Women As Sex Vendors Part 2

"It is one of the most absurd notions derived from eighteenth century enlightenment that in the beginning of society woman was the slave of man. Among all savages and barbarians of the lower and middle stages, sometimes even of the higher stage, women not only have freedom but are held in high esteem."

In writing of the pairing family among the Iroquois, Arthur Wright says:

"As to their families, at a time when they still lived in their old long houses (communistic households of several families) ... a certain clan (gens) always reigned so that the women chose their husbands from other clans. The female part generally ruled the house; the provisions were held in common; but woe to the luckless husband or lover who was too indolent or too clumsy to contribute his share to the common stock. No matter how many children or how much private property he had in the house, he was liable at any moment to receive a hint to gather up his belongings and get out. And he could not dare to venture any resistance; the house was made too hot for him and he had no other choice but to return to his own clan or, as was mostly the case, to look for another wife in some other clan. The women were the dominating power in the clans and everywhere else."

Bachofen discovered that in the communistic household, the supremacy of woman was caused by the fact that the women all belonged to the same gens while the men came from different gentes.

During this period the children belonged to the same gens as the mother and took her name. At this time man's tools and weapons were yet crude and they were his only possession. The woman owned the household goods and utensils, the value of which for the preservation and preparation of food was very great.

Bachofen has shown how women were strong factors in the demand for monogamy through this and the earlier periods.

Man learned to till the soil and to domesticate animals; he captured enemies from neighboring tribes and learned to make slaves instead of food of them. And the conqueror became a master, and the slave an instrument of production. It was the men who were lucky enough to be first to enslave the enemy, to acquire more precious metals and larger flocks, who evolved the state, to protect them against the commune, or the ma.s.s, in their owners.h.i.+p of private property.

At the death of the father his own children were disinherited, in the matriarchy. As increasing wealth strengthened the position of man, he began to desire to overthrow the old maternal law and to establish a new one that would permit inheritance in favor of his children. And so monogamy became the law, and descent was traced by male instead of female lineage. Engels says that "the downfall of maternal law was the historic defeat of the female s.e.x."

In order to insure the faithfulness of the wife, and the reliability of paternal lineage, the women were given absolutely into the power of the men. Husbands had power of life and death over their wives. In certain countries today it is only the man who can dissolve the marriage bonds and cast off his wife.

But gradually the old standards which were applied to men and women are changing. New laws are written on our statute books. Civil laws protecting male rule apply only to the wealthy cla.s.ses and their intercourse with the working cla.s.s. In s.e.x relations the sentiment, in America particularly, has swung around in favor of woman.

Undoubtedly her growing economic independence, arising from her ability to support herself in shop and factory, has had some influence on this social att.i.tude. Also, one can imagine the feelings of the tax-payers of a small community when the father of several small children deserted his wife and the expenses of supporting his family devolved upon them. It would call for little imagination to picture these respectable members of society scrambling to pa.s.s laws for the punishment of the errant one and to force him back to his wife and support-producing labor. But, basically, the legal favoritism which has arisen in the past thirty years in America, is probably due to a desire on the part of the employing cla.s.s to protect and make secure the mothers of children for the sake of the future labor supply. Only recently a great national reform body, dedicated to child welfare, declared frankly that there are "no illegitimate" children; that the misdeeds of parents can remove nothing from the legality of birth and that unmarried mothers must be granted some legal status and a measure of economic security for the sake of the future supply of labor.

It is evident, whether due to one cause or to many, that the law, which usually protects those who possess bestowable favors, has gradually built up strong protective measures for women. Among the rich, men and women find protection for their property in the laws, according to the measure of their economic power, but among the wage working and middle cla.s.ses, woman occupies a privileged legal position.

As long as a husband possesses anything, his wife may be certain of support or an "adequate" income at least. The husband may be punished for his lack of possessions, or his failure to produce an income.

THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT

Of course, every one knows that marriage is a legal contract; but whom does it bind? Certainly not the woman, nor any woman in America. For she may easily free herself and even divorce and penalize her husband if she is dissatisfied either with him or his earnings; or she may evade all the obligations she is supposed to meet, almost always with absolute impunity.

Whatever she may do or leave undone in the marriage relation, if it but be with sufficient pretense and discretion, in America, at least, the world and the courts absolve her from all blame.

If she be discreet, she may entertain lovers galore; she may refuse to perform any of the theoretical duties of the home; she may refuse to bear children or to surrender to her husband, without censure, and often without the knowledge of the world. If she be addicted to drunkenness, people will divine that her husband must have treated her brutally; if she be seen with other men, folks suspect that he neglects her.

If her husband seeks satisfaction for his desires elsewhere, she may divorce him and secure alimony; if he deserts her the law will return him to her side, if it can find him. If he fails to bring home the wherewithall to provide for her, she may have him sent to jail. If she discovers that he is getting the affection and the s.e.x life which she has denied him, outside of his home, and if she buys a revolver and murders him in cold blood, the jury will exonerate her.

If a wife deserts her husband and her children, the law does not make her a criminal; for wife abandonment, the husband is held criminally liable.

