الفصل الفصل 14 · Chapter XIV

. Chapter XIV

“Yes, much worse than the animal is man when he does not live as a man.

Thus was I. The horrible part is that I believed, inasmuch as I did not

allow myself to be seduced by other women that I was leading an honest

family life, that I was a very moral being, and that if we had

quarrels, the fault was in my wife, and in her character.

“But it is evident that the fault was not in her. She was like

everybody else, like the majority. She was brought up according to the

principles exacted by the situation of our society,—that is, as all the

young girls of our wealthy classes, without exception, are brought up,

and as they cannot fail to be brought up. How many times we hear or

read of reflections upon the abnormal condition of women, and upon what

they ought to be. But these are only vain words. The education of women

results from the real and not imaginary view which the world entertains

of women’s vocation. According to this view, the condition of women

consists in procuring pleasure and it is to that end that her education

is directed. From her infancy she is taught only those things that are

calculated to increase her charm. Every young girl is accustomed to

think only of that.

“As the serfs were brought up solely to please their masters, so woman

is brought up to attract men. It cannot be otherwise. But you will say,

perhaps, that that applies only to young girls who are badly brought

up, but that there is another education, an education that is serious,

in the schools, an education in the dead languages, an education in the

institutions of midwifery, an education in medical courses, and in

other courses. It is false.

“Every sort of feminine education has for its sole object the

attraction of men.

“Some attract by music or curly hair, others by science or by civic

virtue. The object is the same, and cannot be otherwise (since no other

object exists),—to seduce man in order to possess him. Imagine courses

of instruction for women and feminine science without men,—that is,

learned women, and men not _knowing_ them as learned. Oh, no! No

education, no instruction can change woman as long as her highest ideal

shall be marriage and not virginity, freedom from sensuality. Until

that time she will remain a serf. One need only imagine, forgetting the

universality of the case, the conditions in which our young girls are

brought up, to avoid astonishment at the debauchery of the women of our

upper classes. It is the opposite that would cause astonishment.

“Follow my reasoning. From infancy garments, ornaments, cleanliness,

grace, dances, music, reading of poetry, novels, singing, the theatre,

the concert, for use within and without, according as women listen, or

practice themselves. With that, complete physical idleness, an

excessive care of the body, a vast consumption of sweetmeats; and God

knows how the poor maidens suffer from their own sensuality, excited by

all these things. Nine out of ten are tortured intolerably during the

first period of maturity, and afterward provided they do not marry at

the age of twenty. That is what we are unwilling to see, but those who

have eyes see it all the same. And even the majority of these

unfortunate creatures are so excited by a hidden sensuality (and it is

lucky if it is hidden) that they are fit for nothing. They become

animated only in the presence of men. Their whole life is spent in

preparations for coquetry, or in coquetry itself. In the presence of

men they become too animated; they begin to live by sensual energy. But

the moment the man goes away, the life stops.

“And that, not in the presence of a certain man, but in the presence of

any man, provided he is not utterly hideous. You will say that this is

an exception. No, it is a rule. Only in some it is made very evident,

in others less so. But no one lives by her own life; they are all

dependent upon man. They cannot be otherwise, since to them the

attraction of the greatest number of men is the ideal of life (young

girls and married women), and it is for this reason that they have no

feeling stronger than that of the animal need of every female who tries

to attract the largest number of males in order to increase the

opportunities for choice. So it is in the life of young girls, and so

it continues during marriage. In the life of young girls it is

necessary in order to selection, and in marriage it is necessary in

order to rule the husband. Only one thing suppresses or interrupts

these tendencies for a time,—namely, children,—and then only when the

woman is not a monster,—that is, when she nurses her own children. Here

again the doctor interferes.

“With my wife, who desired to nurse her own children, and who did nurse

six of them, it happened that the first child was sickly. The doctors,

who cynically undressed her and felt of her everywhere, and whom I had

to thank and pay for these acts,—these dear doctors decided that she

ought not to nurse her child, and she was temporarily deprived of the

only remedy for coquetry. A nurse finished the nursing of this

first-born,—that is to say, we profited by the poverty and ignorance of

a woman to steal her from her own little one in favor of ours, and for

that purpose we dressed her in a _kakoschnik_ trimmed with gold lace.

Nevertheless, that is not the question; but there was again awakened in

my wife that coquetry which had been sleeping during the nursing

period. Thanks to that, she reawakened in me the torments of jealousy

which I had formerly known, though in a much slighter degree.”