the peculiar combination of functions which we are studying has not only an immediate effect on individuals through sex-action, and through the sex-affected individuals upon society, but also an effect upon society through economic action, and through the economically affected society upon the individual.
the economic aspect of the question brings it prominently forward to-day as influencing not only our private health and happiness and the processes of reproduction, but our public health and happiness and the processes of social economics as well. society is confronted in this age with most pressing problems in economics, and we need the fullest understanding of the factors involved. these problems are almost wholly social rather than physical, and concern not the capacity of a given society to produce and distribute enough wealth for its maintenance, but some maladjustment of internal processes which checks that production and distribution, and developes such irregular and morbid processes of innutrition, malnutrition, and over-nutrition as continually to injure the health and activity of the social organism. our difficulty about wealth is not in getting it out of the earth, 100but in getting it away from one another. we have phenomena before us in the development of social economic relations analogous to those accompanying our development in sex-relation.
in the original constituents of society, the human animal in its primitive state, economic processes were purely individual. the amount of food obtained by a given man bore direct relation to his own personal exertions. other men were to him merely undesirable competitors for the same goods; and, the fewer these competitors were, the more goods remained for him. therefore, he killed as many of his rivals as possible. given a certain supply of needed food, as the edible beasts or fruits in a forest, and a certain number of individuals to get this food, each by his own exertions, it follows that, the more numerous the individuals, the less food to be obtained by each; and, conversely, the fewer the individuals, the more food to be obtained by each. wherefore, the primitive savage slew his fellow-man at sight, on good economic grounds. this is the extreme of individual competition, perfectly logical, and, in its time, economically right. that time is forever past. the basic condition of human life is union; the organic social relation, the interchange of functional service, wherein the individual is most advantaged, 101not by his own exertions for his own goods, but by the exchange of his exertions with the exertions of others for goods produced by them together. we are not treating here of any communistic theory as to the equitable division of the wealth produced, but of a clear truth in social economics,—that wealth is a social product. whatever one may believe as to what should be done with the wealth of the world, no one can deny that the production of this wealth requires the combined action of many individuals. from the simplest combination of strength that enables many men to overcome the mammoth or to lift the stone—an achievement impossible to one alone—to the subtle and complex interchange of highly specialized skilled labor which makes possible our modern house; the progress of society rests upon the increasing collectivity of human labor.
the evolution of organic life goes on in geometrical progression: cells combine, and form organs; organs combine, and form organisms; organisms combine, and form organizations. society is an organization. society is the fourth power of the cell. it is composed of individual animals of genus homo, living in organic relation. the course of social evolution is the gradual establishment 102of organic relation between individuals, and this organic relation rests on purely economic grounds. in the simplest combination of primordial cells the force that drew and held them together was that of economic necessity. it profited them to live in combination. those that did so survived, and those that did not perished. so with the appearance of the most elaborate organisms: it profited them to become a complex bundle of members and organs in indivisible relation. a creature so constructed survived, where the same amount of living matter unorganized would have perished. and so it is, literally and exactly, in a complex society, with all its elaborate specialization of individuals in arts and crafts, trades and professions. a society so constructed survives, where the same number of living beings, unorganized, would perish. the specialization of labor and exchange of product in a social body is identical in its nature with the specialization and exchange of function in an individual body. this process, on orderly lines of evolution, involves the gradual subordination of individual effort for individual good to the collective effort for the collective good,—not from any so-called “altruism,” but from the economic necessities of the case. it is as natural, as “selfish,” for 103society so to live, the individual citizens working together for the social good, as for one’s own body to live by the hands and feet, teeth and eyes, heart and lungs, working together for the individual good. social evolution tends to an increasing specialization in structure and function, and to an increasing interdependence of the component parts, with a correlative decrease through disuse of the once valuable process of individual struggle for success; and this is based absolutely on the advantage to the individual as well as to the social body.
