how will love fare at the hands of the new woman? the old forms of love will naturally be as unbearable to her as the steel corsets of a forgotten generation. yet the problem is not so very pressing, for the truly new woman is still an almost insignificant factor, numerically speaking, in every community.
even in the professions and trades of a distinctly masculine character which woman has recently invaded, we meet constantly the mock-modern person, who under a veneer of modernity, still harbors all the superstitions, and exhibits all the mannerisms of the "old fashioned" woman.
being old-fashioned in love, as in every other activity of life, presents a great temptation to the lazy, the unintelligent, the neurotic.
it is an excuse for all sorts of unethical forms of conduct, for failure or inactivity, and yet carries[pg 276] with itself a deceptive air of mock refinement and distinction.
the woman who boasts of being old fashioned can misbehave and retain for years her husband's or her environment's confidence in her purity. being old fashioned, she is assumed by all to be a little "simple" and "silly" at times, but unlikely to ever cross certain boundaries. at the same time, she can pass cruel judgments on all the trangressors who have not been as shrewd or lucky as she.
as a basis for a discussion of the extent to which love will affect the modern woman and modern woman affect love, i shall select the picture drawn by george bernard shaw in mccall's magazine for october 1920 of the woman of the new generation.
"what women had to do recently," shaw writes, "was not to repudiate their femininity but to assert its social value, not to ape masculinity but to demonstrate its insufficiency. this was the point of my play candida in which it is made quite plain that the husband's masculine career would go to pieces without the wife's feminine activity.
[pg 277]
"as refinement was supposed to be proper to women and roughness proper to men fifty years ago, the great increase in companionship between men and women during that period was bound either to refine the men or roughen the women. it has done both. the feminine refinement which was only silliness disguised by affection has gone; and women are hardier and healthier, and the stock sizes of their clothes are larger in consequence. the masculine vigor that was only boorishness, slovenliness and neglect of person and clothes has fled before feminine criticism.
"but the generalisation that women are refined and men rough by nature is a superficial one, holding good only when, as often happens, the man's occupation is rougher than the woman's. the natural woman cannot afford to be as fastidious as the natural man; if she shirked all the unpleasantness that he escapes, the race would perish. as a matter of fact, there are coarse women and coarse men, refined women and refined men; and there is no reason to suppose that the proportions differ in the two sexes.
"there is, however, a rebellion against nature in the matter of the very unequal share of the burden of reproduction which falls to men and women in civilized communities. i say civilized communities advisedly, because the extremely artificial life of the modern lady has the effect of mak[pg 278]ing her natural functions pathological. whether the rebellion has been going on ever since ladies were invented i do not know, because history is silent on the subject, as it is on so many specifically feminine subjects. but i can testify that among women brought up amid the feminist movement of the second half of the nineteenth century there was a revolt against maternity which went deeper than that revolt against excessive maternity which has led to birth control. these more thoroughgoing rebels objected to the whole process, from the occasional event itself to the more permanent conditions it imposes. it is easy to dismiss this as monstrous and silly, but the modern conception of creative evolution forbids us to dismiss any development as impossible if it becomes the subject of an aspiration.
"there is no limit to the truth of the old saying that where there is a will there is a way, and though for the moment a refusal to accept the existing conditions of reproduction would mean race suicide, the rebels against nature may be the pioneers of evolutionary changes which may finally dispose of the less pleasant incidents of nutrition, and make reproduction a process external to the parents in its[pg 279] more burdensome phases, as it now is in many existent species."
the entrance of woman into commercial life has trained her no longer to expect something for nothing (exchangeable) and to realize that a bargain, to be satisfactory, an agreement, to be lasting, must be based on mutual advantages to both parties.
love, with the old fashioned, began with a struggle of wits between the sexes, the man trying to conquer without granting any advantages to the defeated, woman trying to wear out her opponent and make him yield more and more advantages before she finally "paid up."
on one side, fear of financial burdens, at the other end, fear of desertion and pregnancy, suspicion and cruelty.
the sex struggle with its disgusting features of hypocrisy, pretence, duplicity, misrepresentation, denial of biological facts, etc., has yielded to an agreement, much as the robber system of past ages has been replaced by commercial transactions which leave no hatred and no desire for vengeance in their wake.
was it a sacrifice? the old-fashioned woman, wife or mistress, assuming the position of the con[pg 280]quered and defeated, claimed infinite privileges as an offset to what she has "given up," "sacrificed," "yielded." she humiliated her conqueror by pretending that his body or his caresses were not the equal of hers, and that she only submitted to his desire, without much pleasure, compelled by his "low instincts."
