Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/51

Rh was to the men. The women were therefore neglected and disqualified because they did not — murder. Let us imagine history without war, or the weaker sex capable of engaging in war, and the entire position of woman is changed in an instant. Among warlike nations the woman was least valued, and the abolition of war is the liberation of woman.

At bottom it is therefore chiefly the preponderance of physical strength and of the warlike passion which gives man the right to lay exclusive claim to public and political life. Not alone in war, but also in other branches of public and political work these same qualities are more or less required, so that whithersoever we look, physical strength and the warlike passion, which is wanting in woman, play an important part. But is there here any equitable warrant for considering women less qualified as human beings and as citizens? Does right depend on the size of the gall-bladder, on the strength of the limbs, on the thickness of the bones, on the hardness of the muscles, or the coarseness of the fists? And could not the woman be granted the right to "counsel" even where she was incapable of "acting"? Was it therefore necessary to deprive her of all rights where she was immediately concerned and entirely competent? Because the woman cannot lead an army in the field, may she therefore not have any voice in her own affairs? Because a woman