Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/168

152 must be maintained by the collectivity, and that those without work must be furnished with adequate occupation by the State.

These are some of the suppositions from which we must reason in order to judge the future economic position of women; and if one considers that the woman requires much less for her maintenance than the man, a great part of the difficulty of selfsupport will be equalized by her fewer wants.

But let this difficulty, to enable the woman to establish an independent existence, be ever so great, it suffices that, as a human being and as a member of the body social, she has the same right to such an existence as the man. The ways and means to solve this problem of existence the State of the future will no doubt find when it has created those liberties and those truly democratic institutions which permit all legitimate interests to assert themselves, and allow of the unhindered disposition of public means. But when that problem is once solved, woman will gain quite a different esteem and position. She will no longer be forced to sell her body as a tool for lust; she will no longer be under the necessity of accepting the next best opportunity to get married, but will be able to make her choice according to her true inclination; there will be greater opportunity for this than hitherto, for now the impossibility to maintain a family excludes many a man from marriage who could otherwise make a woman happy (the standing