es not consist of men alone, but of women as well,
and conditions being equal, woman should have the same political
rights as man. She should, at least, have those fundamental rights the
exercise of which, like that of the right to vote, requires nothing
but intelligence and capacity, in order that she may have some voice
in the decision of her own destiny and may herself fight the battles
for her honor, her liberty, and other rights neglected or ignored by
man on account of the undisputed monopoly exercised by him over the
public affairs.

The injustices and social and juridical discriminations contained in
our codes will not be eliminated in a radical manner and the condition
of woman will not improve while man alone legislates and controls
all the spheres of public life, dictating to woman what she must do
and what she must not do; and woman will be incompetent to take care
of her own interests and shape her own life so long as she does not
look higher, so long as she consents to the superiority of man and
believes that her lot is simply that of serving and pleasing man
in bed and home, instead of being his true helpmate and companion,
for the progress and felicity of the human race.

All arguments that are or may be adduced against female suffrage
tend invariably towards these two objects: the confinement of woman
to the home and the perpetuation of her civil and political slavery.

Woman must busy herself with nothing but her household duties and
must live only for her husband and her children; she has her hands
full from the rising to the setting sun if she manages the cook,
cleans the house, and mends the clothes: this is the great argument
of the partisans of the old regime. Another is, that it is not in the
nature of things that woman should struggle with man in the battle
of public life; that if she enters that struggle, man will cease to
look upon her as a being to be worshipped, as a sacred idol at whose
feet he must kneel, and will see in her a rival to be combated and
overcome, for his own preservation, and woman will not only drag the
pure flower of her virtue into the mire of political life, but will
lose the esteem, respect, and consideration now tributed to her.

I have the most profound respect for all men and women who honestly
believe this to be the case. It is not their fault that they believe
that what has always been so is the best. They do not realize that
life is motion and that the new ele