Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/318

my good mother-in-law is ailing, and old Uncle Jacob is away. But I must at least write to you in order to tell you how I rejoice that there are radical German women besides myself. I really do not comprehend why they are not all radical. To be radical, after all, means nothing else than to have common sense. But it seems to be easier to rob people of their common sense than to use it fearlessly. When they hear strange words, which they do not understand, or when learned people talk to them, they have more confidence in the stuff which they do not understand than in themselves, A few days ago I read an essay, in which a most learned doctor explained what a great difference there is between the separate parts of the male and the female body, and how different therefore must be the avocation and the rights of men and women. A few of my neighfors took this seriously. But I asked them: "Why do you not reason according to your own ideas, instead of believing the teachings of this doctor? This man's theory proves the very opposite of what he wishes it to prove. Just because man and woman are different, each can decide and judge only about himself or ‘herself. Is it not perfect nonsense to have a man tell me that I am an entirely different being than he is, and that therefore he may or must tell me what I am capable of doing, what I am cut out for, what I want, and what is becoming to me? Would not that be the same as saying: Because he is a man, therefore, he can think and will like a