ON WOMEN ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER |
On Women One needs only to see the way she is built
to realize that woman is not intended for
great mental or for great physical labor.
She expiates the guilt of life not through
activity but through suffering, through the
pains of childbirth, caring for the child
and subjection to the man, to whom she should
be a patient and cheering companion. Great
suffering, joy, exertion, is not for her:
her life should flow by more quietly, trivially,
gently than the man's without being essentially
happier or unhappier. In the girl nature has had in view what could
in theatrical terms be called a stage-effect:
it has provided her with superabundant beauty
and charm for a few years at the expense
of the whole remainder of her life, so that
during these years she may so capture the
imagination of a man that he is carried away
into undertaking to support her honorably
in some form or another for the rest of her
life, a step he would seem hardly likely
to take for purely rational considerations.
Thus nature has equipped women, as it has
all its creatures, with the tools and weapons
she needs for securing her existence, and
at just the time she needs them; in doing
which nature has acted with its usual economy.
For just as the female ant loses its wings
after mating, since they are then superfluous,
indeed harmful to the business of raising
the family, so the woman usually loses her
beauty after one or two childbeds, and probably
for the same reason. The fundamental defect of the female character
is a lack of a sense of justice. This originates
first and foremost in their want of rationality
and capacity for reflexion but it is strengthened
by the fact that, as the weaker sex, they
are driven to rely not on force but on cunning:
hence their instinctive subtlety and their
ineradicable tendency to tell lies: for,
as nature has equipped the lion with claws
and teeth, the elephant with tusks, the wild
boar with fangs, the bull with horns and
the cuttlefish with ink, so it has equipped
woman with the power of dissimulation as
her means of attack and defence, and has
transformed into this gift all the strength
it has bestowed on man in the form of physical
strength and the power of reasoning. Dissimulation
is thus inborn in her and consequently to
be found in the stupid woman almost as often
as in the clever one. To make use of it at
every opportunity is as natural to her as
it is for an animal to employ its means of
defence whenever it is attacked, and when
she does so she feels that to some extent
she is only exercising her rights. A completely
truthful woman who does not practice dissimulation
is perhaps an impossibility, which is why
women see through the dissimulation of others
so easily it is inadvisable to attempt it
with them. - But this fundamental defect
which I have said they possess, together
with all that is associated with it, gives
rise to falsity, unfaithfulness, treachery,
ingratitude, etc. Women are guilty of perjury
far more often than men. It is questionable
whether they ought to be allowed to take
an oath at all. Only a male intellect clouded by the sexual
drive could call the stunted, narrow-shouldered,
broad-hipped and short-legged sex the fair
sex: for it is with this drive that all its
beauty is bound up. More fittingly than the
fair sex, women could be called the unaesthetic
sex. Neither for music, nor poetry, nor the
plastic arts do they possess any real feeling
or receptivity: if they affect to do so,
it is merely mimicry in service of their
effort to please. This comes from the fact
that they are incapable of taking a purely
objective interest in anything whatever,
and the reason for this is, I think, as follows.
Man strives in everything for a direct domination
over things, either by comprehending or by
subduing them. But woman is everywhere and
always relegated to a merely indirect domination,
which is achieved by means of man, who is
consequently the only thing she has to dominate
directly. Thus it lies in the nature of women
to regard everything simply as a means of
capturing a man, and their interest in anything
else is only simulated, is no more than a
detour, i. e. amounts to coquetry and mimicry. Nor can one expect anything else from women
if one considers that the most eminent heads
of the entire sex have proved incapable of
a single truly great, genuine and original
achievement in art, or indeed of creating
anything at all of lasting value: this strikes
one most forcibly in regard to painting,
since they are just as capable of mastering
its technique as we are, and indeed paint
very busily, yet cannot point to a single
great painting; the reason being precisely
that they lack all objectivity of mind, which
is what painting demands above all else.
Isolated and partial exceptions do not alter
the case: women, taken as a whole, are and
remain thorough and incurable philistines:
so that, with the extremely absurd arrangement
by which they share the rank and title of
their husband, they are a continual spur
to his ignoble ambitions. They are sexus
sequior, the inferior second sex in every
respect: one should be indulgent toward their
weaknesses, but to pay them honour is ridiculous
beyond measure and demeans us even in their
eyes. This is how the peoples of antiquity and
of the Orient have regarded women; they have
recognized what is the proper position for
women far better than we have, we with our
Old French gallantry and insipid women-veneration,
that highest flower of Christian-Germanic
stupidity which has served only to make women
so rude and arrogant that one is sometimes
reminded of the sacred apes of Benares which,
conscious of their own sanctity and inviolability,
thought themselves at liberty to do whatever
they pleased. In our monogamous part of the world, to marry
means to halve one's rights and double one's
duties. But when the law conceded women equal
rights with men it should at the same time
have endowed them with masculine reasoning
powers. What is actually the case is that
the more those rights and privileges the
law accords to women exceed those which are
natural to them, the more it reduces the
number of women who actually participate
in these benefits; and then the remainder
are deprived of their natural rights by just
the amount these few receive in excess of
theirs: for, because of the unnaturally privileged
position enjoyed by women as a consequence
of monogamy and the marriage laws accompanying
it, which regard women as entirely equal
to men (which they are in no respect), prudent
and cautious men very often hesitate before
making so great a sacrifice as is involved
in entering into so inequitable a contract;
so that while among polygamous peoples every
woman gets taken care of, among the monogamous
the number of married women is limited and
there remains over a quantity of unsupported
women who, in the upper classes, vegetate
on as useless old maids, and in the lower
are obligated to undertake laborious work
they are constitutionally unfitted for or
become filles de joie, whose lives are as
devoid of joie as they are of honour but
who, given the prevailing circumstances,
are necessary for the gratification of the
male sex and therefore come to constitute
a recognized class, with the specific task
of preserving the virtue of those women more
favoured by fate who have found a man to
support them or may reasonably hope to find
one. There are 80,000 prostitutes in London
alone: and what are they if not sacrifices
on the altar of monogamy? These poor women
are the inevitable counterpart and natural
complement to the European lady, with all
her arrogance and pretension. For the female
sex viewed as a whole polygamy is therefore
a real benefit; on the other hand there appears
no rational ground why a man whose wife suffers
from a chronic illness, or has remained unfruitful,
or has gradually grown too old for him, should
not take a second. There can be no argument about polygamy:
it is a fact to be met with everywhere and
the only question is how to regulate it.
For who is really a monogamist? We all live
in polygamy, at least for a time and usually
for good. Since every man needs many women,
there could be nothing more just than that
he should be free, indeed obliged, to support
many women. This would also mean the restoration
of woman to her rightful and natural position,
the subordinate one, and the abolition from
the world of the lady, with her ridiculous
claims to respect and veneration; there would
then be only women, and no longer unhappy
women, of which Europe is at present full. In India, no woman is ever independent, but
in accordance with the law of Manu, she stands
under the control of her father, her husband,
her brother or her son. It is, to be sure,
a revolting thing that a widow should immolate
herself upon her husband's funeral pyre;
but it is also revolting that she should
spend her husband's money with her paramours
- the money for which he toiled his whole
life long, in the consoling belief that he
was providing for his children. Happy are
those who have kept the middle course - medium tenuere beati. |