The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909 1910)

C >> Charlotte Perkins Gilman >> The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909 1910)

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62

Again, in surveying the field, it is seen that as our grasp of ethical
values widened, as we called more and more acts and tendencies "right"
and "wrong," we have shown astonishing fluctuations and vagaries in our
judgment. Not only in our religions, which have necessarily upheld each
its own set of prescribed actions as most "right," and its own special
prohibitions as most "wrong"; but in our beliefs about ethics and our
real conduct, we have varied absurdly.

Take, for instance, the ethical concept among "gentlemen" a century or
so since, which put the paying of one's gambling debts as a well-nigh
sacred duty, and the paying of a tradesman who had fed and clothed one
as a quite negligible matter. If the process of gambling was of social
service, and the furnishing of food and clothes was not, this might be
good ethics; but as the contrary is true, we have to account for this
peculiar view on other grounds.

Again, where in Japan a girl, to maintain her parents, is justified in
leading a life of shame, we have a peculiar ethical standard difficult
for Western minds to appreciate. Yet in such an instance as is
described in "Auld Robin Gray," we see precisely the same code; the
girl, to benefit her parents, marries a rich old man she does not
love--which is to lead a life of shame. The ethical view which
justifies this, puts the benefit of parents above the benefit of
children, robs the daughter of happiness and motherhood, injures
posterity to assist ancestors.

This is one of the products of that very early religion, ancestor
worship; and here we lay a finger on a distinctly masculine influence.

We know little of ethical values during the matriarchate; whatever they
were, they must have depended for sanction on a cult of promiscuous but
efficient maternity. Our recorded history begins in the patriarchal
period, and it is its ethics alone which we know.

The mother instinct, throughout nature, is one of unmixed devotion, of
love and service, care and defence, with no self-interest. The animal
father, in such cases as he is of service to the young, assists the
mother in her work in similar fashion. But the human father in the
family with the male head soon made that family an instrument of desire,
and combat, and self-expression, following the essentially masculine
impulses. The children were his, and if males, valuable to serve and
glorify him. In his dominance over servile women and helpless children,
free rein was given to the growth of pride and the exercise of
irresponsible tyranny. To these feelings, developed without check for
thousands of years, and to the mental habits resultant, it is easy to
trace much of the bias of our early ethical concepts.

Perhaps it is worth while to repeat here that the effort of this book is
by no means to attribute a wholly evil influence to men, and a wholly
good one to women; it is not even claimed that a purely feminine culture
would have advanced the world more successfully. It does claim that the
influence of the two together is better than that of either one alone;
and in especial to point out what special kind of injury is due to the
exclusive influence of one sex heretofore.

We have to-day reached a degree of human development where both men and
women are capable of seeing over and across the distinctions of sex, and
mutually working for the advancement of the world. Our progress is,
however, seriously impeded by what we may call the masculine tradition,
the unconscious dominance of a race habit based on this long
androcentric period; and it is well worth while, in the interests of
both sexes, to show the mischievous effects of the predominance of one.

We have in our ethics not only a "double standard" in one special line,
but in nearly all. Man, as a sex, has quite naturally deified his own
qualities rather than those of his opposite. In his codes of manners,
of morals, of laws, in his early concepts of God, his ancient religions,
we see masculinity written large on every side. Confining women wholly
to their feminine functions, he has required of them only what he called
feminine virtues, and the one virtue he has demanded, to the complete
overshadowing of all others, is measured by wholly masculine
requirements.

ln the interests of health and happiness, monogamous marriage proves its
superiority in our race as it has in others. It is essential to the
best growth of humanity that we practice the virtue of chastity; it is a
human virtue, not a feminine one. But in masculine hands this virtue
was enforced upon women under penalties of hideous cruelty, and quite
ignored by men. Masculine ethics, colored by masculine instincts,
always dominated by sex, has at once recognized the value of chastity in
the woman, which is right; punished its absence unfairly, which is
wrong; and then reversed the whole matter when applied to men, which is
ridiculous.

