each
description of the lives of these women of such extraordinary mentality,
runs a marked trail of unsatisfied craving for a full, rounded, complete
and beautiful life, and the unrest and loneliness resulting from the
lack of it. Through these masterly psychological sketches, one cannot
help but see that the higher the mental development of woman, the less
possible it is for her to meet a congenial mate, who will see in her,
not only sex, but also the human being, the friend, comrade and strong
individuality, who cannot and ought not lose a single trait of her
character.

The average man with his self-sufficiency, his ridiculously superior
airs of patronage towards the female sex, is an impossibility for woman,
as depicted in the "Character Study" by Laura Marholm. Equally
impossible for her is the man who can see in her nothing more than her
mentality and genius, and who fails to awaken her woman nature.

A rich intellect and a fine soul are usually considered necessary
attributes of a deep and beautiful personality. In the case of the
modern woman, these attributes serve as a hindrance to the complete
assertion of her being. For over a hundred years, the old form of
marriage, based on the Bible, "till death us do part" has been denounced
as an institution that stands for the sovereignty of the man over the
woman, of her complete submission to his whims and commands and the
absolute dependence upon his name and support. Time and again it has
been conclusively proven that the old matrimonial relation restricted
woman to the function of man's servant and the bearer of his children.
And yet we find many emancipated women who prefer marriage with all its
deficiencies to the narrowness of an unmarried life; narrow and
unendurable because of the chains of moral and social prejudice that
cramp and bind her nature.

The cause for such inconsistency on the part of many advanced women is
to be found in the fact that they never truly understood the meaning of
emancipation. They thought that all that was needed was independence
from external tyrannies; the internal tyrants, far more harmful to life
and growth, such as ethical and social conventions, were left to take
care of themselves; and they have taken care of themselves. They seem to
get along beautifully in the heads and hearts of the most active
exponents of woman's emancipation, as in the heads and hearts of our
grandmothers.

These internal tyrants, whether they be