Page:B20442294.djvu/92

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

CHAPTER VI

EMANCIPATED WOMEN

As an immediate application of the attempt to establish the principle of intermediate sexual forms by means of a differential psychology, we must now come to the question which it is the special object of this book to answer, theoretically and practically, I mean the woman question, theoretically so far as it is not a matter of ethnology and national economics, and practically in so far as it is not merely a matter of law and domestic economy, that is to say, of social science in the widest sense. The answer which this chapter is about to give must not be considered as final or as exhaustive. It is rather a necessary pre- liminary investigation, and does not go beyond deductions from the principles that I have established. It will deal with the exploration of individual cases and will not attempt to found on these any laws of general significance. The practical indications that it will give are not moral maxims that could or would guide the future; they are no more than technical rules abstracted from past cases. The idea of male and female types will not be discussed here; that is reserved for the second part of my book. This preliminary investigation will deal with only those charactero-logical conclusions from the principle of sexually intermediate forms that are of significance in the woman question.

The general direction of the investigation is easy to understand from what has already been stated. A woman's demand for emancipation and her qualification for it are in direct proportion to the amount of maleness in her. The