Ethical laws are laws--not idle notions. Chastity is a virtue because
it promotes human welfare--not because men happen to prize it in women
and ignore it themselves. The underlying reason for the whole thing is
the benefit of the child; and to that end a pure and noble fatherhood is
requisite, as well as such a motherhood. Under the limitations of a too
masculine ethics, we have developed on this one line social conditions
which would be absurdly funny if they were not so horrible.

Religion, be it noticed, does not bear out this attitude. The immense
human need of religion, the noble human character of the great religious
teachers, has always set its standards, when first established, ahead of
human conduct.

Some there are, men of learning and authority, who hold that the
deadening immobility of our religions, their resistance to progress and
relentless preservation of primitive ideals, is due to the conservatism
of women. Men, they say, are progressive by nature; women are
conservative. Women are more religious than men, and so preserve old
religious forms unchanged after men have outgrown them.

If we saw women in absolute freedom, with a separate religion devised by
women, practiced by women, and remaining unchanged through the
centuries; while men, on the other hand, bounded bravely forward, making
new ones as fast as they were needed, this belief might be maintained.
But what do we see? All the old religions made by men, and forced on
the women whether they liked it or not. Often women not even considered
as part of the scheme--denied souls--given a much lower place in the
system--going from the service of their father's gods to the service of
their husbands--having none of their own. We see religions which make
practically no place for women, as with the Moslem, as rigidly bigoted
and unchanging as any other.

We see also this: that the wider and deeper the religion, the more
human, the more it calls for practical applications in Christianity--the
more it appeals to women. Further, in the diverging sects of the
Christian religion, we find that its progressiveness is to be measured,
not by the numbers of its women adherents, but by their relative
freedom. The women of America, who belong to a thousand sects, who
follow new ones with avidity, who even make them, and who also leave
them all as men do, are women, as well as those of Spain, who remain
contented Romanists, but in America the status of women is higher.

The fact is this: a servile womanhood is in a state of arrested
development, and as such does form a ground for the retention of ancient
ideas. But this is due to the condition of servility, not to womanhood.
That women at present are the bulwark of the older forms of our
religions is due to the action of two classes of men: the men of the
world, who keep women in their restricted position, and the men of the
church, who take every advantage of the limitations of women. When we
have for the first time in history a really civilized womanhood, we can
then judge better of its effect on religion.

Meanwhile, we can see quite clearly the effect of manhood. Keeping in
mind those basic masculine impulses--desire and combat--we see them
reflected from high heaven in their religious concepts. Reward!
Something to want tremendously and struggle to achieve! This is a
concept perfectly masculine and most imperfectly religious. A religion
is partly explanation--a theory of life; it is partly emotion--an
attitude of mind, it is partly action--a system of morals. Man's
special effect on this large field of human development is clear. He
pictured his early gods as like to himself, and they behaved in
accordance with his ideals. In the dimmest, oldest religions, nearest
the matriarchate, we find great goddesses--types of Motherhood,
Mother-love, Mother-care and Service. But under masculine dominance,
Isis and Ashteroth dwindle away to an alluring Aphrodite--not Womanhood
for the child and the World--but the incarnation of female
attractiveness for man.

As the idea of heaven developed in the man's mind it became the Happy
Hunting Ground of the savage, the beery and gory Valhalla of the
Norseman, the voluptuous, many-houri-ed Paradise of the Mohammedan.
These are men's heavens all. Women have never been so fond of hunting,
beer or blood; and their houris would be of the other kind. It may be
said that the early Christian idea of heaven is by no means planned for
men. That is trite, and is perhaps the reason why it has never had so
compelling an attraction for them.

Very early in his vague efforts towards religious expression, man voiced
his second strongest instinct--that of combat. His universe is always
dual, always a scene of combat. Born with that impulse, exercising it
continually, he naturally assumed it to be the major process in life.
It is not. Growth is the major process. Combat is a useful subsidiary
process, chiefly valuable for its initial use, to transmit the physical
superiority of the victor. Psychic and social advantages are not thus
secured or transmitted.

