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of the most potent arguments used against the political enfranchisement of woman, and one which ought to be powerful if its premises be correct and its conclusion sound, is the old, old argument used against every extension of feminine freedom in time past; that it would affect disastrously the true sphere of woman. Nature, they say, has appointed to each sex its peculiar duties, and has formed it physically, and fitted it mentally for the performance of those duties; and anything which would tend to the derangement of Nature's plans and interfere with her designs would be neither profitable nor righteous.

The sphere of woman—it is scarcely necessary to state, so universally is the idea accepted and acted upon—is confined within the four walls of her home. Her sole function in life should be maternity