Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/53

do the laws of the State only concern men? Why should the women obey laws which were made without their aid? Are there "human dignity" and "self-determination" for men and not for women? Millions of women suffer under the oppression of shameful marriage laws, and women are to be excluded from the deliberation of such laws? Is a law which men dictate to women less an act of violence than the law a despot dictates to men? Whether the men deprive the woman of her rights in a democratic assembly, or whether a despot does the same to the man in his cabinet, amounts to one and the same thing from the standpoint of right; and when a so-called government, having, through all possible means, kept the people in a state of ignorance, declares them to be not ripe for liberty, this declaration is just as justifiable as when the men keep the women in a state of helplessness and on that account judge them incapable of participation in political life. So long, therefore, as the women have not equal political and civil rights with the men, in order to assert themselves so far as their ability and their interest prompt them, there is still a great deal wanting in the logic of democrats. The opinions of a man about women can quite properly be considered as the measure of his qualification for liberty and humanity. Whoever is not just towards women preaches vulgarity and adopts despotism. Daily experience also teaches that those most distin-