirut, in his book, which has
- 14:35Speaker 1: been famous for three hundred years, Examination of Men's Wits,
- 14:39Speaker 1: examined the ingenious parilas scientious, contends that women do not
- 14:43Speaker 1: possess the higher capacities. Individual and partial exceptions do not
- 14:47Speaker 1: alter the matter. Women are and remain taken altogether, the
- 14:51Speaker 1: most thorough and incurable palestins. And because of the extremely
- 14:56Speaker 1: absurd arrangement which allows them to share the position and
- 14:59Speaker 1: title of theirs their husbands, they are a constant stimulus
- 15:01Speaker 1: to his ignoble ambitions. And further, it is because they
- 15:05Speaker 1: are phillistins that modern society to which they give the
- 15:09Speaker 1: tone and where they have sway, has become corrupted. As
- 15:12Speaker 1: regards their position, one should be guided by Napoleon's maxim
- 15:16Speaker 1: women have no rank, And regarding them in other things,
- 15:19Speaker 1: Chamfort says, very truly, they are made to trade on
- 15:23Speaker 1: our weaknesses and our folly, but not on our reason.
- 15:27Speaker 1: Between them and men, their exist affinities of the skin
- 15:30Speaker 1: and very few affinities of mind, soul and character. They
- 15:34Speaker 1: are the weaker sex, the second sex in every respect.
- 15:38Speaker 1: Therefore their weaknesses should be spared. But to treat women
- 15:41Speaker 1: with extreme reverence is ridiculous and lowers us in their
- 15:44Speaker 1: own eyes. When Nature divided the human race into two parts,
- 15:48Speaker 1: she did not cut it exactly through the middle. The
- 15:52Speaker 1: difference between the positive and negative poles, according to polarity,
- 15:56Speaker 1: is not merely qualitative, but also quantitative. And it was
- 16:00Speaker 1: in this light that the ancients and people of the
- 16:02Speaker 1: East regarded woman. They recognized her true position better than
- 16:05Speaker 1: we with our old French ideas of gallantry and absurd veneration,
- 16:09Speaker 1: that highest product of Christian Teutonic stupidity. These ideas have
- 16:14Speaker 1: only served to make them arrogant and imperious, to such
- 16:17Speaker 1: an extent as to remind one at times of the
- 16:19Speaker 1: holy apes in Benares, who, in the consciousness of their
- 16:22Speaker 1: holiness and inviolability, think they can do anything in everything
- 16:26Speaker 1: they please. In the West, the woman, that is to say,
- 16:30Speaker 1: the lady, finds herself in a false position. For woman,
- 16:35Speaker 1: rightly named by the ancients the weaker sex, is by
- 16:38Speaker 1: no means fit to be the object of our honor
- 16:40Speaker 1: and veneration, or to hold her head higher than man
- 16:43Speaker 1: and to have the same rights as he. The consequences
- 16:46Speaker 1: of this false position are sufficiently clear Accordingly, it would
- 16:51Speaker 1: be a very desirable thing if this number two of
- 16:54Speaker 1: the human race in Europe were assigned her natural position,
- 16:57Speaker 1: and the lady grievance got rid of, which is not
- 16:59Speaker 1: only ridden by the whole of Asia, but would have
- 17:02Speaker 1: been equally ridiculed by Greece and Rome. The result of
- 17:05Speaker 1: this would be that the condition of our social, civil
- 17:08Speaker 1: and political affairs would be incalculably improved. The Salic law
- 17:13Speaker 1: would be unnecessary. It would be a superfluous truism. The
- 17:17Speaker 1: European lady, strictly speaking, is a creature who should not
- 17:21Speaker 1: exist at all. But there ought to be housekeepers and
- 17:24Speaker 1: young girls who hope to become such, and they should
- 17:27Speaker 1: be brought up not to be arrogant, but to be
- 17:29Speaker 1: domesticated and submissive. It is exactly because there are ladies
- 17:33Speaker 1: in Europe that women of a lower standing, that is
- 17:36Speaker 1: to say, the greater majority of the sects, are much
- 17:39Speaker 1: more unhappy than they are in the East. Even Lord
- 17:42Speaker 1: Byron says Letters and Papers by Thomas Moore, page three
- 17:46Speaker 1: ninety nine, thought of the state of women under the
- 17:50Speaker 1: ancient Greeks. Convenient enough present state a remnant of the
- 17:55Speaker 1: barbarism of the chivalric and feudal ages, artificial and unnatural.
