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Over the years, having sporadically read the German philosopher and writer Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), I spared time to return to reading the entire book titled 'Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer' (translated by Mrs. Rudolf Dircks). The original text of 'On Women', reproduced below, is on pages 64 to 80 of this book published in 1865. To download the book, scroll down to the end of this page to find a link.
- Break Schopenhauer’s statements into smaller digestible paragraphs to make things easy for wandering eyes.
- Underline key statements.
- Show his words in maroon colour.
- Make comprehension easy by parenthesising the meanings of Latin, Italian and Greek languages in black text.
On Women (Arthur Schopenhauer)
One need only look at a woman’s shape to discover that she is not
intended for either too much mental or too much physical work.
She pays the debt of life not by what she does but by what she suffers —
by the pains of child-bearing, care for the child, and by subjection to man, to
whom she should be a patient and cheerful companion.
The greatest sorrows and joys or great exhibition of strength are not
assigned to her; her life should flow more quietly, more gently, and less
obtrusively than man’s, without her being essentially happier or unhappier.
Women are directly adapted to act as the nurses and educators of our
early childhood, for the simple reason that they themselves are childish,
foolish, and short-sighted — in a word, are big children all their lives,
something intermediate between the child and the man, who is a man in the
strict sense of the word.
Consider how a young girl will toy day after day with a child, dance
with it and sing to it; and then consider what a man, with the very best
intentions in the world, could do in her place.
With girls, Nature has had in view what is called in a dramatic sense a
“striking effect,” for she endows them for a few years with a richness of
beauty and a, fullness of charm at the expense of the rest of their lives; so
that they may during these years ensnare the fantasy of a man to such a
degree as to make him rush into taking the honourable care of them, in some
kind of form, for a lifetime — a step which would not seem sufficiently
justified if he only considered the matter.
Accordingly, Nature has furnished woman, as she has the rest of her
creatures, with the weapons and implements necessary for the protection of
her existence and for just the length of time that they will be of service to
her; so that Nature has proceeded here with her usual economy.
Just as the female ant after coition loses her wings, which then become
superfluous, nay, dangerous for breeding purposes, so for the most part does a
woman lose her beauty after giving birth to one or two children; and
probably for the same reasons.
Then again we find that young girls in their hearts regard their
domestic or other affairs as secondary things, if not as a mere jest. Love,
conquests, and all that these include, such as dressing, dancing, and so on,
they give their serious attention.
The nobler and more perfect a thing is, the later and slower is it in
reaching maturity. Man reaches the maturity of his reasoning and mental
faculties scarcely before he is eight-and-twenty; woman when she is eighteen;
but hers is reason of very narrow limitations.
This is why women remain children all their lives, for they always
see only what is near at hand, cling to the present, take the appearance of a
thing for reality, and prefer trifling matters to the most important.
It is by virtue of man’s reasoning powers that he does not live in
the present only, like the brute, but observes and ponders over the past
and future; and from this spring discretion, care, and that anxiety
which we so frequently notice in people. The advantages, as well as the
disadvantages, that this entails, make woman, in consequence of her weaker
reasoning powers, less of a partaker in them.
Moreover, she is intellectually short-sighted, for although her
intuitive understanding quickly perceives what is near to her, on the other
hand her circle of vision is limited and does not embrace anything that is
remote; hence everything that is absent or past, or in the future,
affects women in a less degree than men.
This is why they have greater inclination for extravagance, which
sometimes borders on madness. Women in their hearts think that men are
intended to earn money so that they may spend it, if possible during their
husband’s lifetime, but at any rate after his death.
As soon as he has given them his earnings on which to keep house they
are strengthened in this belief. Although all this entails many disadvantages,
yet it has this advantage — that a woman lives more in the present than a man,
and that she enjoys it more keenly if it is at all bearable. This is the
origin of that cheerfulness which is peculiar to woman and makes her fit to
divert man, and in case of need, to console him when he is weighed down
by cares.
