Racing Hearts Melinda Di Lorenzo download
https://ebookbell.com/product/racing-hearts-melinda-di-
lorenzo-56619060
Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com
Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be
interested in. You can click the link to download.
Racing Hearts Beth Smart
https://ebookbell.com/product/racing-hearts-beth-smart-46317740
Racing Hearts 10 Thrilling Suspense Novels Nancy C Weeks Shay Lacy
Angela Smith Kay Rogal Elke Feuer Rionna Morgan Lynn Crandall Daco
Shelley K Wall Winter Austin
https://ebookbell.com/product/racing-hearts-10-thrilling-suspense-
novels-nancy-c-weeks-shay-lacy-angela-smith-kay-rogal-elke-feuer-
rionna-morgan-lynn-crandall-daco-shelley-k-wall-winter-austin-48921946
Racing Hearts Pine Valley College Book 1 Ka Knight
https://ebookbell.com/product/racing-hearts-pine-valley-college-
book-1-ka-knight-58694504
Racing Hearts Pine Valley College Book 1 Ka Knight
https://ebookbell.com/product/racing-hearts-pine-valley-college-
book-1-ka-knight-58738248
Rush Steamy Race Car Sport Billionaire Romance Racing Hearts Series
Book 1 Timms
https://ebookbell.com/product/rush-steamy-race-car-sport-billionaire-
romance-racing-hearts-series-book-1-timms-32867954
Blind Trust Woodland Creek Woodland Creek Ames Raci
https://ebookbell.com/product/blind-trust-woodland-creek-woodland-
creek-ames-raci-22225472
Hearts Of Lions The History Of American Bicycle Racing Peter Joffre
Nye
https://ebookbell.com/product/hearts-of-lions-the-history-of-american-
bicycle-racing-peter-joffre-nye-46386532
Tasty Cakes A Single Dad Second Chance Billionaire Romance Racing
Heart Series Book 1 Molly Sloan Sloan
https://ebookbell.com/product/tasty-cakes-a-single-dad-second-chance-
billionaire-romance-racing-heart-series-book-1-molly-sloan-
sloan-32774758
Bloodlust Blues A Heartracing And Completely Addictive Urban Fantasy
Charley Underwood Book 1 Luanne Bennett
https://ebookbell.com/product/bloodlust-blues-a-heartracing-and-
completely-addictive-urban-fantasy-charley-underwood-book-1-luanne-
bennett-56248158
Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
But among partners, is there really room for a ruling power? No,
there is room only for division of labor, mutual understanding with
respect to common interests. To consult each other, to come to an
agreement, to divide the tasks, to remain master each of his own
department; this is what the spouses should do, and what they do in
general.
The law has so little part in our customs that to-day things happen
in this wise: many rich women translate two articles of the Code as
follows; the husband shall obey his wife, and shall follow her
wherever she sees fit to dwell or sojourn. And the husbands obey,
because it would not do to offend a wife with a large dowry;
because it would make a scandal to thwart their wife; because they
need her, being unable, without dishonoring themselves, to keep a
mistress.
Husbands in the great centres of population escape obedience
through love outside of marriage; they lay no restrictions on their
part; Madame is free.
Among the working classes of the citizens and the people, it is
practically admitted that neither shall command, and that the
husband shall do nothing without consulting his wife and obtaining
her consent.
In all classes, if any husband is simple enough to take his pretended
right in earnest, he is cited as a bad man, an intolerable despot
whom his wife may hate and deceive with a safe conscience; and it
is a curious fact that the greater part of the legal separations are for
no other cause at the bottom than the exercise of the rights and
prerogatives conceded to the husbands by law.
I ask you now, what is the use of maintaining against reason and
custom, an authority which does not exist, or which is transferred to
the spouse condemned to subjection.
READER. On this point, I am wholly of your opinion; not a single
woman of modern times takes the rights of her husband in earnest.
But your theory not only attacks his authority; it also wages war
against the indissolubility of marriage, which it is affirmed, is
necessary to the dignity of this tie; to the happiness and future of
the children, to the morality of the family.
