A General View of Positivism by Auguste Comte (learn to read books TXT) 📕

But for the existence of strong material forces, moral force would soon deteriorate, because its distinctive purpose would be gone. Philosophers and proletaries would soon lose their intellectual and moral superiority by the acquisition of power. On women its effect would be still more disastrous. From instances in the upper classes of society, where wealth gives them independence, and sometimes unfortunately even power, we see but too clearly what the consequences would be. And this is why we have to look to the poorer classes for the highest type of womanly perfection. With the people sympathy is better cultivated, and has a greater influence upon life. Wealth has more to do with the moral degradation of women among the privileged classes than even idleness and dissipation.

Progress, in this respect as in every other, is only a more complete development of the preexisting Order. Equality in the position of the two sexes is contrary to their nature, and no tendency to it has at any time been exhibited. All history assures us that with the growth of society the peculiar features of each sex have become not less but more distinct. By Catholic Feudalism the social condition of women in Western Europe was raised to a far higher level. But it took away from them the priestly functions which they had held under Polytheism; a religion in which the priesthood was more occupied with Art than with Science. So too with the gradual decline of the principle of Caste, women have been excluded more and more rigidly from royalty and from every other kind of political authority. Again, there is a visible tendency towards the removal of women from all industrial occupations, even from those which might seem best suited to them. And thus female life, instead of becoming independent of the Family, is being more and more concentrated in it; while at the same time their proper sphere of moral influence is constantly extending. The two tendencies so far from being opposed, are inseparably connected.

Without discussing the absurd and retrograde schemes which have been recently put forward on the subject, there is one remark which may serve to illustrate the value of the order which now exists. If women were to obtain that equality in the affairs of life which their so-called champions are claiming for them without their wish, not only would they suffer morally, but their social position would be endangered. They would be subject in almost every occupation to a degree of competition which they would not be able to sustain. Moreover, by rivalry in the pursuits of life, mutual affection between the sexes would be corrupted at its source.

Leaving these subversive dreams, we find a natural principle which, by determining the practical obligations of the Active to the Sympathetic sex, averts this danger. It is a principle which no philosophy but Positivism has been sufficiently real and practical to bring forward systematically for general acceptance. It is no new invention, however, but a universal tendency, confirmed by careful study of the whole past history of Man. The principle is, that Man should provide for Woman. It is a natural law of the human race; a law connected with the essentially domestic character of female life. We find it in the rudest forms of social life; and with every step in the progress of society its adoption becomes more extensive and complete. A still larger application of this fundamental principle will meet all the material difficulties under which women are now labouring. All social relations, and especially the question of wages, will be affected by it. The tendency to it is spontaneous; but it also follows from the high position which Positivism has assigned to Woman as the sympathetic element in the spiritual power. The intellectual class, in the same way, has to be supported by the practical class, in order to have its whole time available for the special duties imposed upon it. But in the case of women, the obligation of the other sex is still more sacred, because the sphere of duty in which protection for them is required, is the home. The obligation to provide for the intellectual class, affects society as a whole; but the maintenance of women is, with few exceptions, a personal obligation. Each individual should consider himself bound to maintain the woman he has chosen to be his partner in life. There are cases, however, in which men should be considered collectively responsible for the support of the other sex. Women who are without husband or parents should have their maintenance guaranteed by society; and this not merely from compassion for their dependent position, but with the view of enabling them to render public service of the greatest moral value.

The direction, then, of progress in the social condition of woman is this: to render her life more and more domestic; to diminish as far as possible the burden of outdoor labour; and so to fit her more completely for her special office of educating our moral nature. Among the privileged classes it is already a recognized rule that women should be spared all laborious exertion. It is the one point in the relations of the sexes in which the working classes would do well to imitate the habits of their employers. In every other respect the people of Western Europe have a higher sense of their duties to women than the upper classes. Indeed there are few of them who would not be ashamed of the barbarity of subjecting women to their present burdensome occupations, if the present state of our industrial system allowed of its abolition. But it is chiefly among the higher and wealthier classes that we find those degrading and very often fraudulent bargains, connected with unscrupulous interference of parents in the question of marriage, which are so humiliating to one sex and so corrupting to the other. Among the working classes the practice of giving dowries is almost extinct; and as women’s true mission becomes