ren" is also raving mad over the
idea of abolishing the private kitchen. As far as we know, Herr Richter
is a bachelor. Obviously he does not miss his own kitchen: to judge from
the rotundity of his body, he does not fare ill. If Herr Richter were a
married man and possessed a wife, who had herself to administer the
kitchen department and to perform in it the needed work, instead of
leaving all that to servants, as is the fashion with the women of the
property classes, then, a hundred to one his wife would nicely prove to
him how happy she would be if she only could be freed from the bondage
of the kitchen through the large and thoroughly equipped communal
institute for meals.

[223] Niemeyer, "Gesundheitslehre."

PART III

WOMAN IN THE FUTURE

WOMAN IN THE FUTURE.

This chapter can be condensed in few words. It only contains the
conclusions that flow from what has been said, conclusions that the
reader may draw for himself.

The woman of future society is socially and economically independent;
she is no longer subject to even a vestige of dominion and exploitation;
she is free, the peer of man, mistress of her lot. Her education is the
same as that of man, with such exceptions as the difference of sex and
sexual functions demand. Living under natural conditions, she is able to
unfold and exercise her mental powers and faculties. She chooses her
occupation on such field as corresponds with her wishes, inclinations
and natural abilities, and she works under conditions identical with
man's. Even if engaged as a practical working-woman on some field or
other, at other times of the day she may be educator, teacher or nurse,
at yet others she may exercise herself in art, or cultivate some branch
of science, and at yet others may be filling some administrative
function. She joins in studies, enjoyments or social intercourse with
either her sisters or with men,--as she may please or occasion may
serve.

In the choice of love, she is, like man, free and unhampered. She woos
or is wooed, and closes the bond from no considerations other than her
own inclinations. This bond is a private contract, celebrated without
the intervention of any functionary--just as marriage was a private
contract until deep in the Middle Ages. Socialism creates in this
nothing new: it merely restores, at a higher level of civilization and
under new social forms, that which prevailed at a more primitive social
stage, and before pr