AUTHOR. I claim, on the contrary, that my theory secures, as far as is
humanly possible, the perpetuity and purity of marriage. At present,
when the knot is tied, the spouses, no longer fearing to lose each
other, find in the absence of this fear the germ of a mutual coolness;
they may quarrel, be discourteous or unfaithful to each other; there
will be scandal, a legal separation perhaps, but they are riveted
together; they can never become strangers. Contrast with this
picture a household in which the bond is dissoluble; all is changed;
the despotic or brutal husband represses his evil propensities,
because he knows that his companion, whom after all he loves,
would quit him and transfer to another the attentions she lavishes
on him; and that no honest woman would be willing to take her
place.
The husband disposed to be unfaithful would continue in the path of
duty, because his abandonment and offences would alienate his
wife, blast his reputation, and prevent him from forming an
honorable alliance.
The worn out profligate would no longer espouse the dowry of a
young girl, because he would know that, promptly disenchanted, the
young wife, instead of having recourse to adultery, would break the
ill assorted union.
The woman who should take advantage of her dowry, of the
necessity of her husband to remain faithful, to tyrannise over him,
would fear a divorce which would throw the blame on her and
condemn her to a life of solitude.
A shrewish wife would no longer dare to inflict suffering on her
husband, or a coquette to deceive or torment him; who would marry
them after a separation?
Do you not see that free marriages are happier and more lasting
than any others?
Have you not yourself admitted that to separate the parties in these
unions, it often suffices to join them legally?
I know myself of a voluntary union that was very happy during
twenty-two years, and was dissolved by separation at the end of
three years of legal marriage; I have known of many others of a
shorter duration which legality contributed to dissolve instead of
rendering eternal.
You would hardly believe how many married couples reformed in
their treatment of each other in 1848, when they feared that the law
of divorce might be accepted. If the simple expedient of divorce has
power to produce good results, what may not be expected from a
rational law.
We need only to reflect in order to comprehend that voluntary
dissolubility, without social intervention, would render unions better
assorted, for it would be for one's interest, for his own reputation, to
enter into them only with the moral conviction of being able to
preserve them; then only would no excuse be found for infidelity;
loyalty would make part of the relations of the spouses. The law of
perpetuity has perverted everything, corrupted everything; on the
side of the woman, it favors, yes, necessitates stratagem; on the
side of the man, it favors brutality and despotism; it provokes on
both sides adultery, poisoning and assassination; and leads to those
separations which are daily increasing in number, and which, by
giving the lie to the indissolubility of marriage, place the partners in
a painful and perilous situation, and bring in their train a host of
irregularities.
In fact, if the spouses are separated while young, concubinage is
their refuge. The man in this false position finds many to excuse
him; but the woman is forced to conceal herself, to tremble at the
thought of a pregnancy and to make it disappear. Legal separation
leads the spouses not only to concubinage, to mutual hatred, but
causes the birth of thousands of children whose future is
compromised, destroyed by the fact of their illegitimacy. Let the
spouses be free in accordance with their right, and all will fall into its
proper order, for all will be done openly and truly.
READER. But the future of the children?
AUTHOR. The morality of the children is better insured under the
system of liberty than under that of indissolubility, for they will not
be witnesses for years of the bitter contention and licentiousness
which now render them deceitful and vicious, and inspire them with
contempt or hatred for one of the authors of their being, sometimes
of both, when they do not take them for models; if life in common
becomes impossible to the parents, which will be more rare under
the law of liberty, the children will not be subjected to the power of
those who violate the law of received morality; they may see these
parents contract a new alliance as now, but this alliance will be
honored by all.
From these unions children may be born as now, but these children,
instead of being cast into the hospital, will share with the first the
affection and inheritance of their father or mother. The so-styled
legitimate children will lose in fortune, it is true; but they will gain in
good examples; many children who are now in the category of the
illegitimate will be ranked among the former, and will be no longer
condemned by desertion to die young, or else to grovel in ignorance,
vice and misery; to see their brow branded with the fault of their
parents as of their own by a host of imbeciles and men without
heart, who have no other guarantee for what they call their
legitimacy than the presumption accorded them by the law.
