Do women have a soul?

— Do women have a soul? It is known that the matter was not always held as certain, for, as is said, it was put to deliberation in a council. The negation is still a principle of faith among certain peoples. It is known to what degree of debasement this belief reduced them in most countries of the East. Although today, among civilized peoples, the question is resolved in their favor, the prejudice of their moral inferiority has been perpetuated to such a point that a writer of the last century, whose name does not come to our memory, defined woman thus: “An instrument of pleasure for man”, a definition more Muslim than Christian. From this prejudice was born her legal inferiority, not yet erased from our codes. For a long time they accepted this submission as a natural thing, so powerful is the force of habit. The same happens with those who, doomed to servitude from father to son, end by judging themselves of a nature different from that of their masters. Nevertheless, the progress of enlightenment has redeemed woman in opinion. Many times she has asserted herself through intelligence and genius, and the law, though it still considered her a minor, little by little loosened the bonds of tutelage. She may be considered as morally emancipated, if she is not so legally. It is to this latter result that she will arrive one day, by the force of things.

Lately one read in the newspapers that a young lady of twenty had just defended her baccalaureate with full success before the faculty of Montpellier. It was said to be the fourth diploma granted to a woman. Not long ago the question was raised whether the degree of bachelor could be conferred upon a woman. Although to some this seemed a monstrous anomaly, it was recognized that the regulations on the matter made no mention of women and thus they were not legally excluded. After having recognized that they had a soul, they recognized in them the right to the conquest of the degrees of science, which is already something. But their partial liberation is merely the result of the development of urbanity, of the softening of customs or, if you will, of a more exact sentiment of justice; it is a kind of concession made to them and, it must be said, one which is haggled with them as much as possible. Today, to cast doubt on the soul of woman would be ridiculous; but another question, very serious under another aspect, presents itself here, and whose solution can only be established if the equality of social position between man and woman is a natural right, or a concession made by man. Let us note, in passing, that if this equality is no more than a concession of man through condescension, that which he gives today may be withdrawn tomorrow, and that, having material force on his side, save for some individual exceptions, in the mass he will always have the advantage. Whereas if this equality is in Nature, its recognition will be the result of progress and, once recognized, it will be imprescriptible.

— Would God have created masculine and feminine souls, making the latter inferior to the former? Therein lies the whole question. If it were so, the inferiority of woman would be in the divine decrees and no human law could transgress them. Would He, on the contrary, have created them equal and alike? In that case the inequalities, based on ignorance and brute force, will disappear with progress and the reign of justice.

Left to himself, man could establish in this regard only hypotheses more or less rational, but always questionable. Nothing in the world could give him the material proof of the error or the truth of his opinions. To enlighten himself, he would have to go back to the source, to research in the arcana of the extracorporeal world, which he does not know. It was reserved for Spiritism to resolve the question, no longer by reasonings, but by facts, whether by the revelations from beyond the grave, or by the study that it can make daily of the state of souls after death. And, a capital thing, these studies are the act neither of one single man, nor of the revelations of one single Spirit, but the product of innumerable identical observations, made every day by thousands of individuals, in all countries, and which thus received the powerful sanction of universal control, upon which all the doctrines of the spiritist science are founded. Now, here is what results from these observations.

— Souls or Spirits have no sex. The affections that unite them have nothing carnal and, for this very reason, are more durable, because founded on a real sympathy and not subordinated to the vicissitudes of matter.

Souls incarnate, that is, they temporarily put on a carnal envelope, similar for them to a heavy garment, of which death rids them. This material covering, putting them in contact with the material world, in this state they contribute to the material progress of the world they inhabit; the activity they are obliged to develop, whether for the preservation of life, or to attain well-being, aids their intellectual and moral advancement. With each incarnation the soul arrives more developed; it brings new ideas and the knowledge acquired in previous existences. Thus is effected the progress of peoples; the civilized men of today are the same who lived in the Middle Ages and in the times of barbarism, and who progressed; those who shall live in future centuries will be those of today, but more advanced, intellectually and morally. The sexes exist only in the organism; they are necessary for the reproduction of material beings. But Spirits, being a creation of God, do not reproduce one another, which is why the sexes would be useless in the spiritual world.

