Underneath the surface, in the realm of the sub-conscious activities, there is developing the spirit of unity; of sympathy; and a consciousness of our innate relationship. This realization comes to the surface in times of great stress and peril.
The whole trend of modern life symbolizes or reflects the _ideal_ of unity, albeit the tooth and claw and growl of the animal in Man may be seen and felt and heard in the vain effort to postpone the inevitable dethronement of the animal force, which would dominate the weaker and appropriate for the personal self, the creation of brain and hand, much as the house-dog, satiated with over-feeding, buries the bone he cannot eat lest some hungry brother-dog shall get it. Nevertheless, despite the animal greed that still shows in our modern life, there is plenty of evidence that we are on the upward spiral that leads to unity--the effect of love.
The superficial observer, dominated by that instinct of fear which seems to be so ingrained in our animal nature that we are all slaves to it in some form or degree, sees in the present-day conditions a menace to what he believes to be the moral life of the race, and particularly as these conditions apply to the modern woman.
He sees women coming out of the seclusion of their "rightful sphere"
and meeting men on terms of equality. He sees what he terms "immodest dress;" defiance of traditional ideas of etiquette and conduct; he notes what appears to be a disregard for the faith of our fathers; and, above all, a distaste for that special function of woman--child-bearing. The superficial observer, both male and female, feels great alarm.
But let us not be dismayed. Present day conditions, particularly as they relate to the female principle of Creation, but reflect the inevitable reaction from a one-sided course. The pendulum swings back again and ultimately we will strike a balance; from domination to unity; from struggle to harmony. Even American commercial life admits the value of a vacation time.
Present day conditions, then, are not chaotic or lacking in a well-defined purpose, even though they are unsettled. Anything that disturbs the seeming placidity of the surface always strikes alarm to the undeveloped mind. Particularly in those phases of our modern life which directly affect women, or in which we may say, the Female Principle is especially concerned, we note a determined and united demand for freedom.
Woman"s demand for political equality is but a shadowgraph as it were of the real demand which is the demand of the Divine Feminine throughout all manifested life, for recognition of equality, in the plan of creation. It is a symbol of the ideal of unity which finds expression in the commercial world in trusts and labor unions; in the "let us get together" plea of the various advocates of reform; of all those enterprises which are seen to most directly affect the entire human family.
That there are women who are blind to this fundamental idea of their demand for political equality is true; and it is also true that there are perhaps as many men as there are women who recognize the need of woman"s political and social equality, but this only proves the fact which we have already emphasized, namely that it is not women as personalities, but the Female Principle throughout the universe that is at the root of the modern Feminist Movement. The male principle is not confined to the form of man, neither is the female principle always expressed in the form of woman. Many men exemplify more of the maternal instinct than do certain women; neither must it be a.s.sumed that this type of man is effeminate; or that the woman of Amazonian physique is more masculine in thought and habit than is the little frou-frou specimen of womankind who looks appealingly into the eyes of her male escort, beseeching protection from the rude stares which she has premeditatedly invited. Qualities are s.e.xless and universal. It is only in their specific combinations that they adequately represent the masculine or the feminine gender.
Blessed are they who have learned the art of discrimination.
Broadly speaking, women are behaving in a manner which upsets all precedent and promises ultimate emanc.i.p.ation from restraint.
But is it not possible that women no longer need restraint if they ever needed it? Is it not possible that the world has grown up, and that both men and women may safely be allowed the freedom of self-government, with all possible mutual aid in the work of establishing an upright, free, and trustworthy science of right living?
That which is always in the future is never ours and if we are ever going to be free and happy and well-conditioned there is no reason why we should not make it soon.
