Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/147

Rh the suffering party, and is therefore always thrown back upon the revolution. Woman and the revolution are the most natural confederates. Probably that is the reason why the revolution is always represented as a woman. But ruling man would make woman as well as the slave responsible, although he will not grant them the conditions which make responsibility possible, and thus he punishes in them really himself, i.e., his own wrongdoing. In how far the actions of the suffering party are a necessary reaction against oppression, justifiable acts of defence against inflicted injustice, natural attempts at compensation for rights withheld, a forcibly sought outlet for a nature perverted by force, unavoidable outbreaks of inclinations falsely directed by binding circumstances, — all this our present courts of justice shrink from investigating, because such an investigation would overthrow our entire barbaric justice, together with its barbaric foundation. But what the administration of justice neglects to do, the critic, the publicist must at least strive to make good.

Unbiassed [sic] justice must always be predisposed to take the side of the weaker party, because in a conflict of rights the presumption must generally be that the weaker party has suffered a wrong or has been incited to do a wrong. Women are almost always in that case. For all the wrong that is done by women the men as a rule ought to bear