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Saint Simonians
Women's Press
(1833-1835)
In the early part of the 1830s, a utopian movement based on the writing of Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon (1760-1825) developed under the leadership of his follower Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin. As is often the case, Saint Simon's followers chose certain parts of his writings to emphasize and other parts to gloss over, tailoring Saint Simonian philosophy to appeal to their own desires.
Saint Simon himself advocated a society which was lead "scientifically" by men who had the intellect and training to guide society using policies arrived at "scientifically." Calling for the creation of a new science which would focus on man as a social creature (which eventually would be created and called sociology), Saint Simon believed that these scholars would be able to scientifically discern rules to guide society. By replacing the self interest of the governing class with scientifically formulated public policies, the masses of people would be relieved of oppression and want. Economic reforms would spread the benefits of the modern age to all members of society. So the theory went. Although Saint Simon said little about women, he was relatively egalitarian. Convinced of the necessity of a strong religious foundation for society, Saint Simon's unpublished, unfinished final work on a "new Christianity" formed the basis of the religious mysticism of his followers.
The movement his followers created emphasized economic opportunity, female equality, and non-violence. Wrapped in an emotion-laden mysticism of a religion that conceptualized an androgynous "Mother/Father" God, indicting laissez-faire capitalism in favor of communitarianism, and stressing the equality of all persons of all classes, the Saint Simonians appealed to many people. Largely apolitical, the Saint Simonians were caught off-guard by the Revolution of 1830 that ushered in an era of increased political freedoms. Artisans and skilled workers flocked to their lectures and the movement started several new programs for the newly converted faithful: schools, cooperative workshops, and even maisons de famille where the workers could live in communal households. The movement broadened from its middle-class foundations to encompass the working class.
Saint Simonian men debated the meaning of feminism and the societal changes required to make men and women equal: they agreed that women were excluded from public life and that women were subordinated to men – and that's about all. Debate followed debate with each debate leading to an exodus of the defeated party. In each case, Enfantin accepted the Romantic vision of women, but instead of denigrating women because of the perceived characteristic in question, Enfantin wanted to elevate the characteristic to a virtue. His opponents, on the other hand, challenged the conventional wisdom and desired changes in deeply entrenched patriarchal attitudes. Enfantin eventually advocated a system of "free love." By 1832, he was in trouble with the police on charges of "corruption of public morals" and even the faithful had to deny his teachings.
Only now did the women begin to debate the meaning of sexual equality, the causes of women's subjugation, the conditions required for women's emancipation, and a course of action that would bring about an equality of the sexes – and the conclusions they came to departed significantly from Enfantin's teachings. As with so many other reform movements, most women did not join the Saint Simonian movement because the movement was a feminist movement. Rather, the women came to feminism through their experiences in the Saint Simonian movement.
Enfantin, a master of psychological manipulation, stoked the fires of competitiveness and jealousy among his female followers, keeping them disunited. Mesmerized, perhaps, by seeing women on the dais during the religious services and encouraged to believe in the inherent equality of the sexes, in time the women came to see that no women were permitted to attain to the highest ranks of the new religion. Women were still unequal, despite the claims to the contrary. Responding to the women's complaints of de facto sexual inequality, Enfantin promoted several women into the highest levels of the hierarchy, giving women reason to hope that if they were loyal enough, hard enough workers, good enough recruiters, etc. they too would be promoted into positions of power and responsibility, and, at the same time, sowing competition and distrust between the women in the hierarchy and the other women. Almost all of the women in the hierarchy were related to powerful males in the organization, and the hierarchy remained overwhelmingly male. When Enfantin was imprisoned, removing his ability to psychologically manipulate his followers, the women who had been excluded from the hierarchy began to draw together to fight for the emancipation of women. After leaving prison, Enfantin withdrew into a rural, religious retreat with only his male followers, once again leaving the women without male leadership.
In April 1832, a group of proletarian women published the first issue of La Femme libre (The Free Woman), announcing that the journal would publish articles only by women and that it would "work for the freedom and association of women. " After several name changes, the journal finally settled on the name Tribune des femmes (The Woman's Tribune) to indicate that the journal was open to all women, not just Saint Simonian women.