Woman"s demand for political equality is sometimes used as an excuse to lessen her dignity and her place in society. People who do this are of the same type as those before whom s.e.x cannot be discussed intelligently because they do not realize the sacredness of s.e.x. They are a remnant of the ages which have pa.s.sed and which have left their mark, in the idea of a half-s.e.xed G.o.d, the "He," the spouseless Father who brought forth the visible universe apparently without co-operation with the Female Principle. This type of person prates much about the dangers of race-suicide, meaning thereby the increasing tendency to childlessness and not as should be taken into account the death rate among children who are born of diseased and unfit parents and brought into existence without the necessary conditions of sanitation, food and care.
Our national Eugenic societies are hampered by false ideas of what const.i.tutes morality, being bound to uphold the tradition that the child that is born of married parents, no matter how diseased in body and deficient in mind, is better-born than is the offspring of unmarried parents, even though the latter may be a model of physical health and mental efficiency. Eugenics will remain limited in scope until such time as the entire world adopts "in spirit and in truth"
the recent action of the European governments, and recognizes the legitimacy of all children however born.
And although the action of the European governments was born of nothing more humane than a war expediency in order that more soldiers might be bred, yet the effect of such a course will benefit the human race. It has at least set a precedent, and will in time be extended to all children born out of wedlock and will wipe out forever the cruel and unjust stigma that has attached to the child of unmarried parents.
Thus it will be seen that even war has its good results, and although it seems a terrible price to pay for even so badly a needed reform as this, Humanity has always paid dearly for its willful blindness. It certainly should be evident to any sane mind that every child that is born into this world has a moral and a legal right to be here.
Whatever may be said for or against parents, it is wicked stupidity to brand an innocent child with the epithet "illegitimate." The lowest animal has a right to be born. Many a beautiful and innocent child is denied that right.
If it has taken one of the most b.l.o.o.d.y wars in history to establish the right of birth, even so the struggle will not have been in vain, because this right, once established in the hearts of all Humanity, will forever do away with warfare. No doubt this a.s.sertion will sound far-fetched to many, but the future will see the vindication of this belief.
Birth is actually the most important function in life. If it is immoral to be born, no matter what the conditions of such birth, what possible chance have we to live morally? We cannot discriminate in dealing with the great fundamentals of life.
This truism, applies to all cosmic action. Nature"s laws are inviolable. Nature says that the child of the king and the child of the beggar shall be born in the self-same way. The child of the unmarried mother and the child of the married mother come into the world in accordance with the self-same law of reproduction. Nature may not be always polite, but she is always truthful.
As long as there is any question of the "legitimacy" of any birth, Humanity as a whole cannot be otherwise than inferior, because Humanity cannot rise higher than the ideal of the average. Moreover we are so interdependent that the whole must be affected by the conditions of a part.
Birth is right, or it is wrong. It cannot be right under some circ.u.mstances and wrong under others. The primal laws do not take into account our ideas of respectability.
The question then arises: "Are we to consider it moral and legitimate for women to have children before they have been married?"
The obvious answer to this question is, that the mother must be permitted to decide this for herself, since no one has a right to do it for her. Our right of interference in so intimate a matter must begin only at the point where her conduct injures us. If an unmarried woman chooses to give birth to a child, neither you nor I, nor Society is injured, not even if the child becomes a charge of the state, because the cost of maintaining a child is far less than that of maintaining insane asylums and penitentiaries--both of which result from our mistaken att.i.tude toward the s.e.x-relation.
If we are permitted to answer the question of morality and legitimacy by generalities, we will say that any child that comes into the world _desired by the mother_ is born in accordance with the highest possible concept of the moral law. Whenever Society, Church and Governments shall unite to wipe out the stain upon mother and child because of failure to comply with our marriage laws, a better race of men and women will people the earth, because the race-thought will be one of welcome with all that word implies; whereas at the present time, under our undeveloped ideas of morality, doubt, suspicion, and condemnation prevail, with all that these words imply.
When all mothers are honored all women will be willing to be mothers.
