l Labor Congress of Paris in 1889. The class-conscious
workingman knows that the modern economic development forces woman to
set herself up as a competitor with man; but he also knows that, to
prohibit female labor, would be as senseless an act as the prohibition
of the use of machinery. Hence he strives to enlighten woman on her
position in society, and _to educate her into a fellow combatant in the
struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat from capitalism_. True
enough,--due to the ever more widespread employment of female labor in
agriculture, industry, commerce and the trades--the family life of the
workingman is destroyed, and the degenerating effects of the double yoke
of work for a living, and of household duties, makes rapid progress in
the female sex. Hence the endeavor to keep women by legislative
enactments, from occupations that are especially injurious to the female
organism, and by means of protective laws to safeguard her as a mother
and rearer of children. On the other hand, the struggle for existence
forces women to turn in ever larger numbers to industrial occupations.
It is _married woman_, more particularly, who is called upon to increase
the meager earnings of her husband with her work,--and she is
particularly welcome to the employer.[67]

Modern society is without doubt more cultured than any previous one, and
woman stands correspondingly higher. Nevertheless, the views concerning
the relations of the two sexes have remained at bottom the same.
Professor L. von Stein published a book,[68]--a work, be it said in
passing, that corresponds ill with its title--in which he gives a
poetically colored picture of modern marriage, as it supposedly is. Even
in this picture the subaltern position of woman towards the "lion" man
is made manifest. Stein says among other things: "Man deserves a being
that not only loves, but also understands him. He deserves a person with
whom not only the heart beats for him, but whose hand may also smooth
his forehead, and whose presence radiates peace, rest, order, a quiet
command over herself and the thousand and one things upon which he daily
reverts: he wants someone who spreads over all these things that
indescribable aroma of womanhood, one who is the life-giving warmth to
the life of the house."

In this song of praise of woman lies concealed her own degradation, and
along therewith, the low egotism of man. The professor depicts woman as
a vaporous being, that,