The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909 1910)

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

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"Get out of--what?" she faltered.

"Why, the whole abominable business you're so deep in here. Thank God,
there's no shadow of need for it any more!"

The girl's face went white, but he could not see it. She would not
believe him.

"Why, dear," she said, "if your ranch is as near as that it would be
perfectly easy for me to come in to the business--with a car. I can
afford a car soon."

"But I tell you there's no need any more," said he. "Don't you
understand? This is a paying fruit ranch, with land rented to
advantage, and a competent manager right there running it. It's simply
changed owners. I'm the owner now! There's two or three thousand a
year to be made on it--has been made on it! There is a home for my
people--a home for us! Oh, my beloved girl! My darling! My own
sweetheart! Surely you won't refuse me now!"

Diantha's head swam dizzily.

"Ross," she urged, "you don't understand! I've built up a good business
here--a real successful business. Mother is in it; father's to come
down; there is a big patronage; it grows. I can't give it up!"

"Not for me? Not when I can offer you a home at last? Not when I show
you that there is no longer any need of your earning money?" he said
hotly.

"But, dear--dear!" she protested. "It isn't for the money; it is the
work I want to do--it is my work! You are so happy now that you can do
your work--at last! This is mine!"

When he spoke again his voice was low and stern.

"Do you mean that you love--your work--better than you love me?"

"No! It isn't that! That's not fair!" cried the girl. "Do you love
your work better than you love me? Of course not! You love both. So
do I. Can't you see? Why should I have to give up anything?"

"You do not have to," he said patiently. "I cannot compel you to marry
me. But now, when at last--after these awful years--I can really offer
you a home--you refuse!"

"I have not refused," she said slowly.

His voice lightened again.

"Ah, dearest! And you will not! You will marry me?"

"I will marry you, Ross!"

"And when? When, dearest?"

"As soon as you are ready."

"But--can you drop this at once?"

"I shall not drop it."

Her voice was low, very low, but clear and steady.

He rose to his feet with a muffled exclamation, and walked the length of
the piazza and back.

"Do you realize that you are saying no to me, Diantha?"

"You are mistaken, dear. I have said that I will marry you whenever you
choose. But it is you who are saying, 'I will not marry a woman with a
business.'"

"This is foolishness!" he said sharply. "No man--that is a man--would
marry a woman and let her run a business."

"You are mistaken," she answered. "One of the finest men I ever knew
has asked me to marry him--and keep on with my work!"

"Why didn't you take him up?"

"Because I didn't love him." She stopped, a sob in her voice, and he
caught her in his arms again.

It was late indeed when he went away, walking swiftly, with a black
rebellion in his heart; and Diantha dragged herself to bed.

She was stunned, deadened, exhausted; torn with a desire to run after
him and give up--give up anything to hold his love. But something,
partly reason and partly pride, kept saying within her: "I have not
refused him; he has refused me!"

OUR ANDROCENTRIC CULTURE; or, THE MAN-MADE WORLD

XII.

POLITICS AND WARFARE.

I go to my old dictionary, and find; "Politics, I. The science of
government; that part of ethics which has to do with the regulation and
government of a nation or state, the preservation of its safety, peace
and prosperity; the defence of its existence and rights against foreign
control or conquest; the augmentation of its strength and resources, and
the protection of its citizens in their rights; with the preservation
and improvement of their morals. 2. The management of political
parties; the advancement of candidates to office; in a bad sense, artful
or dishonest management to secure the success of political measures or
party schemes, political trickery."

From present day experience we might add, 3. Politics, practical; The
art of organizing and handling men in large numbers, manipulating votes,
and, in especial, appropriating public wealth.

We can easily see that the "science of government" may be divided into
"pure" and "applied" like other sciences, but that it is "a part of
ethics" will be news to many minds.

Yet why not? Ethics is the science of conduct, and politics is merely
one field of conduct; a very common one. Its connection with Warfare in
this chapter is perfectly legitimate in view of the history of politics
on the one hand, and the imperative modern issues which are to-day
opposed to this established combination.