As long as dishonor attaches to any instance of motherhood, it is inevitable that motherhood will be avoided, even to the point of child-murder. Not that this practice is confined to the women who would be dishonored by becoming mothers. It obtains rather more perhaps among those women whose wealth and ease would seem to make motherhood desirable. Judging from surface conditions only, one might not see the connection. But that is the trouble with our modern life.
We do not look deeply enough to deal intelligently with causes. We are always seeking to check effects.
The average human being is little more than a phonographic record of the dominant race-thought, and race-thought ideas are contagious.
Let us honor and provide for all mothers and all children and we will find that the birthrate will increase among the "rich and respectable," where now we note a determined desire to shirk the responsibilities of parenthood.
We need not fear that the number of unmarried mothers will be alarming. The first aid to true morality is honesty. Monogamy is the ideal relationship between men and women. But enforced relationships are neither ideal nor true. Ideal conditions can be established only between free human beings. Compulsion is death. Selection and choice mean life and health.
The man or the woman who is free, and particularly free from self-condemnation, is instinctively monogamous. Life in all its phases tends upward toward conscious and specific selection. Conscious selection must include love, and we may safely trust love. Love is inseparable from truth and fidelity. Without love, all the efforts of all the Eugenic Societies on earth will accomplish little, however well-meant their efforts. Eugenists confine their work to the physical aspect of the subject and as a matter of expediency deal with the effects of marriage and race-propagation in their relation to disease and degeneracy, ignoring the esoteric phase of the subject. Thus no real good can come of the Eugenic movement per se. Its contribution to Progress consists in its value as an "announcer" of a higher _ideal_, rather than a higher _order_. The higher order can come only by getting back to primal laws.
The fact should not be overlooked that the ancient Greeks were competent Eugenists. They effected wonderful results, too, in two important points of the well-balanced individual. They worked for beauty and intellect, both desirable adjuncts to a perfect race, but both also as cold as the marble statues which Greece gave to the world. Greek and Roman civilization toppled and fell because it was a civilization without foundation; it was built from the outside; it was like an old ruined house encased in a thin wall of beautiful marble, and set upon a high hill. It deceives the eye from a distance, but freezes the blood and congeals the soul when intimately known.
Greek and Roman civilization, based upon physical Eugenics, was unbalanced and could not endure, because it was a civilization of force; of dominance rather than of unity. There was no ideal of s.e.x-equality, and therefore Love was regarded as the least important requisite in Eugenic marriage. It should be obvious that without the element of love, as the basis of selection, human reproduction must take on the same status as stock-breeding, which may for a time give the finest physical specimens of animal life, but which, if persisted in, finally results in decadence.
We have an example of the tendency to decadence from in-breeding of those types of humans which have the best advantages at least of education and refinement, whether or not those advantages are embraced. We refer to Royalty. We need only mention the ill.u.s.trious example of Cleopatra to prove this. Cleopatra was the offspring of a marriage between a brother and sister--a custom which prevailed among ancient rulers to insure none but royal blood. Cleopatra we may well believe was both beautiful and intellectual, but it is also certain that she was abnormally lacking in conscience, in tenderness, in love.
Her pa.s.sions were those of the animal, and not of the soul.
In modern life, Spain and Austria both furnish discouraging data to exponents of "select" breeding. In fact it is thoroughly established that degeneracy is not the result of imperfect physical conditions only. The greatest villians are not infrequently both handsome and intellectual.
Bulwer Lytton well ill.u.s.trates this fact in his character of "Margrave" in "A Strange Story." Margrave was a perfect and beautiful physical specimen. He possessed rare intelligence, but he had no soul and was utterly incapable of the finer sensibilities, which we instinctively cla.s.sify as spiritual attributes.
Returning to a consideration of what has been termed the "unusual behavior" of the feminine half of mankind, we find that the chief end and aim of many women centers upon the problem of how to avoid maternity, quite upsetting traditional ideas regarding woman"s rightful sphere, which began and ended in rearing a large family.
