Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/70

 nations and clans have set up between one another. It leaps all obstacles, and throws open all doors, calling upon men and women alike to be free.

several reasons the feminist movement among Latin peoples is not so advanced as in Teutonic countries. The women of France and Italy have never been denied entrance to the universities of their respective countries, and the European feminist movement was actually born in France; but owing to the almost undivided opposition of the Roman Catholic Church, the progress of the movement has been checked in those lands where that church flourishes. But the early history and tradition of the Romance countries has also had its effect. In German and Scandinavian territory, in Great Britain and the Dutch Netherlands, women have been accustomed to more freedom and independence from the very beginning. At present, in proportion to the general population, far more women are engaged in occupations other than domestic in these countries than in Spain and Italy, Portugal and Sicily. The proportion of women