the strongest arm was the most powerful machinery in the government of
the country, women were compelled naturally to occupy a less prominent
position in the conduct of the affairs of the nation; and for centuries
they have been degraded by a dominating tradition, and supposed
incapable of performing duties for which they were mentally well suited.
But those militant days are past. Animal strength and brute force are no
longer needed in the councils of the nation; and the time has arrived
when women should cease to be oppressed by the disparaging, illogical
deductions of former generations, and when their assistance ought to be
invoked in the great work of promoting the nation's welfare.

I have stated that marriage is an important political factor; and,
therefore, women have always occupied a primary, though obscure, part in
political affairs. The cohesion of the State has been produced by the
secret influence of family life. But it may be asked, What kind of
marriage is most conducive to national cohesion? This question has been
carefully and conclusively answered by a learned scientific writer, who
shows that polygamic marriage never exists in an advanced state, as
instanced by the history of Judaism and Mohammedanism; that a strict
form of monogamic marriage is essential to political greatness and true
progress in civilization. The cohesion of the State is destroyed by
polygamy, and by any system which relaxes the binding nature of the
marriage tie. 'Domestic disorganization is a sure augury of political
disruption.'

Cohesion, the essential property of all rightly constituted nations, is
often in danger of being lost when the State is geographically very
large, or when local interests have greater power than the attractive
force of the central government. To obviate this evil, the method of
centralization has been adopted with satisfactory results, as in the
case of the United States of America, and Germany.

By this means the local authorities are brought into close relationship
with the central head, and the centrifugal influences of independent
interests and customs are counteracted by the force of central
attraction. Centralization increases the importance of the whole body,
and, like the pendulum of a clock, regulates the movements of the whole
State. In some cases it tends to make the government despotic, when the
local governments are entirely under the control of the central; and
every enactment, and sch