ial system, so boastful
of its morality, its religiousness, its civilization and its culture,
feels compelled to tolerate that immorality and corruption spread
through its body like a stealthy poison. But this state of things
betrays something else, besides _the admission by the Christian State
that marriage is insufficient, and that the husband has the right to
demand illegitimate gratification of his sexual instincts_. Woman counts
with such a State in so far only as she is willing, as a sexual being,
to yield to illegitimate male desires, i. e., become a prostitute. In
keeping herewith, the supervision and control, exercised by the organs
of the State over the registered prostitutes, do not fall upon the men
also, those who seek the prostitute. Such a provision would be a matter
of course if the sanitary police control was to be of any sense, and
even of partial effect,--apart from the circumstance that a sense of
justice would demand an even-handed application of the law to both
sexes. No; "supervision and control" fall upon woman alone.

This protection by the State of man and not woman, turns upside down the
nature of things. _It looks as if men were the weaker vessel and women
the stronger; as if woman were the seducer, and poor, weak man the
seduced._ The seduction-myth between Adam and Eve in Paradise continues
to operate in our opinions and laws, and it says to Christianity: "You
are right; woman is the arch seductress, the vessel of iniquity." Men
should be ashamed of such a sorry and unworthy _role_; but this _role_
of the "weak" and the "seduced" suits them;--_the more they are
protected, all the more may they sin_.

Wherever men assemble in large numbers, they seem unable to amuse
themselves without prostitution. This was shown, among other instances
of the kind, by the occurrences at the German Schuetzenfest, held in
Berlin in the summer of 1890, which caused 2,300 women to express
themselves as follows in a petition addressed to the Mayor of the German
capital: "May it please your Honor to allow us to bring to your
knowledge the matters that have reached the provinces, through the
press and other means of communication, upon the German shooting
matches, held at Pankow from the 6th to the 13th of July of this year.
The reports of the matter, that we have seen with indignation and
horror, represent the programme of that festival with the following
announcements, among others: 'First German Herald, the Gre