Spirits progress through the works they accomplish and the trials they must undergo, as the workman perfects himself in his art through the work he does. These trials and these works vary according to their social position. Since Spirits must progress in everything and acquire all knowledge, each one is called to contribute to the various works and to subject himself to the different kinds of trials. It is for this reason that, alternately, they are born rich or poor, masters or servants, workers of thought or of matter.

Thus is founded, upon the very laws of Nature, the principle of equality, for the great one of yesterday may be the lowly one of the next day and reciprocally. From this principle flows that of fraternity, since, in our social relations, we encounter old acquaintances anew, and in the unfortunate one who extends his hand to us there may be found a relative or a friend.

It is with the same purpose that Spirits incarnate in the different sexes; he who was a man may be reborn a woman; and she who was a woman may be born a man, in order to fulfill the duties of each of these positions, and to undergo their trials.

Nature made the feminine sex weaker than the other, because the duties incumbent upon it do not require equal muscular force and would even be incompatible with masculine rudeness. In woman the delicacy of forms and the fineness of sensations are admirably suited to the cares of maternity. To men and to women, then, are attributed special duties, equally important in the order of things; they are two elements that complete one another.

The incarnate Spirit suffering the influence of the organism, its character is modified according to circumstances and bends to the needs and demands that this same organism imposes upon it. This influence is not effaced immediately after the destruction of the material covering, just as it does not instantly lose its earthly tastes and habits. Then, it may happen that the Spirit goes through a series of existences in the same sex, which makes it so that, for a long time, it may preserve, in the state of Spirit, the character of man or of woman, whose mark remained imprinted upon it. Only when it has arrived at a certain degree of advancement and of dematerialization does the influence of matter efface itself completely and, with it, the character of the sexes. Those who present themselves to us as men or as women, it is in order to remind us of the existence in which we knew them. If this influence reverberates from corporeal life to spiritual life, the same occurs when the Spirit passes from spiritual life to corporeal life. In a new incarnation it will bring the character and the inclinations it had as a Spirit; if it is advanced, it will be an advanced man; if it is backward, it will be a backward man. Changing sex, under that impression and in its new incarnation, it may preserve the tastes, the inclinations and the character inherent to the sex it has just left. Thus are explained certain apparent anomalies that are noticed in the character of certain men and of certain women. There is, then, no difference between man and woman, except in the material organism, which is annihilated with the death of the body; but as regards the Spirit, the soul, the essential being, imperishable, it does not exist, because there are not two species of souls. Thus God willed it in His justice, for all His creatures. Giving to all one same principle, He founded true equality. Inequality exists only temporarily in the degree of advancement; but all have a right to the same destiny, to which each one arrives by its own work, because God favored no one at the cost of others.

— The materialist doctrine places woman in a natural inferiority, from which she is raised only by the good will of man. Indeed, according to this doctrine, the soul does not exist or, if it exists, is extinguished with life or is lost in the universal whole, which amounts to the same thing. Thus, there remains to woman only her corporeal weakness, which puts her under the dependence of the stronger. The superiority of some is no more than an exception, a quirk of Nature, a play of organs, and could not make a law. The vulgar spiritualist doctrine recognizes the existence of the individual and immortal soul, but is powerless to prove that there is no difference between that of man and that of woman and, consequently, a natural superiority of one over the other. With the Spiritist Doctrine, the equality of woman is no longer a simple speculative theory; it is no longer a concession of strength to weakness, but a right founded on the very laws of Nature. Making these laws known, Spiritism opens the era of the legal emancipation of woman, as it opens that of equality and of fraternity.

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[A writer of the last century, whose name does not come to our memory, perhaps, Balzac, , defined woman thus: “An instrument of pleasure for man”. :

Physiologie du mariage: ou, Méditations de philosophie éclectique sur le … By Honoré de Balzac - Google books.] Part I, Meditation IV, aphorism XX — “La femme est un délicieux instrument de plaisir”, “Woman is a delicious instrument of pleasure”.]