s--and not least in the circle of woman herself--rests
upon lack of knowledge and lack of understanding. Many are heard
claiming there is no Woman Question, because the position that woman
formerly occupied, occupies to-day and will in the future continue to
occupy, is determined by her "natural calling," which destines her for
wife and mother, and limits her to the sphere of the home. Accordingly,
whatever lies beyond her four walls, or is not closely and obviously
connected with her household duties, concerns her not.

On the Woman Question, the same as on the general Social Question, in
which the position of the working class in society plays the chief role,
opposing parties stand arrayed against each other. One party, that which
would leave everything as it is, have their answer ready at hand; they
imagine the matter is settled with referring woman to her "natural
calling." They forget that, to-day, for reasons later to be developed,
millions of women are wholly unable to fill that "natural calling," so
much insisted upon in their behalf, of householders, breeders and nurses
of children; and that, with other millions, the "calling" has suffered
extensive shipwreck--wedlock, to them, having turned into a yoke and
into slavery, compelling them to drag along their lives in misery and
want. Of course, this fact concerns those "wise men" as little as that
other fact, that unnumbered millions of women, engaged in the several
pursuits of life, are compelled, often in unnatural ways, and far beyond
the measure of their strength, to wear themselves out in order to eke
out a meager existence. At this unpleasant fact those "wise men" stuff
their ears, and they shut their eyes with as much violence as they do
before the misery of the working class, consoling themselves and others
with "it has ever been, and will ever remain so." That woman has the
right to share the conquests of civilization achieved in our days; to
utilize these to the easing and improving of her condition; and to
develop her mental and physical faculties, and turn them to advantage as
well as man,--they will none of that. Are they told that woman must also
be economically, in order to be physically and intellectually free, to
the end that she no longer depend upon the "good-will" and the "mercy"
of the other sex?--forthwith their patience is at end; their anger is
kindled; and there follows a torrent of violent charges against the
"craziness of the times," and