Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/702

 678 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

ond, that women, as the objects of sensuous desire on the part of men, must hold themselves on the defensive. While this imma- nent and personal struggle, by which the history of the human race is filled, seldom comes to an immediate co-operation of women against men, yet there is a super-personal form which serves as a protection against both dangers, and in which, consequently, the female sex is, so to speak, in corpore interested : morality (dieSitte). The strong personality is able to protect itself against encroach- ments, or at most requires the protection of the law. The weak, on the other hand, would be lost in spite of this support if the individuals who were superior in strength did not for some reason forego the exercise of this superiority. This occurs in part through morality. Since, however, this has no other executive than the conscience of the individual, it works insecurely enough and requires the reinforcement of the moral code. The latter has not, to be sure, the precision and sanction of the legal norm, yet it has a certain guarantee of observance through instinctive shame, and through many perceptibly disagreeable consequences of transgression. The moral code is then the proper protection of the weak, who would go to the wall so soon as the struggle of individuals should break out unchecked by any restraint upon force. The character of this agency is consequently in essence that of prohibition, of restriction. It brings about a certain equality between the weak and the strong. It goes so far in its restraint of the purely natural relation between the two that it may even give the advantage to the weak, as, for example, chivalry shows. That in the insinuating encounter between men and women the former are the stronger, and the assailants, forces the latter under the protection of the moral code ; it makes them the chosen through their own interests chosen guardians of the same. It follows that they are naturally, for themselves also, com- mitted to severe observance of the whole complex of moral pre- scriptions, and not merely in cases which concern masculine excesses. All the standards of morality are in a condition of solidarity with each other. Violation of a single one weakens the principle, and consequently every other. It follows that womenjn this connection hold unreservedly together. Here a