r the parallel is pursued through the many
ramifications of the subject, the closer will it be discovered to hold.
For one, I hold that the monogamous family--bruised and wounded in the
cruel rough-and-tumble of modern society, where, with few favored
exceptions of highest type, male creation is held down, physically,
mentally and morally, to the brutalizing level of the brute, forced to
grub and grub for bare existence, or, which amounts to the same, to
scheme and scheme in order to avoid being forced so to grub and
grub--will have its wounds staunched, its bruises healed, and, ennobled
by the slowly acquired moral forces of conjugal, paternal and filial
affection, bloom under Socialism into a lever of mighty power for the
moral and physical elevation of the race.

At any rate, however the genius of our descendants may shape matters on
this head, one thing is certain: Woman--the race's mothers, wives,
sisters, daughters--long sinned against through unnumbered
generations--is about to be atoned to. All the moral and intellectual
forces of the age are seen obviously converging to that point. It will
be the crowning work of Militant Socialism, like a mightier Perseus, to
strike the shackles from the chained Andromeda of modern society, Woman,
and raise her to the dignity of her sex.

DANIEL DE LEON.

New York, June 21, 1903.

INDEX

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE iii

INTRODUCTION 1

WOMAN IN THE PAST--
Chapter I--Before Christianity 9
Chapter II--Under Christianity 47

WOMAN IN THE PRESENT--
Chapter I--Sexual Instinct, Wedlock, Checks and Obstructions
to Marriage 79
Chapter II--Further Checks and Obstructions to Marriage, Numerical
Proportion of the Sexes, Its Causes and Effects 118
Chapter III--Prostitution a Necessary Social Institution of
the Capitalist World 146
Chapter IV--Woman's Position as a Breadwinner, Her Intellectual
Faculties, Darwinism and the Condition of Society 167
Chapter V--Woman's Civic and Political Status 216
Chapter VI--The State and Society 235
Chapter VII--The Socialization of Society