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СНАР. Х

How
Society
Takes
Notice

of the
Mirrored

Self

are rarely pompous, and no one ever saw a woman strut. In
mating the emotions of the sexes are not the same. "The de-
sire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is
for the desire of the man." Woman's jealousy like her love is
usually less physical in its object than man's. She is stung by
the disloyalty of that intrigue with another which the average
male resents as a trespass upon
his property.

In many ways society formally recognizes the value to one of his mirrored self. Damages for libel allow for the "mental anguish" of being brought into public contempt; for breach of promise to marry take into account the mortification of the jilted. Although the duel has been outlawed, insult not only goes a long way toward excusing violence but more and more it affords a ground of legal action, the German courts having gone farthest in this direction. It is contended that peaceful picketing does not exist, seeing that the pickets' tongue-lashing of the "scab" is a weapon of intimidation. The designating of workmen by numbers instead of their names is held to be intolerable. Many old punishments such as stocks, pillory, cucking-stool, scarlet letter

assumed social sensitiveness in the culprit. Like tar and feathers, whipping at the cart's tail hurt spirit more than body, and ears were cropped not so much to pain the offender as to make him a butt. The teacher may discard rod for dunce's cap and at a certain point in the child's development the parent can punish harder by looks and words than by thwacking. Malicious. prison keepers "break" the more sensitive prisoners with indignities rather than hardships, while shrewd wardens offer the removal of stripes and numbers as an inducement to good conduct.

CHAPTER XI

DOMINATION

N the life of societies no phenomenon is more general, persistent, recurrent or frequent than domination. Not only has each social group brought adjacent social groups under its power so far as it could or dared, but each element within the group subjects other elements to its will so far as it can. The motive to dominate is chiefly lust of exploitation, but it may also be love of mastery or the desire to extend a religion or a civilization. The chief types of domination are:

Parents over offspring. Whenever by means of positive institutions or of ethical and religious ideas parents have been able to retain their grown children subject to their will, most of them have done so. The pastoral life fosters patriarchal authority because (1) in quest of fresh pasture the family with its herds wanders away from the tribe and hence, for the sake of safety, it must become a compact unit under one-man direction; (2) there is economy in guarding and caring for the live stock of grown sons in a single herd rather than in several small herds. However, China shows that agriculture is not at all incompatible with parent domination. By the constant stressing of filial piety as a virtue Chinese parents as a rule enjoy more authority and consideration than do parents in the West. Marriage, of course, draws their daughters into another family, but they count on the earnings of their sons to keep them in their declining years. A couple look upon their sons as their old-age pension. I recall a Foochow teacher forty years of age, with a family, who turned over his monthly salary check to his father as a matter of common duty. Hence, in China the parents of many sons are congratulated and envied, while a boy baby is never drowned or sold, as a girl baby may be.

Perhaps this explains why there are more smooth brows, calm eyes and carefree faces among old men in China than among old men in America. Too often among us old age is clouded by the

CHAP. XI

Parents
Their

Dominate

Children

CHAP. XI depressing sense of being shelved or being a burden. Chinese ethics gives the parent more claims and lays upon the grown sons more duties than our ethics. Coming on the up-curve of life, the duties are easy to bear, while, coming on the down-curve, the corresponding rights are a real solace. In a word, the added happiness to the old folks far outweighs the inconvenience to the

Collec

tively the

nate the

Young

sons.

2. Old over young. Among many savage and barbarous Old Domi- tribes the elders gain a control over the young by maintaining secret male societies to which the young are admitted by stages marked by awe-inspiring ceremonies. By this leverage numerous food taboos are imposed in the interest of the old men. In one tribe boys will be told that if they eat of forbidden food they will be struck by lightning. In another young men who eat the flesh or eggs of the emu believe that sores will appear all over the body. Elsewhere youths are assured that if prior to initiation they eat wild turkey, swans, geese, or black duck, or their eggs, their limbs will shrivel up. It is common to subject the young to a novitiate during which they turn over to the old the choicest kinds of food they find.

In the same way the old men monopolize the pretty girls while the only female available as a mate for the young man is an old widow or some cast-off hag discarded for a younger wife. Moreover, during a period of probation which may last some years, the youth may not look at a woman or even speak to one.

