About People/Chapter 6

The relative position of men and women, it is generally conceded, furnishes data concerning the moral progress of a nation; yet their relations to each other, and the duties involved in marriage, present unusual difficulties to be solved, because we are still ignorant concerning their extent. One generalization is immediately confronted by another, accusing the first of falsity and exaggeration; individual experience is sure, but limited; though no science and no method of general action can be based on private experience.

Propriety itself has so long regulated the utterance of enthusiasm, knowledge, hope, ​endeavor, that almost any attempt toward expression of truth is sure to offend, unless couched in scientific terminology; but noble propriety, founded on the relations of things and not on the conventionalities of society, demands that impropriety should be recognized, spoken of, branded and remanded, not to oblivion, but to the most earnest efforts of adult men and women for its cure. Evil lurks in "society," leads an open life "in the lower ranks," and constitutes the raison d'être of many philanthropic schemes; yet there is a terrible indifference to the subject, though annual reports, wretched newspaper stories, and the highest class of novels deal with it. To bring it into a work of fiction, unless the book has a distinct moral purpose, is both inartistic and injurious, as familiarizing the mind with evil, the existence of which should only be dealt with under the plea of truth, duty, or benevolence. As most light reading is manufactured for entertainment rather than for the ​development of such attributes, it should be freed from this incumbrance of evil in either an attractive, picturesque, or saddened aspect.

Because of feigned or real indifference and the "proprieties," wrong-doing is not fading away under the auspices of many wise and fashionable reforms. When moral law is declared to be more obligatory than instinct, and the reasons for such belief are deemed matter for serious inculcation, the populace demur and the educated and aesthetic enjoin silence even in the home.

Cannot something more powerful than ever yet has been tried be brought to bear upon the eradication of evil? Must not that power be the weight of combined public opinion working in concert which shall demand that children be educated into knowledge of what is true? Great stress is now laid upon the importance of a right intellectual elementary education; the morals of truth and energy are not neglected, but instruction in the special ​part of morality with which we are now concerned is overlooked in most homes where only it properly belongs. Neither this generation nor the next may witness any palpable improvement from such teaching, but the children of those who themselves have been well taught could become unfamiliar with evil because accustomed to a higher morality.

Also such thorough search into the causes of evil is demanded that, the causes being known, their annihilation may be effected. These causes have been divided into the "natural and accidental." Under the first are included peculiarities of disposition, like vanity, indolence, and grossness of character. Granted that these are peculiarities, perhaps even inherited ones, they are dependent on the will for cultivation or partial extermination, and upon the absorption of the individual in voluntary or compelled labor. The moral and intellectual tone affects the physique; and full employment in one direction negatives undue ​occupation in another. Whatever strengthens the will-power or ennobles the character is an aid in the battle which the individual must fight for and by himself, — yet not wholly by himself; for the accidental causes foster the natural ones, and the help of the community is necessary in order to destroy the first. Only by universal action can successful war be waged against these accidental causes, and in proportion to the diminution of their number will the natural causes find a natural death. The accidental causes, on the other hand, are within the control of the community and of the individual; and, though not capable of immediate government, they can be met with counter-arguments and checks till finally adjusted or overthrown.

Among these reasons the most potent one for the existence of evil is the difficulty of obtaining remunerative employment. There are thousands of women in and around New York who do not receive over two dollars a ​week, and the temptations induced by such wages are tremendous. It is starvation pay which drives hundreds into immoral life. They may be wretched workwomen, but almost any labor is worth more than two dollars a week; and fuller pay would kindle ambition to produce better work. In all our large cities and towns the underbidding of wages is contemptible; goods, whether in the raw material or as made up, pass through hand after hand, in the modern subdivision of life, until the last producer — generally a woman, living in an attic or cellar — can barely earn enough to pay for rent and one decent meal a day. The poorer she is the less in one sense are her needs, as ignorance and poverty create their own boundaries of want. But along the whole descent to her condition are others who cannot eke out the means for their necessary wants; and, when we say we all have a right to life, liberty, and happiness, we forget how society constantly curtails the ​extent of the latter. With more happiness there would be less sin; example and starvation often leading one to seek temporary refuge from despair and hunger. The poor are willing to work, and look upon it as their rightful lot; but they claim that capital should be so adjusted in its relation to the laborer that even those who are farthest removed from wealth should receive enough of its benefits to prevent the agonized suffering of extreme want. When that pressure is removed, they acknowledge that happiness, as their right, must depend upon their own powers of creation, endurance, or capacity for looking on the bright side of things. Many, among the immense number of women who vainly endeavor to support themselves by the needle, succumb at last to a temporary but easier method of livelihood, though despising themselves for preferring the transient alleviations of food and warmth to the continued struggle for an honest life. There is no confession ​more touching, no contest more pathetic to witness, than that of some of these girls, born poor, living to be poorer, with no power to do well any one thing, even menial work, thus receiving wretched pay; probably supporting some relative, or child, if left widowed or deserted, and at last giving up the fight for goodness, and yielding for preservation of self and of others.

