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MARRIAGE, AS IT WAS, AS IT IS, AND AS IT SHOULD BE

A PLEA FOR REFORM

By Annie Besant

Second Edition

London: Freethought Publishing Company

1882.




MARRIAGE: AS IT WAS, AS IT IS, AND AS IT SHOULD BE.

"_Either all human beings have equal rights, or none have any_."

--Condorcet.




I. MARRIAGE

|The recognition of human rights may be said to be of modern growth, and
even yet they are but very imperfectly understood. Liberty used to
be regarded as a privilege bestowed, instead of as an inherent right;
rights of classes have often been claimed: right to rule, right to tax,
right to punish, all these have been argued for and maintained by force;
but these are not rights, they are only wrongs veiled as legal rights.
Jean Jacques Rousseau struck a new note when he cried: "Men are
born free;" free by birthright was a new thought, when declared as a
universal inheritance, and this "gospel of Jean Jacques Rousseau"
dawned on the world as the sun-rising of a glorious day--a day of human
liberty, unrestrained by class. In 1789 the doctrine of the "Rights of
Man" received its first European sanction by law; in the August of that
year the National Assembly of France proclaimed: "Men are born, and
remain, free and equal in rights.... The aim of political association is
the conservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man;
these rights are--liberty, property, safety, and resistance of tyranny."
During savage and semi-civilised ages these "imprescriptible rights"
are never dreamed of as existing; brute force is king; might is the only
right, and the strong arm is the only argument whose logic meets with
general recognition. In warlike tribes fair equality is found, and the
chief is only _primus inter pares_; but when the nomadic tribe settles
down into an agricultural community, when the habit of bearing arms
ceases to be universal, when wealth begins to accumulate, and the
village or town offers attractions for pillage, then strength becomes
at once a terror and a possible defence. The weak obey some powerful
neighbour partly because they cannot resist, and partly because they
desire, by their submission, to gain a strong protection against their
enemies. They submit to the exactions of one that they may be shielded
from the tyranny of many, and yield up their natural liberty to some
extent to preserve themselves from being entirely enslaved. Very slowly
do they learn that the union of many individually feeble is stronger
than a few powerful, isolated tyrants, and gradually law takes the
place of despotic will; gradually the feeling of self-respect, of
independence, of love of liberty, grows, until at last man claims
freedom as of right, and denies the authority of any to rule him without
his own consent.

Thus the Rights of Man have become an accepted doctrine, but,
unfortunately, they are only rights of _man,_ in the exclusive sense of
the word. They are sexual, and not human rights, and until they
become human rights, society will never rest on a sure, because just,
foundation. Women, as well as men, "are born and remain free and equal
in rights;" women, as well as men, have "natural and imprescriptible
rights;" for women, as well as for men, "these rights are--liberty,
property, safety, and resistance of tyranny." Of these rights only crime
should deprive them, just as by crime men also are deprived of them;
to deny these rights to women, is either to deny them to humanity _qua_
humanity, or to deny that women form a part of humanity; if women's
rights are denied, men's rights have no logical basis, no claim to
respect; then tyranny ceases to be a crime, slavery is no longer a
scandal; "either all human beings have equal rights, or none have any."

Naturally, in the savage state, women shared the fate of the physically
weak, not only because, as a rule, they are smaller-framed and less
muscular than their male comrades, but also because the bearing and
suckling of children is a drain on their physical resources from
which men are exempt. Hence she has suffered from "the right of the
strongest," even more than has man, and her exclusion from all political
life has prevented the redressal which man has wrought out for himself;
while claiming freedom for himself he has not loosened her chains, and
while striking down his own tyrants, he has maintained his personal
tyranny in the home. Nor has this generally been done by deliberate
intention: it is rather the survival of the old system, which has only
been abolished so slowly as regards men. Mrs. Mill writes: "That those
who were physically weaker should have been made legally inferior, is
quite conformable to the mode in which the world has been governed.
Until very lately, the rule of physical strength was the general law of
human affairs. Throughout history, the nations, races, classes, which
found themselves strongest, either in muscles, in riches, or in military
discipline, have conquered and held in subjection the rest. If, even
in the most improved nations, the law of the sword is at last
discountenanced as unworthy, it is only since the calumniated eighteenth
century. Wars of conquest have only ceased since democratic revolutions
began. The world is very young, and has only just begun to cast off
injustice. It is only now getting rid of <DW64> slavery. It is only now
getting rid of monarchical despotism. It is only now getting rid of
hereditary feudal nobility. It is only now getting rid of disabilities
on the ground of religion. It is only beginning to treat any _men_ as
citizens, except the rich and a favoured portion of the middle
class. Can we wonder that it has not yet done as much for women?"
("Enfranchisement of Women," Mrs. Mill. In J. S. Mill's "Discussions
and Dissertations," Vol. II., page 421.) The difference between men and
women in all civil rights is, however, with few, although important,
exceptions, confined to married women; i.e., women in relation with men.
Unmarried women of all ages suffer under comparatively few disabilities;
it is marriage which brings with it the weight of injustice and of legal
degradation.

In savage times marriage was a matter either of force, fraud, or
purchase. Women were merchandise, by the sale of whom their male
relatives profited