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PARERGA AND PARALIPOMENA: SHORT PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS |
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[b]CHAPTER 27: On Women[/b]
§ 362
The true praise of women is in my opinion better expressed by Jouy's few words than by Schiller's well-considered poem, Wurde der Frauen, which produces its effect by means of antithesis and contrast. Jouy says: Sans les femmes, le commencement de notre vie seroit prive de secours, le milieu de plaisirs, et la fin de consolation. [1] The same thing is expressed more pathetically by Byron in his Sardanapalus, Act I, Sc. 2:
[quote]The very first Of human life must spring from woman's breast, Your first small words are taught you from her lips, Your first tears quench'd by her, and your last sighs Too often breathed out in a woman's hearing, When men have shrunk from the ignoble care Of watching the last hour of him who led them.[/quote]
Both express the right point of view for the value of women.
§ 363
The sight of the female form tells us that woman is not destined for great work, either intellectual or physical. She bears the guilt of life not by doing but by suffering; she pays the debt by the pains of childbirth, care for the child, submissiveness to her husband, to whom she should be a patient and cheerful companion. The most intense sufferings, joys, and manifestations of power do not fall to her lot; but her life should glide along more gently, mildly, and with less importance than man's, without being essentially happier or unhappier.
§ 364
Women are qualified to be the nurses and governesses of our earliest childhood by the very fact that they are themselves childish, trifling, and short-sighted, in a word, are all their lives grown-up children; a kind of intermediate stage between the child and the man, who is a human being in the real sense. Just see how, for days on end, a girl will fondle and dance with a child and sing to it, and imagine what a man with the best will in the world could do in her place!
§ 365
With girls nature has had in view what in a dramaturgic sense is called a stage-effect or sensation. For she has endowed them for a few years with lavish beauty, charm, and fullness at the expense of the rest of their lives. This she has done so that, during those few years, they might capture a man's imagination to the extent that he is carried away into giving in some form an honourable undertaking to look after them for the rest of their lives. Mere rational deliberation would not appear to give a sufficiently adequate guarantee to induce him to take such a step. Accordingly, nature has endowed women, as she has every other creature, with the weapons and instruments needed for the security of their existence and for as long as they require them, a course wherein she has proceeded with her usual parsimony. For just as the female ant after copulation loses her wings which are now superfluous and, as regards breeding, even dangerous, so does the woman generally lose her beauty after one or two confinements, and probably for the same reason.
Accordingly, young girls in their hearts regard their domestic or business affairs as something secondary and indeed as a mere piece of fun. They consider love, conquests, and everything connected therewith, such as dress, cosmetics, dancing, and so on, to be their only serious vocation.
§ 366
The nobler and more perfect a thing is, the later and more slowly does it come to maturity. A man does not arrive at a maturity of his rational faculty and mental powers much before his twenty-eighth year; woman attains it at the age of eighteen. But it is, in consequence, a very meagre and limited faculty of reason. And so throughout their lives women remain children, always see only what is nearest to them, cling to the present, take the appearance of things for the reality, and prefer trivialities to the most important affairs. Thus it is the faculty of reason by virtue whereof man does not, like the animal, live merely in the present, but surveys and considers the past and future; and from all this spring his foresight, wariness, care, anxiety, and frequent uneasiness. In consequence of her weaker faculty of reason, woman shares less in the advantages and disadvantages that this entails. Rather is she an intellectual myope, since her intuitive understanding sees quite clearly what is near, but has a narrow range of vision into which the distant object does not enter. Thus everything that is absent, past, or future has a much feebler effect on women than on men, whence arises the tendency to extravagance which occurs much more frequently in women and occasionally borders on craziness.[x]. [2] In their hearts, women imagine that men are born to earn money, whilst they are meant to get through it, if possible during the man's lifetime, but at any rate after his death. They are strengthened in this belief by the fact that the man hands over to them for housekeeping what he has earned. However many disadvantages all this may entail, there is yet one good point, namely that woman is more absorbed in the present than man and, therefore, enjoys this better if only it is bearable. The result of this is that cheerfulness which is peculiar to woman and makes her suited for the recreation, and if necessary the consolation, of the man who is burdened with cares.
