Page:Letters to a friend on votes for women.djvu/33

 artisans to protect themselves from female competition.

It has further been urged, and not without reason, that the present tendency to extend the area of social legislation, which practically restricts the sphere of individual liberty, increases the risk of legislative invasions on the freedom of women. Add to this that on any question which concerns the relation of the sexes—e.g., the law of divorce—a man will constantly assume, in and out of Parliament, that all women agree with him. Who has not heard it stated in debate that every woman condemned, or, with equal confidence, that every woman desired, the repeal of the law prohibiting marriage with a deceased wife's