as late as sixty or seventy years ago, the daughters of good families had still few points of contact with life outside the four walls of the home. from the hands of nurse-maids they went into those of the governess, and after confirmation, studies were at an end. if it was a cultured home then reading aloud or music was often practised, whereby it is true no “specific education” qualifying them for examinations was attained, but frequently a fine universal human culture. there was always employment in the house for the zeal for work. the great presses were filled with linen which was not infrequently spun and woven by the daughters; in the autumn they assembled for sausage-making and candle dipping; later, for christmas baking and roasting; in summer endless rows of glasses of preserves were set in the store-room. before christmas, night after night, christmas presents were made; after christmas, night after night, they danced. at these balls those in outer respects uncomely, received a foretaste of that waiting which must fill their life for many long years: 90would the invitation to the dance—or the wooing respectively—come or not? every man whose shadow merely fell upon the scene, was immediately considered from the point of view of a suitor. as the years went by the girl, who before twenty-five years of age was considered an “old maid,” saw how the glance of the father and the brothers became gloomy, yes, she could even hear how “unfortunate” she was. if such a daughter lived in a home poor in books—and most of them were—then she could not even procure a book she wished. for the daughters worked year in year out without wages, in case they did not receive meagrely doled out pin-money which only through great ingenuity sufficed for their toilette. all year long there were christenings and birthday celebrations; in summer games were played, where it was possible riding parties arranged, in winter sleighing parties were organised. other physical exercise was considered superfluous. the young girls were averse to going to a neighbouring estate if it lay a mile away; and during the week to take a long walk for pleasure or sit down with a book, which had been borrowed, would be considered simply as idling away one’s time. in summer a cold bath was permissible—a warm bath was used only in cases of sickness—but swimming was considered so unwomanly, that whoever had learned it must keep it secret. rowing, tobogganing and skating were, even if permitted in the country, yet half in discredit as “masculine.”
91when grandfather related an heroic deed of some ancestress whose proud countenance shone out among the family portraits, then the daughter of such a family must have asked herself why this deed was lauded while everything “manly” was forbidden her.
the days and years went by at the embroidery frame or netting needles, amid continuous chatter about the family and neighbours, amid eternal friction and in disputing back and forth over mere trifles. the confined nervous force sought an outlet, and in an existence where each one—according to the first paragraph of family rights—interfered in the greatest as in the smallest concerns of all the others, there was always plenty of material about which to become irritated and excited.
in the country, life was, however, fuller and fresher than in the city where the young girl had less to do and never dared go out alone; yes, where a walk was considered so superfluous, that the mother of the great swedish feminist fredrika bremer advised her daughters to jump up and down behind a chair when they insisted that they needed exercise!
the relation to the parents, even if the principle of unswerving and mute obedience was not wholly carried out, was ordinarily a reverential alienation. neither side knew the inner life of the other. the temperament of the mother determined the everyday 92domestic comforts, the will of the father the external occurrences of life, from the trip to the ball to marriage. the daughter whose inclination corresponded with the will of the father considered herself fortunate. the one married against her will wept, but obeyed. as an almost fabulous occurrence it was related of one or another girl that she dared to say “no” before the marriage altar; cases were not unusual in which daughters received a box on the ear and were confined to their room until they accepted the bridegroom whom the father had chosen. even if a mother, moved by the recollections of her own youth, attempted to support a daughter it rarely succeeded. for the power of the father rested quite as heavily upon the wife. but the worst however was to water myrtle year after year, without ever being able to cut it for a bridal wreath. even she, who in her heart loved another, found it therefore often wisest to give her consent to an acceptable suitor. only the one whose dowry was valued at a “ton of gold”—or who also was a celebrated beauty—could run the risk of declining a courtship; yes, she could permit herself to occasion it only to decline it. the more suitors she could recount, the prouder she was; such a beauty even embroidered around her bridal gown the monograms of all her earlier wooers.