In difficult and delicate matters, it is by no means a bad thing to consult women, after the manner of the ancient Germans. For their way of apprehending things is quite different from man's, more particularly as they like to go the shortest way to the goal and generally keep in view what lies nearest to them. But just because this lies under men's noses, it is generally overlooked by them, in which case it is then necessary for them to be brought back to it so that they may regain the near and simple view. Moreover, women are decidedly more matter-of-fact than men and thus do not see in things more than actually exists, whereas when the passions of men are aroused, they easily magnify what is present or add something imaginary.
From the same source may be traced the fact that women show more compassion and thus more loving kindness and sympathy for the unfortunate than do men; on the other hand, they are inferior to men in the matter of justice, honesty, and conscientiousness. For in consequence of their weak faculty of reason, that which is present, intuitively perceptual, immediately real, exercises over them a power against which abstract ideas, established maxims, fixed resolves, and generally a consideration for the past and future, the absent and distant, are seldom able to do very much. Accordingly, they certainly have the first and fundamental thing for virtue; on the other hand, they lack the secondary, the often necessary instrument for it. In this respect, they might be compared to an organism which had liver, it is true, but no gall-bladder. Here I refer to my essay 'On the Basis of Ethics', § 17. In accordance with the foregoing, we find that injustice is the fundamental failing of the female character. It arises primarily from the abovementioned want of reasonableness and reflection and is further supported by the fact that, as the weaker, they are by nature dependent not on force but cunning; hence their instinctive artfulness and ineradicable tendency to tell lies. For just as nature has armed the lion with claws and teeth, the elephant and boar with tusks, the bull with horns, and the cuttle-fish with ink that blackens water, so for their defence and protection has she endowed women with the art of dissimulation. She has bestowed on them in the form of this gift all the force she has given to men in the form of physical strength and power of reason. Dissimulation is, therefore, inborn in women and is thus almost as characteristic of the stupid as of the clever woman; and so to make use of it on every occasion is as natural to her as it is to the above-mentioned animals to make immediate use of their weapons when they are attacked, and to a certain extent she feels that here she is exercising her right. Therefore an entirely truthful and unaffected woman is perhaps impossible. For the same reason, they so easily see through dissimulation in others that it is not advisable to try it on them. But from that fundamental failing and its attendant qualities arise falseness, faithlessness, treachery, ingratitude, and so on. Women are much more often guilty of perjury than men; and in general it might be questioned whether they should be allowed to take the oath. From time to time one repeatedly comes across the case where in a shop a lady, who wants for nothing, secretly pilfers and pockets things.
§ 367
Young, strong, and handsome men are called by nature for the propagation of the human race so that it may not degenerate. Herein is nature's firm will and the passions of women are its expression. In age and force, that law comes before any other. Therefore woe to him who so arranges his rights and interests that they stand in its way; whatever he may say or do, they will be mercilessly crushed on the first important occasion. For the secret, unexpressed, indeed unconscious but innate, morality of women is as follows: 'We are justified in deceiving those who imagine they have acquired a right over the species by the fact that they barely provide for us, the individuals. The constitution, and consequently the welfare, of the species are placed in our hands and entrusted to our care by means of the next generation coming from us; we will conscientiously carry this out.' Women, however, are by no means conscious of this supreme principle in abstracto but only in concreto; and for it they have no other expression than their course of action when the opportunity occurs. Here their conscience is generally less disturbed than we suppose, for in the darkest recesses of their hearts they feel that, through a breach of duty to the individual, they have so much better fulfilled that to the species, whose rights are infinitely greater. The more detailed discussion of this is given in volume ii, chapter 44 of my chief work.