To consult women in matters of difficulty, as the Germans used to do in
old times, is by no means a matter to be overlooked; for their way of grasping
a thing is quite different from ours, chiefly because they like the shortest
way to the point, and usually keep their attention fixed upon what lies nearest;
while we, as a rule, see beyond it, for the simple reason that it lies under
our nose; it then becomes necessary for us to be brought back to the thing in
order to obtain a near and simple view.
This is why women are more sober in their judgment than we, and why they
see nothing more in things than is really there; while we, if our passions
are roused, slightly exaggerate or add to our imagination. It is because women’s
reasoning powers are weaker that they show more sympathy for the unfortunate
than men, and consequently take a kindlier interest in them.
On the other hand, women are inferior to men in matters of justice,
honesty, and conscientiousness. Again, because their reasoning faculty
is weak, things clearly visible and real, and belonging to the present,
exercise a power over them which is rarely counteracted by abstract thoughts,
fixed maxims, or firm resolutions, in general, by regard for the past and
future or by consideration for what is absent and remote.
Accordingly they have the first and principal qualities of virtue, but
they lack the secondary qualities which are often a necessary instrument
in developing it. Women may be compared in this respect to an organism that
has a liver but no gall-bladder.9
So that it will be found that the fundamental fault in the character of
women is that they have no “sense of justice.” This arises from their deficiency
in the power of reasoning already referred to, and reflection, but
is also partly due to the fact that Nature has not destined them, as the
weaker sex, to be dependent on strength but on cunning; this is why they are
instinctively crafty, and have an ineradicable tendency to lie.
For as lions are furnished with claws and teeth, elephants with tusks,
boars with fangs, bulls with horns, and the cuttlefish with its dark, inky
fluid, so Nature has provided woman for her protection and defence with the
faculty of dissimulation, and all the power which Nature has given to man
in the form of bodily strength and reason has been conferred on woman in this
form.
Hence, dissimulation is innate in woman and almost as
characteristic of the very stupid as of the clever. Accordingly, it is as
natural for women to dissemble at every opportunity as it is for those animals
to turn to their weapons when they are attacked; and they feel in doing so that
in a certain measure they are only making use of their rights. Therefore a
woman who is perfectly truthful and does not dissemble is perhaps an
impossibility. This is why they see through dissimulation in others so
easily; therefore it is not advisable to attempt it with them.
From the fundamental defect that has been stated, and all that it
involves, spring falseness, faithlessness, treachery, ungratefulness,
and so on. In a court of justice women are more often found guilty of
perjury than men. It is indeed to be generally questioned whether they
should be allowed to take an oath at all. From time to time there are repeated
cases everywhere of ladies, who want for nothing, secretly pocketing and
taking away things from shop counters.
Nature has made it the calling of the young, strong, and handsome men to
look after the propagation of the human race; so that the species may not
degenerate. This is the firm will of Nature, and it finds its expression in the
passions of women. This law surpasses all others in both age and power. Woe
then to the man who sets up rights and interests in such a way as to make them
stand in the way of it; for whatever he may do or say, they will, at the first
significant onset, be unmercifully annihilated.
For the secret, unformulated, nay, unconscious but innate moral of woman
is: We are justified in deceiving those who, because they care a little
for us, — that is to say for the individual, — imagine they have obtained
rights over the species. The constitution, and consequently the welfare of the
species, have been put into our hands and entrusted to our care through the
medium of the next generation which proceeds from us; let us fulfil our duties
conscientiously.
But women are by no means conscious of this leading principle in abstracto, they are only conscious of it in concreto, and have no other way of expressing it than in the manner in which they act when the opportunity arrives. So that their conscience does not trouble them so much as we imagine, for in the darkest depths of their hearts they are conscious that in violating their duty towards the individual they have all the better fulfilled it towards the species, whose claim upon them is infinitely greater. (A fuller explanation of this matter may be found in vol. ii., ch. 44, in my chief work, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung.)
[Abstracto: names ideas or qualities that we cannot touch. Concreto:
names real things that we can see or touch.]
