it has lost its scent. A
hypocritical and a lying system has been set up professing disbelief
in that which it knows is necessary to the needs of the individual
woman and to the larger needs of the race. Physical love is only
inglorious when it is regarded ingloriously. Why this horror of
passion? The tragedy of woman it seems is this, that with such power
of love as she has in her there should be so little opportunity for
its use--so much for its waste. Those of us who believe in passion as
the supreme factor in race-building, must know that this view of its
shamefulness is weakening the race.

I, therefore, hold firmly as my belief that the hateful traffic in
love will flourish just as long, and in proportion, as we regard
passion outside of prostitution with shame. Each one of us women is
responsible. Do we not know that there is not this difference between
our sexual needs and those of men? Let us tear down the old pretence.
Do not instincts arise in us, too, that demand expression, free from
all coercion of convention? And if we stifle them are we really the
better--the more moral sex? I doubt this, as I have come to doubt so
many of the lies that have been accepted as the truth about women.

The true hope of the future lies in the undivided recognition of
responsibility in love, which alone can make freedom possible. Freedom
for all women--the women of the home and the women of the streets. The
prostitute woman must be freed from all oppression. We, her sisters,
can demand no less than this. If we are to remain sheltered, she must
be sheltered too. She must be freed from the oppression of absurd
laws, from the terrible oppression of the police and from all economic
and social oppression. But to make this possible, these women, who for
centuries have been blasted for our sins against love, must be
re-admitted by women and men into the social life of our homes and the
State. Then, and then alone, can we have any hope that the prostitute
will cease to be and the natural woman will take her place.

FOOTNOTES:

[326] I would refer my readers to the Chapters on "Sexual Morality"
and "Marriage" in Havelock Ellis's _Psychology of Sex_, Vol. VI. The
only way to estimate aright the value of our present marriage system
is to examine the history of that system in the past. I had hoped to
have space in which to do this, and it is with real regret I am
compelled to omit the section I had written on this subject.

[327] Lo