In no one particular is the androcentric character of our common thought
more clearly shown than in the general deification of what are now
described as "conflict stimuli." That which is true of the male
creature as such is assumed to be true of life in general; quite
naturally, but by no means correctly. To this universal masculine error
we may trace in the field of religion and ethics the great devil theory,
which has for so long obscured our minds. A God without an Adversary
was inconceivable to the masculine mind. From this basic misconception
we find all our ideas of ethics distorted; that which should have been
treated as a group of truths to be learned and habits to be cultivated
was treated in terms of combat, and moral growth made an everlasting
battle. This combat theory we may follow later into our common notions
of discipline, government, law and punishment; here is it enough to see
its painful effects in this primary field of ethics and religion?

The third essential male trait of self-expression we may follow from its
innocent natural form in strutting cock or stamping stag up to the
characteristics we label vanity and pride. The degradation of women in
forcing them to adopt masculine methods of personal decoration as a
means of livelihood, has carried with the concomitant of personal
vanity: but to this day and at their worst we do not find in women the
_naive_ exultant glow of pride which swells the bosom of the men who
march in procession with brass bands, in full regalia of any sort, so
that it be gorgeous, exhibiting their glories to all.

It is this purely masculine spirit which has given to our early concepts
of Deity the unadmirable qualities of boundless pride and a thirst for
constant praise and prostrate admiration, characteristics certainly
unbefitting any noble idea of God. Desire, combat and self-expression
all have had their unavoidable influence on masculine religions. What
deified Maternity a purely feminine culture might have put forth we do
not know, having had none such. Women are generally credited with as
much moral sense as men, and as much religious instinct; but so far it
has had small power to modify our prevailing creeds.

As a matter of fact, no special sex attributes should have any weight in
our ideas of right and wrong. Ethics and religion are distinctly human
concerns; they belong to us as social factors, not as physical ones. As
we learn to recognize our humanness, and to leave our sex
characteristics where they belong, we shall at last learn something
about ethics as a simple and practical science, and see that religions
grow as the mind grows to formulate them.

If anyone seeks for a clear, simple, easily grasped proof of our ethics,
it is to be found in a popular proverb. Struggling upward from beast
and savage into humanness, man has seen, reverenced, and striven to
attain various human virtues.

He was willing to check many primitive impulses, to change many
barbarous habits, to manifest newer, nobler powers. Much he would
concede to Humanness, but not his sex--that was beyond the range of
Ethics or Religion. By the state of what he calls "morals," and the
laws he makes to regulate them, by his attitude in courtship and in
marriage, and by the gross anomaly of militarism, in all its senseless
waste of life and wealth and joy, we may perceive this little masculine
exception:

"All's fair in love and war."

COMMENT AND REVIEW

"Inspired Millionaires," by Gerald Stanley Lee, has certainly inspired
one. We read among the quoted letters on the paper cover one from Mr.
Joseph Fels saying, "I want twenty-five copies of the book to distribute
among the millionaires here. If the books are well received I will
increase the order."

The impression to the lay mind, not too profusely acquainted with
millionaires, is of amazement at his opportunities; twenty-five among
"the millionaires here," and a possible demand for more!

The impression deepens as we read Mr. Fels' second letter, "Please send
fifty more copies. I am putting them where they tell."

Seventy-five millionaires "here"--wherever that was; and in other places
more and more and even more of them! Among so many there must be some
common humanity, possibly some uncommon humanity; it would appear as if
Mr. Lee might be right.

He believes that a millionaire may be a good man, a social enthusiast,
an artist and connoisseur, not in spite of his money, but because of it;
not by giving it away, pre- or post mortem; but by using it _in his
business_.

This is a simple thought after you see it; but it has been generally
overlooked. Mr. Lee has clear eyes and a silver tongue. His
perceptions are important and his expressions convincing. He speaks
plainly also, calling some millionaires by name, and designating others
almost as plainly.

"What could be more pathetic, for instance," he says, "than Mr. ----- as
an educator--a man who is educating-and-mowing-down two hundred thousand
(?) men a day, ten hours a day, for forty years of their lives; that is,
who is separating the souls of his employees from their work, bullying
them into being linked with a work and a method they despise, and who is
trying to atone for it all--this vast terrible schooling, ten hours a
fay, forty years, two hundred thousand men's lives--by piecing together
professors and scholars, putting up a little playhouse of learning,
before the world, to give a few fresh young boys and girls four years
with paper books?--a man the very thought of whom has ruined more men
and devastated more faiths and created more cowards and brutes and fools
in all walks of life than any other influence in the nineteenth century,
and who is trying to eke out at last a spoonful of atonement for it
all--all this vast baptism of the business world in despair and force
and cursing and pessimism, by perching up before it ----- University,
like a dove cote on a volcano.

