likely than men to become angels. The moral superiority which some Feminist writers claim for their sex is founded on a curiously narrow view of life; if man, instead of woman, had to pay the penalty of sexual intercourse, we should probably find the aggression on the other side. Yet the most sober-minded of us must expect from this healthier balance of powers, this easing of the domestic burden, this limitation of care to a few children, and this independence of marital generosity or marital selfishness, a great advancement in the character and happiness of woman.
Shelley, however, was thinking less of wives than of free women, and economic independence will swell their numbers. The changes I have described will make marriage far less onerous, but they will also make it easier for a woman to dispense with marriage, and before the end of the twentieth century there will be in every city a growth of temporary unions and independent conduct. Woman will be mistress, morally and economically, of her own destiny; she will consult neither husband nor priest. The plain moral law, which forbids a man to inflict pain or injustice, will be more faithfully observed than it ever was before. There will be an immense reduction of the hypocrisy, the prostitution, the misery and illness, which this fictitious law of chastity has always caused; and the alteration of public opinion will remove from a woman the unpleasant consequences which unwedded love entails at the present time. It is preposterous to
