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Schopenhauer On Women
by Arthur Schopenhauer
13 July 2005
1
 
Schiller's whole comprehensive poem Würde der Frauen, with its
effects of antithesis and contrast, fails, in my opinion, to express what is
truly to be praised in women as well as do these few words of Jouy: Sans les femmes, le
commencement de notre vie serait prive de secours, le milieu de plaisirs, et la
fin de consolation.[1] Byron says the same thing with more pathos in Sardanopolis.[2]
The very first
Of human life must spring from woman's breast,
Your first small words are taught you from her lips
Your first tears quench'd by her, and your last sighs
Too often breathed out in a woman's hearing,
When men have shrunk from the ignoble care
Of watching the last hour of him who led them.
Both indicate the correct viewpoint for estimating the value of
women.
[1]. Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805) is
traditionally Germany's second greatest poet, but much of his
verse, of which The Dignity (or Merit or Worth) of Women is a
once-famous example, is of the 'good-bad' variety, like
Walter Scott's. His true genius lay in the field of popular drama,
and his best plays are still much performed. Victor Jouy
(1764-1846), dramatist.
[2]. Act I, scene 2.
2
One needs only to see the way she is built to realize that woman is
not intended for
great mental or for great physical labor. She expiates the guilt of
life not through
activity but through suffering, through the pains of childbirth,
caring for the child
and subjection to the man, to whom she should be a patient and
cheering companion.
Great suffering, joy, exertion, is not for her: her life should flow
by more quietly,
trivially, gently than the man's without being essentially happier
or unhappier.
3
Women are suited to being the nurses and teachers of our earliest
childhood precisely
because they themselves are childish, silly and short-sighted, in a
word big children,
their whole lives long: a kind of intermediate stage between the
child and the man,
who is the actual human being, 'man.' One has only to watch a girl
playing with a
child, dancing and singing with it the whole day, and then ask
oneself what, with the
best will in the world, a man could do in her place.
4
In the girl nature has had in view what could in theatrical terms be
called a
stage-effect: it has provided her with superabundant beauty and
charm for a few
years at the expense of the whole remainder of her life, so that
during these years she
may so capture the imagination of a man that he is carried away into
undertaking to
support her honorably in some form or another for the rest of her
life, a step he
would seem hardly likely to take for purely rational considerations.
Thus nature has
equipped women, as it has all its creatures, with the tools and
weapons she needs for
securing her existence, and at just the time she needs them; in
doing which nature has
acted with its usual economy. For just as the female ant loses its
wings after mating,
since they are then superfluous, indeed harmful to the business of
raising the family,
so the woman usually loses her beauty after one or two childbeds,
and probably for
the same reason.
5
The nobler and more perfect a thing is, the later and more slowly
does it mature. The
man attains the maturity of his reasoning powers and spiritual
faculties hardly before
his twenty-eighth year; the woman with her eighteenth. And even then
it is only
reasoning power of a sort: a very limited sort. Thus women remain
children all their
lives, never see anything but what is closest to them, cleave to the
present moment,
take appearance for reality and prefer trifles to the most important
affairs. For
reason is the faculty by virtue of which man lives not merely in the
present, as the
animal does, but surveys and ponders past and future, from which
arises his capacity
for foresight, his care and trouble, and the anxiety he so
frequently feels. As a
consequence of her weaker reasoning powers, woman has a smaller
share of the
advantages and disadvantages these bring with them: she is, rather,
a mental myopic,
in that her intuitive understanding sees very clearly what is close
to her but has a very
narrow field of vision from which what is distant is excluded; so
that what is absent,
past or to come makes a very much weaker impression on women than it
does on us,
which is the origin of their much greater tendency to squandering, a
tendency which
sometimes verges on madness. Women think in their hearts that the
man's business is
to make money and theirs is to spend it: where possible during the
man's lifetime, but
in any case after his death. That the man hands over to them for
housekeeping the
money he has earned strengthens them in this belief. -- Whatever
disadvantages all
this may bring with it, it has this good effect, that woman is more
absorbed in the
present than we are, so that, if the present is endurable at all,
she enjoys it more, an
this produces that cheerfulness characteristic of her through which
she is so suited to
entertain and, if need be, console the care-laden man.
To consult women when you are in difficulties, as the ancient
Teutons did, is by no
means a bad idea: for their way of looking at things is quite
different from ours,
especially in their propensity for keeping in view the shortest road
to a desired goal
and in general what lies closest to hand, which we usually overlook
precisely because
it is right in front of our noses. In addition, women are decidedly
more prosaic than
we are and see no more in things than is really there, while we, if
our passions are
aroused, will easily exaggerate and indulge in imaginings.
It is for this reason too that women display more pity, and
consequently more
philanthropy and sympathy with the unfortunate, than men do; on the
other hand,
they are inferior to men in respect of justice, honesty and
conscientiousness: for as a
result of their weaker reasoning power women are as a rule far more
affected by
what is present, visible and immediately real than they are by
abstract ideas, standing
maxims, previous decisions or in general by regard for what is far
off, in the past or
still to come. Thus, while they possess the first and chief virtue,
they are deficient in
the secondary one which is often necessary for achieving the first.
