Mitchell on the "Sex" and Other "Problems"

by Henry Lawson

　　

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"I agree with 'T' in last week's `Bulletin'," said Mitchell,after cogitating some time over the last drop of tea in his pannikin,held at various angles, "about what they call the `Sex Problem'.There's no problem, really, except Creation, and that's not our affair;we can't solve it, and we've no right to make a problem out of itfor ourselves to puzzle over, and waste the little timethat is given us about. It's we that make the problems, not Creation.We make 'em, and they only smother us; they'll smother the world in the endif we don't look out. Anything that can be argued, for and against,from half a dozen different points of view -- and most thingsthat men argue over can be -- and anything that has been argued aboutfor thousands of years (as most things have) is worse than profitless;it wastes the world's time and ours, and often wrecks old mateships.Seems to me the deeper you read, think, talk, or write about thingsthat end in ism, the less satisfactory the result; the more likely you areto get bushed and dissatisfied with the world. And the more you keepon the surface of plain things, the plainer the sailing --the more comfortable for you and everybody else. We've always gotto come to the surface to breathe, in the end, in any case;we're meant to live on the surface, and we might as wellstay there and look after it and ourselves for all the good we dodiving down after fish that aren't there, except in our imagination.And some of 'em are very dead fish, too -- the `Sex Problem', for instance.When we fall off the surface of the earth it will be time enoughto make a problem out of the fact that we couldn't stick on.I'm a Federal Pro-trader in this country; I'm a Federalist becauseI think Federation is the plain and natural course for Australia,and I'm a Free-tectionist because I'm in favour of sinking any question,or any two things, that enlightened people can argue and fight over,and try, one after the other, for fifty years without being able to cometo a decision about, or prove which is best for the welfare of the country.It only wastes a young country's time, and keeps it off the right track.Federation isn't a problem -- it's a plain fact -- but they make a problemout of every panel they have to push down in the rotten old boundary fences.""Personal interests," suggested Joe."Of course. It's personal interest of the wrong sortthat makes all the problems. You can trace the sex problemto people who trade in unhealthy personal interests.I believe in personal interests of the right sort -- true individualism.If we all looked after ourselves, and our wives and families-- if we have any -- in the proper way, the world would be all right.We waste too much time looking after each other."Now, supposing we're travelling and have to get a shed and make a chequeso's to be able to send a few quid home, as soon as we can,to the missus, or the old folks, and the next water is twenty miles ahead.If we sat down and argued over a social problem till doomsday,we wouldn't get to the tank; we'd die of thirst, and the missus and kids,or the old folks, would be sold up and turned out into the streets,and have to fall back on a `home of hope', or wait their turnat the Benevolent Asylum with bags for broken victuals. I've seen that,and I don't want anybody belonging to me to have to do it."Reminds me that when a poor, deserted girl goes to a `home' they don't makea problem of her -- they do their best for her and try to get her righted.And the priests, too: if there's anything in the sex or any other problem-- anything that hasn't been threshed out -- they're the men that'll know it.I'm not a Catholic, but I know this: that if a girl that's been left by one-- no matter what Church she belongs to -- goes to the priest, they'll workall the points they know (and they know 'em all) to get her righted,and, if the chap, or his people, won't come up to the scratch,Father Ryan'll frighten hell out of 'em. I can't say as muchfor our own Churches.""But you're in favour of socialism and democracy?" asked Joe."Of course I am. But the world won't do any good arguing over it.The people will have to get up and walk, and, what's more, stick together-- and I don't think they'll ever do that -- it ain't in human nature.Socialism, or democracy, was all right in this countrytill it got fashionable and was made a fad or a problem of.Then it got smothered pretty quick. And a fad or a problemalways breeds a host of parasites or hangers-on. Why, as soon as I sawthe advanced idealist fools -- they're generally the middle-class,shabby-genteel families that catch Spiritualism and Theosophyand those sort of complaints, at the end of the epidemic-- that catch on at the tail-end of things and think they've caughtsomething brand, shining, new; -- as soon as I saw