Part 33

“What woman’s natural instincts demand is self-abandonment to a man; she desires this abandonment not for her own sake, but for the man’s sake; she gives herself to him, for him. Now abandoning oneself for another is self-sacrifice, and self-sacrifice from an instinctive impulse is LOVE. Therefore love is a kind of instinctive impulse which the sexual instinct in woman necessarily and involuntarily assumes. She feels the necessity of loving.... This impulse is peculiar to woman alone; woman alone loves [!!!]; only through woman does love appear among mankind.... The woman’s life should disappear in the man’s without a remnant, and it is this relation that is so beautifully and correctly indicated in the fact that the wife no longer uses her own name, but that of her husband [!].”

The latest (and it is to be hoped the last) of the German metaphysicians, the pessimist Hartmann, goes even a step beyond Fichte in arrogating for man special privileges in Love. If Fichte makes Love synonymous with Self-Sacrifice—feminine, mind you, not masculine—Hartmann tries to prove that man may love as often as he pleases, but woman only once. And what aggravates the offence, he does it in such a poetic manner. “Though it may be doubtful,” he says, “whether a man can truly love two women at the same time, it is beyond all doubt that he can love several in succession with all the depth of his heart; and the assertion that there is only one true love is an unwarranted generalisation to all mankind of a maxim which is true of woman alone.... Woman can learn but once by experience what love is, and it is painful for the lover not to be the one who teaches her first. True it is that a tree nipped by a spring frost brings forth a second crown of leaves, but so rich and luxuriant as the first it will not be; thus does a maiden-heart produce a second bloom, if the first had to wither before maturity, but its full and complete floral glory is unfolded only where love, aroused for the first time, passes in full vigour through all its phases.”

Yet it is not ungallant selfishness alone that prompts German men to bring up their women so that they shall be mere playthings at first and drudges after marriage, never real soul-mates. They have the same old stupid continental fear that culture of the intellect weakens the feelings. This fear is based on slovenly reasoning—on the inference that because a few blue-stockings have at all ages made themselves ridiculous by assuming masculine attributes and parading their lack of tenderness and feminine delicacy, therefore intellectual training must be fatal to feminine charms. As if there were not plenty of masculine blue-stockings, or pedants, without disproving the fact that the men of the greatest intellectual power—men of genius—are also the most emotional and refined of all men; or the fact proved by this whole monograph, that Love and general emotional refinement grow with the general intellectual culture of women.

A typical illustration of German feeling on the subject of female education is to be found in Schweiger-Lerchenfeld’s _Frauenleben der Erde_, p. 530. Referring to the attempts now being made in France to give young girls a rational education, he quotes the opinion of a French legislator that a girl thus brought up would not love less deeply than heretofore, while she would love more intelligently; and then comments as follows: “How far this anticipation may be realised cannot be decided now or in the near future. At any rate we must leave to the French themselves the task of getting along with this classical female generation of the future. Certain it is that their experiment will hardly be imitated, and that the old Romans and Greeks may eventually become more dangerous to masculine supremacy (Autorität) than the pilgrimage stories of Lourdes.”

It is time for German woman to rise in revolt against this mediæval masculine selfishness. Not in active revolt, for a warlike woman is an abomination. But in passive revolt. Let them cease to spoil the men, and these bears will become more gallant. Germany is later in almost every phase of literary and social culture than England. It was not an accident that Shakspere came before Heine, the English before the German poet of Love; for Love is much less advanced in Germany than in England. It has not even passed the stage where a harsh sort of Coyness is still in place. German women want to learn the cunning to be strange, They are too deferential to the men, too easily won. They want to learn to indulge in harmless flirtation, and they want the education which will give them wit enough to flirt cleverly and make the men mellow.

It must be admitted, however, notwithstanding all these strictures, that there is much genuine Romantic Love in Germany, often differing in no wise from Anglo-American Love. At first sight it seems, indeed, as if chaperonage were as strict as in France; and no doubt many German girls are brought up on the spring-chicken-coyness system which regards every man as a hawk, and a signal for hiding away in a corner. But in general German girls have much more freedom than French girls. They may walk alone in the street in the daytime, go alone to the conservatory to attend a music-lesson. They meet the young men freely at evening parties, dances, musical entertainments, etc.; and the chaperons are not nearly so obtrusive and offensive as in France. The mothers appear to have taken to heart Jean Paul’s saying that “in the mother’s presence it is impossible to carry on an edifying conversation with the daughter.” So that there is plenty of opportunity for falling in love; and were it not for parental dictation, Love-matches would perhaps be as common as in England. But the girls lack independence of spirit to defy parental tyranny, which it is their _moral duty_ to defy where money or rank are pitted against Love. For the health and happiness of the next generation are at stake.

