The Rights of Women and the Sexual Relations/Part 1/15. The Economic Independence of Woman
THE ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE OF WOMAN.
If we are to speak of freedom, and especially of free marriage, we must above all things establish the independence of the individual, and especially the mutual independence of husband and wife.
The great question of the times, to secure an existence to every one and thus to protect him, on the one side, from material want and, on the other side, to liberate him from conditions in which material dependence makes him a mere tool of others — this great question concerns no one more closely than the women. Let it but be borne in mind what has been said above of prostitution. Perhaps seven-eighths of the feminine sex are dependent, or degraded, or enslaved, or prostituted because — they cannot emancipate themselves economically from the men.
If the solution of the problem of existence, so far as it concerns the male sex, is already difficult enough, in the interests of the women it is still more difficult to solve. The practical course of events brings it about that the men, since they are the makers of history, want their turn to come first and make it come first; moreover, the men are equipped for the work of life, while the women have hitherto had to attach their existence chiefly to that of the men, and are in general not brought up in a way to be able at once to stand on their own feet. Most women, therefore, are still in want of one more requisite than the men, namely, the education for work.
But let us make it clear to ourselves that one step in progress always presupposes another. If we, therefore, have to recognize the inability of most women under the present circumstances to gain for themselves an independent existence, it does not follow from this that the same conditions will hold for the future. Let us make this clear by laying down several points.
1) The State of the future secures to women as well as to men, free of charge, an all-sided opportunity for the development of their native abilities.
2) Education in the future will be considerably facilitated and more equalized between the two sexes, since the sciences become ever more simplified, popularized, and their results made more accessible to every one, while at present their secrets are still hidden behind the learned barricades of the scholars' caste. In the future many a lay person will know more than many a professor knows now, for the chaff of unnecessary knowledge will be winnowed away, and true knowledge will reduce everything to the pure kernel. If we consider hereby that women have the same or greater ability than men for the learning and executing of a thousand things, but have hitherto only been kept from them by education, we must imagine their circle of activity in the future to be much greater than it has so far been.
3) In a more humane development of the State ever more positions will be opened up in which only the woman will find a place, while in the present state of public affairs men are employed almost exclusively. Let us only think of the future schools of all sorts, the institutions of art, of amusement, the workhouses, hospitals, the institutions for the reception of the "enfants de la patrie" (as they very beautifully call the foundlings in Paris), the institutions for the reformation of prostitutes, etc., and we shall find a thousand opportunities not only for the maintenance but for the noble occupation of women of which no one has so far thought.
4) The State will continually gain more means to secure beforehand the satisfaction of the principal needs of its citizens through public institutions, and thus to facilitate or to simplify the individual's care for his existence, and therefore will be able to furnish not only the entire public education free of cost, but also the public amusements and perhaps even the dwellings (at least tor those without means). State help will be extended all the more to women, especially the more the principle comes to be recognized that the disabled must be maintained by the collectivity, and that those without work must be furnished with adequate occupation by the State.
These are some of the suppositions from which we must reason in order to judge the future economic position of women; and if one considers that the woman requires much less for her maintenance than the man, a great part of the difficulty of selfsupport will be equalized by her fewer wants.
But let this difficulty, to enable the woman to establish an independent existence, be ever so great, it suffices that, as a human being and as a member of the body social, she has the same right to such an existence as the man. The ways and means to solve this problem of existence the State of the future will no doubt find when it has created those liberties and those truly democratic institutions which permit all legitimate interests to assert themselves, and allow of the unhindered disposition of public means. But when that problem is once solved, woman will gain quite a different esteem and position. She will no longer be forced to sell her body as a tool for lust; she will no longer be under the necessity of accepting the next best opportunity to get married, but will be able to make her choice according to her true inclination; there will be greater opportunity for this than hitherto, for now the impossibility to maintain a family excludes many a man from marriage who could otherwise make a woman happy (the standing armies alone, which are to be abolished in the future, condemn thousands to a single life and to prostitution who would in a rational State become useful members of society and good husbands); she will be able to maintain her independence in marriage, and will not submit to unworthy treatment from fear of being without the means of subsistence after a dissolution of the relationship; she will, in one word, be able as a human being to secure her liberty, as a citizen her right, as a wife her dignity, and as a woman her happiness.
But the economic independence of woman, as well as her ethical appreciation, can only be attained after the bad conditions of the present are completely changed, and the edifice of the true state has been erected on the ruins of these bad conditions. Therefore the women must join the great public conspiracy, which, where reform is sufficient, will strive to better the condition of humanity by reform and, where revolution is necessary, by revolution. And since a just regulation of the economic conditions is thinkable only through a true democracy in which the majority of the suffering can take their interests into their own hands, woman's interests from the start assign her a place in the truly democratic party; and since the true democracy will hardly be established anywhere without revolutionary attacks on power and money, woman is from the start assigned to the revolutionary party.