y
his wife becomes lady mayoress, and she shares all her husband's
official honors. On the Continent women are often made honorary colonels
of regiments, and take part with the men in military reviews. Women
frequently hold high offices at court, acting as chamberlains,
constables, and the like. The writer closed her last chapter with the
announcement that she meant henceforth to make her home in England,
where women had more than once occupied the throne as absolute monarch
and constitutional ruler.

It is true that in some particulars American women do seem to be at a
disadvantage with European women. With what looks like a higher regard
for women's intelligence, England has bestowed upon them every measure
of suffrage except the Parliamentary franchise. In England, throughout
the Middle Ages, and even down to the present century, women held the
office of sheriff of the county, clerk of the crown, high constable,
chamberlain, and even champion at a coronation,--the champion being a
picturesque figure who rides into the hall and flings his glove to the
nobles, in defense of the king's crown.

In the royal pageants of European history behold the powerful figures of
Maria Theresa, Catherine the Great, Mary Tudor, Elizabeth, Mary of
Scotland, Christina of Sweden, rulers in fact as well as in name; to say
nothing of the long line of women regents in whose hands the state
intrusted its affairs, during the minority of its kings. In the United
States a woman candidate for mayor of a small town would be considered
a joke.

These and other inconsistencies have puzzled many ardent upholders of
American chivalry. In order to understand the position of women in the
United States it is necessary to make a brief survey of the laws under
which European women are governed, and the social theory on which their
apparent advantages are based.

In the first place, the statement that in European countries a woman may
succeed to the throne must be qualified. In three countries only,
England, Spain, and Portugal, are women counted in the line of
succession on terms approaching equality with men. In these three
countries when a monarch dies leaving no sons his eldest daughter
becomes the sovereign. If the ruling monarch die, leaving no children at
all, the oldest daughter--failing sons--of the man who was in his
lifetime in direct line of succession is given preference to male heirs
more remote. Thus Queen Victoria succeeded William IV,