Because, at bottom, women exist solely for the propagation of the race with which their destiny is identified, they live generally more in the species than in individuals. At heart, they take more seriously the affairs of the species than those of individuals. This gives to their whole nature and action a certain frivolity and generally an attitude which is fundamentally different from that of the man and gives rise to that discord and disharmony which are so frequent and almost normal in marriage.
§ 368 Between men there is by nature merely indifference; but between women there is already by nature hostility. This is due to the fact that with men the odium figulinum [3] is limited to their particular guild, whereas with women it embraces the whole sex since they all have only one line of business. Even when they meet in the street, they look at one another like Guelphs and Ghibellines. Moreover on first acquaintance, two women meet each other obviously with more stiffness and dissimulation than do two men in a similar situation. Therefore the compliments between two women prove to be far more ridiculous than those between men. Again, whereas the man, as a rule, speaks with a certain consideration and humanity, even to one who is far beneath him in rank, it is intolerable to see how proudly and disdainfully, for the most part, a woman of rank and position behaves towards one in a lower position (who is not in her service) when she speaks to her. It may be due to the fact that all difference of rank is much more precarious with women than with men and can much more rapidly be altered and abolished. For whereas with men a hundred things turn the scale, with women only one thing decides, namely what man they have charmed. There is also the fact that, on account of the one-sidedness of their calling, they stand much nearer to one another than do men and for that reason endeavour to stress class distinctions.
§ 369
Only the male intellect, clouded by the sexual impulse, could call the undersized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped, and short-legged sex the fair sex; for in this impulse is to be found its whole beauty. The female sex could be more aptly called the unaesthetic. They really and truly have no bent and receptivity either for music, poetry, or the plastic arts; but when they affect and profess to like such things, it is mere aping for the sake of their keen desire to please. This is why they are incapable of taking a purely objective interest in anything, and I think the following is the reason for this. In everything man aspires to a direct mastery over things, either by understanding or controlling them. But woman is always and everywhere driven to a merely indirect mastery by means of the man who alone has to be directly mastered by her. It therefore lies in the nature of women to regard everything merely as a means to win the man; and their interest in anything else is always only simulated, a mere roundabout way; in other words, it ends in coquetry and aping. Thus even Rousseau said: les femmes, en general, n' aiment aucun art, ne se connoissent a aucun, et n' ont aucun genie [4] (Lettre a d'Alembert, note xx). Everyone who has gone beyond appearances will also have noticed it. We need only observe the direction and nature of their attention at a concert, an opera, and a play, and see, for instance, the childlike ingenuousness with which they carry on their chatting during the finest passages of the greatest masterpieces. If the Greeks did not really admit women to the play, they were right; at least it would have been possible to hear something in their theatres. For our own times it would be proper to add to the taceat mulier in ecclesia [5] a taceat mulier in theatro, or to substitute it and put it in large letters on the curtain in the theatre. We cannot expect anything else from women when we reflect that the most eminent minds of the whole sex have never been able to produce a single, really great, genuine, and original achievement in the fine arts, or to bring anywhere into the world a work of permanent value. This is most striking in regard to painting, for its technique is at any rate just as suited to them as it is to men and thus they pursue it with diligence; yet they cannot boast of a single great painting, just because they lack all objectivity of mind, the very thing that is most directly demanded of painting. Everywhere