The women of Tribune des femmes, largely relatively young (20s) members of the working class, discussed many issues of interest to women including working conditions for poor female laborers, domestic drudgery, women's subordination to men, the sexual double standard, and women's legal disabilities. In the following excerpt, Suzanne Voilquin questions why men and men alone have the legal power to form the laws which both women and men must obey. Although Tribune des femmes and the Saint Simonian women largely eschewed politics, many of the Saint Simonian women would play a role in the Revolution of 1848. Using the experience they gained in the Saint Simonian movement, these women, by then approaching middle-age, would be at the forefront of the movement for women's political rights in 1848. In the early 1830s the young women identified the problem of women's subordination to men. Their first effort at achieving sexual equality through persuasion failed, but the women learned from their experience. Fifteen years later when the Revolution of 1848 broke out, they immediately set out to acquire the political power they needed to solve the problem.
The Justice of Men
Tribune des Femmes [1:127-129]
Translated and Reprinted in Claire Goldberg Moses and Leslie Wahl Rabine, Feminism, Socialism, and French Romanticism [Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1993] pp . 305 – 308
Some time ago my interest in a case concerning a member of the popular class drew me to the criminal court. [ . . . ] By giving you the details of another case that was also being tried that day, I hope you will feel as I do how little we are protected by men, even those of the law.
A young woman first appeared before the court. She moved me by her pallor, her moral suffering, and a poverty she did not deserve. Before these cold, severe men's faces, this poor young woman recounted simply but truthfully how her husband, after promising her support and protection before all of society (represented in the person of Monsieur the Mayor), then sold everything they owned, so that the only material resources left to her were their common debts. And afterward he spent all this money with an immoral, degraded girl. Poor little legitimate wife! . . . You who religiously bent your head under the yoke of their laws. What consolation do these men bring to your broken heart when one of them destroyed our existence by abandonment, contempt, and poverty? [ . . . ] In spite of the all too just grievances this woman had against her husband, she appeared pained at the obligation to enter into all these details. It was not against him that she complained, but against the unfortunate girl who, not content to bring disorder into her marriage, had brutally hit her one day, so as not to endure from the poor abandoned wife a few all too just and deserved reproaches. There were proofs, medical certificates, and another court had already sentenced her to six months of imprisonment and a fine. But vice of this magnitude is audacious; this girl had appealed, and the court had appointed her a counsel. Oh! How can I explain to you the indignation I felt when I heard this lawyer playing on the emotions of the court and audience with his despicable argument: "You see, gentlemen, the plaintiff's jealousy prompted her to these insults, and my client retorted a little vigorously. Gentlemen, you will overturn the sentence for lack of cause, for, you see, this is only a woman's quarrel." (The accused was not completely pardoned, but her penalty was cut in half.) If a woman had been presiding beside the judge, such an important question as the relations between the sexes would not have been resolved so lightly as a woman's quarrel! What indecency for a lawyer to express himself that way! Where then is morality? Where then is the protection that one owes to the weak and unfortunate, if they do not find it in the sanctuary of justice? In this society with no bonding, there is only hurt for us, whether we follow or discard your laws. [ . . . ]
To prove to you, dear readers, that this [ . . . ] is not exaggerated [. . .], I will go back to the root cause, that is to say I will examine civilization's masterpiece, the code of laws that men impose upon us.
Whoever says "code of laws" speaks of the social regulations made in everyone's interest and approved and consented to by everyone; but who in truth are we? Humanity is not composed only of men. Legislators of all ages, tell me, if we are half of everyone, have you ever at any time admitted women among yourselves to uphold the rights of their sex? And if we have never had representatives to discuss and prevent the oppressive laws that you have drawn up against us, explain by what right you would have us remain forever submissive to these laws? Men! be therefore no longer surprised by the disorder that reigns in your society. It is an energetic protest against what you have done alone.