The cause of evil that ranks next to that of ill-paid remuneration for labor is that of intoxication. Wrong-doing and love of drink are so inseparably connected that it is hard to distinguish cause from effect. When the first step in evil has been taken for other reasons, this second cause reacts and intensifies the capacity for further ill-doing. All grades of sin recognize the service that liquor renders them, and do not hesitate to apply its aid to their purposes.

The overcrowded dwellings of the poor are the third cause. The proximity of parents and children, brothers and sisters and boarders, in ​one room, permits familiarity with phases of life that accustom children to regard them as proper normal conditions. Purity is often unknown, the brutality of a low nature is easily aroused, and children know and do what seems impossible.

Certainly these three causes of evil are within the scope of human remedy. While science and political economy are puzzling over the formula of their methods of procedure, individual benevolence is endeavoring to find means of prevention in individual cases. These causes abound among the lowest ranks of sin, and call forth compassion equally with abhorrence. Removed from them, another range of life is met with, due to other circumstances, though all these social circles of sin intermingle, and it is hard to say where one begins and another ends. This aristocracy among the erring is one of its most painful features, and yet often most touching in the unexpected kindnesses rendered by one of ​larger to one of smaller means. In this upper class of evil the chief factors of its existence are loneliness and indolence; absolute want is not the exciting cause so much as absolute loneliness. Take the familiar case of a young girl who has come to the city, and has been fortunate enough to find work, but knows no one; who comes from and goes to her shop alone, and passes her Sundays and her evenings in silence, — for, in spite of unions, and societies, and churches, it is hard to make acquaintances; some are too busy, others too tired, and many too awkward. Finally, a stranger or friend appears, who enlivens the lonely hours, and the end is soon met there is no need of following the downward course; apparent friendliness takes possession of real loneliness. Weak and wrong in the woman? Yes. But, again, this evil of loneliness is one that society and that other women are bound to correct. There should be no need for loneliness to accept such refuge, when so many thousands ​of women have homes and hearts, and when hundreds of women are working to protect just such girls; but these hundreds are not enough. Every true woman should enlist in personal search for the friendless. When each holds another up then there will be no occasion for falling. Indolence presents a feature of character almost impossible to conquer. Persuasion seems useless; there is no power to compel industry; downright laziness prefers ease by any means, and accepts sin with its pleasures and pains as it has dawdled through all other occasions of life. Personal influence, extended where the rigor of the law cannot reach, is the only method of attack upon this nearly impassable front.

Next to these two sources of evil can be ranked personal vanity, love of amusements, theatres, dancing, and a fondness for dress. All of them act as incentives, though to a regard for dress has been ascribed more force than it deserves; it is really a minor ​reason compared with the love of admiration that takes its root in loneliness. While attributing so much force to this one cause, loneliness, sin itself should not be rated one iota less; but, because it is loneliness, the wrong of righteous humanity in allowing such friendliness to lie in wait all around one is unbounded. The unselfishness and respectability of home affection is very limited. For every woman who tries to help others there are fifty who shrink back.

There are also indirect causes arising from undue familiarity in company, in "society; from too free intercourse between men and women, girls and boys; from too little observance by the parents of young people's pursuits, and from the exclusion of older persons from the good times of the younger; from ill-regulated feeling; and from unhappy marriages, — entered upon without forethought or mutual requirements, and often only as a shelter or an "establishment," — and from wretched pub​lications. The measures already undertaken for the suppression of this last cause cannot reach the immense number of books admitted into family and public reading, stories written by men and women, of which the trashy, vulgar tales of newspapers stand at one extreme and a "Romance of the Nineteenth Century" at the other. Nothing but the general deepening of morality and of purer literary taste will ever prevent the treatment of such subjects. It cannot be effected by force, only again by individual watchfulness over one's self as writer or reader, and over one's acquaintances as far as personal influence may extend.

The enumeration of these causes, which will doubtless be corrected or increased by the reader, is given simply to show that every one of them is such an accidental cause that society and humanity should in this day be ashamed of its existence. There is not one of them that cannot be slowly uprooted, if all are in earnest, and if there are homes whose inmates ​will all be equally anxious to help; but anxious and loving parental fears or foolish prejudices or society's mandates dampen enthusiasm. Personal influence is relegated to that of some special conference or church, and the evil lingers. Not by "homes," not by laws, not by societies, is the evil to be eradicated, though all are helps; but by personal influence, which must find support in public opinion and in the tone of education, else it will not develop into sufficient strength to be of permanent value. Public opinion must begin by regarding the man as equal offender with the woman; and, though the law must punish each equally, the castigation of society must be the powerful deterrent. When those who lack honesty and refinement find it impossible to be received into society; when, by parents, the wealth, intellect, or position of suitors are considered as of no value compared with their morality; when they are refused as partners in the dance, either in the fashionable assembly ​or the Irish picnic, — then will men feel that they are challenged to a loftier standard of action as requisition for friendship or marriage. We talk a great deal about the power of society, but are loath to exercise it. Society does already forbid innuendo of speech and open violation of conduct; but it does not forbid Platonic intimacies, and marriages in which there is little love and upon which lie the weight of prior claims.

