orway, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Since then the woman's
suffrage movement has been the most flourishing part of the woman's rights
movement. The International Woman's Suffrage Alliance, which was pledged
to hold a second congress only at the end of five years, has already held
three congresses between 1905 and 1909 (1906, Copenhagen; 1908, Amsterdam;
1909, London), and has extended its membership to twenty-one countries
(the United States, Australia, South Africa, Canada, Great Britain,
Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, Russia,
Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria, Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Servia,
and Iceland). The first president is Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt.

The chief demands of the woman's rights movement are the same in all
countries. These demands are four in number.

1. In the field of education and instruction: to enjoy the same
educational opportunities as those of man.

2. In the field of labor: freedom to choose any occupation, and equal pay
for the same work.

3. In the field of civil law: the wife should be given the full status of
a legal person before the law, and full civil ability. In criminal law:
the repeal of all regulations discriminating against women. The legal
responsibility of man in sexual matters. In public law: woman's suffrage.

4. In the social field: recognition of the high value of woman's domestic
and social work, and the incompleteness, harshness, and one-sidedness of
every circle of man's activity (_Maennerwelt_) from which woman is
excluded.

A just and happy relationship of the sexes is dependent upon mutuality,
coordination, and the complementary relations of man and woman,--not upon
the subordination of woman and the predominance of man. Woman, in her
peculiar sphere, is entirely the equal of man in his. The origin of the
international woman's rights movement is found in the world-wide disregard
of this elementary truth.

The subject which I have treated in this book is a very broad one, the
material much scattered and daily changing. It is therefore hardly
possible that my statements should not have deficiencies on the one hand,
and errors on the other. I shall indeed welcome any corrections and
authoritative information of a supplementary nature.[3]

THE AUTHORESS.

PARIS, JUNE 3, 1909.

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