great
classes--virgins, wives, and prostitutes, a purely physical
classification. You commanded chastity. We have never had the right to
choose it. Women have never been real parents. They are only the mothers
of the children of men. The small, almost negligible influence they
have over their sons proves that. After the years of childhood are
passed sons sustain only a sentimental relation to their mothers. They
are inspired by them merely as religion or poetry inspires. Your
institutions, social, moral, economic, and political, do not represent
us nor our needs. But they represent you men.

"Every civilization is a bachelor civilization, with good or bad
provision in it for the protection of women. But we do live, and like
other sentient beings we desire to express ourselves in life, not merely
in poetry. Listen, men," she said, bending sweetly forward like a lily
in the golden gloom. "After they had knowledge, the first pair, man and
woman, went out of the garden _together_! But you, with your beautiful
but mistaken chivalry, have gone out and left us in the garden, the
helpless, kept women of your love and desires. We wish to come out, to
be with you. We must come! Once we have tasted knowledge, once we know
what better things we are for, we must follow you to the ends of the
earth. This everlasting garden where you keep us is no place for a
thoughtful person. It is too limited by innocence and idleness. We are
no longer innocent, we know the same things you know; we have the same
education, the same thoughts, the same aspirations. Disobedience is not
always a sin. When the first man and woman tasted of the fruit of
knowledge, they simply assumed a terrific responsibility. But they
assumed it _together_! You are withholding from us this right to live by
your side. We are doing too much, or nothing at all. And you are not
sharing justly with us. We are losing our old places in your hearts.
After all, this is not the golden age of poetry and knights. The very
pedestal upon which we once stood in your regard has been overturned by
realities. We have ceased to be your ideals dearly cherished. It is not
our fault nor yours. No one is to blame. This movement of women is as
natural as any other growth. We are migrating out of the legendary into
the real; we are passing from sentiment and romance into history. And we
have arrived! Nothing can stop us. You only shame yourselves, your
manhood, and your honour if you oppose us.