them,and the problem spielers and notoriety-hunters of both sexes,beginning to hang round Australian Unionism, I knew it was doomed.And so it was. The straight men were disgusted, or driven out.There are women who hang on for the same reason that a girlwill sometimes go into the dock and swear an innocent man's life away.But as soon as they see that the cause is dying, they drop it at once,and wait for another. They come like bloody dingoes round a calf,and only leave the bones. They're about as democratic as the crows.And the rotten `sex-problem' sort of thing is the cause of it all;it poisons weak minds -- and strong ones too sometimes."Why, you could make a problem out of Epsom salts. You might argueas to why human beings want Epsom salts, and try to trace the causesthat led up to it. I don't like the taste of Epsom salts-- it's nasty in the mouth -- but when I feel that way I take 'em,and I feel better afterwards; and that's good enough for me.We might argue that black is white, and white is black,and neither of 'em is anything, and nothing is everything;and a woman's a man and a man's a woman, and it's really the manthat has the youngsters, only we imagine it's the womanbecause she imagines that she has all the pain and trouble,and the doctor is under the impression that he's attending to her,not the man, and the man thinks so too because he imagines he's walkingup and down outside, and slipping into the corner pub now and thenfor a nip to keep his courage up, waiting, when it's his wifethat's doing that all the time; we might argue that it's allforce of imagination, and that imagination is an unknown force,and that the unknown is nothing. But, when we've settled all thatto our own satisfaction, how much further ahead are we?In the end we'll come to the conclusion that we ain't alive,and never existed, and then we'll leave off bothering,and the world will go on just the same.""What about science?" asked Joe."Science ain't `sex problems'; it's facts. . . . Now, I don't mindSpiritualism and those sort of things; they might helpto break the monotony, and can't do much harm. But the `sex problem',as it's written about to-day, does; it's dangerous and dirty,and it's time to settle it with a club. Science and education, if left alone,will look after sex facts."You can't get anything out of the `sex problem', no matter how you argue.In the old Bible times they had half a dozen wives each,but we don't know for certain how THEY got on. The Mormons tried it again,and seemed to get on all right till we interfered. We don't seem to be ableto get on with one wife now -- at least, according to the `sex problem'.The `sex problem' troubled the Turks so much that they tried three.Lots of us try to settle it by knocking round promiscuously,and that leads to actions for maintenance and breach of promise cases,and all sorts of trouble. Our blacks settle the `sex problem' with a club,and so far I haven't heard any complaints from them.. . . . ."Take hereditary causes and surrounding circumstances, for instance.In order to understand or judge a man right, you would need to liveunder the same roof with him from childhood, and under the same roofs,or tents, with his parents, right back to Adam, and then you'd be blockedfor want of more ancestors through which to trace the causesthat led to Abel -- I mean Cain -- going on as he did.What's the use or sense of it? You might argue away in any directionfor a million miles and a million years back into the past,but you've got to come back to where you are if you wish to doany good for yourself, or anyone else."Sometimes it takes you a long while to get back to where you are --sometimes you never do it. Why, when those controversies were startedin the `Bulletin' about the kangaroos and other things, I thought I knewsomething about the bush. Now I'm damned if I'm sure I could tella kangaroo from a wombat."Trying to find out things is the cause of all the work and troublein this world. It was Eve's fault in the first place -- or Adam's, rather,because it might be argued that he should have been master.Some men are too lazy to be masters in their own homes,and run the show properly; some are too careless, and some too drunkmost of their time, and some too weak. If Adam and Evehadn't tried to find out things there'd have been no toil and troublein the world to-day; there'd have been no bloated capitalists,and no horny-handed working men, and no politics, no freetrade and protection-- and no clothes. The woman next door wouldn't be able to pick holesin your wife's washing on the line. We'd have been all running aboutin a big Garden of Eden with nothing on, and nothing to do except loaf,and make love, and lark, and laugh, and play practical jokes on each other."Joe grinned."That would have been glorious. Wouldn't it, Joe? There'd have beenno `sex problem' then."

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