fact for a number of years. Russian women
doctors, lawyers, and professors are not uncommon.

Norway and Sweden have experienced a feminine revolution in the last
quarter-century. The laws have been overhauled and revised; the schools
and colleges thrown open; the trades and professions have flung down their
barriers; and work, once a disgrace, has become an honor to women. Sweden
led in this movement, but Norway was quick to follow, and it is now a
question as to which will first reach the goal of full equality between
women and men.

In political rights English and Scandinavian women stand about on a level.
Neither can vote for members of Parliament, but both have municipal and
local suffrage, which gives them power to exercise their gifts for
housekeeping and economical management in civic as well as home affairs.

A WOMAN'S LEGAL RIGHTS.

This growing liberty of women has affected her position as wife and
mother. In the days when she had no sphere but the home and no career but
marriage, she was a very insignificant creature even within those limits.

She could not own her home, could not choose its location, or have
anything at all to say about it. The home, the children, and she herself
belonged to the husband, who was "lord and master" in the sense of owner
and dictator.

Now, in those countries where women have gained financial, industrial, and
political standing, they hold a more dignified position in the home.
Formerly a widow could be left penniless and her children willed away from
her.

The present English law gives to the widow one-third of the property, and
half the guardianship of the children. In case of divorce, the children
under sixteen belong to the mother, unless she is notoriously unfit to
have them.

Very similar to these are the laws in the British colonies, the United
States, and Scandinavia. In these countries, too, with the exception of
certain of our States, a married woman can own property, earn money, and
collect her own wages, sue or be sued, make a contract with others, and in
some places with her own husband.

She is also entitled to support for herself and her children, and to a
divorce for various causes, including infidelity, brutality, intoxication,
desertion, failure to provide, and felony.

In Germany the wife is legally entitled to a certain proportion of her
husband's income, a right which women have in no other country. Everywhere
else the vague term "support" is