WOMAN UNDER
SOCIALISM
AUGUST BEBEL
Woman Under Socialism
By
AUGUST BEBEL
Translated from the Original
German of the 33d Edition
By
DANIEL DE LEON.
1917
NEW YORK LABOR NEWS COMPANY
NEW YORK
"The end of social development resembles the beginning of humanexistence. The original equality returns. The mother-web ofexistence starts and rounds up the cycle of humanaffairs."—Bachofen.
"Since the advent of civilization, the outgrowth of property hasbeen so immense, its forms so diversified, its uses so expandingand its management so intelligent in the interests of its owners,that it has become, on the part of the people, an unmanageablepower. The human mind stands bewildered in the presence of its owncreation. The time will come, nevertheless, when human intelligencewill rise to the mastery over property, and define the relations ofthe State to the property it protects, as well as the obligationsand the limits of the rights of its owners. The interests ofsociety are paramount to individual interests, and the two must bebrought into just and harmonious relations. A mere property careeris not the final destiny of mankind, if progress is to be the lawof the future as it has been of the past. The time which has passedaway since civilization began is but a fragment of the pastduration of man's existence; and but a fragment of the ages yet tocome. The dissolution of society bids fair to become thetermination of a career of which property is the end and aim;because such a career contains the elements ofself-destruction."—Morgan.
Copyright 1904, by the
New York Labor News Company
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
Bebel's work, "Die Frau und der Socialismus," rendered in this Englishversion with the title "Woman under Socialism," is the best-aimed shotat the existing social system, both strategically and tacticallyconsidered. It is wise tactics and strategy to attack an enemy on hisweakest side. The Woman Question is the weakest link in the capitalist mail.
The workingman, we know, is a defenceless being; but it takes muchsharpening of the intellect to appreciate the fact that "he cannot speakfor himself." His sex is popularly coupled with the sense of strength.The illusion conceals his feebleness, and deprives him of help, often ofsympathy. It is thus even with regard to the child. Proverbially weakand needing support, the child, nevertheless, is not everywhere a victimin the existing social order. Only in remote sense does the child of theruling class suffer. The invocation of the "Rights of the Child" leavessubstantially untouched the children of the rich. It is otherwise withwoman. The shot that rips up the wrongs done to her touches a nerve thataches from end to end in the capitalist world. There is no woman,whatever her station, but in one way or other is a sufferer, a victim inmodern society. While upon the woman of the working class the cross ofcapitalist society rests heaviest in all ways,