in many a household to the liberal, genial, brilliant,
cultured husband in the zenith of his power, who has never given one
thought to the higher life, liberty, and happiness of the woman by his
side; believing her self-abnegation to be Nature's law.

It is often asked, "if political equality would not rouse antagonisms
between the sexes?" If it could be proved that men and women had been
harmonious in all ages and countries, and that women were happy and
satisfied in their slavery, one might hesitate in proposing any change
whatever. But the apathy, the helpless, hopeless resignation of a
subjected class can not be called happiness. The more complete the
despotism, the more smoothly all things move on the surface. "Order
reigns in Warsaw." In right conditions, the interests of man and woman
are essentially one; but in false conditions, they must ever be
opposed. The principle of equality of rights underlies all human
sentiments, and its assertion by any individual or class must rouse
antagonism, unless conceded. This has been the battle of the ages, and
will be until all forms of slavery are banished from the earth.
Philosophers, historians, poets, novelists, alike paint woman the
victim ever of man's power and selfishness. And now all writers on
Eastern civilization tell us, the one insurmountable obstacle to the
improvement of society in those countries, is the ignorance and
superstition of the women. Stronger than the trammels of custom and
law, is her religion, which teaches that her condition is
Heaven-ordained. As the most ignorant minds cling with the greatest
tenacity to the dogmas and traditions of their faith, a reform that
involves an attack on that stronghold can only be carried by the
education of another generation. Hence the self-assertion, the
antagonism, the rebellion of woman, so much deplored in England and
the United States, is the hope of our higher civilization. A woman
growing up under American ideas of liberty in government and religion,
having never blushed behind a Turkish mask, nor pressed her feet in
Chinese shoes, can not brook any disabilities based on sex alone,
without a deep feeling of antagonism with the power that creates it.
The change needed to restore good feeling can not be reached by
remanding woman to the spinning-wheel, and the contentment of her
grandmother, but by conceding to her every right which the spirit of
the age demands. Modern inventions have banished the spinning-wh