Bertrand Russell
on Prohibition

“There is one incidental good effect which has resulted from the era of Prohibition. In the Nineteenth Century women everywhere, but most emphatically in America, were considered morally superior to men; this was not only claimed by themselves but conceded by their husbands. The effect of Prohibition, among the richer classes, was to bring drink into the home, with the result that women shared in it. In the days of women’s moral superiority there was little companionship or real intimacy between men and women. Men felt constrained in the presence of women, and women regarded men as coarse brutes whose behavior was uncivilized and unrefined. The modern relation of equality between men and women is more wholesome, more honest and more companionable. The change is due to many causes, but among them Prohibition has borne a part.”

Click here to read about the high number of women who went to the Big House during Prohibition.

Read a Bertrand Russell editorial from 1922, when he first wrote about the Noble Experiment – click here