leaves her and her children in want. He even has the
right to demand from her employer the wages due her.

By the law of December 11, 1874, Sweden secures to the married woman the
right to dispose freely of that which she earns by her personal effort.
Denmark has raised the same principle to the force of a law; nor can,
according to Danish law, the property of the wife be seized to cover the
debts of the husband. Similarly runs the law of Norway of 1888.[152] The
right of educating the children and of deciding thereupon is, according
to the legislation of most countries, the attribute of the father: here
and there a subordinate co-operation is granted the mother. The old
Roman maxim, that stood in sharp contradiction to the principles
prevalent during the mother-right, and that clothed the father alone
with rights and powers over the child, is to this day the key-note of
legislation on the subject.

Among the continental countries, woman holds the freest position in
Russia,--due to the communistic institutions there still in existence,
or to reminiscences of the same. In Russia, woman is the administrator
of her property: she enjoys equal rights in the administration of the
community. Communism is the most favorable social condition to woman.
The fact transpired from the sketch of the age of the mother-right,
given on previous pages.[153] In the United States women have conquered
full civil equality; they have also prevented the introduction of the
English and similar laws regulating prostitution.

The civic inequality of woman has provoked among the more advanced
members of the female sex demand for political rights, to the end of
wielding the power of legislation in behalf of their civic equality. It
is the identical thought that moved the working class everywhere to
direct their agitation towards the conquest of the political powers.
What is right for the working class can not be wrong for woman.
Oppressed, disfranchised, relegated everywhere to the rear, woman has
not the right only, she has the duty to defend herself, and to seize
every means she may deem fit to conquer a more independent position for
herself. Against these efforts also the reactionary mob, of course,
bristles up. Let us see how.

The great French Revolution, that, as is well known, started in 1789 and
threw all old institutions out of joint, conjured up a freedom of
spirits such as the world had never seen before. Woman also stepped upon
the s