Graham R (Ed.) - Anarchism - A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas Volume One - From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939)

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Women, Love And Marriage
67. Bakunin: Against Patriarchal Authority (1873)
Bakul1in, ill contrast to Proudhon, was very much opposed to patriarchal authority. In his essay
on integral education (Selection 64), he denounced the authority of the fa ther over his
children. In his revolutionary programs and manifestos, he consistently advocated equal
rigl1lsfor women. In his Revolutionary Catechismfrom 1866 he wrote: "Woman, differing
Fom mall but not inferior to him, intelligent, industrious alld free like him, is declared his
eqllal both in rights and in all political and social functions and duties" (Selected Writings,
New York: Grove Press, 1974, ed. A. Lelming, page 83). Conseqllently, he called fo r:
Abolition not of the natural fa mily but of the legal fa mily fo unded on law
and propertv. Religious and civil marriage to he replaced by free marriage.
Adult men and women have the right to unite and separate as they please,
nor has society the right to hinder their union or to force them to maintain
it. '.oVith the abolition uf lhe right of inheritance and the education ot children
assured by society, all the legal reasons for the irrevocability of marriage
will disappear. The union of a man and a woman must be free, for a
free choice is the indispensable condition for moral sincerity. In marriage,
man and woman must enjoy absolute liberty. Neither violence nor passion
nor rights surrendered in the past can justify an invasion by one of the liberty
of another. and every such invasion shall be considered a crime.
(Bakunin on Anarchism, Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1980, pp. 93-94)
Within the First International, the anti-authoritarian federalists associated with BakLmin,
sllch as Ellgene Varlin, adopted a similar position, which was opposed by Proudhon'sfollowers,
the French mutl/alists. But it was not just the Proudhonians in the First International who
derided Bakunin's ideas regarding the equality of the sexes. In his note opposite Bakunin's
statement ill the Program of the International Socialist Alliance (1868) that the Alliance