but, as we study this process of development, noting with admiration the progressive changes in human relation, the new functions, the extended structure, the increase of sensation in the socialized individuals with its enormous possibilities of joy and healthful sensitiveness to pain, we are struck by the visible presence of some counter-force, acting against the normal development and producing most disadvantageous effects. as in our orderly progress in social sex-development we are checked by the tenacious hold of rudimentary impulses artificially maintained by false conditions, so in our orderly progress in social economic development we see the same peculiar survival of rudimentary impulses, which should 104have been long since easily outgrown. it is no longer of advantage to the individual to struggle for his own gain at the expense of others: his gain now requires the co-ordinate efforts of these others; yet he continues so to struggle.
in this lack of adjustment between the individual and the social interest lies our economic trouble. an illustration of this may be seen in the manufacture of prepared foods. this is a process impossible to the individual singly, and of great advantage to the individual in collective relation,—a perfectly natural economic process, advantageous in proportion to the amount and quality of the food manufactured. this we constantly find accompanied by a morbid process of dilution and adulteration, by which society is injured, in order that the individual concerned in the manufacture may be benefited. this is as though one of the organs of the body—the liver, for instance—should deliberately weaken or poison its quota of secretion, in order that by giving less it might retain more, and become large and fat individually. an organ can do so, does do so; but such action is morbid action, and constitutes disease. the body is injured, weakened, destroyed, and so ultimately the organ perishes also. it is a false conception 105of gain, and the falsehood lies in not recognizing the true relation between individual and social interests. this failure to recognize or, at least, to act up to a recognition of social interests, owing to the disproportionate pressure of individual interests, is the underlying cause of our economic distress. as society is composed of individuals, we must look to them for the action causing these morbid social processes; and, as individuals act under the pressure of conditions, we must look to the conditions affecting the individuals for the causes of their action.
in general, under social law, men develope right action; but some hidden spring seems to force them continually into wrong action. we have our hand upon this hidden spring in the sexuo-economic relation. if we had remained on an individual economic basis, the evil influence would have had far less ill effect; but, as we grow into the social economic relation, it increases with our civilization. the sex-relation is primarily and finally individual. it is a physical relation between individual bodies; and, while it may also extend to a psychical relation between individual souls, it does not become a social relation, though it does change its personal development to suit social needs.
106in all its processes, to all its results, the sex-relation is personal, working through individuals upon individuals, and developing individual traits and characteristics, to the great advantage of society. the qualities developed by social relation are built into the race through the sex-relation, but the sex-relation itself is wholly personal. our economic relation, on the contrary, though originally individual, becomes through social evolution increasingly collective. by combining the human sex-relation with the human economic relation, we have combined a permanently individual process with a progressively collective one. this involves a strain on both, which increases in direct proportion to our socialization, and, so far, has resulted in the ultimate destruction of the social organism acted upon by such irreconcilable forces.
as has been shown, this combination has affected the sex-relation of individuals by bringing into it a tendency to collectivism with economic advantage, best exhibited in our distinctive racial phenomenon of prostitution. on the other hand, it has affected the economic relation of society by bringing into it a tendency to individualism with sex-advantage, best exhibited in the frequent practice of sacrificing public good to personal gain, that the 107individual may thereby “support his family.” we are so used to considering it the first duty of a man to support his family that it takes a very glaring instance of bribery and corruption in their interests to shake our conviction; but, as a sociological law, every phase of the prostitution of public service to private gain, from the degradation of the artist to the exploitation of the helpless unskilled laborer, marks a diseased social action. our social status rests upon our common consent, common action, common submission to the common will. no individual interests can stand for a moment against the interests of the common weal, either when war demands the last sacrifice of individual property and life or when peace requires the absolute submission of individual property and life to common law,—the fixed expression of the people’s will. the maintenance of “law and order” involves the very spirit of socialism,—the sinking of personal interest in common interest. all this rests upon the evolution of the social spirit, the keen sense of social duty, the conscientious fulfilment of social service; and it is here that the excessive individualism maintained by our sexuo-economic relation enters as a strong and increasingly disadvantageous social factor. we have dimly recognized the 108irreconcilability of the sex-relation with economic relations on both sides,—in our sharp condemnation of making the sex-functions openly commercial, and in the drift toward celibacy in collective institutions. bodies of men or women, actuated by the highest religious impulses, desiring to live nobly and to serve society, have always recognized something antagonistic in the sex-relation. they have thought it inherent in the relation itself, not seeing that it was the economic side which made it reactionary. yet this action was practically admitted by the continued existence of communal societies where the sex-relation did exist, in an unacknowledged form, and without the element of economic exchange. it is admitted also by the noble and self-sacrificing devotion of married missionaries of the protestant church, who are supported by contributions. if the missionary were obliged to earn his wife’s living and his own, he could do little mission work.
