CHAP. LVII The Liv tial presumption in favor of whatever has survived from the past, yet preserve toward it a scrutinizing critical attitude, the generations are in proper balance. But when present reason is held ing Capitweaker than that of some golden or classical age so that the living are powerless to free themselves from the yoke of the past, we ment of have the rule of the dead. the Judg the Dead worship the Rule One fetter of such enslavement is fear of offending the spirits Ancestorof the departed; hence, blind conservatism is especially strong Leads to wherever, as in the Far East, ancestor worship prevails. Another of the gyve is overvaluation of whatever is classic. For example, the Dead premium the old state-examination system of China put upon the writings of certain thinkers who lived long before our era tended to shackle the original minds of each generation. The embryo Pasteur or Edison was so intimidated by the universal opinion that wisdom died with the sages that he could bring forth nothing. Thus the social atmosphere lost the stimulating ozone it had in the old inspiring days when the Chinese invented gunpowder, block-printing, banknotes, porcelain, the compass, the compartment boat and the taxicab. The Sup- erstition Holiness Remote Again, the living are paralyzed by the notion that some period or product of the Past is holy, that of yore the gods were nigher to men, that then they revealed their will through channels which have since become choked. Nearly every people reveres some ancient scripture, or institution of such transcendent prestige that Time the living dare not probe or criticize it. No Arab to-day stands on a footing with the writer of the Koran; no Jew with the giver of the Mosaic Law; no Celestial with Confucius; no Parsee with Zoroaster. As for inherited institutions, we see two hundred millions of Hindus divided into three thousand hereditary castes, between which there is no marriage and very little social intercourse, and from which no man can escape. In taking over this terrible burden without inquiring into its authority or worth, the living become thralls to certain ideas and decisions of their remote ancestors. The only remedies for this bondage are to dispel the golden haze that hangs about the origins of religions and codes, to test myths and legends in the crucible of scientific scholarship, to strip. the remote past of its purple and to reveal it in everyday garb, to gain a true perspective of the development of civilization and human society, and to teach men that the Here is as sacred, the СНАР. The Rule of the Dead To-day No Generation Knows Enough to Prescribe for Pos terity Militarized Now as inspired, as some spot in Western Asia twenty or thirty centuries ago. The slavish following of musty precedents by courts of justice is another form of the rule of the dead; so is the allowing of donors to fix for all time the use to which their endowments shall be put. A written constitution, made so hard to amend as to deny to later generations the creative freedom enjoyed by the makers of the instrument, is also a yoke upon the living. Even if the best minds of to-day are not the peers of the "Fathers" of the Federal Constitution, it is certain that men of to-day can legislate for our needs better than the men of 1787 could suit their work to our needs. The subjection of the living to the dead flouts the law that life is correspondence to environment. Hence, the stiffening of traditions and institutions is a kind of rigor mortis. The idea that sages should mark a groove for society for all time trips on the fact that society ceaselessly changes. Finding itself in a plight unforeseen by its ancestors, a people casts about for an adjustment. Conservatives, who brand this quest as folly or sacrilege, deny society the sacred right of self-determination. The rule of the old delays needful adaptation, although to a less degree than the rule of the dead. Generally a man has a rather full set of convictions by the age of thirty, so that to allow for developments occurring thereafter calls for a mental effort which few are willing to make. Hence, when the old monopolize places and influence, readjustment lags at least a generation behind need. Then, too, timidity is likely to grow with age, so that the old lack the courage to start changes which they know are necessary. MASCULINISM While women, owing to their being largely occupied with bearing and rearing children, have developed fewer specialists than men, they ought to be conceded a large social influence in order to counteract certain bad masculine tendencies. The fighting instinct of the male sex seriously unfits it to take sole charge of society. Many wars have no other cause, and if the policies of states obeyed the wills of men and women rather than of men only, the world would enjoy more peace. Male pugnacity conceives government as mere keeper of the lists rather than as machinery for serving certain common needs. The gradual trans formation of government from coercion into service reflects in part the growing influence of women. Those with rank male proclivities, the ultra-he-men, scoff at votes for women on the ground that the essence of government is force and women citizens have little of that to contribute. To such men soldier and policeman appear as fit symbols of the state, whereas the teacher, the school nurse, the factory inspector, the health officer, the rural organizer and the agricultural adviser are but bastard and ambiguous representatives of the state's purposes. CHAP. LVII Business By "business" a rational being understands the social system Militarized of making and distributing economic goods. That the claims of business should take precedence over life and limb, over health and family, is monstrous. Yet the fighting instinct leads thoughtless men generally to look upon it as a prize ring, with the implication, of course, that somebody is bound to get hurt. This is why good men long justified child labor, the wrecking of the health of working girls, the night work of women, preventable work accidents. Even yet many disinterested men feel that stopping the sale of diseased meat or "doctored" canned goods is unfair