Meta Stern Lilienthal

“ There is not enough work left in the home to-day to keep all women in it; there will be less in the future. As surely as the machine will never again be exchanged for the manual tool, as surely as the electric lamp will never again be discarded for the home-made tallow candle, so surely will woman never again abandon her larger social life for a narrow domestic one. To assume that women wilt not work under Socialism, or that they will be limited to any special kind of work, implies a grave misunderstanding of the logic and the natural applicability of Socialism. ”

“ But still labor is the hand-maid of capital, and still the laborer is the social inferior of the capitalist. Even the smallest, most insignificant capitalist who feeds on rents and profits considers himself superior to the man who works for wages. The propertied classes, by virtue of their property, also have the social superiority of knowledge, education and culture, of a better environment, larger opportunities, and a greater chance for life, health and happiness. ”

“ The only domestic industries that remain in our day are cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing. But to these we have become so accustomed that we cling to them as if they were the spirit and the purpose of the home itself, Many of us cannot picture a home without a cooking stove and a washtub, and many also cannot picture the wife or mother in any other capacity than as a domestic worker. ”

“ If, under Socialism, women would be entirely released from the necessity of working, it would not mean progress but the worst kind of retrogression. It would reduce all womanhood to the level of the harem woman. It would make Socialism impossible, or-if it were possible—it would lead to the speedy degeneration and ultimate extinction of the human race. If, under Socialism, women would again devote all their energy and skill to the family and the home it would place them exactly where they have been before the age of machinery, steam-power and electricity. ”

“ Socialism stands for the social ownership of all things that are socially used. It does not stand for the social ownership of things that are privately used. Socialism does not deny my right to own my dress and my watch, my desk and my fountain-pen. These things are used by me personally, and my private ownership of them does not cause any suffering to my fellowmen and women. But Socialism does deny my right to own a piece of land or a mine, a railroad or a factory, because these things are not used by me personally. ”

“ Wicked human nature, unrestrained, will cause men and women to rush from one marriage into another, until one cannot tell from one day to the next which man's wife a woman is, and children will not know their own parents. Let us ask ourselves seriously: Is it human nature, civilized human nature, to desire promiscuity? Would all people, or even a majority of people, seek a constant variety in the object of their affections if the law did not restrain them? One need not wait for Socialism nor even more liberal divorce laws to answer these questions in the negative. ”

“ During the ages of woman's subjection how many geniuses among women may have perished unknown beside their family altar, the cooking stove? Under the present system few people have the freedom of choice. Countless abilities, talents and lofty aspirations are sacrificed day by day in silent tragedies because the lash of hunger and the grind of toil frequently make the development of talents and the realization of lofty aspirations impossible. Under Socialism there will be the largest freedom of choice for both men and women. ”

“ Present-day society provides the means for education without furnishing the opportunity. It also is contented with merely feeding the mind while starving the body. The little children who are sent to school every morning cold, because they are poorly clothed and poorly housed, hungry because they are habitually underfed, tired because they must labor beside studying, make our present system of education a farce to thousands upon thousands of human beings who might become educated, efficient citizens. Socialism will feed the body as well as the mind. ”

“ If Socialism means anything it means consideration for the welfare of the coming generation, Those who devote their lives to the service of Socialism to-day know that they themselves will never reap the fruit of their toil, but that they are merely sowing and planting that posterity may reap, and the whole philosophy of Socialism is one of altruism and human service. ”

“ So the application of knowledge and humane principles by a civilized society, collectively owning the means of production, will give women security as well as freedom; it will give them a nobler wifehood and a better motherhood as well as equal citizenship. Because women to-day are less free than men, because they are still hampered by social and political restrictions as well as by economic burdens, women have even more to gain than men by a new order of society. Socialism holds out its greatest promise to women. ”

“ The workers of Europe had no cause for conflict. They were driven into the slaughter in the name of that vicious patriotism that means profit, power and glory to the ruling classes, and suffering, misery and death to the dumb, submissive masses. Neither did the women of Europe have any cause for conflict. The best, noblest, most progressive women among all the belligerent nations even continued to exchange pledges of sympathy and good will while their men were engaged in mutual destruction. But the women were not consulted. ”

“ All life is marked by change. Indeed, change is the very essence of life. Mankind has struggled up from tribes of naked savages to nations of civilized men, and civilization will not stop at its present stage. It will move forward and onward to ever higher and better stages. Just as the feudalism of the middle ages was displaced by modern capitalism, so will capitalism be displaced by the coming order of society: Socialism.
The Socialistic order of society will be the first to recognize that labor is the most important and honorable function of human life. ”

“ In an industrial democracy one of the prime demands will be efficiency of all its workers. But not only will men and women be trained to work, they also will be trained to an understanding of science, of art, of literature, of human life; they will be endowed with an education and a general culture that at the present time is possible only for the leisure class. That the education of all its members is one of the most important functions of organized society is not a Socialistic discovery. Present-day society recognizes the principle of general education and endeavors to realize it. ”

“ Those marriages in which husband and wife have separate incomes and do not need one another for any economic reasons are often the best and most ideal even in our present society. But at present economic independence of wives is often dearly bought by work that is injurious to their motherhood, by unduly long separation from their families, by lack of proper provision for their young children, and by the added burden of household labor that women of our day cannot escape. ”

“ Woman and labor have been inseparably linked throughout the ages of social evolution. How could we believe that this unbroken line of evolution should suddenly be interrupted and reverted by so rational and wholesome an order of society as the one proposed by Socialism?
Women of the future will work as surely as women of the past and present. They only will work differently, just as men will work differently. Their work will be lighter, more pleasant, more rational, more conducive to human health and happiness than the work of the majority of people is at present. ”