There are many to-day who hold that politics need not be at all
connected with warfare, and others who hold that politics is warfare
front start to finish.

In order to dissociate the two ideas completely let us give a paraphrase
of the above definition, applying it to domestic management;--that part
of ethics which has to do with the regulation and government of a
family; the preservation of its safety, peace and prosperity; the
defense of its existence and rights against any strangers' interference
or control; the augmentation of its strength and resources, and the
protection of its members in their rights; with the preservation and
improvement of their morals.

All this is simple enough, and in no way masculine; neither is it
feminine, save in this; that the tendency to care for, defend and manage
a group, is in its origin maternal.

In every human sense, however, politics has left its maternal base far
in the background; and as a field of study and of action is as well
adapted to men as to women. There is no reason whatever why men should
not develop great ability in this department of ethics, and gradually
learn how to preserve the safety, peace and prosperity of their nation;
together with those other services as to resources, protection of
citizens, and improvement of morals.

Men, as human beings, are capable of the noblest devotion and efficiency
in these matters, and have often shown them; but their devotion and
efficiency have been marred in this, as in so many other fields, by the
constant obtrusion of an ultra-masculine tendency.

In warfare, _per se_, we find maleness in its absurdest extremes. Here
is to be studied the whole gamut of basic masculinity, from the initial
instinct of combat, through every form of glorious ostentation, with the
loudest possible accompaniment of noise.

Primitive warfare had for its climax the possession of the primitive
prize, the female. Without dogmatising on so remote a period, it may be
suggested as a fair hypothesis that this was the very origin of our
organized raids. We certainly find war before there was property in
land, or any other property to tempt aggressors. Women, however, there
were always, and when a specially androcentric tribe had reduced its
supply of women by cruel treatment, or they were not born in sufficient
numbers, owing to hard conditions, men must needs go farther afield
after other women. Then, since the men of the other tribes naturally
objected to losing their main labor supply and comfort, there was war.

Thus based on the sex impulse, it gave full range to the combative
instinct, and further to that thirst for vocal exultation so exquisitely
male. The proud bellowings of the conquering stag, as he trampled on
his prostrate rival, found higher expression in the "triumphs" of old
days, when the conquering warrior returned to his home, with victims
chained to his chariot wheels, and braying trumpets.

When property became an appreciable factor in life, warfare took on a
new significance. What was at first mere destruction, in the effort to
defend or obtain some hunting ground or pasture; and, always, to secure
the female; now coalesced with the acquisitive instinct, and the long
black ages of predatory warfare closed in upon the world.

Where the earliest form exterminated, the later enslaved, and took
tribute; and for century upon century the "gentleman adventurer," i.e.,
the primitive male, greatly preferred to acquire wealth by the simple
old process of taking it, to any form of productive industry.

We have been much misled as to warfare by our androcentric literature.
With a history which recorded nothing else; a literature which praised
and an art which exalted it; a religion which called its central power
"the God of Battles"--never the God of Workshops, mind you!--with a
whole complex social structure man-prejudiced from center to
circumference, and giving highest praise and honor to the Soldier; it is
still hard for its to see what warfare really is in human life.

Someday we shall have new histories written, histories of world
progress, showing the slow uprising, the development, the interservice
of the nations; showing the faint beautiful dawn of the larger spirit of
world-consciousness, and all its benefitting growth.

We shall see people softening, learning, rising; see life lengthen with
the possession of herds, and widen in rich prosperity with agriculture.
Then industry, blossoming, fruiting, spreading wide; art, giving light
and joy; the intellect developing with companionship and human
intercourse; the whole spreading tree of social progress, the trunk of
which is specialized industry, and the branches of which comprise every
least and greatest line of human activity and enjoyment. This growing
tree, springing up wherever conditions of peace and prosperity gave it a
chance, we shall see continually hewed down to the very root by war.

To the later historian will appear throughout the ages, like some
Hideous Fate, some Curse, some predetermined check, to drag down all our
hope and joy and set life forever at its first steps over again, this
Red Plague of War.

