Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/45

Rh this time can therefore in reality only be a history of their disqualification, and it need not astonish us that men have refrained from writing it. The greater need of freedom which women themselves are manifesting indicates a step in progress. In no age have there been so many women who have demanded the emancipation of their sex as in ours, and that is the first requisite to the attainment of emancipation. First of all it is necessary to make women generally conscious of the need of emancipation, and to spread clear views not only in regard to existing injustice, but also in regard to the justice that is to be acquired.

The position of women is to-day, as always, closely connected with the entire network of the political, social, economic, and religious conditions. It is therefore necessary to examine the various aims and conditions of the emancipation of women, which the following treatise proposes to do by means of a brief review of prevailing opinions and circumstances. Above all things the general aim and province of the emancipation with regard to the nature and lot of woman must be considered in a few words.