they remain in the subjective. In keeping with this, is the fact that the average woman is not even susceptible to painting in the real sense; for natura non facit saltus. [6] In his book, Examen de ingenios para las sciencias (Amberes, 1603) which has been famous for three hundred years, Huarte denies women all higher abilities. In the preface (p. 6) he says: la compostura natural, que la muger tiene en el celebro, no es capaz de mucho ingenio ni de mucha sabiduria; then c. 15 (p. 382): quedando la muger en su disposicion natural, todo genero de letras y sabiduria, es repugnante a su ingenio; -- (pp. 397, 398): las hembras (por razon de la frialdad y humedad de su sexo) no pueden alcancar ingenio profundo: solo veemos que hablan con alguna aparencia de habilidad, en materias livianas y faciles, [7] and so on. Isolated and partial exceptions do not alter the case but, generally speaking, women are and remain the most downright and incurable Philistines. And so with the positively absurd arrangement whereby they share the position and title of the man, they are constantly spurring him on in his ignoble ambition. Moreover, on account of the same quality, their predominance and the way they set the fashion are the ruin of modern society. In respect of the first, we should be guided by the saying of Napoleon I: Les femmes n' ont pas de rang; [8] and for the rest, Chamfort quite rightly says: Elles sont faites pour commercer avec nos faiblesses, avec notre folie, mais non avec notre raison. Il existe entre elles et les hommes des sympathies d' epiderme, et tres-peu de sympathies d' esprit, d' ame et de caratere. [9] They are the sexus sequior, [10] the sex that takes second place in every respect. We should accordingly treat their weakness with forbearance; but to show them excessive reverence and respect is ridiculous and lowers us in their own eyes. When nature split the human race into two halves, she did not make the division precisely through the middle. In spite of all polarity, the difference between the positive and negative poles is not merely qualitative but also quantitative. Thus did the ancients and oriental races regard woman; and her proper place was accordingly much more correctly recognized by them than by us with our old French gallantry and absurd veneration of women, this culminating point of Christian-Germanic stupidity. It has merely served to make women so arrogant and inconsiderate that we are sometimes reminded of the sacred apes at Benares who, conscious of their sanctity and invulnerability, think that they are at liberty to do anything and everything.
Woman in the West, especially what is called the 'lady', finds herself in a fausse position; for woman, rightly called by the ancients the sexus sequior, is by no means qualified to be the object of our respect and veneration, to carry her head higher than man and have equal rights with him. We see well enough the consequences of this fausse position. It would accordingly be very desirable even in Europe for this number two of the human race to be again assigned to her natural place and for this lady-nonsense to be stopped, which not only the whole of Asia ridicules, but Greece and Rome would also have laughed at. From a social, civil, and political point of view, the consequences of this would be of incalculable benefit. As a superfluous truism, the Salic law ought not to be necessary. The European lady proper is a being who should not exist at all; on the contrary, there should be housewives and girls who hope to become so and thus are brought up not to arrogance, but to domesticity and submissiveness. Just because there are ladies in Europe, the women of the lower classes, and thus the great majority of the sex, are much more unhappy than those in the East. Even Lord Byron says (Letters and Journals by Th. Moore, vol. ii, p. 454): 'Thought of the state of women under the ancient Greeks-convenient enough. Present state, a remnant of the barbarism of the chivalry and feudal ages -- artificial and unnatural. They ought to mind home -- and be well fed and clothed -- but not mixed in society. Well educated, too, in religion -- but to read neither poetry nor politics -- nothing but books of piety and cookery. Music -- drawing -- dancing -- also a little gardening and ploughing now and then. I have seen them mending the roads in Epirus with good success. Why not, as well as hay-making and milking?'
