The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909 1910)

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

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She had been studying, investigating, had become known in scientific as
well as social circles, and on her way back the strenuous upper layer of
New York Society had also made much of her. Rumors grew of her
exquisite costumes, of her unusual jewels, of her unique entertainments,
of her popularity everywhere she went.

Other proposals, of a magnificent nature, were reported, with more
magnificent refusals; and Orchardina began to be very proud of young
Mrs. Weatherstone and to wish she would come back.

She did at last, bringing an Italian Prince with her, and a Hoch
Geborene German Count also, who alleged they were travelling to study
the country, but who were reputed to have had a duel already on the
beautiful widow's account.

All this was long-drawn gossip but bore some faint resemblance to the
facts. Viva Weatherstone at thirty was a very different woman front the
pale, sad-eyed girl of four years earlier. And when the great house on
the avenue was arrayed in new magnificence, and all Orchardina--that
dared--had paid its respects to her, she opened the season, as it were,
with a brilliant dinner, followed by a reception and ball.

All Orchardina came--so far as it had been invited. There was the
Prince, sure enough--a pleasant, blue-eyed young man. And there was the
Count, bearing visible evidence of duels a-plenty in earlier days. And
there was Diantha Bell--receiving, with Mrs. Porne and Mrs.
Weatherstone. All Orchardina stared. Diantha had been at the
dinner--that was clear. And now she stood there in her soft, dark
evening dress, the knot of golden acacias nestling against the black
lace at her bosom, looking as fair and sweet as if she had never had a
care in her life.

Her mother thought her the most beautiful thing she had ever seen; and
her father, though somewhat critical, secretly thought so, too.

Mrs. Weatherstone cast many a loving look at the tall girl beside her in
the intervals of "Delighted to see you's," and saw that her double
burden had had no worse effect than to soften the lines of the mouth and
give a hint of pathos to the clear depths of her eyes.

The foreign visitors were much interested in the young Amazon of
Industry, as the Prince insisted on calling her; and even the German
Count for a moment forgot his ancestors in her pleasant practical talk.

Mrs. Weatherstone had taken pains to call upon the Wardens--claiming a
connection, if not a relationship, and to invite them all. And as the
crowd grew bigger and bigger, Diantha saw Mrs. Warden at last
approaching with her four daughters--and no one else. She greeted them
politely and warmly; but Mrs. Weatherstone did more.

Holding them all in a little group beside her, she introduced her noble
visitors to them; imparted the further information that their brother
was _fiance_ to Miss Bell. "I don't see him," she said, looking about.
"He will come later, of course. Ah, Miss Madeline! How proud you all
must feel of your sister-in-law to be!"

Madeline blushed and tried to say she was.

"Such a remarkable young lady!" said the Count to Adeline. "You will
admire, envy, and imitate! Is it not so?"

"Your ladies of America have all things in your hands," said the Prince
to Miss Cora. "To think that she has done so much, and is yet so
young--and so beautiful!"

"I know you're all as proud as you can be," Mrs. Weatherstone continued
to Dora. "You see, Diantha has been heard of abroad."

They all passed on presently, as others came; but Mrs. Warden's head was
reeling. She wished she could by any means get at Ross, and _make_ him
come, which he had refused to do.

"I can't, mother," he had said. "You go--all of you. Take the girls.
I'll call for you at twelve--but I won't go in."

Mr. and Mrs. Thaddler were there--but not happy. She was not, at least,
and showed it; he was not until an idea struck him. He dodged softly
out, and was soon flying off, at dangerous speed over the moon-white
country roads.

He found Ross, dressed and ready, sulking blackly on his shadowy porch.

"Come and take a spin while you wait," said Mr. Thaddler.

"Thanks, I have to go in town later."

"I'll take you in town."

"Thank you, but I have to take the horses in and bring out my mother and
the girls."

"I'll bring you all out in the car. Come on--it's a great night."

So Ross rather reluctantly came.

He sat back on the luxurious cushions, his arms folded sternly, his
brows knit, and the stout gentleman at his side watched him shrewdly.

"How does the ranch go?" he asked.

"Very well, thank you, Mr. Thaddler."

"Them Chinks pay up promptly?"

"As prompt as the month comes round. Their rent is a very valuable part
of the estate."

