rs of society, and discharge the important duties
of life by the light of their own reasons. 'Educate women like
men,' says Rousseau, 'and the more they resemble our sex, the less
power will they have over us.' This is the very point I aim at. I
do not wish them to have power over men, but over themselves."

Some philosophers have asserted with contempt, as evidence of the
inferiority of the female understanding, that it arrives at maturity long
before the male, and that women attain their full strength and growth at
twenty, but men not until they are thirty. But this Mary emphatically
denies. The seeming earlier precocity of girls she attributes to the fact
that they are much sooner treated as women than boys are as men. Their
more speedy physical development is assumed because with them the
standard of beauty is fine features and complexion, whilst male beauty is
allowed to have some connection with the mind. But the truth is, that
"strength of body and that character of countenance which the French term
a _physionomie_, women do not acquire before thirty any more than men."

There are some curious remarks in reference to polygamy as a mark of the
inferiority of women, but they need not be given here, since this evil is
not legally recognized by civilized people, with the exception of the
Mormons. But there is a polygamy, not sanctioned by law, which exists in
all countries, and which has done more than almost anything else to
dishonor women. Mary's observations in this connection are among the
strongest in the book. She understands the true difficulty more
thoroughly than many social reformers to-day, and offers a better
solution of the problem than they do. Justice, not charity, she declares,
is wanted in the world. Asylums and Magdalens are not the proper remedies
for the abuse. But women should be given the same chance as men to rise
after their fall. The first offence should not be made unpardonable,
since good can come from evil. From a struggle with strong passions
virtue is often evolved.

To sum up in a few words Mary's statement of her subject, woman having
always been treated as an irrational, inferior being, has in the end
become one. Her acquiescence to her moral and mental degradation springs
from a want of understanding. But "whether this arises from a physical or
accidental weakness of faculties, time alone can determine." Women must
be allowed to exercise their understanding befor