Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/199

Rh their income for drink, tobacco, etc., and that this is a real calamity for the household, and the family, no one seems to take into account, in considering the theory of human rights; but if women were granted the liberty to devote a few hours weekly or monthly to attending meetings and deliberations on their human rights, this would, according to your opinion, be as great a misfortune for the household and the family as "if the husband should fall on the battlefield." How little men's ideas of rights have yet been developed or purified is proved by nothing so much as by the fact that they would sooner deny the rights of women than find any fault with their abuse of their own rights.

I must confess that remarks which apply the standard of kitchen interests to the human rights of women struck me as rather strange in the mouth of a man whom I class among our acutest thinkers and most humane politicians. According to your theory, we women would have some prospects of attaining our rights if there were no cooking to be done. You thus make us wish that humanity might return to a state of nature in which the men would not even be the masters of the house, because there would be no houses, and would be glad to eat their food raw.

As a man of principle you must admit that, in ascertaining rights, the difficulties that existing conditions of disqualification place in the way of their practical realization can not be taken into account.