whether the
treatment allotted to the soldier be worthy or unworthy of human beings;
and whether as a result thereof the number of suicides and desertions
rise or drop;--_all of these are questions that concern woman as much as
man_. Likewise with the economic and industrial conditions and in
transportation, in all of which branches the female sex, furthermore,
steps from year to year more numerously as working-women. Bad
conditions, and unfavorable circumstances injure woman as a social and
as a sexual being; favorable conditions and satisfactory circumstances
benefit her.

But there are still other momenta that go to make marriage difficult or
impossible. A considerable number of men are kept from marriage by the
State itself. People pucker up their brows at the celibacy imposed upon
Roman Catholic clergymen; but these same people have not a word of
condemnation for the much larger number of soldiers who also are
condemned thereto. The officers not only require the consent of their
superiors, they are also limited in the choice of a wife: the regulation
prescribes that she shall have property to a certain, and not
insignificant, amount. In this way the Austrian corps of officers, for
instance, obtained a social "improvement" at the cost of the female sex.
Captains rose by fully 8,000 guilders, if above thirty years of age,
while the captains under thirty years of age were thenceforth hard to be
had, in no case for a smaller dower than 30,000. "Now a 'Mrs. Captain,'"
it was thus reported in the "Koelnische Zeitung" from Vienna, "who until
now was often a subject of pity for her female colleagues in the
administrative departments, can hold her head higher by a good deal;
everybody now knows that she has wherewith to live. Despite the greatly
increased requirements of personal excellence, culture and rank, the
social status of the Austrian officer was until then rather indefinite,
partly because very prominent gentlemen stuck fast to the Emperor's coat
pocket; partly because many poor officers could not make a shift to live
without humiliation, and many families of poor officers often played a
pitiful _role_. Until then, the officer who wished to marry had, if the
thirty-year line was crossed, to qualify in joint property to the amount
of 12,000 guilders, or in a 600-guilder side income, and even at this
insignificant income, hardly enough for decency, the magistrates often
shut their eyes, and granted relief. The new m