Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/18

2 story of martyrs. And while the oppressed of the stronger sex can read their sufferings in the fugitive history of states and nations, the sufferings of women find a place only in the long history of mankind.

This is beginning to be recognized, and among women themselves champions have at last arisen who demand that the age of slavery and suffering shall give place to an age of liberty and rights. Especially in America, the new Amazons who seek to humanize men, as those of history sought to slay them, form a very respectable phalanx.

And here, too, it is where a suitable battle-field is open to them, and where it is also possible to unite this battle-field with the arena of men. Especially in America, where so many questions are already solved which in Europe still call for the exertion of all forces, it is the part of men to occupy themselves with the important question of woman's emancipation; here more. than elsewhere men of truly democratic spirit ought to make it their task to bring the discussion on this interesting and much-derided theme to a conclusion. It is a glaring anomaly to rejoice over the emancipation of the slaves and to treat the emancipation of woman with ridicule.

I venture the attempt of contributing my mite to the proposed work. In so doing I shall strive to be as clear, as radical, as brief, as. just, but also as frank, as possible. In any case, dear reader, I