Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/171

Rh The man is the master and guardian over the wife and her children. The Prussian government, forced by the fruits of its military system, stands by [sic]illegimate children in so far as to permit suits for alimony, etc.; but to make up for this it grants the husband the right by means of "mild chastisement" to remind his wife of the fact that she is at bottom nothing but his slave.

In North America we have at least overcome such ideas of right; and even if the rights of woman are neither completely recognized nor guarded here, the consciousness of the wrong that is being done them, and the endeavor to do them justice, find expression in social life as well as in law.

The attention which the Americans show to the women in social intercourse is known the world over. But far be it from me to take it for anything else than a sort of conventional sin-offering for rights withheld. It is for the most part mere gallantry. But there are no more dangerous "virtues" than piety and gallantry. Behind the first, rascality is wont to hide itself; behind the latter, coarseness. Gallantry is nothing more than a cheap substitute for true appreciation, the justice of which is felt more than admitted; it is a deceptive humility with which one deceives himself and others concerning the arrogance that is hidden behind it. But since it springs just as much from a vague perception as from conscious arrogance, it