It is the same conception of woman as property which, even to the
present, has caused the retention in many legal codes of clauses
rendering a man liable to pay pecuniary damages to a woman,
previously a virgin, whom he has intercourse with and
subsequently forsakes (Natalie Fuchs, "Die Jungfernschaft im
Recht und Sitte," _Sexual-Probleme_, Feb., 1908). The woman is
"dishonored" by sexual intercourse, depreciated in her market
value, exactly as a new garment becomes "second-hand," even if it
has but once been worn. A man, on the other hand, would disdain
the idea that his personal value could be diminished by any
number of acts of sexual intercourse.

This fact has even led some to advocate the "abolition of
physical virginity." Thus the German authoress of _Una
Poenitentium_ (1907), considering that the protection of a woman
is by no means so well secured by a little piece of membrane as
by the presence of a true and watchful soul inside, advocates the
operation of removal of the hymen in childhood. It is undoubtedly
true that the undue importance attached to the hymen has led to a
false conception of feminine "honor," and to an unwholesome
conception of feminine purity.

Custom and law are slowly changing in harmony with changed social
conditions which no longer demand the subjection of women either in their
own interests or in the interests of the community. Concomitantly with
these changes a different ideal of womanly personality is developing. It
is true that the ancient ideal of the lordship of the husband over the
wife is still more or less consciously affirmed around us. The husband
frequently dictates to the wife what avocations she may not pursue, what
places she may not visit, what people she may not know, what books she may
not read. He assumes to control her, even in personal matters having no
direct concern with himself, by virtue of the old masculine prerogative of
force which placed a woman under the hand, as the ancient patriarchal
legists termed it, of a man. It is, however, becoming more and more widely
recognized that such a part is not suited to the modern man. The modern
man, as Rosa Mayreder has pointed out in a thoughtful essay,[292] is no
longer equipped to play this domineering part in relation to his wife. The
"noble savage," leading a wild life on mountain and in forest, hunting
dangerous beasts and scalping enemie