Part 42

She fell from woman's holy estate!

Yes, through mad love for a man--she loved him with her soul, her mind, her body. She lacked knowledge, balance, and wisdom; she had only love and passion.

And you, madam, how about your children?

They were born of a "dutiful" wife. You descended from your lofty altitude unwillingly--only at duty's call. You are so "refined," yet you are a loving mother and pose as the highest type of woman.

God never made in his whole universe of worlds such a "duty" as unwilling motherhood. Motherhood without the call of sex for sex is indecent--criminal. You, too, madam, fell.

That girl in yonder "home" your "charity" helped establish, who loved unwisely, fell. Her fall was through love--yours through a legal ceremony.

All the churches, all the religions and the laws of earth, cannot make motherhood holy and right without the mutual mental, spiritual, and physical union of two beings.

Heaven and earth both must sanction a child's conception to produce a "well-born" soul.

There is no greater sin on earth than the creation of a human life without complete accord of the creators.

No wonder the world is full of miserable half-born beings, when mothers like you claim to be the Madonnas of earth.

No wonder natural, complete, striving souls hide their true natures under a false exterior, when women like you rule church and society.

What shame or degradation is there, pray, in being animate with the all-pervading impulse which underlies the entire universe? Every planet, every tree, every flower, every insect, is the result of sex seeking sex, atom calling atom.

The universe is because of the law of sex attraction.

And you, poor, puny, pallid woman, dare decry and despise that law, and dare insult God's animate creature!

Know this, madam, there is no strength worth boasting that has not conquered weakness. No virtue worth the name that has not conquered temptation. No greatness of character that has not overcome unworthy impulses.

Enjoy your negative goodness and be glad you are "good."

Morality is acceptable to the world, however it conies; but dare not sit in judgment on other human beings fighting battles whose smoke never reaches your nostrils, striving for heights of which you never even dream, and who meanwhile have missed certain degradations which you seem to consider creditable achievements.

Madam, I bid you adieu. That word means "I commend you to God," the God who made the two sexes, and intended love to unite them.

May He enlighten you in other lives, if not in this.

To Maria Owens

A New Woman Contemplating Marriage

Surprise, I am free to confess, was my dominant emotion on reading your letter. Marriage and Maria had never associated themselves in my mind, fond as I am of alliteration.

Never in the ten years I have known you have I heard you devote ten minutes to the subject of any man's good qualities. You always have discoursed upon men's faults and vices, and upon their tendency, since the beginning of time, to tyrannize over woman. I was unable to disprove many of your statements, for I know the weight of argument is upon your side, even while I boldly confess my admiration and regard for men, as a class, is greater than that for women.

The fact that the world has allowed men such latitude, and such license, and made them pay such very small penalties, comparatively speaking, for very large offences, causes me to admire their wonderful achievements in noble living all the more: and to place the man of unblemished reputation and unquestioned probity on a pedestal higher than any I could yet ask builded for woman.

It is more difficult to be great before the extended tentacles of the self-indulgence octopus than in the face of oppression and danger. When the laws of the land and the sentiment of the people permit a man to be selfish, licentious, tyrannical, and yet call him great if he accomplishes heroic deeds, it proves what intrinsic worth must lie in the nature of those who attain the heights of unselfishness and benevolence, and martyrdom, asking no reward and often receiving none until posterity bestows it.

Those who can take the broad road of selfishness unmolested, and choose the narrow path of high endeavour instead, seem to me greater than those who overcome mere externals.

Many such men have existed, and the steady, slow, but certain progress of the world from barbarism to civilization, from accepted cannibalism and slavery to ideals of brotherhood, we owe to them. All new discoveries, all greatest achievements are due to men. Woman, I know, has been handicapped and oppressed for centuries by superstitions, and traditions, and unjust laws; but it is unfair to ignore the bright, and see only the dark side of the picture, which the centuries have painted for us, on the background of time.

This letter is only a résumé of many conversations between you and me, and it leads up to the explanation of why I am somewhat dazed and stunned by your announcement that marriage is a possible event in your near future.