“ Even where the body was bound the soul could not be fettered. No human laws could crush the love that kindred spirits felt for one another. It was poured forth in rhyme and music, in sculpture and painting. ”

“ But if free love means the removal of artificial and unnecessary restrictions, the greatest possible freedom of choice, and the least possible amount of outside interference, then Socialism can calmly countenance the accusation of favoring free love. As a matter of fact, love has always been free. You can no more bind it than you can bind genius or the spirit of revolt. Despite the most stringent laws of state and church, despite the most cruel punishments. people have always loved illicitly, and those who broke their bonds and loved freely were often the greatest men and women of their age. ”

“ The coming changes and adjustments in the position of women are being foreshadowed in the many changes and adjustments going on in present-day society. Ever since industry was taken out of the home and socialized, women have gone forth and become social producers. They have continued to become social producers in steadily increasing numbers during a century of industrial development, and we still see their numbers swelling constantly, irresistibly. It is only a natural, logical conclusion, therefore, that some time in the future all women will be social producers. ”

“ We think of all the numerous endeavors to save life and improve life far more than of the one endeavor to destroy life. In the performance of the numerous peaceful ministrations that constitute public service to-day there is room for women; indeed there is a crying need for the labors of women. That is why the most progressive countries of the world are fast admitting their women to equal citizenship.
The fundamental principle of Socialistic society will be universal peace. The greed of gain, the desire to rob one's fellowmen, has been a prime cause of almost all wars past and present. ”

“ It has been computed by economists that if all adult, healthy members of human society performed socially productive labor, a five-hour workday, six days a week, would suffice to provide humanity, not only with all its necessities, but with all its luxuries as well. As human ingenuity will not come to a standstill with Socialism, but will, on the contrary, be given a stronger impetus, people will go on discovering, inventing and improving the methods of production, and so the socially necessary workday may be shortened further still. ”

“ All productive labor was performed by slaves—and by women. The women and the male workers of the world have borne a common lot through the ages. They who supplied the world's needs, on whose quiet labor all human progress depended, have been the most despised and subjected members of human society. Therefore it was not mere chance but a natural result of historical development that the workers and the women awoke to a consciousness of their wrongs at the same time ”

“ They are a small, insignificant group of useless members of society, the parasite women, whose very uselessness and self-indulgence leads to childlessness and degeneration. Who are the women who work? All women except the parasites. In office, store and factory, in school, college and university, in kitchen and nursery, on the field and in the farm-yard, in public and private life all women are working, Not only are almost all women working to-day, but all women have worked since the dawn of human existence. Women were workers before men. They were the pioneers and originators of all industry. ”

“ Socialism will make for human happiness, and to be happily mated is one of the fundamental conditions of human happiness. Far from encouraging low and loathsome sex relations, a Socialistic society will encourage the pure, honest union between one man and one woman, and will teach its sons as well as its daughters the importance of coming into marriage clean and healthy in body and mind in order to fulfill the sacred function of propagating a healthy race. ”

“ When we say workers to-day we picture a definite social class. In the military societies of the past the workers were looked down upon as the lowest social class. The soldier regarded the producer as being very inferior to himself. The peasant who tilled the soil that fed knight-errant and feudal baron was the last and lowest member of that carefully graded order of caste in feudal society. In the world's most ancient civilizations, Egypt, Greece and Rome, the worker was not only an inferior creature, but an absolute slave. ”

“ Although women have been given the opportunity to become economically independent, this independence is still supposed to terminate with marriage, the economic status of wives is still supposed to be one of dependence upon their husbands. Socialism will merely lead the present trend of development to its rational and inevitable conclusion by taking the last domestic industries out of the home and socializing them like all others, and by giving all women economic independence, regardless of their marital relation. Let us first consider the home as it is likely to be under Socialism. ”

“ Occupations will be even more varied and diversified than they are at present, because human needs will increase still further with increasing civilization, and human skill, ingenuity and genius, set free by economic security and wholesome conditions of life, will continue to discover, invent and create without limitation. Instead of restricting individuals or groups of individuals to any definite kind of work, the development of individuality will be given full play. It has been said that in present-day society many a genius may perish unknown beside a machine. ”

“ The assertion sometimes made by Socialist speakers that under Socialism the state will take care of the children, causes gruesome pictures to loom up before the mental vision of the unenlightened, pictures of great, state-owned orphan asylums, in which all the children will be herded together while public officials go about the country robbing mothers of their babes. This utterly ridiculous idea that Socialists advocate separating children from their parents has caused many women, particularly those with strong, maternal feelings, to oppose Socialism without ever knowing what Socialism is. ”

“ Bright eyes, ruddy complexions, and straight, strong bodies will be the inalienable right of youth. We know that health and strength and vigor are not only possible but natural to youth. Young savage women, untouched by the evils of civilization, show it, and the athletic daughters of the propertied classes, spared from the evils of civilization, show it also. The maidens of the future, strong, healthy, active and educated, will be physically and mentally fit for wifehood and motherhood as not one in a hundred is to-day. ”

“ Women of the future will not be compelled to choose between wage slavery and marrying for a home. They will not know wage slavery. They will only know honorable labor performed under wholesome conditions for a very limited number of hours each day, assuring them of a decent livelihood and permanent economic security. They will not know marriage for any ulterior motives. To them marriage will only mean the perfect, physical and mental union with the men of their choice. ”