Page:Letters to a friend on votes for women.djvu/40

 or of sentiment affords one of the most effective, though not the strongest, among the arguments at the disposal of suffragists. It contains, with some exaggeration, a great deal of truth. The exaggeration is all typified by the use of the misplaced and ambiguous terms 'emancipation' or 'enfranchisement.' From the beginning of the nineteenth century the course of events and of opinion has brought a large increase of freedom both to men and to women; but the women of England cannot now be 'emancipated,' for they have never been slaves. It is simply absurd to speak of Maria Edgeworth, Elizabeth Fry, Jane Austen, or Harriet Martineau as held in bondage. They gave expression to the ideas, and in many ways led the opinion, of their time. Even theological movements, such as the Evangelical revival, which did not make directly for freethought, have stimulated indirectly individual energy and the sense of individual responsibility, and have thus opened new spheres of action for women. Let us dismiss at once the cant concealed in the application of such terms as 'enfranchisement' or 'emancipation' to English women.