Note 469 — Chapter III

In our present society the relation between the sexual life and economic conditions is equally clear. Everyone knows that the sexuality which occupies a very great place in that part of the bourgeoisie which passes its life in idleness and prodigality, is the consequence of this manner of living. On the other hand the low intellectual condition of the proletariat is the cause of a sexual life much more intense than it would be if the environment permitted a harmonious development of the whole nature. Engels, in his “Condition of the Working-class in England”, says of the English proletarians, what is applicable to the workers in other countries also. “Next to intemperance in the enjoyment of intoxicating liquors, one of the principal faults of English working-men is sexual license. But this, too, follows with relentless logic, with inevitable necessity out of the position of a class left to itself, with no means of making use of its freedom. The bourgeoisie has left the working-class only these two pleasures, while imposing upon it a multitude of labors and hardships, and the consequence is that the working-men, in order to get something out of life, concentrate their whole energy upon these two enjoyments, carry them to excess, surrender to them in the most unbridled manner.”469