Women in all walks of life, rich and poor, wise and frivolous, selfish and unselfish--are refusing to bear children. The superficial observer rails against this, because he sees only the effect. He sees women living in fashionable hotels, if they are rich enough to afford it; if they are poor they establish a cheap imitation of this phase of semi-communal life in what is paradoxically known as "light"
housekeeping, usually represented by one small dark room where the nearest delicatessen serves as a convenience, the public laundry minimizes domestic labor, and the department store supplies ready made, the family clothing, from undergarments to top coats. Under these conditions, whether of fashionable hotel suites or dark "light housekeeping," it is plain that children are not welcome.
Even those of the cla.s.s found between these extremes are discouraged from rearing children, since city life tends more and more to apartments as a subst.i.tute for the home; and no well regulated apartment house is open to children. The average observer, as we say, notes these conditions, but fails to realize that there must be a cosmic cause for a condition so wide-spread. There must be "something back of it," as we say of many things which we note in our every day life. Looked at from the surface only, these conditions seem deplorable and ultimately race-suicidal. But the cosmic law is always upward in tendency. We may safely trust it, if we will.
This does not mean that the conscious motive which actuates the average woman, who is able physically and financially to bear children and yet will not, is a high and n.o.ble one. The law deals with the planet, not directly with the individual; it acts upon the developed and the undeveloped with equal impartiality, even as the rain falls upon the just and the unjust alike.
Spiritually conscious persons realize the necessity for a change in human ethics. The world is in need of a more exalted ideal; an ideal in which equality shall be more nearly represented and they give themselves consciously to the task of a.s.sisting in this regenerating work.
The difference is not in the law itself, but in our comprehension of it. The curriculum of the school of life is unchanged. We graduate from it or we return for another term, according as we have mastered the studies. Applying this truth to the conditions just stated, and we see that this rebellion on the part of woman against child birth has two aspects. One is from apparent selfishness and lack of the temperamental quality, which has erroneously been attributed to women as an exclusive possession, namely, the maternal instinct.
The other aspect of woman"s disinclination to maternity is due to a restless, vague but nevertheless determined desire on the part of the Feminine Principle, to wait until conditions are more equal. Sometimes we find women, who are perfectly awake and consciously aware of the cause of their "brazen sterility," as a virile writer has caustically termed it; but more often the conscious mental att.i.tude is lacking and they merely obey blindly the dominant race-mind.
Women know much more in the depths of their souls than they can put into words. A part of this knowledge is the fact that child-bearing is not a function limited to the physical, the mortal plane of life.
Every woman who is anywhere near balanced in the struggle for completeness knows intuitively, that even though she may never beget mortal children, there are innumerable opportunities for the exercise of her maternal functions, awaiting her just behind the veil, which seemingly separates us from invisible areas. Moreover motherhood is qualitative. It is not synonymous with maternity. It is not made nor unmade by the birthrate.
Two important considerations present themselves to the world today: One is that woman--considered as the fecund receptive s.e.x-principle--is refusing the s.e.x relationship on the old basis, however "respectable"
and well-intentioned that basis was. Generally speaking, it is evident that the old basis of intercourse between the s.e.xes has been, is being, and will continue to be, disrupted, denied, refused, as the approved and fixed plan and purpose of Destiny. The other important observation is this: there is a cosmic cause for this.
It is only those who are blinded by prejudice or by sense-conscious limitations who refuse to look below the surface for the cause of a condition so general as that of unhappy marriages; of innumerable divorces; of the refusal to bear children. What is the cause? Why are women refusing to marry, or when they do marry refusing to live with their husbands? Why do they shrink from child-birth? Are they less courageous than their progenitors? Or are women less capable of love--either love of children or love of the father who begets the children?
It will be agreed that we are establishing a higher standard of love than ever before in history. We are beginning to realize for the first time in the history of many generations, what we owe to the future.
Formerly men built entirely for self, and for the immediate present.