the highest human attributes are perfectly compatible with the sex-relation, but not with the sexuo-economic relation. we see this opposition again in the tendency to collectivity in bodies of single men,—their comradeship, equality, and mutual helpfulness as compared with the attitude of the same men toward one 109another, when married. this is why the quality of “organizability” is stronger in men than in women; their common economic interests force them into relation, while the isolated and even antagonistic economic interests of women keep them from it. the condition of individual economic dependence in which women live resembles that of the savage in the forest. they obtain their economic goods by securing a male through their individual exertions, all competing freely to this end. no combination is possible. the numerous girls at a summer resort, in their attitude toward the scant supply of young men, bear an unconscious resemblance to the emulous savages in a too closely hunted forest. and here may be given an economic reason for the oft-noted bitterness with which the virtuous women regard the vicious. the virtuous woman stands in close ranks with her sisters, refusing to part with herself—her only economic goods—until she is assured of legal marriage, with its lifelong guarantee of support. under equal proportions of birth in the two sexes, every woman would be tolerably sure of obtaining her demands. but here enters the vicious woman, and offers the same goods—though of inferior quality, to be sure—for a far less price. every one of such illegitimate 110competitors lowers the chances of the unmarried women and the income of the married. no wonder those who hold themselves highly should be moved to bitterness at being undersold in this way. it is the hatred of the trade-unionist for “scab labor.”
on the woman’s side we are steadily maintaining the force of primitive individual competition in the world as against the tendency of social progress to develope co-operation in its place, and this tendency of course is inherited by their sons. on the man’s side the same effect is produced through another feature of the relation. the tendency to individualism with sex-advantage is developed in man by an opposite process to that operating on the woman. she gets her living by getting a husband. he gets his wife by getting a living. it is to her individual economic advantage to secure a mate. it is to his individual sex-advantage to secure economic gain. the sex-functions to her have become economic functions. economic functions to him have become sex-functions. this has confounded our natural economic competition, inevitably growing into economic co-operation, with the element of sex-competition,—an entirely different force.
competition among males, with selection by 111the female of the superior male, is the process of sexual selection, and works to racial improvement. so far as the human male competes freely with his peers in higher and higher activities, and the female chooses the winner, so far we are directly benefited. but there is a radical distinction between sex-competition and marriage by purchase. in the first the male succeeds by virtue of what he can do; in the second, by virtue of what he can get. the increased power to do, transmitted to the young, is of racial advantage. but mere possessions, with no question as to the method of their acquisition, are not necessarily of advantage to the individual as a father. to make the sexual gain of the male rest on his purchasing power puts the immense force of sex-competition into the field of social economics, not only as an incentive to labor and achievement, which is good, but as an incentive to individual gain, however obtained, which is bad; thus accounting for our multiplied and intensified desire to get,—the inordinate greed of our industrial world. the tournament of the middle ages was a brutal sport perhaps, with its human injury, pain, and death, under the cry of: “fight on, brave knights! fair eyes are looking on you!” but it represents a healthier process 112than our modern method of securing the wherewithal to maintain the sex-relation. as so beautifully phrased by jean ingelow:—
“i worked afar that i might rear
a happy home on english soil;
i labored for the gold and gear,
i loved my toil.