§ 370
In our monogamous continent, to marry means to halve one's rights and double one's duties. Yet when the laws conceded to women equal rights with men, they should also have endowed them with a man's faculty of reason. On the other hand, the more the rights and honours which the laws confer on woman exceed her natural position, the more they reduce the number of women who actually share these privileges; and they deprive all the rest of as many natural rights as they have given in excess to those privileged women. For with the unnaturally favourable position which is given to woman by the monogamous institution and the marriage laws connected therewith, in that they generally regard the woman as the absolute equal of man, which she in no sense is, prudent and cautious men very often hesitate to make so great a sacrifice and to enter into so unequal an agreement.* And so whereas among the polygamous races every woman is provided for, among the monogamous the number of married women is limited and many women are left without support. In the upper classes they vegetate as useless old maids, but in the lower they have to do hard and unsuitable work, or become prostitutes who lead a life as joyless as it is disreputable, but who in such circumstances become necessary for the satisfaction of the male sex. They thus appear as a publicly recognized class or profession whose special purpose is to protect from being seduced those women who are favoured by fortune and have found or hope to find husbands. In London alone there are eighty thousand women of this class. What, then, are they but women who have become the most fearful losers through the monogamous institution, actual human sacrifices on the altar of monogamy? All such women who are so badly off are the inevitable offset to the European lady with her pretensions and arrogance. Accordingly for the female sex, considered as a whole, polygamy is a real benefit. On the other hand, no valid reason can be given why a man should not have a second wife when his first is suffering from chronic illness, is barren, or has gradually become too old. What gains so many converts for the Mormons seems to be precisely the removal of this unnatural monogamy.* Moreover, giving woman unnatural rights has also imposed on her unnatural duties whose breach, however, makes her unhappy. Thus considerations of position or means render marriage inexpedient to many a man, unless perhaps there are brilliant conditions attached thereto. He will then want to obtain a woman of his choice under different conditions that will place on a firm footing her lot and that of the children. Now even if these are ever so fair, reasonable, and suited to the case, and she consents by not insisting on the disproportionate rights that marriage alone offers, she thus becomes, to a certain extent, disreputable, because marriage is the basis of civil society, and she must lead a sad life. For, human nature being what it is, we attach a wholly exaggerated value to the opinion of others. If, on the other hand, she does not consent, she runs the risk either of having to be married to a man she detests or of drying up as an old maid; for the time during which a man is willing to provide for her is very limited. As regards this side of our monogamous institution, Thomasius' profound essay De concubinatu is well worth reading. From it we see that, among all cultured peoples and at all times down to the Lutheran Reformation, concubinage was a permitted institution; in fact it was, to a certain extent, even legally recognized, with no dishonour attaching to it. From this position it was overthrown merely by the Lutheran Reformation which recognized in its abolition a further means for justifying marriage of the clergy; whereupon the Catholic side could not be left behind.
Polygamy is not a matter of dispute at all, but is to be taken as a fact that is met with everywhere; its mere regulation is the problem. For where are there actual monogamists? We all live in polygamy at any rate for a time, but in most cases always. Consequently, as every man needs many women, nothing is more just than that it should be open to him, indeed incumbent on him, to provide for many women. In this way, woman is also brought back to her correct and natural standpoint as a subordinate being and the lady, that monster of European civilization and Christian-Germanic stupidity with her ridiculous claims to respect and veneration, disappears from the world. There are then only women, but of course no longer any unfortunate women of whom Europe is now full. The Mormons are right.
§ 371
In Hindustan no woman is ever independent, but each is under the guardianship of a father, husband, brother, or son, in accordance with the Law of Manu, chap. 5, 1. 148. That widows burn themselves on the corpses of their husbands is of course shocking; but that they squander on their lovers the fortune which has been acquired by the husband through the incessant hard work of a lifetime, and in the belief that he was working for his children, is also shocking. Mediam tenuere beati. [11] As in animals, so in man, the original maternal love is purely instinctive and therefore ceases with the physical helplessness of the children. In its place, there should then appear one based on habit and reasoning; but often it fails to appear, especially when the mother has not loved the father. The father's love for his children is of a different kind and is more enduring. It rests on his again recognizing in them his own innermost self and is thus of metaphysical origin.