- 18:00Speaker 1: They ought to mind home, and be well fed and clothed,
- 18:03Speaker 1: but not mixed in society. Well educated too in religion,
- 18:08Speaker 1: but to read neither poetry nor politics, nothing but books
- 18:12Speaker 1: of piety and cookery, music, drawing, dancing. Also a little
- 18:17Speaker 1: gardening and plowing. Now and then I have seen them
- 18:21Speaker 1: mending the roads in epirus with good success. Why not
- 18:25Speaker 1: as well as haymaking and milking. In our part of
- 18:29Speaker 1: the world where monogamy is in force, to marry means
- 18:32Speaker 1: to have one's rights and to double one's duties. When
- 18:35Speaker 1: the laws granted woman the same rights as man, they
- 18:38Speaker 1: should also have given her a masculine power of reason.
- 18:42Speaker 1: On the contrary, just as the privileges and honors which
- 18:45Speaker 1: the laws decree to women surpass what nature has meted
- 18:48Speaker 1: out to them, so is there a proportional decrease in
- 18:50Speaker 1: the number of women who really share these privileges. Therefore,
- 18:53Speaker 1: the remainder are deprived of their natural rights, in so
- 18:56Speaker 1: far as the others have been given more than nature
- 18:58Speaker 1: accords for the unnatural position of privilege which the institution
- 19:03Speaker 1: of monogamy and the laws of marriage, which accompany it
- 19:06Speaker 1: assigned to the woman, whereby she is regarded throughout as
- 19:09Speaker 1: a full equivalent of the man, which she is not.
- 19:11Speaker 1: By any means cause intelligent and prudent men to reflect
- 19:14Speaker 1: a great deal before they make so great a sacrifice
- 19:17Speaker 1: and consent to so unfair an arrangement. Therefore, whilst among
- 19:22Speaker 1: polygamous nations every woman finds maintenance, where monogamy exists, the
- 19:26Speaker 1: number of married women is limited, and a countless number
- 19:29Speaker 1: of women who are without support remain over. Those in
- 19:32Speaker 1: the upper classes vegetate as useless old maids. Those in
- 19:35Speaker 1: the lower are reduced to very hard work of a
- 19:37Speaker 1: distasteful nature, or become prostitutes and lead a life which
- 19:41Speaker 1: is as joyless as it is void of honor. But
- 19:44Speaker 1: under such circumstances they become a necessity to the masculine sex,
- 19:50Speaker 1: so that their position is openly recognized as a special
- 19:52Speaker 1: means for protecting from seduction those other women favored by fate,
- 19:56Speaker 1: either to have found husbands or who hope to find them.
