rength of the radical program is now, as it has always
been, the powerful appeal it makes to the serious young woman. Man and
marriage are a trap--that is the essence the young woman draws from
the campaign for woman's rights. All the vague terror which at times
runs through a girl's dream of marriage, the sudden vision of probable
agonies, of possible failure and death, become under the teachings of
the militant woman so many realities. She sees herself a "slave," as
the jargon has it, putting all her eggs into one basket with the
certainty that some, perhaps all, will be broken.

The new gospel offers an escape from all that. She will be a "free"
individual, not one "tied" to a man. The "drudgery" of the household
she will exchange for what she conceives to be the broad and inspiring
work which men are doing. For the narrow life of the family she will
escape to the excitement and triumph of a "career." The Business of
Being a Woman becomes something to be apologized for. All over the
land there are women with children clamoring about them, apologizing
for never having _done_ anything! Women whose days are spent in trade
and professions complacently congratulate themselves that they at
least have _lived_. There were girls in the early days of the
movement, as there no doubt are to-day, who prayed on their knees that
they might escape the frightful isolation of marriage, might be free
to "live" and to "work," to "know" and to "do."

What it was really all about they never knew until it was too late.
That is, they examined neither the accusations nor the premises. They
accepted them. Strong young natures are quick to accept charges of
injustice. To them it is unnatural that life should be hampered, that
it should be anything but radiant. Curing injustice, too, seems
particularly easy to the young. It is simply a matter of finding a
remedy and putting it into force! The young American woman of
militant cast finds it is easy to believe that the Business of Being a
Woman is slavery. She has her mother's pains and sacrifices and tears
before her, and she resents them. She meets the theory on every hand
that the distress she loathes is of man's doing, that it is for her to
revolt, to enter his business, and so doing escape his tyranny, find a
worth-while life for herself, and at the same time help "liberate" her
sex.

And so for sixty years she has been working on this thesis. That she
has not demonstrated it sufficiently