Because women in truth exist entirely for the propagation of the race,
and their destiny ends here, they live more for the species than for the
individual, and in their hearts take the affairs of the species more seriously
than those of the individual. This gives to their whole being and character a
certain frivolousness, and altogether a certain tendency which is
fundamentally different from that of man; and this it is which develops that discord
in married life which is so prevalent and almost the normal state.
It is natural for a feeling of mere indifference to exist between men,
but between women it is actual enmity. This is due perhaps to the fact
that odium figulinum in the case of men, is limited to their everyday
affairs, but with women embraces the whole sex; since they have only one kind
of business.
[Odium figulinum is a Latin phrase meaning "potters'
hatred" or professional jealousy between people in the same trade or
occupation.]
Even when they meet in the street, they look at each other like
Guelphs and Ghibellines. And it is quite evident when two women
first make each other’s acquaintance that they exhibit more constraint and
dissimulation than two men placed in similar circumstances. This is why an
exchange of compliments between two women is much more ridiculous than between
two men.
[The Guelphs were a medieval political faction in Italy that supported
the Pope against the Holy Roman Emperor. The Ghibellines were a medieval
political faction in Italy that supported the authority of the Holy Roman Emperor against the power of
the Pope.]
Further, while a man will, as a rule, address others, even those
inferior to himself, with a certain feeling of consideration and humanity, it
is unbearable to see how proudly and disdainfully a lady of rank will, for
the most part, behave towards one who is in a lower rank (not employed in her
service) when she speaks to her. This may be because differences of rank
are much more precarious with women than with us, and consequently more
quickly change their line of conduct and elevate them, or because while a
hundred things must be weighed in our case, there is only one to be weighed in
theirs, namely, with which man they have found favour; and again, because of
the one-sided nature of their vocation they stand in closer relationship to
each other than men do; and so it is they try to render prominent the
differences of rank.
It is only the man whose intellect is clouded by
his sexual instinct that could give that stunted, narrow-shouldered,
broad-hipped, and short-legged race the name of the fair sex; for the entire beauty of the sex is based on this instinct. One would
be more justified in calling them the unaesthetic sex than the
beautiful. Neither for music, nor for poetry, nor for fine art have they any
real or true sense and susceptibility, and it is mere mockery on their
part, in their desire to please, if they affect any such thing.
This makes them incapable of taking a purely
objective interest in anything, and the reason for it is, I fancy, as
follows. A man strives to get direct mastery over things either by
understanding them or by compulsion. But a woman is always and everywhere
driven to indirect mastery, namely through a man; all her direct mastery being
limited to him alone.
Therefore it lies in woman’s nature to look upon
everything only as a means for winning man, and her interest in anything else
is always a simulated one, a mere roundabout way to gain her ends,
consisting of coquetry and pretence. Hence, Rousseau said, ‘Les femmes, en général,
n’aiment aucun art, ne se connoissent à aucun et n’ont aucun génie’ (Lettre à
d’Alembert, note xx.).
[This famous quote originates from the Swiss-born
philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, written in a footnote of his 1758 work Lettre
à d'Alembert sur les spectacles. Rousseau asserted
that women generally lack artistic genius and a profound grasp of the arts,
though he conceded they might excel in practical, detailed work (petits
oeuvres)].
Everyone who can see through a sham must have found
this to be the case. One need only watch the way they behave at a concert, the
opera, or the play; the childish simplicity, for instance, with which they keep
on chattering during the finest passages in the greatest masterpieces. If
it is true that the Greeks forbade women to go to the play, they acted
in a right way; for they would at any rate be able to hear something. In our
day it would be more appropriate to substitute taceat mulier in theatro for
taceat mulier in ecclesia; and this might perhaps be put up in big
letters on the curtain.
[The phrase "taceat mulier in theatro" ("let the
woman be silent in the theatre") is a playful or cynical modification by
Arthur Schopenhauer of the biblical injunction "taceat mulier in
ecclesia" ("let the woman keep silence in the church," from
1 Corinthians 14:34)].
Nothing different can be expected of women if it is
borne in mind that the most eminent of the whole sex have never accomplished
anything in the fine arts that is really great, genuine, and original, or given
to the world any kind of work of permanent value.
