or her
protection. She has been bought and sold, caressed and crucified at
the will and pleasure of her master. But if a chivalrous desire to
protect woman has always been the mainspring of man's dominion over
her, it should have prompted him to place in her hands the same
weapons of defense he has found to be most effective against wrong and
oppression.

It is often asserted that as woman has always been man's
slave--subject--inferior--dependent, under all forms of government and
religion, slavery must be her normal condition. This might have some
weight had not the vast majority of men also been enslaved for
centuries to kings and popes, and orders of nobility, who, in the
progress of civilization, have reached complete equality. And did we
not also see the great changes in woman's condition, the marvelous
transformation in her character, from a toy in the Turkish harem, or a
drudge in the German fields, to a leader of thought in the literary
circles of France, England, and America!

In an age when the wrongs of society are adjusted in the courts and at
the ballot-box, material force yields to reason and majorities.

Woman's steady march onward, and her growing desire for a broader
outlook, prove that she has not reached her normal condition, and that
society has not yet conceded all that is necessary for its attainment.

Moreover, woman's discontent increases in exact proportion to her
development. Instead of a feeling of gratitude for rights accorded,
the wisest are indignant at the assumption of any legal disability
based on sex, and their feelings in this matter are a surer test of
what her nature demands, than the feelings and prejudices of the sex
claiming to be superior. American men may quiet their consciences with
the delusion that no such injustice exists in this country as in
Eastern nations, though with the general improvement in our
institutions, woman's condition must inevitably have improved also,
yet the same principle that degrades her in Turkey, insults her in
this republic. Custom forbids a woman there to enter a mosque, or call
the hour for prayers; here it forbids her a voice in Church Councils
or State Legislatures. The same taint of her primitive state of
slavery affects both latitudes.

The condition of married women, under the laws of all countries, has
been essentially that of slaves, until modified, in some respects,
within the last quarter of a century in the United States. The change