From the liberty of the wife to the freedom of the Palestinians

History holds an overwhelming weight within the political world. For many of those who are disappointed with the current state of affairs, history provides refuge. The past is seen as the lost golden age that we need to strive to return to. History may also render the same service to those who are afraid of the future. Namely, to those who can not cope with the direction of the changes that are taking place in their lifetimes. The social norms of a particular historical moment are regarded as the foundation stone of the present social order, which must by all means be preserved. The conservatives, hence, only validate historical social progress up to a certain point, beyond which our society must no longer develop. In short, they love their history, but they would rather that it stopped at their feet.

Yet, history can also serve as a refuge for the progressives. For instance, during a reactionary wave, when much of the social progress accumulated up to that point seems to be put into question. As history demonstrates, such historical moments are a constant feature of humanity’s social development. And while causing major human suffering, these episodes have never arrested the social changes that they had reacted against. For instance, counter-reformation during the 16th and 17th centuries could not prevent the protestant ideas from gaining ground across Europe. Likewise, the 19th century counter-revolutionary movements were not capable of restoring the absolutist divinely ordained rule of the European monarchies. Knowing this places into the larger historical perspective all the contemporary attempts to push back against the rights of women, the rights of the LGBTQ community, or against racial equality.

But before any particular reactionary wave, there must be a period of social change that would create the reaction. You can not have counter-reformation without the emergence of the protestant ideas, just as you can not have anti-liberal reactionary wave without the emergence of the liberal ideas. And as a rule, such novel ideas at first constitute a radical minority position which, aside from being smeared and attacked, is not yet capable of changing the social world. The Cathars in the 12th and 13th centuries had no chance of forcing their early protestant ideas upon the old continent. In the same fashion, for instance, the London Corresponding Society had no chance of enforcing universal suffrage in Britain in the 1790s. And one can only imagine how helpless the representatives of both of these progressive movements - no matter how far apart within the historical timeline - might have felt during their lifetimes. There are historical circumstances when there is simply nothing a progressive person can do to achieve social change. And in such circumstances history can likewise provide them moral relief and reassurance. For it demonstrates that while the progressives may not yet have the sufficient weight to challenge the existing social norms, they are, however, the front-runners to the inevitable social change in the future.

In our times even the average “apolitical” person would find it absolutely acceptable for a married woman to have her own private life, interests, property, and so on. And, of course, to divorce if necessary. In essence, he or she would consider the gender equality achieved so far as completely natural. But what if we transferred this normie back to the Victorian Britain of the 19th century, when even the “marriage advice literature continued to assert that 'it is the right of the husband to rule, and the duty of the wife to obey’”? Not only would he or she find a very different social understanding of women's role within the society, but this individual would also become a radical progressive. Against his will, we might add, for he was just an ordinary soul of his era before we have decided to make him jump back into a bygone world.

In any case, how lonely and helpless would this time traveller feel in a world where basically everybody around him would take for granted the idea that after marriage the property of the wife should become her husband’s? And how misunderstood would he feel among people who would find it absurd to suggest that a married woman could make her husband leave her house? How angry might our normie feel being surrounded by people who would find it unacceptable for the wife to get a job without a permission from her husband? And even when the question of wife’s property was taken up in the UK Parliament in the later years of the 19th century, the logic underlying the discussion was very foreign to our contemporary social consciousness. For instance:

“The most striking feature of the debates on the Married Women's Property Bills is how little time was spent discussing the principle of sexual equality, and how much time was spent discussing the idea that giving married women property rights would cause discord in the home. Philip Muntz, for example, was clear that the proposed reform 'would certainly cause great difficulties in all the domestic arrangements of life. It would cause antagonism between those who we were taught to believe were one.’”

Essentially, “within the terms of the separate spheres ideology, this household harmony could only be achieved by the total subordination of women to their husbands”. Hence, when discussing the 1886 Guardianship of Infants Act, regarding the proposition “to give mothers the same rights over their children as fathers, both during and after marriage”, “the opposition was based on the idea that, as William Fowler said, the bill 'declared that there should be two authorities in the household, equal and co-ordinate'. 'That', he said, 'was the very way to create dissensions and disputes without end’.” One might wonder whether this William Fowler would have also used the same logic to argue against the principles of democracy. For in order to avoid “disputes without end”, solely having only one authority in the form of an absolute king, for instance, would seem as the most suitable option.

As our poor normie no longer believes in this ideology of separate spheres, we may be justified in asserting that he or she would get quite worked up over the prevailing gender inequality of the 19th century. But what could a lonely progressive activist do in a world which has yet to catch up? Hardly anything. And his or her sole consolation would be in the knowledge that the future generations would establish completely different social norms. Namely, much more in sync with his or her own social consciousness. Yet, if the protagonist of our imaginary scenario involving time travel would decide to protest and to revolt, he or she would, unfortunately, face the full repression from an antagonistic society. The future generations might appraise this person for his heroism, but at the time it would be a lost cause.

Imaginary time travellers aside, history is full of such tragic stories. During the Franco regime in Spain, for instance, there existed the reformatories - “institutions where girls and young women who refused to conform to the Franco regime's Catholic values were detained - single mothers, girls with boyfriends, lesbians. Girls who'd been sexually assaulted were incarcerated, assuming the blame for their own abuse.” And there we can find cases when “right-wing and ultra-Catholic” parents would send their non-conforming children to be tortured at such institutions. Everything was done in order to safeguard the dominant social norms. Such “re-education” would be totally unacceptable today given the social progress related to our understanding of individual freedoms. Also, by now the influence and relations of the parents vis-a-vis their children have changed a lot. But back in the day, the youth were still helpless. They still had insufficient weight against the prevailing conservatism of the older generations.

To return to our days, many progressives have been feeling very desperate and helpless over the Palestinian genocide in Gaza. It inevitably takes an emotional toll to witness such horrors everyday and not to be able to put a stop to it. However, history can once again serve us as a moral refuge. Firstly, the pro-Palestinian cause has never historically been so strong as it is today. And most importantly, we don’t need time travel to know how history will further proceed in relation to this issue. With every passing generation the share of racist and pro-colonialism members of our society will decline. Hence, every passing day brings closer the threshold that the progressive weight must reach in order to put a halt to this great historical injustice.

Sources:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3133595
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr43vx0rrwvo

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