Frail woman that I am, I feel the strength and need today to protest boldly against what is arbitrary and depraved in your social system, as it is summed up in several articles of the law that I attack as the forced consequence of a bad principle. For example, how can we in the nineteenth century listen with composure to a delegate under your authority who says in all seriousness to us: "The wife must obey her husband" (Art. 213). I have already asked why in another article, and my gauntlet remained on the ground. No one picked it up. Only La Revue des Deux Mondes joked about it, but joking does not prove anything. (Art. 214): "The wife is obligated" (emphasis in the text) "to live with the husband, and to follow him wherever he judges it appropriate to live." Does not the spirit of his laws establish our slavery, so that we cannot be ourselves? [ . . . ]
The spirit of your law is even more malevolent for the mother than for the wife. Against the wife there is the arbitrary despotism from which she escapes through a constant silent struggle. But it is the mother's heart that you wound and break by the mistrust and injustice which are palpable in the following articles. (Art. 373): "The father alone exercises authority over his children during the marriage." (Art. 374): "The child cannot leave the paternal home without the father's approval." What then is the mother in the family? Everything; her influence is immense. And her rights? None. Oh, justice of men! . . . (Art. 389): "During the marriage, the father is the administrator of the personal belongings of his children in their minority." More than once while reading this article I asked myself: But does the father alone then have innate knowledge? Does infallibility then find refuge in the little conjugal fortress? Probably so in the mind of the legislator. For if woman in her maternal love finds the strength to control her husband's acts, the law of man is there ready to tell her: back! usurper, this is a right that you have appropriated and do not possess. (Art. 390): "After the death of one of the spouses, the guardianship of minors belongs to the survivor." This article appears to establish too much equality between spouses; what follows serves as a corrective. (Art. 391): "Nevertheless the father will be able to appoint a special advisor to the surviving mother and guardian, without whose advice she will not be able to execute any action over her ward." Since it is generally known that maternal love is the strongest and deepest of all feelings, why this mistrust? [ . . . ] Who more than the mother is in a position to supervise her children's happiness? Who more than she knows with certainty that they are definitely a part of her, definitely her own? If the law wants to prevent presumed misconduct by one of the spouses, then why does the mother not have the same right to consideration? Why not allow her tranquility after death, by letting her consolidate her children's future. Cannot everything that can be prejudged about the subsequent conduct of women once widowed be applied in the same case to men? They do not have as we do a feeling for the intimate family; and besides, if a new love were to bring the woman new children, would they not all be drawn from the same life source that is common to them all? Does she not unite them all in her mind and maternal heart? And if, forced by this law of inheritance (which is impious since it is against nature) to divide in an unequal manner the property among all, she at least does not disinherit them from any of her care or love. It is not the same for the man. The children from a first bed are almost always driven away from the father's house by the maternal selfishness of the second wife, and meanwhile the father alone has the right in dying to appoint a guardian-counsel. Oh, justice of men! . . .
Young mothers, chase such dark thoughts away from your mind, so that the love of your children may prepare you for years of happiness if marriage is only a long disappointment for you. Find refuge in your children's future, so that your imagination may embellish their existence with those things of which you have been deprived; for these children are assuredly yours, young mothers. Find joy in your daughter; watch how her charms unfold in adolescence, how her face blushes and grows pensive when she feels her heart pound for the first time. Oh yes, tender mothers, become her confidante, for you know well the needs of a woman's heart. Prepare her from her earliest years for her first love, for it is often a woman's whole destiny. You know that the sentence your society hurls against you will still be the irrevocable sentence against us for a long time. Therefore, kind mother, do not mistakenly think that your child's heart alone will be consulted. (Art. 148): "To form a marriage the father's consent is sufficient." (Art. 150): "If the father and mother are dead and there is a disagreement between the grandfather and grandmother, the grandfather's consent is sufficient."
Oh, justice of men! truly the time is near when you will be declared impious. Soon the mother will no longer be martyred in her spirit or her flesh. God entrusts the certitude of the family to the mother alone. In the young girl's bosom lies the living bond that links forever the generations to come with those that pass away. A mystery that realizes itself in God's bosom under the great name of humanity ! . . .
Suzanne [Voilquin]
Footnotes:
References:
Bonnie S. Anderson, Joyous Greetings: The First International Women's Movement 1830 – 1860 [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000]
Claire Goldberg Moses, French Feminism in the 19th Century [Albany: State University of New York, 1984]
Claire Goldberg Moses and Leslie Wahl Rabine, Feminism, Socialism, and French Romanticism [Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1993]
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last updated February 2003