the unmarried remained behind in an environment where the idea prevailed that “woman’s politics are her toilettes, her republic is her household and literature belongs to her trinkets.” the 93talented daughter sewed the fine starched shirts in which her stupid brother went to the academy and sighed therewith: “ah, if one only were a man.”
when the income of the house was small, she increased it perhaps by embroidery, sold in deepest secrecy; for it was a disgrace for a girl of good family to work for money. for her rebellious thoughts she had perhaps a girl friend to whom she could pour out her heart—or a sister. but it often fared with sisters growing old together, just as it must fare with north-pole explorers wintering together, that those holding together of necessity finally loathe one another from the bottom of their hearts. and yet the sisters were most fortunate who could grow old and die in their childhood home and were not compelled to become old household fixtures in the home of relatives.
not infrequently this last fate was their portion because a father, a brother or a guardian out of personal, economical self-interest prevented their marriage, or a brother through debt or studies had defrauded them of their inheritance.
it was not the woman movement but the religious movement, beginning among the northern peoples almost simultaneously with it, called in sweden “l?seri” (“reading”) that was the first spiritual emancipation for the old or young unmarried girls—likewise for wives who longed for a deeper content. because they took seriously the bible doctrine that one should disregard the commands of the family in order to follow christ, the 94home gradually became accustomed to one of the feminine members’ going her own way. often amid great struggles. for the “reader” was more or less considered as insane; the father was ashamed of her, the mother mourned over her, the brothers laughed at her. but nothing could hinder those strong in their faith from following the inner voice. and so these women, without knowing it themselves, were a bridge to that emancipation of women to which they themselves later—bible in hand—were often an obstacle.
the movement could not however be prevented. and now—how is it now in the family? already the ten-year-old talks about what she is sometime going to be. now, the sisters go with the brothers to school or to the academy and share their intellectual interests as well as their life of sport. now, the fathers and mothers sit at home often alone, for the daughters belong to that host of self-supporting girls who can gratify the parents by short visits only. alas, these visits are not always an unclouded joy. there are collisions between the old and the young often over seeming bagatelles. but a feather shows which way the wind blows and the parents observe that, in the spiritual being of the daughter, the wind blows from an entirely different direction from theirs. the daughter, on the other hand, thinks that perfect calm prevails in the being of her parents; she wishes to raise the dust. the mother pleads her cause in dry and 95offended manner, the daughter in superior and impetuous words. accustomed to her freedom, she encounters again at home control over her commissions and omissions, attempts upon her privacy from which she had been freed by leaving home. and they separate again each with a sigh that they “have had so little of one another.” in other cases—when the parents have followed the times and the daughters understand that not only children but also parents must be educated with tenderness—then the visits to the parents’ home become on both sides elevating episodes in their lives. the daughters repose in the parental tenderness, which they have only now learned to value when they compare it with their customary loneliness. the parents confide to the daughter their cares which she sometimes can effectively lighten, and they revive with her spiritual interests which they themselves had to lay aside. through her own working life the daughter has gained an entirely new respect for her parents. through her independence of parental authority she has now gained a frankness, which makes a real interchange of ideas possible. they discover that they can have something reciprocal for one another. the father, who perhaps at first sighed when the young faces vanished out of the home, now admits that it would have been foolish if the whole troop of girls had continued here at home and so had stood there at his demise, empty-handed, without professional training. the mother, who had 96helped them persuade the father, smiles, when he insists that he “would not exchange his capable girls for boys.” and he is not at all afraid that the daughters could not marry if they would; he remembered indeed how his contemporaries declared that they “would never look at a girl student, a blue stocking,” and yet so many of these were now happily married to—girl students.