The instinct of combat, between males, worked advantageously so long as
it did not injure the female or the young. It is a perfectly natural
instinct, and therefore perfectly right, in its place; but its place is
in a pre-patriarchal era. So long as the animal mother was free and
competent to care for herself and her young; then it was an advantage to
have "the best man win;" that is the best stag or lion; and to have the
vanquished die, or live in sulky celibacy, was no disadvantage to any
one but himself.

Humanity is on a stage above this plan. The best man in the social
structure is not always the huskiest. When a fresh horde of ultra-male
savages swarmed down upon a prosperous young civilization, killed off
the more civilized males and appropriated the more civilized females;
they did, no doubt, bring in a fresh physical impetus to the race; but
they destroyed the civilization.

The reproduction of perfectly good savages is not the main business of
humanity. Its business is to grow, socially; to develop, to improve;
and warfare, at its best, retards human progress; at its worst,
obliterates it.

Combat is not a social process at all; it is a physical process, a
subsidiary sex process, purely masculine, intended to improve the
species by the elimination of the unfit. Amusingly enough, or absurdly
enough; when applied to society, it eliminates the fit, and leaves the
unfit to perpetuate the race!

We require, to do our organized fighting, a picked lot of vigorous young
males, the fittest we can find. The too old or too young; the sick,
crippled, defective; are all left behind, to marry and be fathers; while
the pick of the country, physically, is sent off to oppose the pick of
another country, and kill--kill--kill!

Observe the result on the population! In the first place the balance is
broken--there are not enough men to go around, at home; many women are
left unmated. In primitive warfare, where women were promptly enslaved,
or, at the best, polygamously married, this did not greatly matter to
the population; but as civilization advances and monogamy obtains,
whatever eugenic benefits may once have sprung from warfare are
completely lost, and all its injuries remain.

In what we innocently call "civilized warfare" (we might as well speak
of "civilized cannibalism!"), this steady elimination of the fit leaves
an everlowering standard of parentage at home. It makes a widening
margin of what we call "surplus women," meaning more than enough to be
monogamously married; and these women, not being economically
independent, drag steadily upon the remaining men, postponing marriage,
and increasing its burdens.

The birth rate is lowered in quantity by the lack of husbands, and
lowered in quality both by the destruction of superior stock, and by the
wide dissemination of those diseases which invariably accompany the
wife-lessness of the segregated males who are told off to perform our
military functions.

The external horrors and wastes of warfare we are all familiar with; A.
It arrests industry and all progress. B. It destroys the fruits of
industry and progress. C. It weakens, hurts and kills the combatants.
D. It lowers the standard of the non-combatants. Even the conquering
nation is heavily injured; the conquered sometimes exterminated, or at
least absorbed by the victor.

This masculine selective process, when applied to nations, does not
produce the same result as when applied to single opposing animals.
When little Greece was overcome it did not prove that the victors were
superior, nor promote human interests in any way; it injured them.

The "stern arbitrament of war" may prove which of two peoples is the
better fighter, but ft does not prove it therefor the fittest to
survive.

Beyond all these more or less obvious evils, comes a further result, not
enough recognized; the psychic effects of military standard of thought
and feeling.

Remember that an androcentric culture has always exempted its own
essential activities from the restraints of ethics,--"All's fair in love
and war!" Deceit, trickery, lying, every kind of skulking underhand
effort to get information; ceaseless endeavor to outwit and overcome
"the enemy"; besides as cruelty and destruction; are characteristic of
the military process; as well as the much praised virtues of courage,
endurance and loyalty, personal and public.

Also classed as a virtue, and unquestionably such from the military
point of view, is that prime factor in making and keeping an army,
obedience.

See how the effect of this artificial maintenance of early mental
attitudes acts on our later development. True human progress requires
elements quite other than these. If successful warfare made one nation
unquestioned master of the earth its social progress would not be
promoted by that event. The rude hordes of Genghis Khan swarmed over
Asia and into Europe, but remained rude hordes; conquest is not
civilization, nor any part of it.

