to the complete and essential servility of her position. For her the eleventh commandment was an insult—"Thou shalt not think"; and the most iniquitous condition of her marriage bargain this—that her husband, from the height of his self-satisfaction, should be permitted to esteem her a fool.
It was not only that, from one generation to another, woman was without encouragement to use her higher mental qualities—that her life was lacking in the stimulus of emulation so far as they were concerned, that her own particular trade made very few demands upon them. As if these things in themselves were not discouragement enough, she was directly forbidden to cultivate the small share of intellect she was understood to possess. Science was closed to her and art degraded to a series of "parlor tricks." It was not enough that she should be debarred from material possessions; from possessions that were not material, from the things of the spirit, she must be debarred as well. Nothing more plainly illustrates the fact that man has always regarded her as existing not for herself and for her own benefit, but for