This is most striking in regard to painting, the
technique of which is as much within their reach as within ours; this is why
they pursue it so industriously. Still, they have not a single great
painting to show, for the simple reason that they lack that objectivity of mind
which is precisely what is so directly necessary in painting.
They always stick to what is subjective. For this
reason, ordinary women have no susceptibility for painting at all: for natura non facet saltum. And Huarte, in his book which has
been famous for three hundred years, Examen de ingenios para las scienzias,
contends that women do not possess the higher capacities. Individual and
partial exceptions do not alter the matter; women are and remain, taken
altogether, the most thorough and incurable philistines; and because of
the extremely absurd arrangement which allows them to share the position and
title of their husbands they are a constant stimulus to his ignoble
ambitions.
[Natura non facet saltum is a Latin phrase
meaning "nature does not make jumps," expressing the idea that
natural processes and evolution happen through gradual, continuous changes
rather than sudden, abrupt leaps.].
[The Philistines were an ancient seafaring people who settled on the southern coastal plain of Canaan (modern-day Israel and the Gaza Strip) around 1200 BCE.]
And further, it is because they are philistines
that modern society, to which they give the tone and where they have sway,
has become corrupted. As regards their position, one should be guided by
Napoleon’s maxim, Les femmes n’ont pas de rang; and regarding them in
other things, Chamfort says very truly: ‘Elles sont faites pour commercer
avec nos faiblesses avec notre folie, mais non avec notre raison. Il existe entre elles et les hommes des sympathies
d’épiderme et très-peu de sympathies d’esprit d’âme et de caractère.’
[Les femmes n’ont pas de rang is Guy de Maupassant's formula that
"women have no caste or race", or linked to notions of the Ancien
Régime on the place of women in the royal succession.].
[Elles sont faites pour commercer avec nos faiblesses avec notre folie, mais non avec notre raison. Il existe entre elles et les hommes des sympathies d’épiderme et très-peu de sympathies d’esprit d’âme et de caractère means:
"They are made to trade with our weaknesses and our folly, but
not with our reason. There exists between them and men superficial (skin-deep)
sympathies, and very few sympathies of mind, soul, and character."].
They are the sexus sequior, the second sex in every respect, therefore their weaknesses should be spared, but to treat women with extreme reverence is ridiculous, and lowers us in their own eyes. When nature divided the human race into two parts, she did not cut it exactly through the middle! The difference between the positive and negative poles, according to polarity, is not merely qualitative but also quantitative.
[Sexus sequior is a Latin phrase meaning "the second sex" or "the inferior sex".]
And it was in this light that the ancients and
people of the East regarded woman; they recognised her true position better
than we, with our old French ideas of gallantry and absurd veneration, that
highest product of Christian–Teutonic stupidity. These ideas have only served
to make them arrogant and imperious, to such an extent as to remind one at
times of the holy apes in Benares, who, in the consciousness of their holiness
and inviolability, think they can do anything and everything they please.
In the West, the woman, that is to say the “lady,”
finds herself in a fausse position; for woman, rightly named by
the ancients sexus sequior, is by no means fit to be the object of
our honour and veneration, or to hold her head higher than man and to have the
same rights as he.
[Fausse is the feminine singular form of the French adjective faux, which means false,
fake, untrue, or incorrect.].
The consequences of this fausse position are
sufficiently clear. Accordingly, it would be a very desirable thing if this Number
Two of the human race in Europe were assigned her natural position, and
the lady-grievance got rid of, which is not only ridiculed by the whole of
Asia, but would have been equally ridiculed by Greece and Rome. The result
of this would be that the condition of our social, civil, and political affairs
would be incalculably improved. The Salic law would be unnecessary; it would be
a superfluous truism.
The European lady, strictly speaking, is a creature
who should not exist at all; but there ought to be housekeepers, and young
girls who hope to become such; and they should be brought up not to be
arrogant, but to be domesticated and submissive. It is exactly because there are ladies in Europe that women of a lower
standing, that is to say, the greater majority of the sex, are much more
unhappy than they are in the East. Even Lord Byron says (Letters and
Papers, by Thomas Moore, vol. ii. p. 399), Thought of the state of women
under the ancient Greeks — convenient enough.