When the northern tribes-men overwhelmed the Roman culture they
paralysed progress for a thousand years or so; set back the clock by
that much. So long as all Europe was at war, so long the arts and
sciences sat still, or struggled in hid corners to keep their light
alive.

When warfare itself ceases, the physical, social and psychic results do
not cease. Our whole culture is still hag-ridden by military ideals.

Peace congresses have begun to meet, peace societies write and talk, but
the monuments to soldiers and sailors (naval sailors of course), still
go up, and the tin soldier remains a popular toy. We do not see boxes
of tin carpenters by any chance; tin farmers, weavers, shoemakers; we do
not write our "boys books" about the real benefactors and servers of
society; the adventurer and destroyer remains the idol of an
Androcentric Culture.

In politics the military ideal, the military processes, are so
predominant as to almost monopolise "that part of ethics." The science
of government, the plain wholesome business of managing a community for
its own good; doing its work, advancing its prosperity, improving its
morals--this is frankly understood and accepted as A Fight from start to
finish. Marshall your forces and try to get in, this is the political
campaign. When you are in, fight to stay in, and to keep the other
fellow out. Fight for your own hand, like an animal; fight for your
master like any hired bravo; fight always for some desired
"victory"--and "to the victors belong the spoils."

This is not by any means the true nature of politics. It is not even a
fair picture of politics to-day; in which man, the human being, is doing
noble work for humanity; but it is the effect of man, the male, on
politics.

Life, to the "male mind" (we have heard enough of the "female mind" to
use the analogue!) _is_ a fight, and his ancient military institutions
and processes keep up the delusion.

As a matter of fact life is growth. Growth comes naturally, by
multiplication of cells, and requires three factors to promote it;
nourishment, use, rest. Combat is a minor incident of life; belonging
to low levels, and not of a developing influence socially.

The science of politics, in a civilized community, should have by this
time a fine accumulation of simplified knowledge for diffusion in public
schools; a store of practical experience in how to promote social
advancement most rapidly, a progressive economy and ease of
administration, a simplicity in theory and visible benefit in practice,
such as should make every child an eager and serviceable citizen.

What do we find, here in America, in the field of "politics?"

We find first a party system which is the technical arrangement to carry
on a fight. It is perfectly conceivable that a flourishing democratic
government be carried on _without any parties at all;_ public
functionaries being elected on their merits, and each proposed measure
judged on its merits; though this sounds impossible to the androcentric
mind.

"There has never been a democracy without factions and parties!" is
protested.

There has never been a democracy, so far--only an androcracy.

A group composed of males alone, naturally divides, opposes, fights;
even a male church, under the most rigid rule, has its secret
undercurrents of antagonism.

"It is the human heart!" is again protested. No, not essentially the
human heart, but the male heart. This is so well recognized by men in
general, that, to their minds, in this mingled field of politics and
warfare, women have no place.

In "civilized warfare" they are, it is true, allowed to trail along and
practice their feminine function of nursing; but this is no part of war
proper, it is rather the beginning of the end of war. Some time it will
strike our "funny spot," these strenuous efforts to hurt and destroy,
and these accompanying efforts to heal and save.

But in our politics there is not even provision for a nursing corps;
women are absolutely excluded.

"They cannot play the game!" cries the practical politician. There is
loud talk of the defilement, the "dirty pool" and its resultant
darkening of fair reputations, the total unfitness of lovely woman to
take part in "the rough and tumble of politics."

In other words men have made a human institution into an ultra-masculine
performance; and, quite rightly, feel that women could not take part in
politics _as men do._ That it is not necessary to fulfill this human
custom in so masculine a way does not occur to them. Few men can
overlook the limitations of their sex and see the truth; that this
business of taking care of our common affairs is not only equally open
to women and men, but that women are distinctly needed in it.

Anyone will admit that a government wholly in the hands of women would
be helped by the assistance of men; that a gynaecocracy must, of its own
nature, be one sided. Yet it is hard to win reluctant admission of the
opposite fact; that an androcracy must of its own nature be one sided
also, and would be greatly improved by the participation of the other
sex.