"Yes," Mr. Thaddler pursued. "They have a good steady market for their
stuff. And the chicken man, too. Do you know who buys 'em?"

Ross did not. Did not greatly care, he intimated.

"I should think you'd be interested--you ought to--it's Diantha Bell."

Ross started, but said nothing.

"You see, I've taken a great interest in her proposition ever since she
sprung it on us," Mr. Thaddler confided. "She's got the goods all
right. But there was plenty against her here--you know what women are!
And I made up my mind the supplies should be good and steady, anyhow.
She had no trouble with her grocery orders; that was easy. Meat I
couldn't handle--except indirectly--a little pressure, maybe, here and
there." And he chuckled softly. "But this ranch I bought on purpose."

Ross turned as if he had been stung.

"You!" he said.

"Yes, me. Why not? It's a good property. I got it all fixed right,
and then I bought your little upstate shop--lock, stock and barrel--and
gave you this for it. A fair exchange is no robbery. Though it would
be nice to have it all in the family, eh?"

Ross was silent for a few turbulent moments, revolving this far from
pleasing information.

"What'd I do it for?" continued the unasked benefactor. "What do you
_think_ I did it for? So that brave, sweet little girl down here could
have her heart's desire. She's established her business--she's proved
her point--she's won the town--most of it; and there's nothing on earth
to make her unhappy now but your pigheadedness! Young man, I tell you
you're a plumb fool!"

One cannot throw one's host out of his own swift-flying car; nor is it
wise to jump out one's self.

"Nothing on earth between you but your cussed pride!" Mr. Thaddler
remorselessly went on. "This ranch is honestly yours--by a square deal.
Your Jopalez business was worth the money--you ran it honestly and
extended the trade. You'd have made a heap by it if you could have
unbent a little. Gosh! I limbered up that store some in twelve
months!" And the stout man smiled reminiscently.

Ross was still silent.

"And now you've got what you wanted--thanks to her, mind you, thanks to
her!--and you ain't willing to let her have what she wants!"

The young man moistened his lips to speak.

"You ain't dependent on her in any sense--I don't mean that. You earned
the place all right, and I don't doubt you'll make good, both in a
business way and a scientific way, young man. But why in Hades you
can't let her be happy, too, is more'n I can figure! Guess you get your
notions from two generations back--and some!"

Ross began, stumblingly. "I did not know I was indebted to you, Mr.
Thaddler."

"You're not, young man, you're not! I ran that shop of yours a
year--built up the business and sold it for more than I paid for this.
So you've no room for heroics--none at all. What I want you to realize
is that you're breaking the heart of the finest woman I ever saw. You
can't bend that girl--she'll never give up. A woman like that has got
more things to do than just marry! But she's pining for you all the
same.

"Here she is to-night, receiving with Mrs. Weatherstone--with those
Bannerets, Dukes and Earls around her--standing up there like a Princess
herself--and her eyes on the door all the time--and tears in 'em, I
could swear--because you don't come!"

*

They drew up with a fine curve before the carriage gate.

"I'll take 'em all home--they won't be ready for some time yet," said
Mr. Thaddler. "And if you two would like this car I'll send for the
other one."

Ross shook hands with him. "You are very kind, Mr. Thaddler," he said.
"I am obliged to you. But I think we will walk."

Tall and impressive, looking more distinguished in a six-year-old
evening suit than even the Hoch Geborene in his uniform, he came at
last, and Diantha saw him the moment he entered; saw, too, a new light
in his eyes.

He went straight to her. And Mrs. Weatherstone did not lay it up
against him that he had but the briefest of words for his hostess.

"Will you come?" he said. "May I take you home--now?"

She went with him, without a word, and they walked slowly home, by far
outlying paths, and long waits on rose-bowered seats they knew.

The moon filled all the world with tender light and the orange blossoms
flooded the still air with sweetness.

"Dear," said he, "I have been a proud fool--I am yet--but I have come to
see a little clearer. I do not approve of your work--I cannot approve
of it--but will you forgive me for that and marry me? I cannot live any
longer without you?"

"Of course I will," said Diantha.

(To be continued)

THE GOOD MAN

A certain Good Man possessed many Virtues of character by right of
inheritance, so that my Critical Friend remarked, "It is easy for him to
be good."