No matter what the offense of the woman, custom and public opinion demand that every "decent" man permit his wife to accuse him on "just grounds" and to secure the divorce and call on the law to force him to pay her alimony for the rest of their natural lives.

No matter what the provocation, legally or sentimentally, no man can be exonerated for killing a woman. No matter how little the provocation, legally or sentimentally, any woman may kill almost any man, and the jury will render a verdict of Not Guilty. She has only to say that he "deceived her."

A husband may become crippled or invalided and there is no law even suggesting that it is the duty of his wife to support him; most communities would lynch a man who neglected a sick or helpless wife, and the law would certainly deal most harshly with him. The law throws no safeguards about the man, to protect him against his wife's failure to live up to her theoretical marital obligations, to protect him when he is ill, or in the enjoyment of separate maintenance, alimony, or against non-support or abandonment.

The laws today protect the owners of property and the economically powerful. The more economic power a group, or a cla.s.s, or a s.e.x possesses, the more the state throws the mantle of its protective laws about it. Women are owners of a commodity for which men are buyers or barterers, and our modern laws protect woman at the expense of man.

In his "Origin of the Family," Engels says:

"The supremacy of man in marriage is simply the consequence of his economic superiority and will fall with the abolition of the latter."

In a large per cent of the American homes, man no longer possesses any economic superiority. He has four vital needs to satisfy while woman has only three, and woman possesses, for barter, for sale, or for gift, the wherewithall to satisfy one of these.

Few men any longer possess any property worthy of the name; hence, they are forced to sell their labor power for wages to keep from starving.

And men are not always able to secure jobs.

The propertyless woman today is rarely reduced to starvation. If the price (or wages) offered for the sale of her laboring power are unsatisfactory, she may always supplement them through the barter or sale of her s.e.x. That there are no women hoboes in the civilized world today is incontestable proof of the superiority of the economic status of woman over man.

THE FUTURE

We still hear people talk about the relations of the s.e.xes, the family and marriage, as though these human and social relations.h.i.+ps had always been and were bound to remain what they are today, whereas they have undergone far-reaching modifications within the period of our own lives.

Every change taking place in industry is always bound to send out infinite ramifications through every branch of our social inst.i.tutions.

The increasing specialization in industry, drawing more and more of the household arts out of the home and into factory, mill and shops, and the following of the jobs by women into the mills and factories, thus freeing woman from economic dependence on man, has already colored every branch of our social fabric. Having become more independent, woman has grown more exacting. She demands a better bargain when she marries, or, refusing to barter, she chooses a mate.

In the early days of America, when the home was the economic unit, and almost all industry was performed in the home and on the farm, women were economically dependent on men. Then woman's place was undoubtedly in the home, since there was no place else where she could earn a living. Modern industry has changed all that.

Women compete for jobs with men today, force down wages to a lower level and demand more from men before they will marry. And yet we see $25.00 a week stenographers giving up their positions to barter themselves, presumably for life, to $35.00 a week clerks or salesmen, rarely because of the mating instinct, but usually because of the personal triumph this means in the compet.i.tion between members of the s.e.x, and the social approbation which marriage brings.

The only certain thing the wisest man may say about our social inst.i.tutions is that they have changed in the past and that they will continue to change, or be modified, or to pa.s.s away, in the future. In one short year, the war has altered some of our old inst.i.tutions beyond recall. We believe that a continuation of the war for a considerable period will mean economic and social changes that will rock the world.

And out of the storm and stress of things we doubt very much whether any of our existing social inst.i.tutions will emerge intact--if it emerge at all.

The family as it is known in America today, the marriage contract, the relations of the s.e.xes are bound to alter as they reflect changed economic conditions. Some of the old "pillars of the social structure"

in Russia have already crumbled away.

Women are becoming ever more necessary and important in the role they play in industry. With this growing economic importance, and with the increasing need of capitalism for more children to augment the labor and military supply, the power of women will probably increase marvelously during the next few years. Governments will reward the surrender of woman to man, while employers compete among themselves for her labor power. Much will be offered to women.

This, we believe, for only a brief period, for we cannot but think that the final results of this war--the fruit of the present system of production and distribution--will be the utter collapse of the system itself--making way for a New Society wherein the only aristocracy shall be that of Labor and of Merit.

Undoubtedly, in the New Society, conditions will be very much changed for women. But they will also be greatly changed for men. What the future s.e.x relations will be, we do not pretend to know. Perhaps the statement by Frederick Engels in his "Origin of the Family," is as good a forecast as any. He says:

"What we may antic.i.p.ate about the adjustment of s.e.xual relations after the impending downfall of capitalist production is mainly of a negative nature and mostly confined to elements that will disappear. But what will be added? That will be decided after a new generation has come to maturity: a race of men who never in their lives have had any occasion for buying with money or other economic means of power the surrender of a woman; a race of women who have never had any occasion for surrendering to any man for any other reason but love, or for refusing to surrender to their lover from fear of economic consequences. Once such people are in the world, they will not give a moment's thought to what we today believe should be their course. They will follow their own practice and fas.h.i.+on their own public opinion about the individual practice of every person--only this and nothing more."