Proudhon - A Biography

(Martin Jones) #1

in life where the powers of moral and intellectual judgment are
allowed to atrophy. In a more egalitarian society, women might
go far towards upsetting Proudhon’s elaborate calculations.
Even he, as a devoted egalitarian, was clearly uneasy about
this relegation o f the feminine sex to an unequal station, and he
extricated himself by declaring that woman has other qualities in
which she is superior; in beauty, in intuitive mental grace, in the
capacity for love, she scores each time over man by 3 to 2, and
so we come again to the geometrical progression o f 27 to 8, with
woman this time in the lead. The equilibrium is thus established,
and the conjugal couple becomes the unit in which Justice, other­
wise a mere notion, is made manifest. But this balance o f com­
plementary qualities does not establish woman’s social equality,
or even her equality in family authority, since the economic,
philosophical and juridical elements are precisely those in which
she is inferior. Socially women are equal in result, but not in
principle or practice.
Proudhon ends these sections with some curious reflections on
successful marriage, which in his view depends on the rigorous
disciplining o f love. The best marriage is that in which duty and
virtue figure as the principal ingredients, while the amorous
element is almost non-existent; paradoxically, the ‘secret of
escaping the tribulations o f love and reaping its happiness is to
love with heart and soul all persons o f the opposite sex, and con­
jugally to possess only one o f them.’



  • In the last section o f Justice, Proudhon returns to his general
    theme with a consideration o f the moral sanctions that lead men
    towards right. In a society dominated by Justice, he declares, the
    legislator personifies the human conscience, interpreting the moral
    law, which demands mutual respect, the equilibrium o f social
    forces and the development o f the free spirit. But the moral law
    is expressed in the practice o f society as well as within the
    individual conscience, and its predominance is illustrated by the
    existence o f a series of moral sanctions.
    The first and penal sanction is expressed in the fact that men
    are happy when Justice is observed and suffer when it is violated.
    This sanction is made concrete within human society; crimes are
    the result o f imperfect social relations, and, since reciprocity
    2 ij


THE PALADIN OF JUSTICE
Free download pdf