A Cityless and Countryless World
An Outline of Practical Co-Operative Individualism
Henry Olerich
[A condensed and edited version of the book
originally published by Gilmore & Olerich, Holstein, Iowa, 1893 /
CHAPTER 19 - Comparison of our Sex Relation with Yours (continued)]
Your man, in the sexual world, closely resembles your landlord in the
industrial world. The landlord fences the laborer off from the vacant
land so that the laborer can not apply his labor to land, from which
all wealth must come, and then makes a contract with the laborer to
the laborer s great disadvantage. So your man, in order to get sexual
dominion, first creates an industrial and social world, in which a
free, independent, woman can scarcely make a living, no matter how
hard and long she toils. He makes the money pass through his hands and
makes all the other laws to suit his purpose. Your men deprive your
women of nearly every thing that the man considers sacred.
In the social world, your man appoints himself suitor, and compels
his sweetheart to remain at home, waiting for his appearance, for his
courtship. If she goes forth to solicit the love of her choice, he
buries her with contempt, so that none of his masculine companions
will choose her thereafter for a life partner. By this he dooms her to
his contemptible financial and industrial world, where she has to earn
her own living under great disadvantages. In the sexual world, your
man is still more cruel and aggressive. Instead of letting the woman
regulate the sexual affairs to suit herself, like all other chaste
creatures do, the man seems to be the lord and manager there too. We
want to keep in mind that with the higher inferior animal, which
.enjoys comparatively perfect sexual freedom, and which lives a
comparatively chaste life, the female regulates all sexual relations.
Do you not think that under your marriage system there are many
mothers now that would not be mothers if women were not dependent on
man industrially? Do you not think that women, as well as men, would
be much freer and happier, if women enjoyed social equality and
freedom? Do you not think that your wives give birth to many children
that would not be born in a state of sexual freedom, if women were not
the dupes of men and of the marriage superstition, in which the man
appoints himself manager and his wedded wife obeyer? Do you not think
that thousands upon thousands of married men and women live or stay
together that do not really love each other, that would not stay
together an hour in a world like ours, where one is as capable of
supporting himself or herself as another? Do you not think that the
artificial constraint of marriage tends to produce an abnormal sexual
passion? Do you not think that a large number of women are driven to
houses of sin and shame by your marriage system? Some that are
unfortunately married, and others that wanted to marry, but could not
marry to suit themselves? Do you not think that your bonds of
matrimony creates an unsatisfied novelty for sex relations that can be
properly adjusted only by a wider range of individual freedom? Do you
not think that a married woman, under your social and industrial
system, is a slave to husband and family, no matter how good and kind
they may treat her as a wife or a mother?
Notice how much more slovenly and untidy your married men and women
are, as a rule, than those who are not married. We are beaux and
sweethearts as long as we live. A rude, careless, untidy, cruel person
is not appreciated in our society. He is not likely to leave many
offspring. The survival of the fittest with us is in full bloom; with
you, in the human family, it is comparatively dead; because, if they
are once married, they are bound to stay together, whether they are
tidy or filthy and slovenly. Do you not think that your marriage
system has caused the abnormal sexual function in your human being as
we now find him? Do you not take the management of the sex relations
out of the hands of the women, where it properly belongs, and place it
practically under the control of the man?
The vast majority of the wedded people, as near as I can ascertain,
believe that there can be no sexual excesses between a married husband
and wife. They seem to believe that as soon as an officer or priest
has mumbled a few words over the contracting parties, the law of
sexual purity can thereafter not be broken.
[T]he man, by forcibly assuming control of the sexual relations, has
not only caused an abnormal sexual function in himself, but by his
excesses has caused an excess in the woman also; so that if the woman
could be free at once and assume control of the sexual affairs, she
could, with her present excess, not begin immediately to live a
perfectly chaste life, but would require some time of freedom and
independence to make a harmonious and normal sexual adjustment, which
can never be brought about in a state of wedlock, in which a woman is
socially and industrially dependent on the man. Thus, we see, that the
excessive passions have been transmitted and accumulated from
generation to generation, and therefore require some time for their
elimination.
Your promiscuous retirement is another cause of your sexual excess.
Each individual should have his or her separate apartment and nightly
retire alone.
We instruct our children on the points of premature motherhood as
clearly as we can, beginning at the age of childhood. We esteem
physical and mental perfection above all other things. Anything that
impairs them is strenuously avoided. Public opinion, the strongest
social force, is also against it.
CONTENTS
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