“forever in my spirit spake
the natural whisper, ‘well ’twill be
when loving wife and children break
their bread with thee!’”
or, put more broadly by kipling:—
“but since our women must walk gay,
and money buys their gear,
the sealing vessels filch this way
at hazard, year by year.”
the contest in every good man’s heart to-day between the “ought to” and the “must,” between his best work and the “potboiler,” is his personal share of this incessant struggle between social interest and self-interest. for himself and by himself he would be glad to do his best work, to be true to his ideals, to be brave in meeting loss for that truth’s sake. but as the compromising capitalist says in “put yourself in his place,” when his sturdy young friend—a bachelor—wonders at his giving in to unjust demands, 113“marriage makes a mouse of a man.” to the young business man who falls into evil courses in the sex-relation the open greed of his fair dependant is a menace to his honesty, to his business prospects. on the same man married the needs of his wife often operate in the same way. the sense of the dependence of the helpless creature whose food must come through him does not stimulate courage, but compels submission.
the foregoing distinction should be clearly held in mind. legitimate sex-competition brings out all that is best in man. to please her, to win her, he strives to do his best. but the economic dependence of the female upon the male, with its ensuing purchasability, does not so affect a man: it puts upon him the necessity for getting things, not for doing them. in the lowest grades of labor, where there is no getting without doing and where the laborer always does more than he gets, this works less palpable evil than in the higher grades, the professions and arts, where the most valuable work is always ahead of the market, and where to work for the market involves a lowering of standards. the young artist or poet or scientific student works for his work’s sake, for art, for science, and so for the best good of society. but the artist or 114student married must get gain, must work for those who will pay; and those who will pay are not those who lift and bear forward the standard of progress. community of interest is quite possible with those who are working most disinterestedly for the social good; but bring in the sex-relation, and all such solidarity disintegrates,—resolves itself into the tiny groups of individuals united on a basis of sex-union, and briskly acting in their own immediate interests at anybody’s or everybody’s expense.
the social perception of the evil resultant from the intrusion of sex-influence upon racial action has found voice in the heartless proverb, “there is no evil without a woman at the bottom of it.” when a man’s work goes wrong, his hopes fail, his ambitions sink, cynical friends inquire, “who is she?” it is not for nothing that a man’s best friends sigh when he marries, especially if he is a man of genius. this judgment of the world has obtained side by side with its equal faith in the ennobling influence of woman. the world is quite right. it does not have to be consistent. both judgments are correct. woman affecting society through the sex-relation or through her individual economic relation is an ennobling influence. woman 115affecting society through our perverse combination of the two becomes a strange influence, indeed.
one of the amusing minor results of these conditions is that, while we have observed the effect of marriage upon social economic relation and the effect of social economic relation upon marriage,—seeing that the devoted servant of the family was a poor servant of society and that the devoted servant of society was a poor servant of the family, seeing the successful collectivity of celibate institutions,—we have jumped to the conclusion that collective prosperity was conditioned upon celibacy, and that we did not want it. that is why the popular mind is so ready to associate socialistic theories with injury to marriage. having seen that marriage makes us less collective, we infer conversely that collectivity will make us less married,—that it will “break up the home,” “strike at the roots of the family.”
when we make plain to ourselves that a pure, lasting, monogamous sex-union can exist without bribe or purchase, without the manacles of economic dependence, and that men and women so united in sex-relation will still be free to combine with others in economic relation, we shall not regard devotion to humanity 116as an unnatural sacrifice, nor collective prosperity as a thing to fear.
besides this maintenance of primeval individualism in the growing collectivity of social economic process and the introduction of the element of sex-combat into the narrowing field of industrial competition, there is another side to the evil influence of the sexuo-economic relation upon social development. this is in the attitude of woman as a non-productive consumer.
in the industrial evolution of the human race, that marvellous and subtle drawing out and interlocking of special functions which constitute the organic life of society, we find that production and consumption go hand in hand; and production comes first. one cannot consume what has not been produced. economic production is the natural expression of human energy,—not sex-energy at all, but race-energy,—the unconscious functioning of the social organism. socially organized human beings tend to produce, as a gland to secrete: it is the essential nature of the relation. the creative impulse, the desire to make, to express the inner thought in outer form, “just for the work’s sake, no use at all i’ the work!” this is the distinguishing character of humanity. “i want to mark!” cries 117the child, demanding the pencil. he does not want to eat. he wants to mark. he is not seeking to get something into himself, but to put something out of himself. he generally wants to do whatever he sees done,—to make pie-crust or to make shavings, as it happens. the pie he may eat, the shavings not; but he likes to make both. this is the natural process of production, and is followed by the natural process of consumption, where practicable. but consumption is not the main end, the governing force. under this organic social law, working naturally, we have the evolution of those arts and crafts in the exercise of which consists our human living, and on the product of which we live. so does society evolve within itself—secrete as it were—the social structure with all its complex machinery; and we function therein as naturally as so many glands, other things being equal.