"It may blur people's eyes for a minute, but everyone really knows in
his heart--every man in this nation--that the only real education Mr.
----- has established, or ever can establish, is the way he has made his
money. Everyone knows also that the only possible, the only real
education Mr. ----- can give to a man would have to be through the daily
thing he gives the man to do, ten hours a day, through the way he lets
him do it, through the spirit and expression he allows him to put into
it ten hours a day. Mr. -----'s real school, the one with two hundred
thousand men in it, and eighty million helpless spectators in the
galleries, is a school which is working out a daily, bitter, lying curse
upon the rich, and a bitter, lying curse upon the poor, which it is
going to take the world generations to redeem."

This is a long quotation; but it shows our prophet is not blinded by
sentiment; he knows an un-inspired millionaire when he sees him.

He makes this observation of one of the first important acts of Governor
Hughes. "He did one of the most memorable and enlightened silences that
has ever been done by any man in the United States." And then he goes
on to show the power that lies in simply being right.

There are plenty of epigrams in the book, plenty of imagination, plenty
of hard sense; and some mistakes. Various readers will assort these to
suit their several minds. But it is funny, having so many men, with so
much money, and so little idea of what to do with it, is it not?

Why shouldn't they, or some of them at least, really do business with it
as Mr. Lee suggests?

PERSONAL PROBLEMS

Question:--What can one do with a bore? I am not over strong, and very
sensitive to people. When some people come to see me--and stay--and
they always do stay--it makes me ill--I cannot work well next day.

--Sufferer.

Answer:--My dear Sufferer. Your problem is a serious one. Bores are
disagreeable to all and dangerous to some. They cannot be arrested or
imprisoned; and kerosene does not lessen their numbers. They commit no
active offence--it is not by doing that they affect us so painfully, but
simply by being. Especially by being there.

Sub-question:--Can a bore be a bore when no one else is present.

Sub-answer:--We suspect they can. It is because he bores himself when
alone that he seeks continually to bore others.

Yet some of them are well-intentioned persons who would be grieved to
know they were injurious. Even the dull and thick-skinned are open to
offence if it is forced upon them.

We suspect that the only real cure is courage on the part of the victim.
If the suffering host or hostess frankly said, "My dear Sir--or
Madam--you are making me very tired. I wish you would go away," the
result would leave nothing to be desired. "But," says the sufferer in
alarm, "they would never come to see us again!"

Well. Do you want them to?

"But--sometimes I like to see them." Or, "I cannot afford to quarrel
with So and So!"

Ah! We will now quote Emerson. "It you want anything, pay for it and
take it, says God."

Question:--"I have a sick parent. What is my whole duty in the case?"

--Filial Devotee.

Answer:--It depends on your sex. If you are a man, your duty is to
provide a home for the patient, a servant, a nurse, a physician, food,
medicine, and two short calls a day. You will be called "A Devoted
Son."

If you are a woman, you need provide none of these things; but must wait
upon the patient with your own hands as nurse and servant; regardless of
your special ability. If you do at does a devoted son you will be
called "An Unnatural Daughter."

Question:--"Why do the shapes of shoes change from year to year? Surely
the shapes of our feet do not.

Answer:--This is one of the inscrutable minor problems of Fashion and
The Market. The desire for novelty; the lack of a real feeling for
beauty; a savage indifference to physical comfort, the pressure of
necessity or greediness urging the manufacturer to sell more shoes than
people need; the brow-beaten submissiveness of most purchasers and the
persuasive--or insolent--compulsion of salesmen; all these combine to
make our feet ugly and painful.