Present state, a remnant of the barbarism of the
chivalric and feudal ages — artificial and unnatural. They ought to mind home —
and be well fed and clothed — but not mixed in society. Well educated, too, in
religion — but to read neither poetry nor politics — nothing but books of piety
and cookery. Music — drawing — dancing — also a little gardening and ploughing
now and then. I have seen them mending the roads in Epirus with good success.
Why not, as well as hay-making and milking?
In our part of the world, where monogamy is in
force, to marry means to halve one’s rights and to double one’s duties. When
the laws granted woman the same rights as man, they should also have given her
a masculine power of reason.
On the contrary, just as the privileges and honours
which the laws decree to women surpass what Nature has meted out to them, so is
there a proportional decrease in the number of women who really share these
privileges; therefore the remainder are deprived of their natural rights in so
far as the others have been given more than Nature accords.
For the unnatural position of privilege which the
institution of monogamy, and the laws of marriage which accompany it, assign to
the woman, whereby she is regarded throughout as a full equivalent of the
man, which she is not by any means, cause intelligent and prudent men to
reflect a great deal before they make so great a sacrifice and consent to so
unfair an arrangement.
Therefore, whilst among polygamous nations every
woman finds maintenance, where monogamy exists the number of married women is
limited, and a countless number of women who are without support remain over;
those in the upper classes vegetate as useless old maids, those in the lower
are reduced to very hard work of a distasteful nature, or become prostitutes, and
lead a life which is as joyless as it is void of honour.
But under such circumstances they become a
necessity to the masculine sex; so that their position is openly recognised as
a special means for protecting from seduction those other women favoured by
fate either to have found husbands, or who hope to find them.
In London alone there are 80,000 prostitutes. Then
what are these women who have come too quickly to this most terrible end but
human sacrifices on the altar of monogamy? The women here referred to and who
are placed in this wretched position are the inevitable counterbalance to the European
lady, with her pretensions and arrogance.
Hence polygamy is a real benefit to the female
sex, taking it as a whole. And, on the other hand, there is no reason why a
man whose wife suffers from chronic illness, or remains barren, or has
gradually become too old for him, should not take a second.
Many people become converts to Mormonism for the
precise reasons that they condemn the unnatural institution of monogamy. The conferring
of unnatural rights upon women has imposed unnatural duties upon them, the
violation of which, however, makes them unhappy.
For example, many a man thinks marriage unadvisable
as far as his social standing and monetary position are concerned, unless he
contracts a brilliant match. He will then wish to win a woman of his own choice
under different conditions, namely, under those which will render safe her
future and that of her children. Be the conditions ever so just, reasonable,
and adequate, and she consents by giving up those undue privileges which
marriage, as the basis of civil society, alone can bestow, she must to a
certain extent lose her honour and lead a life of loneliness; since human
nature makes us dependent on the opinion of others in a way that is completely
out of proportion to its value.
While, if the woman does not consent, she runs the
risk of being compelled to marry a man she dislikes, or of shrivelling up into
an old maid; for the time allotted to her to find a home is very short. In view
of this side of the institution of monogamy, Thomasius’s profoundly learned
treatise, de Concubinatu, is well worth reading, for it shows that,
among all nations, and in all ages, down to the Lutheran Reformation, concubinage
was allowed, nay, that it was an institution, in a certain measure even
recognised by law and associated with no dishonour. And it held this
position until the Lutheran Reformation, when it was recognised as another
means for justifying the marriage of the clergy; whereupon the Catholic party
did not dare to remain behindhand in the matter.
It is useless to argue about polygamy, it must be
taken as a fact existing everywhere, the mere regulation of which is the
problem to be solved. Where are there, then, any real monogamists?
We all live, at any rate for a time, and the
majority of us always, in polygamy. Consequently, as each man needs many
women, nothing is more just than to let him, nay, make it incumbent upon
him to provide for many women. By this means woman will be brought back to
her proper and natural place as a subordinate being, and the lady, that monster
of European civilisation and Christian–Teutonic stupidity, with her ridiculous
claim to respect and veneration, will no longer exist; there will still be
women, but no unhappy women, of whom Europe is at present full. The
Mormons’ standpoint is right.