After the primitive stage the secret tribal societies yield to other forms of organization, but still the Old plot and scheme to hold in subjection the Young. In advanced societies we see the Elders trying to keep the Young under and retain in their own hands the control of social machinery. The Old urge their claim to the helm in the name of "reason," "experience," "record," "distinguished services," "safe and sane," while the Young charge their intrenchments crying "Old fogyism," " New blood," "Inject ginger and energy," "Give others a chance." In clubs, churches, fraternal orders, joint stock companies, political parties, professional and commercial organizations, legislative bodies and government boards we see struggles involving the control by the 66 old crowd."

3. Husband over wife. Under the early maternal system of reckoning kinship the wife remained among her kinsfolk so that

Husband

the Wife

her offspring should belong to her clan. The husband being an CHAP. XI outsider was in a weak position. Unless he succeeded as hunter The and provider of animal food for his wife's family he might be Dominates told to leave. Wife domination appears, however, as a rare and passing phenomenon. The customs of wife purchase and of wife capture, as well as the enforced separation of the family from the wife's clan, gave the husband the upper hand, which he has kept through nearly all the stages of social history. Generally law and custom have merged the wife's property with his, given him control of her earnings, her occupation, and her place of residence, denied her freedom of contract, made him responsible for and therefore master over her conduct, tolerated in him more sex liberty than she might claim, and given him control over the children. According to the Hispano-American law codes to-day the husband owes his wife protection, while she owes him obedience. She has no voice as to place of residence but is bound to follow him whatever may be the peril to her health or life. Without her husband's consent she may not sue, make or dissolve a contract, forgive a debt, take or reject a gift, inheritance or legacy, buy, alienate or mortgage productive property. Should the husband object, the deserted wife may not pawn her jewels to buy herself bread nor may she hire herself as servant, needlewoman, mill operative or stenographer. Divorce granted for unfaithfulness costs the erring wife all right to profits from their joint property, but it is not so in the case of the erring husband. The husband may with impunity kill his wife surprised in flagrante delicto but the wife has no such right against her unfaithful husband.

4. Men over women. In Old Japan the woman's lot was summed up in the "three obediences," viz., unmarried, to the father; married, to the husband; widowed, to a son.

In China woman's lot is in no wise of her own fashioning, but has been shaped by male tastes without the least regard to what the women themselves think about it. The ancient sages - all men moulded the institutions which bear on woman and it is male comment, not real public opinion, that enforces the conventionalities which crush her. By wit, will, or worth the individual woman may slip from under the thumb of the individual man, but never is the sex free from the collective domination of the male sex. The men have all the artillery the time-hallowed

Collec

tively Men

Dominate

Women

CHAP. XI institutions — and all the small arms

Masculinism in China

Child Marriage in India

current opinion and comment. It is not so much that the individual man selfishly rules the woman or even that one sex has deliberately brought the other into subjection. Perfectly certain of their own superiority in wisdom and virtue, men have settled what is fit and proper not only for themselves, but also for woman.

I once held a conversation with a Chinese gentleman who was promoting a revival of Confucianism. "You'll admit," I remarked, "that we Occidentals have juster ideas as to the treatment of women." "Not at all," he replied. "Not at all," he replied. "The place Confucianism assigns to women is more reasonable than that of the Christian West."

"But why should women be so subordinated?"

"Because women are very hard to control. You can never tell what they will be up to. At the bottom of every trouble there is a woman."

"Isn't that due to your depriving women of the educational opportunities which they once enjoyed?"

"No, it was precisely experience of the difficulty of keeping women under control when they are educated that led our forefathers to lessen their schooling."

"Then you would shut girls out of school?"

"No, I would n't go as far as that. Let them be taught to read and write."

"Nothing more?"

"Possible. But it should be very different from the education given to boys."

"For example?"

"Why, teach the girl household arts and ethics so she will know her duties as daughter, wife and mother."

"Would you teach her her rights as well as her duties?" "No, no. That is quite unnecessary."

In ancient India girls might choose their husbands. To-day, however, not only are girls disposed of by their parents, but they are married so young that in British India alone there are nearly ten million wives under sixteen years of age, of whom a third of a million are widows! This pernicious custom of child marriage, which is said to cause one-fourth of the women to die prematurely while another fourth are made invalids for life,

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