e is a benevolent despotism.
To-day people are more inclined to look upon matrimony as a partnership
of equal duties, rights, and privileges.

Sophocles argued in one of his tragedies that children belong entirely
to the father, that the mother can assert no valid claim for anything.
Lawyers have found this logic excellent; and the records are full of
instances of children being taken from a hard-working mother in order to
be handed over to a drunken father who wants their wages for his
support. It is no longer so in most states. Civilisation has advanced so
far, that the pains of bringing forth and raising children are
acknowledged to give the mother a right almost equal to that of the
father to determine all that concerns the child. There is some reason,
therefore, for believing that she should have a voice also in passing
upon laws which may make or undo for ever the welfare of the boys and
girls for whom she struggles during the years that they are growing to
manhood and womanhood. Men are for the greater part so engrossed in
business that on certain questions they are far less competent to be
"authorities" than women. Against stupid pedagogy, against red-tape,
against the policy that morality must never interfere with business
principles, against civic dirtiness, against brothel and saloon, women
are more active than men, because they see more clearly how vitally the
interests of their children are affected by these evil conditions.
Wherever women vote, these questions are to the fore.

Closely connected with the "one authority" argument is the old
contention, so often resorted to and relied upon, that women, if they
are permitted to vote, will neglect the home, and that, if the
professions are opened to them, they will find these too absorbingly
attractive. Much weight should, however, be given to the great power of
the domestic instinct implanted in the nature of woman. In the States
where women vote and are eligible for political offices, there are fewer
unmarried women in proportion to the population than in States where
they have no such rights. The great leaders of the woman suffrage
movement from Mrs. Stanton to Mrs. Snowden have in their home circle led
lives as beautiful and have raised families as large and as well
equipped morally and intellectually as those who are content to sit by
the fire and spin.

Thus far I have argued from the orthodox view, that matrimony ought to
be the goal of every woman's