The inextricable confusion of politics and warfare is part of the
stumbling block in the minds of men. As they see it, a nation is
primarily a fighting organization; and its principal business is
offensive and defensive warfare; therefore the ultimatum with which they
oppose the demand for political equality--"women cannot fight, therefore
they cannot vote."

Fighting, when all is said, is to them the real business of life; not to
be able to fight is to be quite out of the running; and ability to solve
our growing mass of public problems; questions of health, of education,
of morals, of economics; weighs naught against the ability to kill.

This naive assumption of supreme value in a process never of the first
importance; and increasingly injurious as society progresses, would be
laughable if it were not for its evil effects. It acts and reacts upon
us to our hurt. Positively, we see the ill effects already touched on;
the evils not only of active war; but of the spirit and methods of war;
idealized, inculcated and practiced in other social processes. It tends
to make each man-managed nation an actual or potential fighting
organization, and to give us, instead of civilized peace, that "balance
of power" which is like the counted time in the prize ring--only a rest
between combats.

It leaves the weaker nations to be "conquered" and "annexed" just as
they used to be; with tariffs instead of tribute. It forces upon each
the burden of armament; upon many the dreaded conscription; and
continually lowers the world's resources in money and in life.

Similarly in politics, it adds to the legitimate expenses of governing
the illegitimate expenses of fighting; and must needs have a "spoils
system" by which to pay its mercenaries.

In carrying out the public policies the wheels of state are continually
clogged by the "opposition;" always an opposition on one side or the
other; and this slow wiggling uneven progress, through shorn victories
and haggling concessions, is held to be the proper and only political
method.

"Women do not understand politics," we are told; "Women do not care for
politics;" "Women are unfitted for politics."

It is frankly inconceivable, from the androcentric view-point, that
nations can live in peace together, and be friendly and serviceable as
persons are. It is inconceivable also, that in the management of a
nation, honesty, efficiency, wisdom, experience and love could work out
good results without any element of combat.

The "ultimate resort" is still to arms. "The will of the majority" is
only respected on account of the guns o£ the majority. We have but a
partial civilization, heavily modified to sex--the male sex.

THE SOCIALIST AND THE SUFFRAGIST

Said the Socialist to the Suffragist:
"My cause is greater than yours!
You only work for a Special Class,
We for the gain of the General Mass,
Which every good ensures!"

Said the Suffragist to the Socialist:
"You Underrate my Cause!
While women remain a Subject Class,
You never can move the General Mass,
With your Economic Laws!"

Said the Socialist to the Suffragist:
"You misinterpret facts!
There is no room for doubt or schism
In Economic Determinism--
It governs all our acts!"

Said the Suffragist to the Socialist:
"You men will always find
That this old world will never move
More swiftly in its ancient groove
While women stay behind!"

"A lifted world lifts women up,"
The Socialist explained.
"You cannot lift the world at all
While half of it is kept so small,"
The Suffragist maintained.

*

The world awoke, and tartly spoke:
"Your work is all the same;
Work together or work apart,
Work, each of you, with all your heart--
Just get into the game!"

COMMENT AND REVIEW

[We mean to carry lists of books useful to our readers. We wish to
prove that it will pay publishers to advertise with us. If you order
any book reviewed here, please send your order to THE FORERUNNER]

There is a book which ought to be held in continual prominence by every
magazine in the world that appeals particularly to women. It contains a
scientific theory of more importance to the world than any put forth
since the theory of evolution, and of more importance to women than any
ever produced.

It is new, original, wildly startling, intensely significant, and, in
the world of ideas, revolutionary in the highest degree.

When this theory is generally accepted, and when the world's ideas have
been rearranged in accordance with it, we shall find ourselves looking
at a new life--with new eyes.

All our social questions will require new reading, and will find new
answers.

It furnishes a key to the whole "woman question," which unlocks every
long-barred door and ironbound chest; it cuts the ground from under the
feet of the most ancient prejudice, and makes tradition seem but a
current rumor of to-day.

This book was published in 1893.

When I read it I was so impressed with its colossal possibility that I
went to the publishers and asked to see the reviews--expecting to find
some recognition of a world-lifting truth.