- 19:59Speaker 1: In in London alone, there are eighty thousand prostitutes. Then
- 20:03Speaker 1: what are these women who have come too quickly to
- 20:06Speaker 1: this most terrible end? But human sacrifices on the altar
- 20:09Speaker 1: of monogamy. The women here referred to, and who are
- 20:12Speaker 1: placed in this wretched position, are the inevitable counterbalance to
- 20:16Speaker 1: the European lady with her pretensions and arrogance. Hence, polygamy
- 20:20Speaker 1: is a real benefit to the female sex taking it
- 20:23Speaker 1: as a whole. And on the other hand, there is
- 20:27Speaker 1: no reason why a man whose wife suffers from chronic illness,
- 20:30Speaker 1: or remains barren, or has gradually become too old for
- 20:33Speaker 1: him should not take a second. Many people become converts
- 20:38Speaker 1: to Mormonism for the precise reasons that they condemn the
- 20:40Speaker 1: unnatural institution of monogamy. The conferring of unnatural rights upon
- 20:45Speaker 1: women has imposed unnatural duties upon them, the violation of which, however,
- 20:50Speaker 1: makes them unhappy. For example, many a man thinks marriage
- 20:54Speaker 1: unadvisable as far as his social standing and monetary position
- 20:58Speaker 1: are concerned, unless he contract a brilliant match. He will
- 21:02Speaker 1: then wish to win a woman of his own choice
- 21:04Speaker 1: under different conditions, namely, under those which will render safe
- 21:08Speaker 1: her future and that of her children. Be the conditions,
- 21:12Speaker 1: ever so, just reasonable and adequate, and she consents by
- 21:15Speaker 1: giving up those undue privileges which marriage, as the basis
- 21:19Speaker 1: of civil society alone can bestow. She must, to a
- 21:22Speaker 1: certain extent, lose her honor and lead a life of loneliness,
- 21:26Speaker 1: since human nature makes us dependent on the opinion of
- 21:29Speaker 1: others in a way that is completely out of proportion
- 21:32Speaker 1: to its value. While if the woman does not consent,
- 21:35Speaker 1: she runs the risk of being compelled to marry a
- 21:38Speaker 1: man she dislikes, or of shriveling up into an old maid,
- 21:41Speaker 1: for the time allotted to her to find a home
- 21:43Speaker 1: is very short in view of this side of the
- 21:47Speaker 1: institution of monogamy. Though Masius has profoundly learned. Treatise on
- 21:51Speaker 1: concubinage is well worth reading, for it shows that among
- 21:54Speaker 1: all nations and in all ages, down to the Lutheran Reformation,
- 21:59Speaker 1: concubinage was allowed, nay that it was an institution in
- 22:03Speaker 1: a certain measure, even recognized by law, and associated with
- 22:06Speaker 1: no dishonor. And it held this position until the Lutheran Reformation,
- 22:11Speaker 1: when it was recognized as another means for justifying the
- 22:14Speaker 1: marriage of the clergy, whereupon the Catholic party did not
- 22:17Speaker 1: dare to remain behindhand in the matter. It is useless
- 22:20Speaker 1: to argue about polygamy, it must be taken as a
- 22:23Speaker 1: fact existing everywhere, the mere regulation of which is the
- 22:26Speaker 1: problem to be solved. Where are there than any real monogamists.
- 22:32Speaker 1: We all live at any rate for a time, and
- 22:35Speaker 1: the majority of us always in polygamy. Consequently, as each
- 22:40Speaker 1: man needs many women, nothing is more just than to
- 22:43Speaker 1: let him, nay make it incumbent upon him, to provide
- 22:45Speaker 1: for many women. By this means, woman will be brought
- 22:49Speaker 1: back to her proper and natural place as a subordinate being,
- 22:52Speaker 1: and the lady, that monster of European civilization and Christian
- 22:56Speaker 1: Teutonic stupidity, with her ridiculous claim to respect and veneration,
- 23:00Speaker 1: will no longer exist. There will still be women, but
- 23:03Speaker 1: no unhappy women of whom Europe is at present full.
- 23:07Speaker 1: The Mormons standpoint is right. In India, no woman is
- 23:11Speaker 1: ever independent, but each one stands under the control of
- 23:14Speaker 1: her father or her husband, or brother or son, in
- 23:18Speaker 1: accordance with the law of Manu. It is certainly a
- 23:21Speaker 1: revolting idea that widows should sacrifice themselves on their husband's
- 23:25Speaker 1: dead body, But it is also revolting that the money
- 23:27Speaker 1: which the husband has earned by working diligently for all
- 23:30Speaker 1: his life, in the hope that he was working for
- 23:32Speaker 1: his children should be wasted on her paramours. The blessed
- 23:37Speaker 1: keep to the middle way. The first love of a mother,
- 23:40Speaker 1: as that of animals and men, is purely instinctive, and
- 23:44Speaker 1: consequently ceases when the child is no longer physically helpless.
- 23:48Speaker 1: After that, the first love should be reinstated by a
- 23:51Speaker 1: love based on habit and reason, but this often does
- 23:54Speaker 1: not appear, especially where the mother has not loved the father.