beside these results of the independence of the daughters which elevate life for all sides, there are opposite cases; when, for example, a single daughter without outer economic compulsion or inner personal necessity, impelled only by the current of the time, leaves a home where her contribution of work could be significant, in order to follow a vocation outside. the results are often of doubtful value, not only from a social point of view but also from that of the family and herself, when the daughter remains at home but carries on a work outside. this comes partly because they are contented with less pay and thus lower the wages of those who support themselves entirely; partly because they over-exert themselves. in those cases where several daughters can share with one another the domestic duties, no over-exertion results perhaps. but when a single daughter combines an exacting professional work with quite as exacting household duties, then she is exhausted by her double task; then she feels the burden, not the joy, of work. for all professional working girls who remain at home, have moreover in addition, 97even under the most favorable circumstances, the spiritual strain of turning from work back again to the gregarious demands of the home, as well as to the many different attractions and repulsions, antipathies and sympathies which determine the deviations in temperature of the home; the strain of respecting the sensibilities which must be spared or of paying attention to the domestic demands which must be refused, if the work is not to suffer from lack of rest and time for preparation. all this can be so nerve racking that the young girl is seized with an irresistible longing for a little home of her own, where she would be mistress of her leisure time, and could see her own friends—not alone those of her family,—where she could join those who held the same views, where she, in a word, would live her life according to the dictates of her personal demands. if she can, she often does this. for to-day young girls live to apply the principle of the woman movement—individualism. the older women’s rights advocates desired, it is true, that woman should be allowed to “develop her gifts,” but she should “administer” them for the benefit of others; they desired that she should receive new rights from law and custom, but that she should seek always in law and custom support and security for her action. the young women’s rights advocates, on the other hand, believe that their own growth, just as that of animals and trees, is intended above all for self-development, that in their own character the direction for their growth is 98specified, and that they have not the right to confine themselves by circumstances or subject themselves to influences by which they know they hinder the development of their powers, according to their individual natures. the more refined the feeling of personality becomes, the more exactly these young people understand how to choose what is essential for them and to repudiate what is a hindrance. but before they attain this certainty they evince often an unnecessary lack of consideration, and the family is often right when it speaks of the egoism of youth. they find no opportunity for helping father or mother nor for participation in the elders’ interests. the whole family is rarely assembled even at meal-time; the daughters as well as the sons rush off to lectures, work, sport, clubs. the mother who sees how occupied the daughters are has not the heart to add to their work or to thwart them in their pleasures; thus she allows the selfishness of the young creatures to increase to the point where she herself in indignation begins—seasonably and unseasonably—to react against it. the young girl answers her mother’s reproof then with the complaint that, “mamma does not understand” her and that she is “behind her time.” especially the young examination-champions distinguish themselves by their arrogance in the family as in the club, where they look down upon the older ladies who have not passed examinations just as they do upon their own mother.
99it fares best in the families, and they are even now numerous, where the mother herself has studied or worked outside the home and therefore knows what domestic services she may or may not require; where she herself personally understands the intellectual occupation of the young people and has preserved her own youthfulness, so that she becomes not infrequently the real friend of her daughters and sons. if the mother, on the contrary, was one of the many who, at the beginning of the woman movement, sacrificed her own talent to the wishes of her family or the demands of the home, in spite of the possibilities for its development made accessible to her at that time, then she has often absolutely no comprehension of the egoism of her daughter. she herself had acted so entirely differently! or she understands fully that in her daughters as well as in her sons she views the attainment of a new conception of life, with all its storm and stress, which the spring-times in the life of mankind bring with them—an attainment in which, to her sorrow, she could not take part in her youth.