III.
READER. It will be long yet, perhaps, before collective Reason
comprehends liberty in the union of the sexes as you do, and men
will ascribe to themselves the right not only of binding the interests,
but the souls and bodies of the spouses.
AUTHOR. As far as we can foresee, Society must necessarily? pass
through two stages to realize our opinion; it must first grant divorce
for a declared cause; later it will grant divorce decreed in private on
the petition of one or both of the spouses. We will not take up this
last form of the rupture of the conjugal tie, but that which is nearest
us—divorce for a declared cause.
What are the reasons which you would consider valid for a petition
for divorce?
READER. First, those which now give rise to separation from bed and
board: adultery of the wife, cruelty, grave abuses, condemnation of
one of the spouses to punishment affecting the liberty or person, the
fraudulent management of the property by the husband; next,
infidelity of the husband, qualified adultery, incompatibility of
temper, notable vices, such as drunkenness, gaming, etc.
AUTHOR. Very well; these causes suffice.
READER. During the proceedings for divorce, the wife should be as
free as the husband. The child that should be born to her after more
than ten months' separation should be reputed natural, even though
the divorce had not been pronounced; and should bear her name
and inherit from her like one of her legitimate children.
AUTHOR. Who should take custody of the children and the property
during the proceedings?
READER. The court should decide who should have the care of the
children, in accordance with the causes for the petition for divorce
and the testimony of the parents, friends and neighbors.
AUTHOR. But if the spouses ask to be divorced only on account of
incompatibility of temper, and are both honorable?
READER. They should be requested to agree mutually either to share
the children, or to entrust them to one of the two, or to give the
younger children to the mother, leaving the sons over fifteen to the
father. The court, besides, should appoint from the family of the
mother, a guardian to watch over the conduct of the father towards
the children left in his care; and from the family of the father, a
similar guardian to the mother and the children remaining with her.
This guardianship, which should be strictly moral, should continue till
the children had attained majority.
AUTHOR. And in case the parents should be alike unworthy?
READER. In such a case, which would seldom happen, the judge, in
behalf of society, should deprive them of the custody of the children,
and entrust it to a member of the family of one of the parents,
appointing a guardian to watch over his conduct and protect the
interests of his ward from the family of the other.
AUTHOR. Very well; I see with pleasure that you are cured of the
erroneous belief that the children belong to the parents, and that
you comprehend the high function of society as the protector of
minors.
During the suit for divorce, who shall have the control of the
property?
READER. If the contract has been made under the system of
separation of property, and for paraphernalia, there is no need of
putting the question; each one will manage his own.
But I am somewhat puzzled how to answer you in case of
communion of goods, or in case the capital is embarked in a
common business, carried on solely by one of the parties. The
present law does not seem to me sufficiently to protect the interests
of the wife in case of separation.
AUTHOR. Without entangling ourselves in a host of individual cases
which modify or contradict each other, let us provide that in case of
communion of goods, the administration of the property shall be
taken from the spouse holding it if the petition for divorce be based
on his bad management, his dissipated habits, or his condemnation
to a penalty affecting his liberty or person; that in all other cases, he
shall make an inventory of the property and the condition of the
business; and a person shall be appointed from the family of the
spouse excluded from the management to watch over the conduct of
the spouse to whom it is entrusted, who shall be bound to pay
alimony to the other until the divorce shall be decreed.
READER. And if there is no fortune?
AUTHOR. Until the spouses become strangers, they owe assistance to
each other: the court should therefore require the spouse that earns
the more to aid the other.
READER. How long a time should elapse between the admission of
the petition and the judgment of divorce?
AUTHOR. A year, in order that the parties may have time for
reflection.
READER. The divorce being granted, and the ex-partners restored to
liberty, would you permit them to marry others?
