Our Androcentric Culture, or The Man Made World

ice, now, is wholly human; no other creature has a post office, but there are families in plenty

pment in humanness; in mechanical, mental and social lines; in the extension of love and

is, the care and nurture of the young. To protect the helpless little ones, to feed and shelter them, to ensure them th

e think about it; and, in our strange new power of voluntary action do things to

tue-the unswerving devotion to one mate-is common among birds and some of the higher mammals. If Ba

from an institution for the best service of the child to one modifi

g that all a parent is for is the best service of the child. Ancestor worship, that gross reversal of all natural law, is of wholly androcentric origin. It is stron

we ought to give our minds to it. When we use our past merely as a guide-book, and c

egitimate and right in proper use; only mischievous when excessive or out of place. Through them the male is led to strenuous competition for the favor of the female; in the overflowing ardours of song, as in nightingale

n it is, naturally, their femaleness that has been studied and enlarged upon. And though women, after thousands of years of such discussion, have become a little r

es, desire, combat and self-expression, affect

is that of sex selection. The males, numerous, varied, pouring a flood of energy into wide modificatio

or by purchase, does the choosing-he selects the kind of woman that pleases him. Nature did not intend

proves our speed: the other does not. If males struggle and fight with one another for a mate, the strongest secures her; if the male struggles and fights with the

erogative of the female, this primal duty of selection. The males were no longer improved by their natural competition for the female; a

tribes the chief's wives are prepared for him by being kept in small dark huts and fed on "mealies" and molasses; precisely as a Strasbourg goose is fattened for the gourmand. Now fatness is not a desirable race characteristic;

le female m

e female mo

little, female

maleness has been demanded and pro

archate; the father being her assistant in the great work. The patriarchate, with its proprietary family, changed this altogether; the woman, as the property of the man was considered first and foremost as a means of pleasure to him; and while s

wife is held to involve man-service as well as child-service, and indeed far more; as t

a is bad for children. See our common law that the man decides the place of residence; if the wife refuses to go with him to how

; regardless of the sin against the child involved in such a relation. Public feeling on the

She is first taught duty to her parents, with heavy religious sanction; and then duty to her husband, similarly buttressed; but her duty to her children has been left to instinct.

"innocence" does not enable her to choose a husband wisely; she does not even know the dangers that possibly confront her. We vaguely imagine that her father or brother, who do know, w

and opposition serves to prevent her marrying him. "I love him!" she says, su

ren. We have magnified the duties of the wife, and minified the duties of the mother; and this is in

t of the associate and equal, as when she joins him in his business. It is not that of a beneficial combination, as when she practices another business

of the world cook and wash, sweep a

ly unnatural and injurious. The father expects to be served by the daughter, a service quite different from what he expects of the son. This shows at

and a son, should a form of service be expected of the

does not manifest itself in noise, or combat, or display, but in productive industry. Because of her mother-p

ill be shown later in treating his effect on economics.

rea, he thereby confined her to primitive industry. The domestic industries, in the hands of women, constitute a survival of our remotest past. Such wo

ic industry once-when every savage mother set up her own tepee. To be confined to domestic industry is no proper distinction

t of half the field. We have a world wherein men, industrially, live in the

s as his, not belonging to themselves, their children, or the world; has hedged them in with restrictions of a thousand sorts; physical, as in the crippled Chinese lady or the imprisoned

ivities. The woman, bound, has not so grown; and the child is born to a progressive fatherhood and a stationary motherhood. Thus the man-made family reacts unfavorably upon the child. We ro

y working nearer to the cradle, a new sense is wakening of the importance of the period of infancy, and its wiser treatment; yet those who know of su

social contact, social service, true social life. (We may note in passing, her passionate fondness for the child-game called "society" she has been allowed to entertain herself withal; that poor simiacrum of real social life, in which people decorate themselves and madly crowd together, chattering, for

ic home cannot teach him. We live to-day in a democracy-the man-made family is a despotism. It may be a weak one; the despot may be dethroned and overmastered by his little harem of one; but in that case she becomes th

or herself-not only that she may love, but that she may live. He will feed, clothe and adorn her-she will serve him; from the sub

eave it-for the real world. He is quite right. The error is that this great social instinct, calling for full soc

ondition of home industry; and further through the wrong ideals which have arisen from these conditions

ng human we must learn to recognize justice, freedom, human rights; we must learn self-control and to think of others; have minds that grow and broaden rationally; we must l

annot reach the sense of equal rights we need to-day. Too constant consideration of the master's tastes makes the master selfish; and the assault upon his heart di

roaching a tenderness and permanence of love, high pure enduring love; combined with the broad deep-rooted friendliness and comradeship of equals; which promises us m

pro tem. Friendship does not need "a head." Lo