wish to unsex her completely.
They wish to deprive her of those privileges which she possesses at
present owing to her sex. The philosopher of British Socialism informs
us: "The law nowadays makes no distinction of persons between men.
True; but it makes distinctions between men and women, and where law
draws no distinction, practice does. 'Benefit of clergy' is superseded
by 'benefit of sex.'"[966] "The tendency of the bourgeoisie world, as
expressed in its legislation and sentiment, has been towards a
factitious exaltation of the woman at the expense of the man--in other
words, the cry for 'equality between the sexes' has in the course of
its realisation become a sham, masking a _de facto_ inequality. The
inequality in question presses, as usual, heaviest upon the working
man, whose wife, to all intents and purposes, now has him completely
in her power. If dissolute or drunken, she can sell up his goods or
break up his home at pleasure and still compel him to keep her and
live with her to her life's end. There is no law to protect him. On
the other hand, let him but raise a finger in a moment of exasperation
against this precious representative of the sacred principle of
'womanhood,' and straightway he is consigned to the treadmill for his
six months amid the jubilation of the 'Daily Telegraph' and its
kindred, who pronounce him a brute and sing paeans over the power of
the 'law' to protect the innocent and helpless female. Thus does
bourgeois society offer sacrifice to the idol 'equality between the
sexes.' For the law jealously guards the earnings or property of the
wife from possible spoliation. She on any colourable pretext can
obtain magisterial separation and protection."[967] Bax concludes that
if the law is right in flogging men it should flog women too, for "the
brutality and cowardice of the proceeding is no greater in the one
case than in the other."[968]

The abolition of the marriage tie may mean that general barracks will
take the place of private houses. Is the home worth preserving? Most
Socialists think it is not. "It may be doubted after all whether it
is necessary to regard 'the home' in the sense in which the phrase is
here used as the final and immutable form of social organisation.
Humanity does not stand or fall by the arrangement whereby families
take their food in segregated cubicles."[969] "The entire preparation
of food will be undertaken by society in the future. The private
kitchen will d