Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/52

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THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN

not be a policeman, shall therefore a husband be allowed to have her brought back into his house by policemen when she has escaped from him, he having become unbearable? Because a woman cannot become a sheriff, may a sheriff therefore tear away from her the children whom she has borne, and return them to the hated father who will maltreat them? Because a woman perhaps cannot be a minister of finance, must the man therefore be her financial guardian? Because a woman is less fitted for a scholar and philosopher, shall education therefore be forbidden ground to her? Because a woman, in a word, cannot be a man, must she therefore be less a human being and a citizen than man? I admit that besides the physical strength and the warlike passion there are still other qualities of mind and character which in a hundred situations capacitate the man for the work of history where the woman is unable to act. But this can affect the rights of woman all the less since her sphere, in a purely human respect, is infinitely richer in service to society than that of the men. At all events, they must have the same right to develop and to exercise their faculties in every direction, according to their own desires.

Democrats maintain that the dignity and the right of man consist in his self-determination, and that he is to obey only those laws in the making of which he himself has participated. But