at such spring-times youth is not, as the parents hoped, sunlight and the twittering of birds in the home; but march storms and april clouds. the parents feel themselves at first swept out, superfluous, disillusioned. they are angered but rejuvenated, thanks to all the new points of view that youth makes valid. yes, father and mother sometimes could live through a second youth if their 100own contemporaries did not depress their buoyancy by their disapproving astonishment and the children by their cool rejection of the comradeship of their parents. but in spite of this twofold opposition, there are now fathers and mothers who are able to enjoy the riches of life quite as youthfully as and more deeply than their children; while the parents of earlier times, especially the mother, forever stagnated as early as forty. more and more frequently we find mothers who, like their daughters, lead a spiritually rich and emotional life, who have so preserved their physical youthfulness and who possess moreover through experience and self-culture so refined a soul-life, that, in regard to the impression they make, they are not infrequently the rivals of their daughters. they are already revelations of that type of woman which, in token of emancipation, has found the equilibrium between the old devoted ideal and the new self-assertive ideal. they view life from a height which gives them a survey also over the essential, in questions concerning their own children. even if these become something other than the mothers wish, these mothers are so penetrated with the idea of individualism that they let the children follow their own course.
modern fathers rarely find so happy a home as it once could be with a bevy of daughters always at hand. but they find the home richer in content, often also freer from petty dissensions. for in the measure in which each member of the family 101desires his right and his freedom, do all gradually learn to respect those of others. if the parents consider with dignity their right and their freedom, then a reciprocal consideration results after the boldness which youth evinces under the first influence of the intoxication of freedom. youth, at first so proud and strong in their assurance of bringing new ideal values to life, begin themselves to experience how the world treats these; and what they once called their parents’ prejudice appears to them now often in a new light. their self-assertion becomes a product of culture, out of a raw material. the manifestations of their individualism become continually more discreet, more controlled, but at the same time more essential and more effective. when then the young people have found their way and the parents endeavour to turn them aside to the main road—which they call the way of wisdom or of duty—then certainly and with right the young people put themselves on the defensive.
even a devoted daughter cannot bring to the home to-day as undivided a heart as formerly. but this gift was earlier a matter of course, so to speak, a natural result of the conditions. but if to-day a girl sacrifices a talent to filial duty, then it is an infinitely greater personal sacrifice; a real choice. and if she does not make the sacrifice, it is not in the least always on the ground of egoism. it happens often in conviction that the unconditional demand of christianity that the strong must 102have consideration for the weak, makes these latter often egoists and tyrants; that the strong, who are more significant for the whole, are thus rendered inefficient.
if a troop of athletic boys continually conformed to the level of the weakest, then all would remain upon a lower plane, and the weak find no incentive to seek their triumphs in another sphere.
on the other hand it is fine and eminently sane and in harmony with the laws of spiritual growth, when the strong shall help the weak to reach a goal which is thus, in his own peculiar direction, really attainable by him. neither paganism nor christianity has created the most beautiful strength; it is a union of both. it has found its most perfect expression in art in donatello’s st. george, in michelangelo’s david: youths, whose victorious power conceals compassion and whose compassion embraces even the conquered: symbols of strength which has become kind, of kindness which has become strong. if a mother has seen this expression upon the face of her son or her daughter then she can address to life the words of simeon: “now let thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy glory.” for the glory of life is the harmony between its two fundamental powers—conquest and devotion: self-assertion and self-sacrifice. in every new phase of the ethical development of mankind the cultural problem is this harmony and the cultural profit is not the per-dominance 103of one of the two but the perfected synthesis of both.
this problem has now become actual, through the woman movement, for the feminine half of mankind, after the unconditional spirit of sacrifice has obtained for centuries as the indispensable attribute of womanliness. in the first stage of the woman movement the majority of the “emancipated” were still determined by their spirit of sacrifice, which they aspired to combine with their outside professional work. this generation lived beyond its strength. the younger generation of to-day does not believe that god gives unlimited strength. for they have seen that those who live unceasingly beyond their strength finally have no strength left, either for others or for themselves. and they know that in the long run one can live only upon his own resources and these must be conserved and renewed in order to suffice. but this knowledge makes the problem, which in the course of days and years appears in manifold different forms, only more difficult of solution: the problem to find the right choice in the collision between family duties, duties toward oneself and duties toward society; the choice which shall bring with it the essential enhancement of life.
