Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/377

Rh and without shame, prostitute themselves into thoughtless and vulgar slaves of the most insane tyranny of fashion! And these want to be emancipated? Every tower of hair, and every "bustle" is the public exhibition of a protest against emancipation!

What a grand triumph for the opponents of woman's rights, when they see the pre-eminently fair sex abjure, not only all common sense, but also all sense of the beautiful and all good taste! And what humiliation, what an embarrassing position for the advocates of those rights, who, with the claim for equal rights, must at the same time assert and prove equal ability! But even in this predicament comfort and encouragement is not wanting. For without drawing parallels, without, for instance, contrasting woman's slavery to fashion, her passion for finery and gew-gaws, with the imitative passion of men for tobacco fumes and playing at soldiers, and thus balancing the two sides of the scales, or even causing them to fluctuate in favor of woman, we must admit that the time for a final test has not yet come for either sex. And if this holds of man, who could assert his rights and choose his task unhampered, how much more must it hold of woman, who has hitherto been without rights and without self-determination, and who, dragging with her the inheritance of thousands of years of dependence and degradation, has had no opportunity to arrive at a sovereign consciousness of her own ability, and