German girls also enjoy an advantage over the French in having a literature which is pure and wholesome; and by reading about Romantic Love they train and deepen their feelings. It is often said that Heine’s influence has been chiefly negative. The truth is, _Heine is the greatest emotional educator Germany has ever had_. More young men and girls have wept over his pathetic lyrics than over any other poetry. His _Buch der Lieder_ has done more to foster the growth of Romantic Love in Germany than all other collections of verse combined; not only by their own unadorned beauty, but through the soulful music wedded to these poems by Schubert, Schumann, and other magicians of the heart. The fact that the copyright on Heine’s works was soon to expire, and the country to be flooded with cheap editions, has long caused Master Cupid to rub his hands in gleeful anticipation of brisk business; and he has just given orders in his arsenal for one hundred thousand new golden arrows.

Heine indeed fathomed the secrets of Love much more deeply than Goethe. Whereas Heine sang of Love in every major and minor key, Goethe appears to have emphasised chiefly its transitoriness. “Love, as Goethe knows it,” says Professor Seeley, “is very tender, and has a lyric note as fresh as that of a song-bird. In his _Autobiography_ one love-passage succeeds another, but each comes speedily to an end. How far in each case he was to blame is a matter of controversy. But he seems to betray a way of thinking about women such as might be natural to an Oriental sultan. ‘I was in that agreeable phase,’ he writes, ‘when a new passion had begun to spring up in me before the old one had quite disappeared.’ About Frederika he blames himself without reserve, and uses strong expressions of contrition; but he forgets the matter strangely soon. In his distress of mind he says he found riding, and especially skating, bring much relief. This reminds us of the famous letter to the Frau von Stein about coffee. He is always ready in a moment to shake off the deepest impressions and receive new ones; and he never looks back.... Goethe was a man of the old _régime_.... Had he entered into the reforming movement of his age, he might have striven to elevate women.... He certainly felt at times that all was not right in the status of women (‘woman’s fate is pitiable’), and how narrowly confined was their happiness (wie enggebunden ist des Weibes Glück) ... but he was not a reformer of institutions.”

A reformer of institutions, however, has apparently just arisen in Berlin. For we read that at a private female seminary the girls received the following subject for an essay: “There is from the Ideas of Plato, the atoms of Democritus, the Substance of Spinoza, the monads of Leibnitz, and from the subjective mental forms of Kant, the proof to bring, that the philosophy it never neglected has the to-be-calculated results of their hypotheses with their into-perception-falling effects to compare.”

Such subjects, so elegantly expressed, are no doubt eminently calculated to bring out the latent possibilities of feminine feeling and culture.

To close this chapter with a sweet, soothing concord—major triad, horns and ’cellos, _smorzando_—it must be admitted that the Germans have one ingredient of Romantic Love which all other nations must envy them. They have one more thrill in the drama of Love, in the ascending scale of familiarities, than we have, namely, the word _Du_, which is something very different from the stilted _Thou_, because still a part of everyday language. The second person singular is used in Germany towards pet animals and children, between students, intimate friends, relatives, and lovers. French “lovers” do not say _tu_ to each other till after marriage, and even then they do not use it in public. But the German lover has the privilege, as soon as he is engaged, of exchanging the formal _Sie_ for the affectionate _Du_; and the first _Du_ that comes from her lips can hardly be less sweet than the first kiss.

There is a game of cards, popular among young folks in Germany, during which you have to address every one with _Du_ whom you otherwise would have to call _Sie_, and _vice versâ_; cards have to be called spoons, white black, etc. If there is a young man in the company secretly in love with a young lady, you can always “spot” him by the eagerness he shows to speak to her, and the fact that he always gets the _Du_ right and everything else wrong; while she, strange to say, appears to have never heard of such a thing at all as a personal pronoun.

ENGLISH LOVE

Concerning Romantic Love in England and America, there is less to be said under the head of National Peculiarities than in case of the continental nations of Europe, for the simple reason that almost everything said in the pages on Modern Love refers especially to these two countries. Anglo-American Love is Romantic Love, pure and simple, as first depicted by Shakspere, and after him, with more or less accuracy, by a hundred other poets and novelists. There is no lack of colour in this Love—colour warm and glowing—but it is no longer a mere local colour, a national or provincial peculiarity, but Love in its essence, its cosmopolitan aspect; Love such as will in course of time prevail throughout the world, when the Anglisation of this planet—which is only a question of time—shall have been completed.