Now the Good Man was by no means satisfied with his inherited virtues,
and with Ceaseless Diligence and Long Effort he strove to acquire more,
and in due season acquired them, abundantly, so that even my Critical
Friend allowed these virtues were of some credit to him.

Nevertheless, being critical, he criticized the Good Man, to my grief
and amazement.

"How can you criticize this Great White Soul?" I cried. "He has never
committed a crime."

"Neither have you or I," interrupted my Critical Friend.

"He has never sinned," I continued, "he has not a single vice, he has
not even a fault! And as to his Virtues!"

"What are his Virtues?" asked my Critical Friend.

Then I considered the Virtues of that Great Man and was lost in
admiration and amazement. "He is unimpeachably Honest, Trustworthy and
True," said I. "He is Humble and Modest even in his Superiority, and
has Hope of Improvement; he is Brave in meeting adversity and Patient in
bearing it. He is Chaste and Temperate, he is Generous and Unselfish
and Self-sacrificing, he is Persevering and Diligent, Faithful and
Enduring. He is _good_."

"Yes?" said my Critical Friend. "What good is he?"

"_What_ good?" said I.

"Yes, what good? What does he _do?_"

"What do you mean?" I asked. "His business?"

"Of course. What's his business? What does he do in the world?"

"He's a business man," said I, "and a very good business man, if that is
what you mean."

My Critical friend grinned unfeelingly. "What use is he?" he asked.
"Whom does he serve? Of what use to humanity is his work? In what may
the human race be benefited by his business? What will the world lose
when he is gone?"

"They will lose a Good Man," said I, a little angrily.

And my Critical Friend subsided, merely grunting once more, in that
tiresome way of his, "_What_ good?"

OUR ANDROCENTRIC CULTURE; OR, THE MAN-MADE WORLD

XIII.

INDUSTRY AND ECONOMICS.

The forest of Truth, on the subject of industry and economics, is
difficult to see on account of the trees.

We have so many Facts on this subject; so many Opinions; so many
Traditions and Habits; and the pressure of Immediate Conclusions is so
intense upon us all; that it is not easy to form a clear space in one's
mind and consider the field fairly.

Possibly the present treatment of the subject will appeal most to the
minds of those who know least about it; such as the Average Woman. To
her, Industry is a daylong and lifelong duty, as well as a natural
impulse; and economics means going without things. To such untrained
but also unprejudiced minds it should be easy to show the main facts on
these lines.

Let us dispose of Economics first, as having a solemn scientific
appearance.

Physical Economics treats of the internal affairs of the body; the whole
machinery and how it works; all organs, members, functions; each last
and littlest capillary and leucocyte, are parts of that "economy."

Nature's "economy" is not in the least "economical." The waste of life,
the waste of material, the waste of time and effort, are prodigious, yet
she achieves her end as we see.

Domestic Economics covers the whole care and government of the
household; the maintenance of peace, health, order, and morality; the
care and nourishment of children as far as done at home; the entire
management of the home, as well as the spending and saving of money; are
included in it. Saving is the least and poorest part of it; especially
as in mere abstinence from needed things; most especially when this
abstinence is mainly "Mother's." How best to spend; time, strength,
love, care, labor, knowledge, and money--this should be the main study
in Domestic Economics.

Social, or, as they are used to call it, Political Economics, covers a
larger, but not essentially different field. A family consists of
people, and the Mother is their natural manager. Society consists of
people--_the same people_--only more of them. All the people, who are
members of Society, are also members of families--except some incubated
orphans maybe. Social Economics covers the whole care and management of
the people, the maintenance of peace and health and order and morality;
the care of children, as far as done out of the home; as well as the
spending and saving of the public money--all these are included in it.

This great business of Social Economics is at present little understood
and most poorly managed, for this reason; we approach it from an
individual point of view; seeking not so much to do our share in the
common service, as to get our personal profit from the common wealth.
Where the whole family labors together to harvest fruit and store it for
the winter, we have legitimate Domestic Economics: but where one member
takes and hides a lot for himself, to the exclusion of the others, we
have no Domestic Economics at all--merely individual selfishness.

In Social Economics we have a large, but simple problem. Here is the
earth, our farm. Here are the people, who own the earth. How can the
most advantage to the most people be obtained from the earth with the
least labor? That is the problem of Social Economics.