Much is now said about the importance of teaching morality in the public schools. Advisable as such instruction may there be, and though indirectly it may largely conduce to rectitude, it cannot include every phase of morals. The education that is given through the pulpit and the press must also be indirect; but in the home, where the listeners and the pupils are one's own, the education should begin, and be so perfect that it needs never to be supplemented. It is in the home that it is so very largely neglected, — in homes, too, where all the ​aims and wishes are for the children's benefit. Direct instruction should be derived from none other than parent or guardian, and should be given to children as they grow, not waiting till an engagement of marriage takes place, the instruction then being connected with an individual. The law of birth constitutes one of the child's earliest subjects of inquiry, and should be truthfully, though not fully, answered in its earliest years. Then the child knows in words the true law, but its full sense it does not comprehend till later; yet it does not start with a false term, and its progress from particular to general ideas is true, as its years increase its knowledge, which is thus planted deep in the mind, and ready for use when occasion demands. Parents who have had the bitter or sweet gift of experience should insist on early frankness. By such plain speaking, enforced by home example, and by such choice of language and such reverence of thought as shall make the child feel ​that the production of life is the holiest law of nature, it will be impossible for him to have lax notions of morality in later life.

A very slow method of reforming the world, it is acknowledged, but no slower in regard to this evil than when education is spoken of as the ultimate cure of pauperism. This introduction of special moral teaching into every family has, however, a closer connection with pauperism than at first appears. If children are taught to understand reverentially the laws of birth, they will soon perceive that the conditions of birth are to be harmonized with its environment, and that it is robbery of the resources of the State to produce children who shall be paupers or invalids.

Such education should be given alike by the intelligent rich and poor, and is demanded by every feeling of chivalry and philanthropy; here, again, the removal of evil becoming a personal conflict.

Next to education, as the general deterrent ​of evil, comes the creation of new avenues of employment, and of sufficient wages for any work that is done. The growing belief that the word "education" includes training of the hand is the surest augury that industrial education is to become an immense force in the destruction of evil. But such teaching must not be wholly left to the care of the State. The Associated Charities in many cities are establishing closer personal relations between the rich and the poor. True friendship cares for the industrial education of the friendless, and will create a foundation for better wages. The preventive still becomes one of personality, though the help of the State and of associations can be more prominent concerning industrial education than in regard to other means of prevention.

Allusion should also be made to the necessity of creating a healthier sentiment in the minds of the working-class in relation to household service. It is frequently looked upon as a ​disgrace, and personal liberty is supposed to be obtained by making working hours include only those of the daytime; therefore, housework is declined. A more just, rather than a kinder, spirit must pervade house-keepers. The recognition of the fact that they consider no work to be menial would establish better relations between the help and the family. Domestics must be allowed their right to personal peculiarities, and to a certain amount of time which shall be absolutely theirs, while an equality, rather than a condescension, of speech must be shown toward them.

Finally, as preventive, removed from direct personal influence, comes legislation. Any offence that is criminal in the woman should be visited with an equal grade of punishment upon the man. Reformatory institutions have been and still are beneficial; yet, when the influences of the "boarding-out" system are deemed better for the wards of the State than the associations of an institution, surely it may ​not be unwise to ask whether greater personal inspection of the nature of evil and increased personal watchfulness over the unfortunate may not aid in lessening more rapidly its extent. Such oversight will recognize that there is as great a variety of temperament and character as there is of persons will go to them when their room is at zero; when they have little food for days together, and in ninety cases out of a hundred are addicted to drink; will find some tender spot in their nature; will first improve their physical condition, then procure them employment, and finally will endeavor to arouse their moral nature. It is to the application of the work-remedy that every one should contribute. We must be willing to receive them back into our employment because they need us.

Surely, want of occupation, vanity, carelessness of behavior, and temperamental predisposition, can better be controlled by the person than by the State. Rescue work within ​and without the home is an individual work rather than a public missionary service.

With a careful understanding of the causes and preventives of evil there is yet a future for those who help and who are to be helped; and the "disinherited children," who now fill our asylums, crying for their unknown mothers, will become themselves in turn parents who shall find honest work for honest pay. Slowly, imperceptibly, will any change be effected; but, at a time when woman's position and duties are widening, the moral influence of the home is thereby extended, and on its teaching depends the morality of the world. Personal influence in the ball-room and the workshop, education of the young, whether poor or rich, and intelligent comprehension of other natures besides one's own, will aid in devising individual measures for individual cases, until each sufferer finds strength to stand alone.