England has many a bright jewel in the crown of her achievements in behalf of civilisation, but the brightest of all is this, that she was the first country in the world—ancient, mediæval, or modern—that removed the bars from woman’s prison-windows, opened every door to Cupid, and made him thoroughly welcome and comfortable. And grateful Cupid has retaliated by setting up English manners and customs as a model which all other nations are slowly but surely copying. Eighteen million souls in the United States, or almost two persons in every five, are not of English origin; yet of these there are not one million who have not given up their old country methods of courtship as antiquated, and adopted the Anglo-American style. The Germans in America make love not after the German but after the English fashion. So do the French, though somewhat more reluctantly and tardily. In San Francisco and Chicago it is said that but one name in ten is of English origin; yet who ever heard of a San Franciscan or Chicagoan making love in foreign style? During the last hundred years the majority of the immigrants to America have come from non-English countries; yet, though the parents enter the country as adults with all their national traditions stamped on their memories, they invariably allow their sons and daughters to court and be courted in American style. And now that England is gradually extending her influence to every one of the five continents, Romantic Love—to whose sway, quite as much as to their outdoor active life, the English owe the fact that they are to-day the handsomest and most energetic race in the world—is also rapidly extending its sphere, and will finally oust the last vestiges of Oriental despotism, feminine suppression, and mediæval masculine barbarism.

For some centuries woman has been more favoured by law, and especially by national custom, in England than in any other European state. It is true that the Englishman who beats his wife is the most brutal savage on the face of the globe, but he is to be found only among the lowest classes. Nor has wife-selling ever been quite such a universal custom in England as foreigners imagine; although cases are on record as far back as 1302 and as late as 1884. In an article in _All the Year Round_ (Dec. 20, 1884) more than twenty cases are enumerated with full details, the price of a wife varying from twenty-five guineas to a pint or half a pint of beer, or a penny and a dinner; and the _Times_ of July 22, 1797, remarks sarcastically: “By some mistake or omission, in the report of the Smithfield market, we have not learned the average price of wives for the week. The increasing value of the fair sex is esteemed by several eminent writers the certain criterion of increasing civilisation. Smithfield has, on this ground, strong pretensions to refined improvement, as the price of wives has risen in that market from half a guinea to three guineas and a half.”

That these cases occurred only among the lowest classes is self-evident; yet even the lowest classes often resented the brutal transaction by pelting the offenders with stones and mud; whereas, as far as the women were concerned, the offence was mitigated by the fact that in all cases on record they appear to have been only too glad to be sold, so as to get rid of their tyrants.

It cannot be said that English women are all exempt from the hardest manual labour even to-day; but the tendency to relieve them of tasks unsuited to feminine muscular development has existed longer in England than elsewhere. The difference can be best observed with regard to agricultural labour. Any one who travels through Italy, Switzerland, France, or Germany in the autumn, gets the impression that most of the harvesting is done by the women; whereas in England, as shown by statistics, there are twenty-two men to every woman engaged as field-labourers. Yet even at that rate there are still 64,840 women in England engaged in agricultural labour unsuited to their sex.

On the other hand, English women, like American women, are manifesting a great disposition at present to try their hand or brain at almost every employment heretofore considered exclusively masculine. The census enumerates 349 different classes of work, and of these all but about 70 have been invaded by women; including 5 horse-dealers, 14 bicycle makers and dealers, 16 sculptors, 18 fence makers, 19 fossil diggers, etc.; whereas there are as yet no female pilots, dentists, police officers, shepherds, law students, architects, cab-drivers, commercial travellers, barristers, etc. [Full list in _Pall Mall Gazette_, Oct. 3, 1884.]

Inasmuch as there are almost a million more women than men in England, it is not surprising that women should thus seek to extend their sphere of usefulness. We live in an experimental epoch, when it is to be ascertained what is and what is not becoming to woman regarded as a labourer. It is therefore of the utmost importance that there should be some standard by which each employment is to be judged. And this standard, fortunately, is supplied by Romantic Love.

We have seen that the tendency of civilisation has been to differentiate the sexes more and more in appearance, character, and emotional susceptibilities, and that on this differentiation depends the existence and power of Love, because it _individualises_ man and woman, and Love is the more intense the more it is individualised.

Hence every employment which tends to make woman masculine in appearance or habits is to be tabooed by her because antagonistic to Love. If she, nevertheless, persists in it, Love will have its revenge by eliminating her through Sexual Selection. No man will marry a masculine woman, or fall in love with her, so that her unnatural temperament will not be transmitted to the next generation and multiplied.