the modern woman, conversant with the facts of sex, and no longer having to create an artificial value for her body based on disregard of biological facts, since her activities, mental and physical, now command a definite price on the market place, seeks a partner with whom she will exchange caresses leading, as she recognises without silly shame, to mutual gratification.
the pursuit. the old-fashioned woman, who always assumed the passive role in life and who, supposedly indifferent to the pleasures of the flesh, ran away, actually or figuratively, from the brutal pursuer, played a preposterous dual part in the pre-love skirmishes. who has never encountered the woman who wears in a public place some dress which reveals a great deal of her bust, and yet who pretends to be offended if some man stares at what she has exposed in order to attract his stare?
the modern woman whose worth is determined,[pg 281] not by the male's eroticism in her presence, but by her accomplishments, can afford to be frank, honest, if not, at times, aggressive, in the love search.
the passing of respectable prostitution. the old-fashioned woman, having created the artificial value of womanhood as such, indulged in a mild, genteel form of prostitution, which, having no consequences likely to impose a burden on the community, (pregnancy, childbirth) never was criticised very severely. she sold her company for meals, theatre tickets, comfortable transportation, flowers, trinkets. now and then, developing a streak of fairness and honesty, she would grant the man she exploited small privileges of a superficial kind. but the real old-fashioned girl was of the absolutely sordid type, who could allow a more or less repellent suitor to spend considerable sums to amuse her but would express genuine indignation at the thought that the man could be as sordid as she was, and expect some caresses in return.
the modern woman, made independent financially by her non-sexual activities, can remove from her love all taint of even mild commercialism, returning favors in kind, or accepting presents, no longer as a bribe, but as a token of affection on the part of a man she loves.
[pg 282]
the abettor of ethical sins. the old fashioned wife was in many more cases than superficial thinking would cause us to imagine, a more dangerous corrupter of public and private morality than the prostitute.
numerically the wife predominates. the prostitute constitutes a very small minority of the population of large cities and does not thrive in small town, villages or farming communities.
louis berman, who is generally very indifferent to psychology, makes a very valuable remark in his book on glands: "consider," he writes, "the unimportance of a collective purpose to the woman whose career is the mate and then the mate's career."
which means that the woman who takes up wifehood as a profession has no social morality. her husband is her oyster and the world must in turn be her husband's oyster. she knows only one thing: that she must support her mate in anything he does so long as his activities, be they even immoral or criminal, provide food and shelter for her and her children. she cares not what he does as long as he "succeeds."
she founds her estimate of success upon visible accomplishment. getting "theirs," to her is preferable to getting "there." she, in short, is a foe to[pg 283] the world, as the world is the foe her mate has set out to capture and rob.
she willingly sells his ethics to buy success and, at the same time, is loud in her denunciation of public, self-confessed prostitutes. she would not prostitute herself but she lightheartedly prostitutes her mate.
the modern woman can in an emergency help her husband financially and thus enable him to follow the dictates of social ethics. she will thereby earn deeper love and respect from him than by any willingness to stand by him in crooked deals.
health versus sickness. to the old fashioned wife, weakness and sickness were invaluable assets. sickness excused laziness and capriciousness. sickness was a bait for petting and at the same time, a protection against unwelcome physical intimacies. her menstruation became a mysterious, offensive, painful process which debarred her from many careers she never thought of entering, saved her from duties she was only too glad to shirk. undismayed by the sight of professional women, singers, actresses, dancers, divers, etc., who not only never seemed disabled by the "dreaded" period but also held a distinct fascination to males "in spite" of their lack of neurotic femininity, she prided her[pg 284]self in living up to michelet's asinine description of woman, "an invalid twelve times unclean."
the modern woman seeking accomplishment of the positive type, scorns the negative superiority which sickness and invalidism assure to neurotics. she has acquired a more scientific knowledge of sex matters and the superstitious fears surrounding menstruation no longer affect her.
from my own clinical experience, i am compelled to agree heartily with dr. josephine a. jackson and helen m. salisbury, who in their very fine and practical book "outwitting our nerves" state that "ninety-five out of a hundred cases of painful menstruation are caused by fear and expectation of pain."
the passing of the doll. the modern woman, active, self reliant, honest and healthy, will force out of existence a type which has lent much picturesque charm to social gatherings and to pictorial art, the doll type of woman, prettiness incarnate, of rose leaf charm, unfit for any biological function except the mild lovemaking, not so much of a husband, as of a lover. tuberculous poets and composers of the musset and chopin type, affected pictorial artists like helleu, will deplore her disappearance. man, put at his ease by the modern[pg 285] woman, who does not require constant protection, mental and physical, will find the doll "too much trouble."