Looking at the world as if you held it in your hands to study and
discuss, what do we find at present?

We find people living too thickly for health and comfort in some places,
and too thinly for others; we find most people working too hard and too
long at honest labor; some people working with damaging intensity at
dishonest labor; and a few wretched paupers among the rich and poor,
degenerate idlers who do not work at all, the scum and the dregs of
Society.

All this is bad economics. We do not get the comfort out of life we
easily could; and work far too hard for what we do get. Moreover, there
is no peace, no settled security. No man is sure of his living, no
matter how hard he works, a thousand things may occur to deprive him of
his job, or his income. In our time there is great excitement along
this line of study; and more than one proposition is advanced whereby we
may improve, most notably instanced in the world-covering advance of
Socialism.

In our present study the principal fact to be exhibited is the influence
of a male culture upon Social Economics and Industry.

Industry, as a department of Social Economics, is little understood.
Heretofore we have viewed this field from several wholly erroneous
positions. From the Hebrew (and wholly androcentric) religious
teaching, we have regarded labor as a curse.

Nothing could be more absurdly false. Labor is not merely a means of
supporting human life--it _is_ human life. Imagine a race of beings
living without labor! They must be the rudest savages.

Human work consists in specialized industry and the exchange of its
products; and without it is no civilization. As industry develops,
civilization develops; peace expands; wealth increases; science and art
help on the splendid total. Productive industry, and its concomitant of
distributive industry cover the major field of human life.

If our industry was normal, what should we see?

A world full of healthy, happy people; each busily engaged in what he or
she most enjoys doing. Normal Specialization, like all our voluntary
processes, is accompanied by keen pleasure; and any check or
interruption to it gives pain and injury. Whosoever works at what he
loves is well and happy. Whoso works at what he does not love is ill
and miserable. It is very bad economics to force unwilling industry.
That is the weakness of slave labor; and of wage labor also where there
is not full industrial education and freedom of choice.

Under normal conditions we should see well developed, well trained
specialists happily engaged in the work they most enjoyed; for
reasonable hours (any work, or play either, becomes injurious if done
too long); and as a consequence the whole output of the world would be
vastly improved, not only in quantity but in quality.

Plain are the melancholy facts of what we do see. Following that
pitiful conception of labor as a curse, comes the very old and
androcentric habit of despising it as belonging to women, and then to
slaves.

As a matter of fact industry is in its origin feminine; that is,
maternal. It is the overflowing fountain of mother-love and
mother-power which first prompts the human race to labor; and for long
ages men performed no productive industry at all; being merely hunters
and fighters.

It is this lack of natural instinct for labor in the male of our
species, together with the ideas and opinions based on that lack, and
voiced by him in his many writings, religious and other, which have
given to the world its false estimate of this great function, human
work. That which is our very life, our greatest joy, our road to all
advancement, we have scorned and oppressed; so that "working people,"
the "working classes," "having to work," etc., are to this day spoken of
with contempt. Perhaps drones speak so among themselves of the "working
bees!"

Normally, widening out from the mother's careful and generous service in
the family, to careful, generous service in the world, we should find
labor freely given, with love and pride.

Abnormally, crushed under the burden of androcentric scorn and
prejudice, we have labor grudgingly produced under pressure of
necessity; labor of slaves under fear of the whip, or of wage-slaves,
one step higher, under fear of want. Long ages wherein hunting and
fighting were the only manly occupations, have left their heavy impress.
The predacious instinct and the combative instinct weigh down and
disfigure our economic development. What Veblen calls "the instinct of
workmanship" grows on, slowly and irresistably; but the malign features
of our industrial life are distinctively androcentric: the desire to
get, of the hunter; interfering with the desire to give, of the mother;
the desire to overcome an antagonist--originally masculine, interfering
with the desire to serve and benefit--originally feminine.

Let the reader keep in mind that as human beings, men are able to
over-live their masculine natures and do noble service to the world;
also that as human beings they are today far more highly developed than
women, and doing far more for the world. The point here brought out is
that as males their unchecked supremacy has resulted in the abnormal
predominance of masculine impulses in our human processes; and that this
predominance has been largely injurious.