interference, like depriving prize fighters of their best blows and ruses. Women, on the contrary, insist, in their simplicity of mind, that the palming off of putridity and poison, under the guise of food, upon mothers buying nourishment for the children they have risked their lives to bring into the world is not in any sense business, but villainy. Male irrationality comes out again in the needless taking of chances. Human reason labors continually to eliminate hazard, and all insurance rests on the reasonable desire to substitute certainty for risk. Yet men who sweat for their money will gamble away their week's wage in an evening. No one, however, has ever seen working women regularly risk their wages on a card. Women have an instinct for security and strive to lessen risk, while men fatuously create it. In gold-mining camps recklessness is habitual, and to save himself a little trouble in handling explosives and timbering shafts the miner endangers the life he is toiling to enrich. After the arrival of wives men gain a rational view and learn to shun needless dangers. Men nearly monopolize the consumption of alcohol and narcotics, even though many are well aware of the harm these do. Sex ConIn Atti trast tude Toward Bisk CHAP. LVII Women, on the other hand, shrink from self-poisoning. In the slums the spread of heavy drinking among women is a sure sign of demoralization born of despair. In China the women never Male Sex generally took to opium smoking till the district was hopeless. Weakness of the in With standing Temptation Women Superior to Men in Com mon sense Masculine Ascend ancy Among the Chi nese The Run in Favor of the Male Doubtless woman's gain in social influence will make for a firmer dealing with race poisons. Again, women, with their better psychological insight, would hardly have been guilty of the follies men have committed in the penal field. One cannot imagine them treating juvenile offenders as if they were adult, expecting to make bad men good by solitary confinement, shutting up people who cannot pay their debts, imprisoning persons without any provision for feeding them, or settling cases by judicial combat. Only men are foolish enough to persist in applying pain to offenders without self-control, who manifestly can never be improved by punishment. The state of women under masculine ascendancy may be seen in China. Man-made throughout, Chinese culture is full of male contempt for women. Thus, double the ideograph for "woman and you have "to wrangle"; triple it and the meaning is "intrigue"! In Chinese thought the world is divided between good and evil, Yang and Yin. Darkness is "Yin," cold is "Yin," earth spirits are "Yin," and woman is "Yin." Although necessary, she is inferior and should be held under a firm control. The ancient sages stressed the danger of letting women become educated and go about freely, for thus might they gain the upper hand and wreck society. A girl who remains for life unwed, her betrothed having died before their marriage, is deemed worthy of a memorial portal or pailow; but no pailow is raised to the youth who remains true to the memory of his lost sweetheart, for such constancy would be ridiculed. From the male point of view it is fitting that woman be sacrificed to the man, but not that man, the superior being, be sacrificed to the woman. This is why some centuries ago the Chinese held that a widow ought to kill herself at her husband's funeral, whereas the notion that a widower ought to do the same at his wife's funeral never entered the Celestial mind. The unfaithful wife is stoned or drowned; but the worst that can hap pen to the unfaithful husband is a tongue lashing, which he is expected to bear patiently. Sex LVII The boy's upbringing is not shaped to please the other sex, but СНАР. everything in the upbringing of the girl-her foot binding, Disabili"tottering lily" gait, hairdressing, skill in embroidery, innocence, ties of the ignorance, obedience - is obviously a catering to the male. Female Again, the women of the classes for the most part pass their lives within four walls, away from the stimulus of street and public resort, and rarely go out save in a closed cart or a covered chair. They have few acquaintances save relatives, and take no part in picnics, excursions, and feasts. Social diversion is organized for men, not for women. Toilet, opium smoking, gossiping with the servants, visits from a few friends - no wonder the doctors find their worst cases of nervous exhaustion among these repressed creatures! How does the female sex fare under this masculine tutelage? Since the married daughter belongs completely to her husband's family and cannot be looked to by her parents in their old age, it is female infants that are done away with as superfluous, never male infants. The estimate of Chinese observers in 1910 was that from 5 to 10 per cent. of girl babies were exposed. Female Infanticide ing Foot binding was a disability imposed by men, for until re- Footbindcently it was a rare father who would marry his son to a girl with natural feet. Mothers subjected their little daughters to the torturing bandages because, without the "golden lilies," they stood no chance whatever of marriage. Health of Ladies Chinese ladies are excessively small and frail in comparison Poor with their men folk, owing no doubt to the foot binding and the Chinese confinement imposed by male opinion. They suffer much from neurasthenia and heart lesion, owing to the strain of their lot, and their faces are stamped with pain, patience, and gentle resignation rather than with happiness. In the West suicide is from three to five times as frequent among men as among women, whereas among the Chinese the women kill themselves from five to ten times as often as men. The slavery to mother-in-law, which drives many brides to suicide, and the ideas of wifely propriety that impel young widows to make away with themselves originated with men and have never been molded in the least by the sex they affect. Thus has masculinism conserved the happiness of women! Moreover, the whole people are held back because men have dwarfed women to suit their own tastes and prejudices. Lack Tendency of Wives to Suicide |