ouse and leave all else to the men, the "lords of
creation," as their domain: woman must, to the utmost, bridle her own
thoughts and inclinations, and quietly accept what her Providence on
earth--father or husband--decrees. The nearer she approaches this
standard, all the more is she praised as "sensible, modest and
virtuous," even though, as the result of such constraint, she break down
under the burden of physical and moral suffering. What absurdity is it
not to speak of the "equality of all" and yet seek to keep one-half of
the human race outside of the pale!

Woman has the same right as man to unfold her faculties and to the free
exercise of the same: she is human as well as he: like him, she should
be free to dispose of herself as her own master. The accident of being
born a woman, makes no difference. To exclude woman from equality on the
ground that she was born female and not male--an accident for which man
is as little responsible as she--is as inequitable, as would be to make
rights and privileges dependent upon the accident of religion or
political bias; and as senseless as that two human beings must look upon
each other as enemies on the ground that the accident of birth makes
them of different stock and nationality. Such views are unworthy of a
truly free being. The progress of humanity lies in removing everything
that holds one being, one class, one sex, in dependence and in
subjection to another. _No inequality is justified other than that which
Nature itself establishes in the differences between one individual and
another, and for the fulfillment of the purpose of Nature. The natural
boundaries no sex can overstep: it would thereby destroy its own natural
purpose._

The adversaries of full equality for woman play as their trump card the
claim that woman has a smaller brain than man, and that in other
qualities, besides, she is behind man, hence her permanent inferiority
(subordination) is demonstrated. It is certain that man and woman are
beings of different sexes; that they are furnished with different
organs, corresponding to the sex purpose of each; and that, owing to the
functions that each sex must fill to accomplish the purpose of Nature,
there are a series of other differences in their physiologic and psychic
conditions. These are facts that none can deny and none will deny;
nevertheless, they justify no distinction in the social and political
rights of man and woman. The human race, society, co