Page:The Future of the Women's Movement.djvu/139

 said that there is always hope for a fallen man and none for a fallen woman. We shall have to be given far more proof of this than we have ever had, before we will believe that it is a property inherent in the sexes. If we must admit that we do not know how much of the virtue of women is due to the severe penalties on vice, we must also admit that we do not know how much of the incurable badness of women is due to these severe penalties; for society makes it next to impossible for a "fallen" woman to rise, whereas society does not trouble itself even to know whether a man is "fallen" or not. When women think these matters out, they will come to the conclusion that where it takes two to commit an offence, the one who escapes scot-free and attempts to leave the other to bear the double penalty, is perhaps the greater criminal of the two. If two boys steal apples together and A escapes, leaving B to be birched, public opinion is apt to think A rather a mean lad. If, instead of receiving one birching, B were flogged daily for the rest of his life because of A's delinquency, what would public opinion say of A? or of the wisdom of the schoolmaster? Prostitution will diminish when it is made possible for women to recover lost ground; when a silly girl, who has been enticed away by some man watching for her day of weakness, is not treated as a pariah or expected to lead a life of penitential expiation for ever after. The tone which some rescue-workers adopt towards such girls makes one almost despair. It is an unfortunate thing that, owing to the painful