-- One must
accordingly say that the fundamental defect of the female character
is a lack of a
sense of justice. This originates first and foremost in their want
of rationality and
capacity for reflection but it is strengthened by the fact that, as
the weaker sex, they
are driven to rely not on force but on cunning: hence their
instinctive subtlety and
their ineradicable tendency to tell lies: for, as nature has
equipped the lion with claws
and teeth, the elephant with tusks, the wild boar with fangs, the
bull with horns and
the cuttlefish with ink, so it has equipped woman with the power of
dissimulation as
her means of attack and defense, and has transformed into this gift
all the strength it
has bestowed on man in the form of physical strength and the power
of reasoning.
Dissimulation is thus inborn in her and consequently to be found in
the stupid woman
almost as often as in the clever one. To make use of it at every
opportunity is as
natural to her as it is for an animal to employ its means of defense
whenever it is
attacked, and when she does so she feels that to some extent she is
only exercising her
rights. A completely truthful woman who does not practice
dissimulation is perhaps
an impossibility, which is why women see through the dissimulation
of others so
easily it is inadvisable to attempt it with them. -- But this
fundamental defect which I
have said they possess, together with all that is associated with
it, gives rise to falsity,
unfaithfulness, treachery, ingratitude, etc. Women are guilty of
perjury far more
often than men. It is questionable whether they ought to be allowed
to take an oath at
all.
6
To take care of the propagation of the human race nature has chosen
the young,
strong and handsome men, so that the race shall not degenerate. This
is the firm will
of nature in this matter, and its expression is the passion of
women. In antiquity and
force this law precedes every other: so woe to him who sets his
rights and interests in
the path of this law: whatever he says or does they will, at the
first serious encounter,
be mercilessly crushed. For the secret, unspoken, indeed
unconscious, but nonetheless
inborn morality of women is: 'We are justified in deceiving those
who, because they
provide a meager support for us, the individual, think they have
acquired a right over
the species. The character and consequently the wellbeing of the
species has, through
the next generaltion proceeding from us, been placed in our hands
and entrusted to
our care: let us discharge that trust conscientiously.' Women are,
however, by no
means conscious of this supreme law in abstracto, only in concreto;
and they have
no way of giving expression to it apart from their mode of action if
the occasion
presents itself; and then they are usually less troubled by their
conscience than we
suppose, because they are aware in the darkest recesses of their
heart that in violating
their duty to the individual they are all the better fulfilling
their duty to the species,
whose rights are incomparably greater.
Because fundamentally women exist solely for the propagation of the
race and find in
this their entire vocation, they are altogether more involved with
the species than
with individuals, and in their hearts take the affairs of the
species more seriously than
they do those of the individual. This gives their entire nature and
all their activities a
certain levity and in general a direction fundamentally different
from those of the
man: which is why dissension between married couples is so frequent
and indeed
almost the normal case.
7
Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are
by nature
enemies. The reason is no doubt that the odium figulinum[3] which
with men does not
go beyond the bounds of the particular guild, with women embraces
the whole sex,
because they are all engaged in the same trade. Even when they
simply pass in the
street they look at one another like Guelphs and Ghibellines; and
when two women
meet for the first time there is clearly more constraint and
pretense involved than in
the case of two men: so that when two women exchange compliments it
sounds much
more ludicrous than when two men do so. Further, while a man will as
a rule still
preserve some degree of consideration and humanity even when
addressing men very
much his inferior, it is intolerable to see with what haughty
disdain an aristocratic
woman usually speaks to women who are beneath her (I am not
referring to
servants). The reason for this may be that with women all
differences in rank are far
more precarious than they are with us, and can be altered or
abolished much more
quickly, because in our case a hundred different considerations are
involved, while in
theirs only one is decisive, namely which man they have succeeded in
attracting.
Another reason may be that, because they are all in the same
profession, they all stand
much closer to one another than men do, and consequently strive to
emphasize
differences in rank.
[3.] Mutual dislike of those in the same trade.