- 23:58Speaker 1: The love of a father for his children is of
- 24:00Speaker 1: a different nature and more sincere. It is founded on
- 24:04Speaker 1: a recognition of his own inner self in the child,
- 24:07Speaker 1: and is therefore metaphysical in its origin. In almost every nation,
- 24:12Speaker 1: both of the New and old world, and even among
- 24:14Speaker 1: the Hottentots, property is inherited by the male descendants alone.
- 24:18Speaker 1: It is only in Europe that one has departed from this.
- 24:22Speaker 1: That the property which men have with difficulty acquired by long,
- 24:25Speaker 1: continued struggling and hard work, should afterwards come into the
- 24:28Speaker 1: hands of women, who, in their want of reason, either
- 24:31Speaker 1: squander it within a short time or otherwise wasted. Is
- 24:34Speaker 1: an injustice as great as it is common, and it
- 24:36Speaker 1: should be prevented by limiting the right of women to inherit.
- 24:40Speaker 1: It seems to me that it would be a better
- 24:42Speaker 1: arrangement if women, be they widows or daughters, only inherited
- 24:46Speaker 1: the money for life secured by mortgage, but not the
- 24:48Speaker 1: property itself or the capital, unless their lacked male descendants.
- 24:53Speaker 1: It is men who make the money and not women. Therefore,
- 24:56Speaker 1: women are neither justified in having unconditional possession of it,
- 24:59Speaker 1: nor capable of administrating it. Women should never have the
- 25:04Speaker 1: free disposition of wealth strictly so called which they may inherit,
- 25:08Speaker 1: such as capital, houses and estates. They need a guardian always. Therefore,
- 25:14Speaker 1: they should not have the guardianship of their children under
- 25:16Speaker 1: any circumstances. Whatever. The vanity of women, even if it
- 25:20Speaker 1: should not be greater than that of men, has this
- 25:23Speaker 1: evil in it that it is directed on material things,
- 25:26Speaker 1: that is to say, on their personal beauty, and then
- 25:28Speaker 1: on tinsel, pomp and show. This is why they are
- 25:33Speaker 1: in their right element in society. This it is which
- 25:36Speaker 1: makes them inclined to be extravagant, especially since they possess
- 25:40Speaker 1: little reasoning power. Accordingly, an ancient writer says, woman is
- 25:45Speaker 1: on the whole by nature extravagant. Men's vanity, on the
- 25:49Speaker 1: other hand, is often directed on non material advantages, such
- 25:53Speaker 1: as intellect, learning, courage, and the like. Aristotle explains in
- 25:59Speaker 1: a Politicane the great disadvantages which the Spartans brought upon
- 26:02Speaker 1: themselves by granting too much to their women, by allowing
- 26:05Speaker 1: them the right of inheritance and dowry and a great
- 26:08Speaker 1: amount of freedom, and how this contributed greatly to the
- 26:11Speaker 1: fall of Sparta. May it not be that the influence
- 26:15Speaker 1: of women in France, which has been increasing since Louis
- 26:17Speaker 1: the thirteenth time, was to blame for that gradual corruption
- 26:21Speaker 1: of the court and government which led to the First Revolution,
- 26:24Speaker 1: of which all subsequent disturbances have been the result. In
- 26:28Speaker 1: any case, the false position of the female sex, so
- 26:31Speaker 1: conspicuously exposed by the existence of the lady, is a
- 26:35Speaker 1: fundamental defect in our social condition, and this defect, proceeding
- 26:38Speaker 1: from the very heart of it, must extend its harmful
- 26:41Speaker 1: influence in every direction. That woman is by nature intended
- 26:45Speaker 1: to obey is shown by the fact that every woman
- 26:48Speaker 1: who is placed in the unnatural position of absolute independence,
- 26:51Speaker 1: at once attaches herself to some kind of man by
- 26:54Speaker 1: whom she is controlled and governed. This is because she
- 26:57Speaker 1: requires a master. If if she is young, the man
- 27:01Speaker 1: is a lover. If she is old, a priest