AUTHOR. Most assuredly; else what signifies our arguments against
separation?
READER. What! the adulterous and brutal spouse, he who has
inflicted suffering on his partner, who has been wholly in the wrong,
should enjoy like the other the privilege of marrying again? I confess
that this shocks me.
AUTHOR. Because you are not sufficiently imbued with the doctrines
of liberty and the sentiment of right. Marriage is the natural right of
every adult; society has no right therefore to prohibit it or to make it
a privilege; on the other hand, in every divorce, there is wrong or
the lack of something on either side with respect to the other; the
man or woman who commits adultery may be a model of fidelity to
a partner better suited to his or her temperament and disposition;
he who has been brutal and violent may be wholly different with a
wife possessing a different character; in short, we repeat, to prohibit
marriage is to permit libertinism, and it is not the interest of society
to pervert itself. Both partners therefore should have a right to
marry, but the law should take care that all should be informed of
the burdens resting upon them by reason of their first marriage, and
know that they are divorced. Consequently, society has a right to
publish the bill of divorce, and to require that the parties divorced
should provide for the necessities of their minor children, and that
the bill of divorce, joined to the one setting forth this obligation,
should accompany the publication of the bans of a new marriage; in
this, there is neither injustice nor abuse of power; for each one will
submit to the consequence of what he has done in perfect freedom.
READER. And would you not fix the number of times that a divorced
person might re-marry?
AUTHOR. Why fix it? do you fix the number of times that a widow or
widower may marry again?
READER. But a libertine, a bad man might marry ten times, and thus
render ten women unhappy.
AUTHOR. What are you talking of! do you seriously believe that there
would be a woman insane enough to marry a man nine times
divorced, a man obliged to accompany the publication of his bans
with nine bills of divorce, with nine judgements compelling him to
pay so much yearly for the support of seven, eight or nine children.
Do you seriously believe that a woman would consent to become the
companion of such a man! This man might indeed marry twice—but
three times! do you think that it would be possible?
READER. You are right, and on reflection, the measures which you
advocate appear perhaps severe.
AUTHOR. I know it; but our aim is not to favor divorces nor
subsequent unions; but, on the contrary, to prevent the former as
far as possible by the difficulties of forming the latter. Now for this it
is not necessary to restrict the liberty of the individual, but to render
him responsible for his acts, and to rivet the chain that he has
forged for himself in such a manner that he can neither cast it aside
nor lay the burden of it on others unless they are duly warned of it
and consent thereto.
IV.
READER. Ought society to permit unions disproportioned in age? Is it
not to expose a woman to adultery, to marry her at seventeen or
eighteen to a man of thirty, forty or even fifty years of age? What
harmony of sentiments and views can exist at that time between the
spouses? The wife sees in her husband a sort of father, whom
notwithstanding she can neither love nor respect like a father, and
she remains a minor all her life.
AUTHOR. These unions are very prejudicial to woman and the race,
and they would be for the most part averted, if the law should fix
the marriageable age at twenty-four or twenty-five for both sexes. At
seventeen, we marry to be called Madame, and to wear a bridal
dress and a wreath of orange flowers; we certainly should not do
this at twenty-five.
If the flower is not called on to form its fruit until it is fully matured,
neither should man and woman: now, in our climate the
organization of neither is complete until twenty-four or twenty-five.
Woman gives more to the great work of reproduction and wears out
faster in it; to render her liable to become a mother prematurely is
therefore to expose her to greater sufferings.
In the first place, she is forced to share between herself and her
offspring the elements necessary to her own nutrition, which
weakens both her and the child.
Her development is checked, her constitution is changed, she
becomes predisposed to uterine affections, and runs the risk of
becoming an invalid at the age when she ought to enjoy robust
health.
The enervation of the body brings with it that of the mind: the
woman becomes nervous, irritable, and often capricious; she cannot
nurse her children; she will not be capable of rearing them properly,
she will make dolls of them, and will favor the development of faults
which afterwards becoming vices, will afflict the family and society.