With almost all ancient and modern races on earth, even with the Hottentots,* property is inherited merely by the male descendants; only in Europe has a departure been made from this, yet not with the nobility. Property acquired by the long and constant hard work of men subsequently passes into the hands of women who in their folly get through it or otherwise squander it in a short time. This is an enormity, as great as it is frequent, which should be prevented by restricting woman's right of inheritance. It seems that the best arrangement would be for women, whether as widows or daughters, always to inherit only a life annuity secured by mortgage, not landed property or capital, unless there are no male descendants at all. Those who earn and acquire wealth and property are men, not women; and therefore women are not entitled to their absolute possession, nor are they capable of managing them. At any rate, women should never be free to dispose of inherited property in the real sense, namely capital, houses, and land. They always need a guardian; and so in no case whatever should they receive the guardianship of their children. The vanity of women, even if it may not be greater than that of men, is bad because it is centred entirely on material things, on their personal beauty, and then on finery, pomp, and display; and hence society is so very much their element. This makes them inclined to extravagance, especially with their weak powers of reasoning; thus an ancient writer has said: [x] [12] (S. Brunck's Gnomici poetae graeci, 1. I 15). The vanity of men, on the other hand, is often centred on non-material virtues and merits, such as understanding, intellect, learning, courage, and the like. In the Politics, II. 9, Aristotle explains what great disadvantages arose for the Spartans from the fact that too much was conceded to their women who had the right of inheritance, the dowry, and great freedom and independence, and how all this greatly contributed to the decline of Sparta. Was not the ever-growing influence of women in France from the time of Louis XIII responsible for the gradual corruption of the court and government which produced the first revolution, the consequences of this being all the subsequent upheavals? At all events, a false position of the female sex, such as has its most acute symptom in our lady-business, is a fundamental defect of the state of society. Proceeding from the heart of this, it is bound to spread its noxious influence to all parts.
That woman by nature is meant to obey may be recognized from the fact that every woman placed in the position of complete independence, which to her is unnatural, at once attaches herself to some man by whom she allows herself to be guided and ruled, because she needs a master. If she is young, he is a lover and if old, a father confessor.
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[b]Notes:[/b]
1 ['Without women the beginning of our life would be cut off from help, the middle from pleasures, and the end from consolation.']
2 ['Woman is by nature extravagant.' (Menander, Monostichoi, 97.)]
3 ['Professional jealousy'; literally 'one potter's hatred of another'.]
4 ['Women in general do not like any art, are no judges of any, and have no genius.']
5 ['Let your women keep silence in the churches.' (I Corinthians, 14:34.)]
6 ['Nature makes no jumps (she proceeds very gradually from one species to another).']
7 ['The natural organization that woman has in her brain is not suitable for much intellect, or even for much learning ... in so far as woman keeps to her natural disposition, every kind of literature and knowledge is repugnant to her mind ... Women (on account of the frigidity and humidity peculiar to their sex), cannot attain to profound intellect; and we merely see them talk with a certain appearance of deftness about trivial and easy things.']
8 ['Women have no station in life.']
9 ['They are made to deal with our weaknesses, our folly, but not with our faculty of reason. Between them and men there is only a superficial sympathy and very little sympathy of mind, soul, and character.']
10 ['Inferior sex'.]
* Much greater, however, is the number of those who are in no position to marry. Each of such men produces an old maid who is often without means of subsistence and in any case is more or less unhappy, because she has missed the proper vocation of her sex. On the other hand, many a man has a wife who, soon after the marriage, contracts a chronic disease that lasts for thirty years; what is he to do? For another man his wife has become too old; for a third, his wife has now become thoroughly hateful to him. All these in Europe are not allowed to have a second wife, as indeed they are in the whole of Asia and Africa. If, in spite of the monogamous institution, a strong healthy man always [feels] his sexual impulse ... Haec nimis vulgaria et omnibus nota sunt.
['Such things, however, are trivial and known to all.']
* As regards the sexual relation, no continent is so immoral as Europe in consequence of unnatural monogamy. * Chez les Hottentots, tous les biens d'un pere descendent a l' arne des fils, au passent dans la meme famille au plus proche des males. Jamais ils ne sont divises, jamais les femmes ne sont appelees a la succession. (Ch. G. Leroy, Lettres philosophiques sur l'intelligence et la perfectibiliti des animaux, avec quelques lettres sur l'homme. Nouvelle Edit., Paris, an X (1802), page 298.)
['With the Hottentots all the property of a father passes to the eldest son, or in the same family to the nearest male relations. Never is it divided, and never do the women inherit it.']
11 ['The fortunate and happy keep to the mean.']
12 ['Woman is by nature extravagant.']
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