Note 55 — Chapter IX · Disruption of the Family.

In his book on “The Woman Question in the Middle Ages,” that I have frequently quoted, Buecher laments the dissolution of marriage and the family. He condemns the employment of women in industry, and demands that woman should return to her “particular sphere,” the only one where she creates “real values,” the home and the family. The aims of the modern woman movement appear “amateurish” to him, and he expresses the hope that “a better way may be found.” But he fails to point out a successful way. From his bourgeois point of view it would be impossible to do so. The matrimonial conditions as also the position of women in general, are not the result of wilful creation. They are the natural product of social evolution, and this social evolution is consummated in accordance with inherent laws.