Page:Olive Malmberg Johnson - Woman and the Socialist Movement (1908).djvu/9

 Rh submitted seem, to us, at least, worse than death. Even the wives of the free burghers are scarcely to be envied. While they were exposed to fewer indignities and less deprivation, their horizon was narrow and their views petty, bounded as they were by the daily routine of work and the small gossip among the neighbors.

Humanity to-day bears the traces of its inheritance from savagery and barbarism. The working class bears the traces of past slavery and servitude. Woman has the additional disfavor of narrow association and cramped views, and the stigma that past slavery and serfdom throws upon her as peculiarly hers. This is the inheritance that the past ages give the woman of to-day. This it what she must face frankly, battle against, and overcome.