In India no woman is ever independent, but each one stands under the control of her father or her husband, or brother or son, in accordance with the law of Manu.
It is certainly a revolting idea that widows should sacrifice themselves on their husband’s dead body; but it is also revolting that the money which the husband has earned by working diligently for all his life, in the hope that he was working for his children, should be wasted on her paramours. Medium tenuere beati.
[Medium tenuere beati is a Latin proverb that translates to
"Happy are they who have kept to the middle way" or "Blessed are
those who maintain a middle course".].
The first love of a mother, as that of animals and
men, is purely instinctive, and consequently ceases when the child is no longer
physically helpless. After that, the first love should be reinstated by a love
based on habit and reason; but this often does not appear, especially where
the mother has not loved the father. The love of a father for his children is
of a different nature and more sincere; it is founded on a recognition of his
own inner self in the child, and is therefore metaphysical in its origin.
In almost every nation, both of the new and old
world, and even among the Hottentots, property is inherited by the male
descendants alone; it is only in Europe that one has departed from this.
That the property which men have with difficulty acquired by long-continued
struggling and hard work should afterwards come into the hands of women, who,
in their want of reason, either squander it within a short time or otherwise
waste it, is an injustice as great as it is common, and it should be
prevented by limiting the right of women to inherit.
It seems to me that it would be a better
arrangement if women, be they widows or daughters, only inherited the money
for life secured by mortgage, but not the property itself or the capital,
unless there lacked male descendants. It is men who make the money, and not
women; therefore women are neither justified in having unconditional possession
of it nor capable of administrating it.
Women should never have the free disposition of
wealth, strictly so-called, which they may inherit, such as capital, houses,
and estates. They need a guardian always; therefore they should not have the
guardianship of their children under any circumstances whatever. The vanity of
women, even if it should not be greater than that of men, has this evil in it,
that it is directed on material things — that is to say, on their personal
beauty and then on tinsel, pomp, and show. This is why they are in their
right element in society. This it is which makes them inclined to be
extravagant, especially since they possess little reasoning power.
Accordingly, an ancient writer says, [Greek: Gunae
to synolon esti dapanaeron physei].10 Men’s vanity, on the other hand, is often directed on non-material
advantages, such as intellect, learning, courage, and the like. Aristotle
explains in the Politics11 the great disadvantages
which the Spartans brought upon themselves by granting too much to their
women, by allowing them the right of inheritance and dowry, and a great amount
of freedom; and how this contributed greatly to the fall of Sparta.
[Gunae to synolon esti dapanaeron physei is a line is attributed
to Menander (c. 342–291 BC), a famous Athenian playwright who was the leading
dramatist of Greek New Comedy. "Woman, on the whole, is a spendthrift
by nature." or "Woman is altogether a costly item by nature."]
May it not be that the influence of women in
France, which has been increasing since Louis XIII‘s time, was to blame for
that gradual corruption of the court and government which led to the first
Revolution, of which all subsequent disturbances have been the result? In any
case, the false position of the female sex, so conspicuously exposed by the
existence of the “lady,” is a fundamental defect in our social condition, and
this defect, proceeding from the very heart of it, must extend its harmful
influence in every direction.
That woman is by nature intended to obey is
shown by the fact that every woman who is placed in the unnatural position
of absolute independence at once attaches herself to some kind of man, by whom
she is controlled and governed; this is because she requires a master. If she,
is young, the man is a lover; if she is old, a priest.
--- CONCLUDED
---
Original footnotes:
9 Let me refer
to what I have said in my treatise on The Foundation of Morals, §71.
10 Brunck’s Gnomici poetae graeci v. 115.
11 Bk. I., ch. 9.
Resources:
The above text was sourced from: Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer
Download the entire book: Essays of Schopenhauer (translated by Mrs. Rudolf Dircks), 1865 ("No visible notice of copyright; exact publication date unknown").
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