Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/1010

Rh rightfully procured for him the title of ""Woman's Poet"; the great progress in America, England and Sweden; all these influences stimulated thought, weakened prejudices and prepared the way for reforms in the Danish peninsula. Kirstine Frederiksen, of Copenhagen, says:

It is plainly evident that Danish women are weary of the part allotted to them in the old society, a part characterized by the sentiment that the best that can be said of a woman is that there is nothing to say about ere... When, in due time, the claim for political rights is made here in Denmark, then will women from all classes unite in their efforts to secure the palladium which alone can protect them from arbitrariness and subjection.

We shall now take up the Slavonic countries, beginning with Russia, which stands first, not only because of its vastness, but also because of its liberality toward women. The position of the Russian women before the law is very peculiar. Children, whatever their age and whether male or female, are never emancipated from the control of their parents. The daughter can only escape from this authority, and then only in a limited degree, by marriage, and the son by entering the service of the State. In the provinces alone girls of twenty-one may marry without the parents' consent. The married woman is in the full power of her husband, though she is the mistress of her own fortune. Divorce exists. Russian women vote on an equality with men for members,of the municipal councils and county assemblies, and these two bodies choose the boards which transact the public business, such as superintending the collection of taxes, keeping the roads in order, directing the schools, etc. The Russian woman does, not however, appear at the polls, but is represented by some male relative or friend (as we have already seen in Austria) who casts the vote for her. Thus the Russian woman, except that she is ineligible to office, possesses all the political rights of the Russian man—a privilege, however, that is of little value in a country where liberty is crushed under the iron heel of autocracy. The position of the Russian peasant women is not as good as that of the women of the upper classes. They find some comfort, however, in the doctrines of the rapidly spreading religious sects, which resemble somewhat the American Revivalists or Anabaptists. In fact, the subject condition of Russian women is one of the chief causes of the growth of these sects; down-trodden by society and the State, they seek liberty in religion. In some of these sects women preach. Miss Maria