the conflict is thus solved by some feminists: everything called family ties and family feeling is referred to the “impersonal” instinctive life, while our “personality” expresses itself in intellectual activity, in study, in creation, in universally 104human ends, in social activity, etc. and since the principle of emancipation is certainly the freeing of the “personality,” it follows from this idea, in connection with this definition of the personality, that the liberated personality must place the obligations of the intellectual life absolutely above those of the family life; the outside professional work above the work in the home. in a word, the earlier definition of womanliness ignored the universal human element, the present definition of personality ignores the womanly element in woman’s being. the last solution of the problem is quite as one-sided as the first.
the “principle of personality,” as it has just been described is entertained especially in america. in europe there are still women who reflect deeply upon their own being and—who have a depth over which they may meditate! these women have not yet succeeded in simplifying the problem which is the central one of their life. they know that not only do instincts, impulses of the will, feelings, form the strongest part of the individual character which nature has given them, but also that this part determines their thinking and creating power—their whole conscious existence. they know that their character receives its peculiarities through the development which they themselves accord to one or another side of their individual temperament. in one personality the intellectual life will predominate, in another the emotional: in one the ethical, in another the ?sthetic motive. 105the personality becomes harmonious only when no essential motive is lacking, when all attain a certain degree of development, a harmony which is as yet only so won that no motive receives its greatest possible development. such a harmony has long been the especial characteristic of the most beautiful womanhood, while the most significant men have ordinarily achieved their superior strength in one direction, at the cost of harmony in the whole. if now women believe that they can achieve the strength of men without, for that reason, being obliged to sacrifice something of their harmony, then they believe their sex capable of possibilities which thus far have been granted rarely and then only to the exceptional in both sexes. what experience shows is: the greater harmony of single women in a limited existence as compared with the lack of harmony in the lives of daughters, owing to the irreconcilable problems which their richer existence brings with it. for these problems must be solved, at one time, by sacrifice of intellectual, at another, by sacrifice of emotional values. in every case, the sacrifice leaves behind it, not the joyful peace of fulfilled duty, but the gnawing unrest of a duty still ever unfulfilled. every woman who has a heart knows it is at least quite as important a part of her personality as her passion for science perhaps. if for example she is obliged to surrender to another the loving service of a sick father in order to pursue scientific researches, then her heart is quite as 106certainly in the sick-room as, in case of the opposite choice, her thoughts would have been in the laboratory. by calling one factor “instinct” and the other “personality,” nothing is in reality gained. theorising ladies can easily write—the paper is forbearing. but human nature is of flesh and blood. and therefore thousands of women grapple to-day with tormenting questions:—when we women shall belong entirely to industrial work and to the social life, who then is left for the work of love? only paid hands. what becomes then of the warmth in human life when such a division of labour is established that kindness becomes a profession, and the rest of us shall be exempt from its practice because our “personality” has more important fields for the exercise of its strength? what does it signify to live for society when we come to the service of society with chilled hearts? if the warmth is to be preserved then we must have leisure for love in private life, a right to love, peace and means for love. only thus can our hearts remain warm for the social life. can the whole really profit if we sacrifice unconditionally that part of the whole which is nearest us? can our feeling of solidarity increase toward mankind when we pass by exactly those people to whom we could, by our deeds, really show our sympathetic fellow-feeling?
the woman whose instinct life is still strong and sound, whose personality has its roots deep in life—which means not social life alone—she also 107understands how to determine what life in its deepest import purposes with her; she knows how she serves it best, whether by remaining in a position where she fulfils her personal obligations as part of a family or by seeking another position where she fulfils this obligation as a member of society.
