Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/319

Rh woman, more womanly than I myself? Because he has not my nature, therefore he must teach me what my nature ought to be? That is as despotic as it is senseless. Just because he is different from me, for that very reason he cannot and shall not prescribe to me what I am to think and to want, for that very reason he cannot represent me, for that very reason I will and must have the right to follow my own inclinations to guard my own interests. Would he not be highly indignant, and pronounce me insane should I presume to be better able to judge of his nature than he himself, and derive a right from that to act as his guardian?" This seemed quite plausible to my neighbors, and they declared the doctor to be an insolent humbug.

My dear countrywomen, I find that human affairs always grow more simple, the more humanely you look at them, and the less you allow yourself to be imposed upon by learned people, who are frequently greater blockheads than the simplest day-laborers. These gentlemen think we women are not able to have an opinion on affairs of the state. Well, I always read the papers and gather from them what sort of affairs of state those are on which we are not to have an opinion and in which we are not to have a voice. But I have not yet come across any question where I could not at once decide for myself how I should have to vote, while statesmen and scholars quarrel over them for years. Liberty or slavery? I vote for liberty, although I have a different physique than