Page:The Woman Socialist - Snowden - 1907.djvu/50

 be. True, the Nonconformist bodies are gradually breaking away from these ridiculous traditions; but it is very gradually; and one has only to attend even their conferences, their church meetings, and their services, to note how unequally the sexes are treated in their opportunities for performance of the higher grades of church work.

Good men and true, and good women, in this nineteenth century, are very much in the position of Rousseau, infidel Rousseau, whose opinion was that "women are specially made to please men. All their education should be relative to men. To please them, to be useful to them, to make themselves honoured and loved by them, to bring them up when young, to take care of them when grown up, to counsel, to console them, to make their lives agreeable and pleasant; these in all ages have been the duties of women, and it is for these duties they should be educated from infancy. Being incapable of judging for themselves they ought to accept the decision of their fathers and their husbands."

But the time is speedily coming when these ideas shall cease to exist. Then it