it is true the erroneous idea still prevails in many homes that the daughter must willingly sacrifice her social task for the family, a sacrifice which the family would never even wish on the part of a son. but the assurance that the daughter could have made another choice instils in the family, unconsciously, a new conception of her sacrifice, and gives to herself the courage to assume a position in the home other than that she held at the time when no choice remained to her. if the total of efficacious daughterly love of to-day and earlier times be estimated, this total would not prove less now. but it is now given rather in a great sum; earlier, on the contrary, in many small coins. because of the professional work of the daughter, there are now often lacking in the home the ready obliging young hands whose help father and brother so willingly engrossed; the cheerful comforter, the admiring listener. but in a great hour the daughter or sister gives now often a hundred times more in deep, personal understanding. one draws a false conclusion when one thinks that the more closely a family holds together the more it signifies a corresponding unity and devotion. 108the young act in submission because they permit themselves to be cowed by the family authority which like a steam-roller passed over their wills and their hearts. but the indignation that they experienced in their innermost hearts, the criticism which they exercised among one another, were not less bitter than that which they to-day openly utter.
the home life of fifty years ago was a school of diplomacy; it especially served to oppose cunning to the father’s authority, and the mother often taught the children to use this weapon of weakness. now the father does not wish to make himself ridiculous by saying: “i forbid you,” for the daughter answers: “well, then, i will wait until i am twenty-one.” the threat, “i disinherit you,” recoils from the determination of the daughter, “i can work.” only in a distant province, in a little town, or among the “upper ten thousand” of a large city, where the daughters still often receive a “general education,” which does not fit them to earn their living, are they occupied all day without the feeling of having worked. they serve at five o’clock teas, embroider for charity bazaars, etc. but they also experience the power of the spirit of the time strongly enough to know that they lead a selfish life but not a life of self. the lower the scale of riches the more housework do the daughters have to perform. but as a result of the patriarchal organisation of labour they still perform this without their own responsibility, without the 109joy of independence, without regular unoccupied time and without one penny at their disposal!
even in these circles however the spirit of the time is active; such a daughter leads now in every case a life of much richer content than some decades ago, when even though middle-aged she was still treated as ignorant innocence and must allow herself to be extolled to every possible marriage candidate. she suffers when she sees her mother as the submissive wife, whose continual according smile has graven lines of humility about her mouth, whose continually pacifying tone has made her voice whining. she suffers when the father cuts short a diversity of opinion with the words, “you have heard what i said—that will do.” she suffers when her brothers find her “insufferably important” or declare her new ideas “crazy.” but exactly these new ideas about the right and freedom of woman, which she encounters everywhere, have given a dignity to her own being which has its influence even without words. on the other hand, the fact that the fathers lose one legal right after another over the feminine members of the family has its effect, so that they gradually change their tone, the clenched fist falls less and less frequently upon the table, the disdain is silenced, and even in the provinces the family life is changing more and more from the despotic political constitution to the democratic, where each one maintains his position by virtue of his own personality. there 110are still men it is true, who wish to confine “woman’s sphere” to the four “c’s”—“cooking, clothing, children, church.” but there is no one who now insists that “a girl cannot learn mathematics,” or that it is “unwomanly to pore over books”—sayings which were still often heard fifty years ago. certainly there are still men who accept the cherishing thoughtful care on the part of the women members of the family as obvious homage. but the men are becoming more and more numerous who receive these womanly acts of tenderness with waking joy. daughters and sisters of earlier times have pardoned the vices of their fathers and brothers seven and seventy times; those of the present throw away the fragments of trust and love which have been irrevocably shattered. the assurance that the daughters and sisters could do nothing else except pardon, since they were dependent upon their tormentors, often made the fathers and brothers of earlier times grossly inconsiderate. the men of to-day will be refined by the necessity of showing consideration and justice to their daughters and sisters if they wish to enjoy their presence in the home. fathers and brothers have, in a word, gained quite as much spiritually through the loss of their power to oppress as the daughters and sisters have gained in being no longer oppressed. and this experience will be repeated in marriage when man and wife shall be absolutely free and equal.
