that the position of that sex in society, so far from being a
thing in itself permanent, has been in reality the most changing of all
factors in the social problem. And this inevitably suggests the question,
Are we any more sure that her present position is finally and absolutely
fixed than were those who observed it at any previous time in the world's
history? Granting that her condition was once at low-water mark, who is
authorized to say that it has yet reached high tide?

It is very possible that this Russian wife, once scourged back to
submission, ended her days in the conviction, and taught it to her
daughters, that such was a woman's rightful place. When an American woman
of to-day says, "I have all the rights I want," is she on any surer ground?
Grant that the difference is vast between the two. How do we know that even
the later condition is final, or that anything is final but entire equality
before the laws? It is not many years since William Story--in a legal work
inspired and revised by his father, the greatest of American jurists--wrote
this indignant protest against the injustice of the old common law:--

"In respect to the powers and rights of married women, the law is by
no means abreast of the spirit of the age. Here are seen the old
fossil footprints of feudalism. The law relating to woman tends to
make every family a barony or a monarchy, or a despotism, of which
the husband is the baron, king, or despot, and the wife the
dependent, serf, or slave. That this is not always the fact is not
due to the law, but to the enlarged humanity which spurns the narrow
limits of its rules. The progress of civilization has changed the
family from a barony to a republic; but the law has not kept pace
with the advance of ideas, manners, and customs. And, although
public opinion is a check to legal rules on the subject, the rules
are feudal and stern. Yet the position of woman throughout history
serves as the criterion of the freedom of the people or an age. When
man shall despise that right which is founded only on might, woman
will be free and stand on an equal level with him,--a friend and not
a dependent."[1]

We know that the law is greatly changed and ameliorated in many places
since Story wrote this statement; but we also know how almost every one of
these changes was resisted: and who is authorized to say that the final and
equitable fulfilment