A history of English sexual morals / by Ivan Bloch ; translated by William H. Forstern.

  • Iwan Bloch
Date:
1936
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A history of English sexual morals / by Ivan Bloch ; translated by William H. Forstern. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    77/700 (page 47)
    The second chapter describes modern marriage and pictures woman's subjection under it. For even if a woman may often rule her husband, yet to have power neither in the affairs of the family nor of the state is but a mock- freedom. The wife, according to Mill, has the greatest hardships to bear in marriage. The third chapter of Mill's book deals with the admission of women to professions hitherto closed to them. He is of opinion that woman is equipped for every branch of human knowledge and activity, though he recognises the physical and mental differences between man and woman, which he believes can be explained by the long seclusion of woman. In the fourth chapter, finally, he envisages the results of women's emancipation which will yield a marked increase of individual talent as well as the clearer effect on public life of the moral influence of woman which to-day is latent. The uplifting of the whole status of womanhood will prove no less full of blessing for marriage. In my earlier works I have already stated my conviction that the complete removal of social, political and adminis- trative distinctions between man and woman (that is, emancipation in Mill's meaning of the term) would not be advantageous, would be, in fact, frankly unworkable. I also drew attention to the veritable core of the modern woman's movement which consists in the fact women to-day can claim ' greater rights ' and ' more numerous opportuni- ties of education '. I said that woman is man's companion with equal rights, but not with equal strength. Opponents and advocates of women's freedom both fall into the same error. They compare what is incomparable. Whoever wishes to pass a fair and unbiassed judgment upon the woman question must realise, in my opinion, that it is impossible merely to place man and woman upon an equality as extreme theorists like Mill suggest. It is [47]