only the very stupid and unmanly man will cultivate her for she will not throw his physical shortcomings into too striking relief and it will not require any mental exertion on his part to converse with her.
the passing of the flirt. the flirt is doomed. the flirt is a rather unintelligent woman with a mild prostitution complex. she has been trained from infancy to consider a woman's career as successful when the woman fastens to herself a breadwinner whom she holds by his physical desire of her body. having never acquired any market value outside of the sexual field, she must constantly test her powers and reassure herself by leading all sorts and conditions of men, for whom she may never experience even the slightest fancy, into consequential overt acts revealing that she has awakened their eroticism.
anyone will do, provided she reads in his eyes the verdict: i am still attractive.
the terror of growing old is not so overwhelming to the modern woman who has acquired a non-sexual market value. she tests herself thru posi[pg 286]tive accomplishment, leadership, principally, and does not need to keep her eye constantly on the sex thermometer.
modesty, old and new. knowledge which dispels physical ghosts and a positive self-valuation based on accomplishment will cause the modern woman to discard the old fashioned modesty which was supposed to be her greatest attraction, and which husbands, while being obviously attracted by immodest women, encouraged in their wives as a bulwark against the advances of other men.
havelock ellis in his "impressions and comments" contrasts cleverly thru two striking illustrations the old-fashioned type, worshipping at the altar of false modesty, and the modern type, who is no longer ashamed of her body or her sex:
"in one of my books i had occasion to mention the case, communicated to me, of a woman in italy who preferred to perish in the flames, when the house was on fire, rather than shock her modesty by coming out of it without her clothes. so far as it has been within my power i have always sought to place bombs beneath the world in which that woman lived, so that it might altogether go up in flames. i read of a troop ship torpedoed in the mediterranean and almost immediately sunk within sight[pg 287] of land. a nurse was still on deck. she proceeded to strip, saying to the men about her: 'excuse me, boys, i must save the tommies.' she swam around and saved a dozen of them. that woman belongs to my world. now and again i have come across the like, sweet and feminine and daring women who have done things as brave as that, and even much braver because more complexly difficult and always i feel my heart swinging like a censer before them, going up in a perpetual fragrance of love and adoration.
"i dream of a world in which the spirits of women are flames stronger than fire, a world in which modesty has become courage and yet remains modesty, a world in which women are as unlike men as ever they were in the world i sought to destroy, a world in which women shine with a loveliness of self-revelation as enchanting as ever the old legends told, and yet a world which would immeasurably transcend the old world in the self sacrificing passion of human service."
thus far i have presented the silver lining of what some timid persons call the cloud of modernism in love.
to be perfectly fair and honest, i must now mention the cloud itself, altho, like all clouds, it will[pg 288] soon blow away or resolve itself into a few drops of water, tears, perhaps, also of a temporary nature.
the unadapted woman. the sudden rise of women in certain fields of activity has left quite a number of them unpleasantly unadapted.
certain positions, well filled by women, and which pay rather high salaries, demand but a modicum of intellectual development, little culture or manners.
the women who fill them, and who generally come from the working class, financially well off, accustomed to expensive clothes and to respectful treatment on the part of their coworkers or employers, are loath to enter a married relationship or even a liaison, with men of their social set, that is, having the same culture or lack of culture, for those men are financially lower and lack certain manners which they expect to find in their environment.
a husband of the working class type could not, in case of pregnancy, give such a woman the comfort which she now craves. motherhood would deprive her, temporarily at least, from an income which nothing could replace.
nor could she become subservient to a husband after being very independent and having become slightly snobbish on account of the attentions she[pg 289] has received from men financially superior to her.
some of those women whom i have known, and whose profession i shall not mention to avoid references of an odious character, sought mates, legitimate or illegitimate, out of their class, taking for husbands or lovers unsuccessful professional men in need of help.
the results of those matches were anything but encouraging.
the male prostitutes who accepted such arrangements, either showed plainly their scorn of their unintellectual mate or left her as soon as success in their chosen field made them independent of their working class wife or mistress.
the proud husband. many men drawing even small salaries, are absolutely unwilling to marry a woman engaged in a gainful occupation. this is due either to hidden jealousy, some men imagining that daily contact with other men is bound to jeopardise a woman's morals, or to silly pride and panicky fear of "what they will say." i have heard many donkeys telling me that they do not wish "people" to think that they cannot support their wives.
the cloud hovering over the modern woman and which may, at times, cast a shadow on her love[pg 290] life, will be blown away as soon as culture spreads to all social classes of the population owing to the increase and systematisation of leisure, and as soon as the old fashioned male has been consigned to his last resting place or analised out of his foolish neurotic notions.