But what is to be accepted as the standard of femininity? The answer is given us by Nature. Throughout the animal world, with a few insignificant exceptions, the sexes are differentiated distinctly; and the female is the more tender and gentle of the two, the more devoted to domestic affection and the care and education of the young, the more amiable, and, above all, less aggressive, bold, and pugnacious than the male. “Any education which women undergo,” says the _Spectator_, “should be an education not for the militant life of war against evil but for the spiritual life inspiring a persuasive or patient charity.... Even in a field properly suited to them—the field of charitable institutions, of poor-law work, of educational representation—women no sooner take up the cudgels than they lose their appropriate influence, and are either unsexed or paralysed.”

According to Mr. Ruskin, “woman’s work is—(1) To please people. (2) To feed them in dainty ways. (3) To clothe them. (4) To keep them orderly. (5) To teach them.”

Statistics concerning the employments instinctively sought by the majority of women bear out Mr. Ruskin’s table quite well. Woman’s first duty is to please people by being beautiful, amiable, and fascinating in conversation and manners. No man would marry a woman unless she pleased him in one way or another; hence matrimony is the most successful female profession, which in England includes 4,437,962 women. But there are other ways in which women seek to please and prosper; hence there are in England 2368 actresses as against 2197 actors, and 11,376 women whose profession is music, as against 14,170 men.

Domestic service, which includes the “feeding in dainty ways” (though too often the “dainty” must be omitted), employs 1,230,406 women in England—about 30,000 fewer than industrial employments, which are somewhat more popular owing to the greater individual liberty they allow the employed. Yet domestic service is a much better preparation for married life than labour in a manufactory; so that, other things being equal, a labouring man looking for a wife would be apt to select one who has learned how to take care of his home. This thought ought to help to render domestic service more popular.

“To clothe them.” Dressmaking, staymaking (alas!), and millinery, employ 357,995 women in England.

“To keep them orderly.” Bathing and washing service employ 176,670 women; medicine and nursing, almost 50,000; missions, 1660.

“To teach them.” This, one of woman’s special vocations, eminently suited to her capacity, employs 123,995 females.

If I have failed in correctly interpreting Mr. Ruskin’s oracle, I stand subject to correction from that earnest labourer in the task of finding for woman her proper sphere—a work for which he has not yet received the recognition and thanks he deserves.

That marriage, and not miscellaneous employment, is woman’s true destiny, is shown by the way in which Cupid influences statistics. Thus there are in England about 29,000 school-mistresses aged 15-20, and 28,500 aged 25-45; but the time from 20-25, the period of courtship and marriage, has only 21,000. In the case of dressmakers this fact is brought out still more strikingly: 15-20—84,000; 20-25—76,000; 25-45—129,000, in round numbers.

Although, therefore, as Emerson remarks, “the circumstances may be easily imagined in which woman may speak, vote, argue cases, legislate, and drive coaches, if only it comes by degrees,” facts show that there is more philosophy of the future in Mrs. Hawthorne’s remark that “Home, I think, is the great arena for women, and there, I am sure, she can wield a power which no king or emperor can cope with.”

A consideration of all the foregoing facts shows that Love may be safely accepted as a guiding-star in making a proper division of the world’s labour between men and women. And the reason why England and America have made so much more progress than other nations in ascertaining woman’s true capacity and sphere, is because she has been educated to a point where she can assert her independence, and where she can inspire as well as feel Love—thus making man humble, gallant, gentle, ready to make concessions and remove restrictions. It is in England and America alone that Love plays a more important _rôle_ in marriage than money and social position; that the young are generally permitted to consult their own heart instead of parental command; and that the opportunities for courtship are so liberal and numerous that the young are enabled to fall in love with one another not only for dazzling qualities of Personal Beauty, viewed for a moment, but for traits of character, emotional refinement, and a cultured intellect.

These two nations alone have fully taken to heart and heeded Addison’s maxim that “Those marriages generally abound most with love and constancy that are _preceded by a long courtship_. The passion should strike root and gather strength before marriage be grafted on it. A long course of hopes and expectations fixes the idea in our minds, and habituates us to a fondness of the person beloved.”

There is, however, a difference between English and American Love which shows that we have learned Addison’s lesson even better than his own countrymen. As Mr. Robert Laird Collier remarks in _English Home Life_: “The American custom, among the mass of the people, of leaving young men and young women free to associate together and to keep company with each other for an indefinite length of time, without declaring their intentions, is almost unknown in any country of Europe. It is not long after a young man begins to show the daughter attentions before the father gives intimation that he wishes to know what it means, and either the youth declares his intentions or is notified to ‘cut sticks.’” “Courtships in England are short, and engagements are long.”