Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/54

38 themselves by intellectual and moral vulgarity who treat the emancipation of women with scorn or condemnation.

First, therefore, comes the political emancipation of woman, i.e., her installation into her political rights, so that she may have the liberty and the opportunity to guard her own interests in the State without the tutelage of the men.

Besides this emancipation, however, there is still the conventional, the moral, the economic, the religious, etc., to be aspired to, the object of which must always be only to establish the liberty and the right of women within the limits prescribed by the feminine nature, and to protect them against the invasions and the commands of men, or to abolish woman's dependence on the will of the men, and finally also to place woman in a position to freely act out her true nature by means of every aid.

These different points will be discussed in detail in the following pages. It is to be observed that political emancipation is the chief point at issue as against men, even in the freest, while, for instance, religious emancipation, economic emancipation, are questions which remain to be solved even for the majority of the male sex, almost everywhere, and are therefore more of a common concern. In respect to women, however, every single question takes on a special shape, wherefore it may be worth while to consider each-one singly.