8
Only a male intellect clouded by the sexual drive could call the
stunted,
narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped and short-legged sex the fair sex:
for it is with this
drive that all its beauty is bound up. More fittingly than the fair
sex, women could be
called the unaesthetic sex. Neither for music, nor poetry, nor the
plastic arts do they
possess any real feeling or receptivity: if they affect to do so, it
is merely mimicry in
service of their effort to please. This comes from the fact that
they are incapable of
taking a purely objective interest in anything whatever, and the
reason for this is,
I think, as follows. Man strives in everything for a direct
domination over things,
either by comprehending or by subduing them. But woman is everywhere
and always
relegated to a merely indirect domination, which is achieved by
means of man, who is
consequently the only thing she has to dominate directly. Thus it
lies in the nature of
women to regard everything simply as a means of capturing a man, and
their interest
in anything else is only simulated, is no more than a detour, i.e.
amounts to coquetry
and mimicry. One has only to observe how they behave in the theater
or at operas
and concerts, e.g. the childish unconcern with which they go on
chattering away
during the most beautiful parts of the greatest masterpieces. If it
is true the Greeks
refused to allow women into the theater, they did the right thing:
at least one would
have been able to hear what was going on. -- Nor can one expect
anything else from
women if one considers that the most eminent heads of the entire sex
have proved
incapable of a single truly great, genuine and original achievement
in art, or indeed
of creating anything at all of lasting value: this strikes one most
forcibly in regard to
painting, since they are just as capable of mastering its technique
as we are, and
indeed paint very busily, yet cannot point to a single great
painting; the reason being
precisely that they lack all objectivity of mind, which is what
painting demands above
all else. Isolated and partial exceptions do not alter the case:
women, taken as a whole,
are and remain thorough and incurable philistines: so that, with the
extremely absurd
arrangement by which they share the rank and title of their husband,
they are a
continual spur to his ignoble ambitions. They are sexus sequior, the
inferior second
sex in every respect: one should be indulgent toward their
weaknesses, but to pay
them honor is ridiculous beyond measure and demeans us even in their
eyes. -- This
is how the peoples of antiquity and of the Orient have regarded
women; they have
recognized what is the proper position for women far better than we
have, we with
our Old French gallantry and insipid women-veneration, that highest
flower of
Christian-Germanic stupidity which has served only to make women so
rude and
arrogant that one is sometimes reminded of the sacred apes of
Benares which,
conscious of their own sanctity and inviolability, thought
themselves at liberty
to do whatever they pleased.
Woman in the Occident, that is to say the 'lady,' finds herself in a
false position: for
woman is by no means fitted to be the object of our veneration, to
hold her head
higher than the man or to enjoy equal rights with him. The
consequences of this false
position are sufficiently obvious. It would thus be a very desirable
thing if this
number two of the human race were again put in her natural place in
Europe too, and
a limit set ot the unnaturalness called a lady at which all Asia
laughs and which
Greece and Rome would laugh at too if they could see it: the
consequences for the
social, civil and political life of Europe would be incalculably
beneficial. The
European lady is a creature which ought not to exist at all: what
there ought to be is
housewives and girls who hope to become housewives and who are
therefore
educated, not in arrogant haughtiness, but in domesticity and
submissiveness. It is
precisely because there are ladies that European women of a lower
status, which is
to say the great majority of the sex, are much more unhappy than
they are in the
Orient.
9
In our monogamous part of the world, to marry means to halve one's
rights and
double one's duties. But when the law conceded women equal rights
with men it
should at the same time have endowed them with masculine reasoning
powers. What
is actually the case is that the more those rights and privileges
the law accords to
women exceed those which are natural to them, the more it reduces
the number of
women who actually participate in these benefits; and then the
remainder are
deprived of their natural rights by just the amount these few
receive in excess of
theirs: for, because of the unnaturally privileged position enjoyed
by women as a
consequence of mongamy and the marriage laws accompanying it, which
regard
women as entirely equal to men (which they are in no respect),
prudent and cautious
men very often hesitate before making so great a sacrifice as is
involved in entering
into so inequitable a contract; so that while among polygamous
peoples every woman
gets taken care of, among the monogamous the number of married women
is limited
and there remains over a quantity of unsupported women who, in the
upper classes,
vegetate on as useless old maids, and in the lower are obligated to
undertake laborious
work they are constitutionally unfitted for or become filles de
joie, whose lives are
as devoid of joie as they are of honor but who, given the prevailing
circumstances,
are necessary for the gratification of the male sex and therefore
come to constitute a
recognized class, with the specific task of preserving the virtue of
those women more
favored by fate who have found a man to support them or may
reasonably hope to
find one. There are 80,000 prostitutes in London alone: and what are
they if not
sacrifices on the altar of monogamy? These poor women are the
inevitable
counterpart and natural complement to the European lady, with all
her arrogance and
pretension. For the female sex viewed as a whole polygamy is
therefore a real
benefit; on the other hand there appears no rational ground why a
man whose wife
suffers from a chronic illness, or has remained unfruitful, or has
gradually grown
too old for him, should not take a second.
There can be no argument about polygamy: it is a fact to be met with
everywhere and
the only question is how to regulate it. For who is really a
monogamist? We all live
in polygamy, at least for a time and usually for good. Since every
man needs many
women, there could be nothing more just than that he should be free,
indeed obliged,
to support many women. This would also mean the restoration of woman
to her
rightful and natural position, the subordinate one, and the
abolition from the world of
the lady, with her ridiculous claims to respect and veneration;
there would then be
only women, and no longer unhappy women, of which Europe is at
present full.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
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