SUFFRAGE

I became an advocate of full suffrage for women as soon as I was old
enough to understand the value of democratic government, to see that a
true democracy requires the intelligent participation of all the people,
and that women are people. With further knowledge I advocate woman
suffrage on two grounds: first because a dependent and servile womanhood
is an immovable obstacle to race development; second because the major
defects of our civilization are clearly traceable to the degradation of
the female and the unbalanced predominance of the male, which unnatural
relation is responsible for the social evil, for the predatory and
combative elements in our economic processes, and for that colossal
mingling of folly, waste, and horror, that wholly masculine
phenomenon--war.

[Advertisement]

THE FORERUNNER
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN'S MAGAZINE
CHARLTON CO., 67 WALL ST., NEW YORK

AS TO PURPOSE:

_What is The Forerunner?_ It is a monthly magazine, publishing stories
short and serial, article and essay; drama, verse, satire and sermon;
dialogue, fable and fantasy, comment and review. It is written entirely
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

_What is it For?_ It is to stimulate thought: to arouse hope, courage
and impatience; to offer practical suggestions and solutions, to voice
the strong assurance of better living, here, now, in our own hands to
make.

_What is it about?_ It is about people, principles, and the questions
of every-day life; the personal and public problems of to-day. It gives
a clear, consistent view of human life and how to live it.

_Is it a Woman's magazine?_ It will treat all three phases of our
existence--male, female and human. It will discuss Man, in his true
place in life; Woman, the Unknown Power; the Child, the most important
citizen.

_Is it a Socialist Magazine?_ It is a magazine for humanity, and
humanity is social. It holds that Socialism, the economic theory, is
part of our gradual Socialization, and that the duty of conscious
humanity is to promote Socialization.

_Why is it published?_ It is published to express ideas which need a
special medium; and in the belief that there are enough persons
interested in those ideas to justify the undertaking.

AS TO ADVERTISING:

We have long heard that "A pleased customer is the best advertiser."
The Forerunner offers to its advertisers and readers the benefit of this
authority. In its advertising department, under the above heading, will
be described articles personally known and used. So far as individual
experience and approval carry weight, and clear truthful description
command attention, the advertising pages of The Forerunner will be
useful to both dealer and buyer. If advertisers prefer to use their own
statements The Forerunner will publish them if it believes them to be
true.

AS TO CONTENTS:

The main feature of the first year is a new book on a new subject with a
new name:--

_"Our Androcentric Culture."_ this is a study of the historic effect on
normal human development of a too exclusively masculine civilization.
It shows what man, the male, has done to the world: and what woman, the
more human, may do to change it.

_"What Diantha Did."_ This is a serial novel. It shows the course of
true love running very crookedly--as it so often does--among the
obstructions and difficulties of the housekeeping problem--and solves
that problem. (NOT by co-operation.)

Among the short articles will appear:

"Private Morality and Public Immorality."
"The Beauty Women Have Lost"
"Our Overworked Instincts."
"The Nun in the Kitchen."
"Genius: Domestic and Maternal."
"A Small God and a Large Goddess."
"Animals in Cities."
"How We Waste Three-Fourths Of Our Money."
"Prize Children"
"Kitchen-Mindedness"
"Parlor-Mindedness"
"Nursery-Mindedness"

There will be short stories and other entertaining matter in each issue.
The department of "Personal Problems" does not discuss etiquette,
fashions or the removal of freckles. Foolish questions will not be
answered, unless at peril of the asker.

AS TO VALUE:

If you take this magazine one year you will have:

One complete novel . . . By C. P. Gilman
One new book . . . By C. P. Gilman
Twelve short stories . . . By C. P. Gilman
Twelve-and-more short articles . . . By C. P. Gilman
Twelve-and-more new poems . . . By C. P. Gilman
Twelve Short Sermons . . . By C. P. Gilman
Besides "Comment and Review" . . . By C. P. Gilman
"Personal Problems" . . . By C. P. Gilman
And many other things . . . By C. P. Gilman

DON'T YOU THINK IT'S WORTH A DOLLAR?

THE FORERUNNER
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN'S MAGAZINE
CHARLTON CO., 67 WALL ST., NEW YORK

_____ 19__

Please find enclosed $_____ as subscription to "The Forerunner" from
_____ 19___ to _____ 19___

__________

__________

__________

[Advertisement]

TO RENT

A Summer Cottage
on Lake Champlain
Near the Adirondacks