he position of woman changed, but also the relation of son and
daughter to the family, who have gradually attained a degree of
independence unknown in former days,--a fact noticeable especially in
the United States, where the self-dependent and independent education of
the individual is carried on much further than with us. The dark sides
that to-day accompany also this form of development, are not necessarily
connected with it; they lie in the social conditions of our times.
Capitalist society evokes no beneficent phenomenon unaccompanied with a
dark side: as Fourier long ago pointed out with great perspicacity,
capitalist society is in all its progressive steps double-faced and
ambiguous.

With Laveleye, Schaeffle also detects in the changed character of the
family of our days the effect of social development. He says:[131] "It
is true that the tendency described in Chapter II, to reduce and limit
the family to its specific functions is traceable throughout history.
The family relinquishes one provisional and temporary function after the
other. In so far as it officiated only in a surrogate and gap-filling
capacity it makes way to independent institutions for law, order,
authority, divine service, education, technique, etc., as soon as these
institutions take shape."

Women are pressing even further, though as yet only in a minority, and
only a fraction of these with clear aims. They aspire to measure their
power with men, not on the industrial field alone; they aspire not only
after a freer and more independent position in the family; they also
aspire at turning their mental faculties to the higher walks of life.
The favorite objection raised against them is that they are not fit for
such pursuits, not being intended therefor by Nature. The question of
engaging in the higher professional occupations concerns at present only
a small number of women in modern society; it is, however, important in
point of principle. The large majority of men believe in all seriousness
that, mentally as well, woman must ever remain subordinate to them, and,
hence, has no right to equality. They are, accordingly, the most
determined opponents of woman's aspirations.

The self-same men, who raise no objection whatever to the employment of
woman in occupations, many of which are very exhausting, often
dangerous, threaten the impairment of her feminine physique and
violently compel her to sin against her duties as a mother,--these
self-s