anded from women, and every man
claimed a sort of prescriptive right to assist in laying down rules for
such conduct on her part. For a long time the women of the South,
consciously or unconsciously, were subject to these unwritten rules. Today
in increasing numbers the women, particularly the younger women, are
declaring their independence by their conduct. It has not become a feminist
revolt, for many have not thought out the situation and have not recognized
the source of their restrictions. The statutes of some of the Southern
States, moreover, still contain many of the old common law restrictions
upon women's independence of action. More and more women are asserting
themselves, however, and are demanding the right to guide themselves. The
negro woman has been held up as the reason for denying the vote to the
white woman, but this excuse no longer is accepted willingly. Women are
inquiring why the vote of the negro women should be any more of a menace
than the vote of the negro man, and there seems to be no satisfactory
answer. If the women make up their minds and agree, they will gain their
ends.

Though women in the South as elsewhere form a majority of the church
membership, they have not had equal rights in church administration.
During 1918, several denominations granted full laity rights, though the
bishops of the Southern Methodist Church referred the action of the
General Conference back to the Annual Conferences. This is of course only
temporary delay. An unusually large percentage of the adult population
holds membership in one or other of the Protestant denominations. The
Roman Catholics are reported as being in a majority in Louisiana, as might
be expected owing to French descent, and in Kentucky, Delaware, Maryland,
and Texas the proportion is considerable. It is less in Arkansas, Oklahoma,
and West Virginia. In Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,
Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, the proportion of Catholics is still
smaller, though the latest (1918) official Catholic statistics for the
even States last named show 7 bishops, 415 priests, 635 churches, and
211,000 Catholics. The principal denominational affiliations of the
Southern people, white and black, are with the various Baptist or Methodist
bodies, with a strong Presbyterian influence. In eleven of the Southern
States the Baptists are by far the largest denomination, though the
Methodists lead in two. These two denominations take