dvance of woman
as a whole to a condition of free labour and economic independence. That
female, wilfully or organically belonging to the parasite class, having
neither the vigour of intellect nor the vitality of body to undertake
any form of productive labour, and desiring to be dependent only upon
the passive performance of sex function merely, would, whether as
prostitute or wife, undoubtedly lose heavily by any social change which
demanded of woman increased knowledge and activity. (She would lose
in two directions: by the social disapprobation which, as the new
conditions became general, would rest on her; and yet more by the
competition of the more developed forms. She would practically become
non-existent.)

It is exactly by these two classes of persons that the objection is
raised that the entrance of woman into the new fields of labour and her
increased freedom and intelligence will dislocate the relations of
the sexes; and, while from the purely personal standpoint, they
are undoubtedly right, viewing human society as a whole they are
fundamentally wrong. The loss of a small and unhealthy section will be
the gain of human society as a whole.

In the male voluptuary of feeble intellect and unattractive
individuality, who depends for the gratification of his sexual
instincts, not on his power of winning and retaining the personal
affection and admiration of woman, but on her purchaseable condition,
either in the blatantly barbarous field of sex traffic that lies beyond
the pale of legal marriage, or the not less barbarous though more veiled
traffic within that pale, the entrance of woman into the new fields of
labour, with an increased intellectual culture and economic freedom,
means little less than social extinction. But, to those males who, even
at the present day, constitute the majority in our societies, and who
desire the affection and fellowship of woman rather than a mere material
possession; for the male who has the attributes and gifts of mind or
body, which, apart from any weight of material advantage, would fit him
to hold the affection of woman, however great her freedom of choice,
the gain will be correspondingly great. Given a society in which the
majority of women should be so far self-supporting, that, having their
free share open to them in the modern fields of labour, and reaping the
full economic rewards of their labour, marriage or some form of sexual
sale was no more a matter of necessity