but other things are not equal. half the human race is denied free productive expression, is forced to confine its productive human energies to the same channels as its reproductive sex-energies. its creative skill is confined to the level of immediate personal bodily service, to the making of clothes and preparing of food for individuals. no social service is 118possible. while its power of production is checked, its power of consumption is inordinately increased by the showering upon it of the “unearned increment” of masculine gifts. for the woman there is, first, no free production allowed; and, second, no relation maintained between what she does produce and what she consumes. she is forbidden to make, but encouraged to take. her industry is not the natural output of creative energy, not the work she does because she has the inner power and strength to do it; nor is her industry even the measure of her gain. she has, of course, the natural desire to consume; and to that is set no bar save the capacity or the will of her husband.
thus we have painfully and laboriously evolved and carefully maintain among us an enormous class of non-productive consumers,—a class which is half the world, and mother of the other half. we have built into the constitution of the human race the habit and desire of taking, as divorced from its natural precursor and concomitant of making. we have made for ourselves this endless array of “horse-leech’s daughters, crying, give! give!” to consume food, to consume clothes, to consume houses and furniture and decorations and ornaments and amusements, to 119take and take and take forever,—from one man if they are virtuous, from many if they are vicious, but always to take and never to think of giving anything in return except their womanhood,—this is the enforced condition of the mothers of the race. what wonder that their sons go into business “for what there is in it”! what wonder that the world is full of the desire to get as much as possible and to give as little as possible! what wonder, either, that the glory and sweetness of love are but a name among us, with here and there a strange and beautiful exception, of which our admiration proves the rarity!
between the brutal ferocity of excessive male energy struggling in the market-place as in a battlefield and the unnatural greed generated by the perverted condition of female energy, it is not remarkable that the industrial evolution of humanity has shown peculiar symptoms. one of the minor effects of this last condition—this limiting of female industry to close personal necessities, and this tendency of her over-developed sex-nature to overestimate the so-called “duties of her position”—has been to produce an elaborate devotion to individuals and their personal needs,—not to the understanding and developing of their higher natures, but to the intensification 120of their bodily tastes and pleasure. the wife and mother, pouring the rising tide of racial power into the same old channels that were allowed her primitive ancestors, constantly ministers to the physical needs of her family with a ceaseless and concentrated intensity. they like it, of course. but it maintains in the individuals of the race an exaggerated sense of the importance of food and clothes and ornaments to themselves, without at all including a knowledge of their right use and value to us all. it developes personal selfishness.
again, the consuming female, debarred from any free production, unable to estimate the labor involved in the making of what she so lightly destroys, and her consumption limited mainly to those things which minister to physical pleasure, creates a market for sensuous decoration and personal ornament, for all that is luxurious and enervating, and for a false and capricious variety in such supplies, which operates as a most deadly check to true industry and true art. as the priestess of the temple of consumption, as the limitless demander of things to use up, her economic influence is reactionary and injurious. much, very much, of the current of useless production in which our economic energies run waste—man’s 121strength poured out like water on the sand—depends on the creation and careful maintenance of this false market, this sink into which human labor vanishes with no return. woman, in her false economic position, reacts injuriously upon industry, upon art, upon science, discovery, and progress. the sexuo-economic relation in its effect on the constitution of the individual keeps alive in us the instincts of savage individualism which we should otherwise have well outgrown. it sexualizes our industrial relation and commercializes our sex-relation. and, in the external effect upon the market, the over-sexed woman, in her unintelligent and ceaseless demands, hinders and perverts the economic development of the world.