Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/70

54 The habit of regarding the end and aim of woman only from the most vulgar side — not to respect in her the noble human being, but to see in her only the instrument of sensual desire — is carried so far among men that they will allow it to force into the background considerations among themselves which they otherwise pretend to rank very high; for instance the considerations of friendship. There are few men who are so faithful in their friendship that they would scruple to put the fidelity of the pretty wife of their friend to the test. Adultery through so-called friends of the family is the most common of all. Love and horse-trading are two articles in which, among a great many men, deceit appears to be legitimate and seems to be taken into the bargain in "friendship."

From all these hidden parts of our social relations the paint must be washed off. Women must become indignant; and if I had not sufficient confidence in them to think the above will suffice, I could sketch a far more glaring picture, without laying myself open to the charge of exaggeration.

But when the feeling of women has once been driven to indignation with respect to the position which they occupy, it is to be hoped that they will only the more urgently look for a way to attain a worthier position, and to follow that way, when it is found, with persistence.