tion, however, desires to place the
education of girls entirely in the hands of women, partly because they
wish to enhance the sex war, and partly because they consider that
continual intercourse between the sexes tends to deprive ultimate love
of its mystery and its charm. But both sections fully agree that the
broadest possible education must be given to every woman, so as to fit
her for contest with every man.

3

So much, then, for the mental revolution and its eventual effects on the
position of women in the arts, the trades, and the schools. In the
industrial section, especially, we have already had an indication of the
main line of the Feminist attitude, a claim to a right to choose. This
right is indeed the only one for which the Feminists are struggling, and
they struggle for those obscure reasons which lie at the root of our
wish to live and to perpetuate the race. It is no wonder, then, that the
Feminists should have designs upon the most fundamental of human
institutions, marriage and motherhood.

In the main, Feminists are opposed to indissoluble Christian marriage.
Some satisfaction has been given to them in a great many states by the
extension of divorce facilities, but they are not content with piecemeal
reform such as has been carried out in the United States, for they
realize quite well that divorce cuts both ways, and that it is not
satisfactory for a wife to be married in one state, and divorced under a
slack law in another. Indeed I believe that one of the first Feminist
demands in America would be for a federal marriage law.

But alterations in the law are minor points by the side of the emotional
revolution that is to be engineered. Roughly speaking, we have to-day
reasonable men and instinctive women. Such notably was Ibsen's view:
"Woman cannot escape her primitive emotions." But he thought she should
control these inevitables so far as possible: "As soon as woman no
longer dominates her passions, she fails to achieve her objects."[6] The
distinction between reason and instinct, however, is not so wide as it
seems; for reason is merely the conscious use of observation, while
instinct is the unconscious use of the same faculty; but as the trend of
Feminism is to make woman self-conscious and sex-conscious, the
Feminists can be said broadly to be warring against instinct, and on the
side of reason. They look upon instinct as indicative of a low
mentality. For instance, the horse is less inst