As it happens, the distinctly feminine or maternal impulses are far more
nearly in line with human progress than are those of the male; which
makes her exclusion from human functions the more mischievous.

Our current teachings in the infant science of Political Economy are
naively masculine. They assume as unquestionable that "the economic
man" will never do anything unless he has to; will only do it to escape
pain or attain pleasure; and will, inevitably, take all he can get, and
do all he can to outwit, overcome, and if necessary destroy his
antagonist.

Always the antagonist; to the male mind an antagonist is essential to
progress, to all achievement. He has planted that root-thought in all
the human world; from that old hideous idea of Satan, "The Adversary,"
down to the competitor in business, or the boy at the head of the class,
to be superseded by another.

Therefore, even in science, "the struggle for existence" is the dominant
law--to the male mind, with the "survival of the fittest" and "the
elimination of the unfit."

Therefore in industry and economics we find always and everywhere the
antagonist; the necessity for somebody or something to be overcome--else
why make an effort? If you have not the incentive of reward, or the
incentive of combat, why work? "Competition is the life of trade."

Thus the Economic Man.

But how about the Economic Woman?

To the androcentric mind she does not exist. Women are females, and
that's all; their working abilities are limited to personal service.

That it would be possible to develop industry to far greater heights,
and to find in social economics a simple and beneficial process for the
promotion of human life and prosperity, under any other impulse than
these two, Desire and Combat, is hard indeed to recognize--for the "male
mind."

So absolutely interwoven are our existing concepts of maleness and
humanness, so sure are we that men are people and women only females,
that the claim of equal weight and dignity in human affairs of the
feminine instincts and methods is scouted as absurd. We find existing
industry almost wholly in male hands; find it done as men do it; assume
that that is the way it must be done.

When women suggest that it could be done differently, their proposal is
waved aside--they are "only women"--their ideas are "womanish."

Agreed. So are men "only men," their ideas are "mannish"; and of the
two the women are more vitally human than the men.

The female is the race-type--the man the variant.

The female, as a race-type, having the female processes besides; best
performs the race processes. The male, however, has with great
difficulty developed them, always heavily handicapped by his maleness;
being in origin essentially a creature of sex, and so dominated almost
exclusively by sex impulses.

The human instinct of mutual service is checked by the masculine
instinct of combat; the human tendency to specialize in labor, to
rejoicingly pour force in lines of specialized expression, is checked by
the predacious instinct, which will exert itself for reward; and
disfigured by the masculine instinct of self-expression, which is an
entirely different thing from the great human outpouring of world force.

Great men, the world's teachers and leaders, are great in humanness;
mere maleness does not make for greatness unless it be in warfare--a
disadvantageous glory! Great women also must be great in humanness; but
their female instincts are not so subversive of human progress as are
the instincts of the male. To be a teacher and leader, to love and
serve, to guard and guide and help, are well in line with motherhood.

"Are they not also in line with fatherhood?" will be asked; and, "Are
not the father's paternal instincts masculine?"

No, they are not; they differ in no way from the maternal, in so far as
they are beneficial. Parental functions of the higher sort, of the
human sort, are identical. The father can give his children many
advantages which the mother can not; but that is due to his superiority
as a human being. He possesses far more knowledge and power in the
world, the human world; he himself is more developed in human powers and
processes; and is therefore able to do much for his children which the
mother can not; but this is in no way due to his masculinity. It is in
this development of human powers in man, through fatherhood, that we may
read the explanation of our short period of androcentric culture.

So thorough and complete a reversal of previous relation, such
continuance of what appears in every way an unnatural position, must
have had some justification in racial advantages, or it could not have
endured. This is its justification; the establishment of humanness in
the male; he being led into it, along natural lines, by the exercise of
previously existing desires.

In a male culture the attracting forces must inevitably have been, we
have seen, Desire and Combat. These masculine forces, acting upon human
processes, while necessary to the uplifting of the man, have been
anything but uplifting to civilization. A sex which thinks, feels and
acts in terms of combat is difficult to harmonize in the smooth bonds of
human relationship; that they have succeeded so well is a beautiful
testimony to the superior power of race tendency over sex tendency.
Uniting and organizing, crudely and temporarily, for the common hunt;
and then, with progressive elaboration, for the common fight; they are
now using the same tactics--and the same desires, unfortunately--in
common work.