The Function of Women.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 22, 25 November 1908, Page 57

The Function of Women.

GERMAN PROFESSOR EXPRESSES EXTRAORDINARY VIEWS. Professor Otto Wisinisger has been discussing the question which has spasmodically recurred at intervals for some time. The further, we go -into the. analysis of woman’s claim. to esteem the. more, he tells us, we must deny her of what is lofty and noble and teaaitiful. However, the Professor desires us to know that the- last tiling -lie desires is to advocate the Asiatic standpoint with regard to the treatment of women, but it is -quite possible to desire the legal equality of men and women without believing in their moral and intellectual equality, just as in condemning to the utmost any harshness ia the male, treatment Of the. female sex (me does not overlook the tremendous contrast and organic differences between them. There are no men in whom there is no trace of the transeendant who are altogether bad. and there is no woman of whom that could truly be said. However degraded a man may be, he is immeasurably above the most superior woman, so much so that all comparison and classification of the two are impossible; but even so no one has the right to denounce or defaine woman, however inferior she must -be considered. A true adjustment of the claims for legal equality can be undertaken on no other basis than the. recognition of a, complete deep-seated polar opposition of the sexes; Women, continues the professor, are not physiologically weakminded. He does not share the view that women of conspicuous ability are to be regarded as morbid specimens. From a moral point of view one should only be glad to recognise -in these women ( who axe; always more masculine than the rest) the exact opposite of degeneration. That is to say, it must be acknowledged that they have made a step forward and gained a victory over themselves. From the biologi. • standpoint they are just as little or a- much the phenomena of degeneration as are womanish men. Woman is neither high-minded nor low-minded, strong-minded nor weakminded. She is the opposite of all these. Mind cannot be predicted here at all—she is mindless, is the Professor's extraordinary dictum. That,, however, does not, he is quick to add, imply weak-mind-edness in the ordinary sense of the term, the absence : of the capacity to get her bearings in ordinary everyday life. Cunning, calculation, cleverness, are much more usual and constant in woman than in man, if there be a personal selfish end in view. A woman is never so stupid as a man can be. But has woman no meaning at. all? Has she no general purpose m the srene of the world? Has she not a density, and in spite of- al! her senselessness a signifigance in the universe? Has she a mission or is her existence an accident and absurdity? In order to understand her meaning it is necessary to start from a jdtenomenon wtiich though old and we?? recognised, baa never received its proper due. It is from nothing more nor less than the phenomenon of match-making, from which we may infer most correctly the r»al nature of woman. Ha analysis

shows it to be the force which brings together and helps forward two people in their knowledge of one another which helps them to a union, whether in the form of marriage or not. This desire to bring about an understanding between two people is possessed by all women from their earliest childhood; the very youngest girls are always ready to act as messengers for their sisters’ lovers. And, if the instinct of matchmaking can be indulged in only after the particular woman in question has brought about her own consummation in marriage, it is hone the less present before that time and the only things which are at work against it are her jealousy of her contemporaries and her anxiety about their chances with regard to her lover until she has finally secured him. As soon as women have got rid of their own case by their own marriage, they hasten to help the sons and daughters of their acquaintances to marry. The fact that older women, in whom the love instinct has died out, are such matchmakers, is so fully recognised, con-, eludes the Professor, that the idea has wrongly spread that they are the only real matchmakers. © © ©