This woman, a mother before her time, not only will never become
the thoughtful companion and counsellor of her husband who, being
much older than she, will amuse himself with her as with a child, but
will be his ward for her whole life, and will have recourse to artifice
to have her own way. Thus to weaken woman in every respect, to
shorten her life, to put her under guardianship, to prepare the way
for puny and badly reared offspring,—such are the most obvious
results of her precocious marriage.
To hold women in voluntary subjection and to organize the harem
among us, we need only take advantage of the permission of the
law authorising their marriage at the age of fifteen.
That woman may not be in subjection; that she may be able to
become a mother without detriment to her health and under
circumstances favorable to the good organization of her children;
that she may be a worthy and earnest wife, prepared to fulfill all her
duties, she must not be married, I repeat, before twenty-four or
twenty-five; and she must not marry a man older than herself.
READER. But it is claimed that the husband ought to be ten years
older than the wife, because the latter grows old faster, and because
it is necessary that the husband should have had experience in life in
order to appreciate his wife and to render her happy.
AUTHOR. Errors and prejudices all. Woman grows old sooner than
man only through premature marriage and maternity; a well
preserved man and woman are alike old at the same age. But the
woman consents to grow old while the man is much less willing to
do so, since he does not blush when gray haired, to marry a young
girl, and to set up the ridiculous pretention of being loved by her for
love. Men must be broken of the habit of believing themselves
perpetually at the age of pleasing; of imagining that they are quite
as agreeable to our eyes when they are old and ugly as if they were
Adonises. They must be told unceasingly that what is unbecoming in
us is equally so in them; and that an old woman would be no more
ridiculous in seeking the love of a young man, than an old man in
pretending to that of a young girl.
The husband and wife should be nearly of the same age; first, to
treat each other more easily as equals; next, because there will be
more harmony in their feelings and views, as well as in their
temperaments, all things very necessary to the organization of
children.
It is necessary besides, in order that the woman may not be
tempted to infidelity; you know how many troubles arise from unions
disproportioned in age.
The husband must have seen life, it is said; this is the opinion of
those who permit their sons to sow their wild oats; who believe that
man is at liberty to wallow in the mire of dens of infamy, and that
there are two kinds of morality. We do not belong to this class. You
would not give your daughter to a man who had seen life, because
he would be blasé, because he would pervert her or expose her,
through the disenchantment that would follow, to seek in another
what she did not find in her husband.
What we have said as regards your daughter applies also to your
son; he must not marry a woman younger than himself; for you
would no more desire a disadvantageous position for your daughter-
in-law than for your daughter; both are dear to you and worthy of
respect before the solidarity of sex.
READER. I shall educate my son to comprehend that the form of
marriage prescribed by the Code is merely a relic of barbarism, that
his wife owes obedience only to Duty, that she is a free being and
his equal; and that he has no rights over her person but those which
she herself accords to him. I shall tell him that love is a tender plant
which must be tended carefully to keep it alive; that it is blighted by
unceremoniousness and slovenliness; that he should therefore be as
careful of his personal appearance after marriage as he was to be
pleasing to the eyes of his betrothed. I shall say to him: ask nothing
except from the love of your wife; remember that more than one
husband has excited repulsion by the brutality of the wedding night.
Marriage, my son, is a grave and holy thing; purity is its choicest
jewel; know that many men have owed the adultery of their wife to
the deplorable pains that they have taken to deprave her
imagination. Far from using your influence over her who will be the
half of yourself in order to render her docile to your wishes, and to
make her your echo, develop reason and character in her; in
elevating her, you will become better, and will prepare for yourself a
counsel and stay. I have married you under the system of separation
of goods in order that your wife may be protected against you,
should you depart from your principles; and should you ever grieve
me by straying from them, your wife will became doubly my
daughter. I shall be her companion and consoler, and shall close my
arms and my doors on you.
AUTHOR. Right, and you will do well to add: interest your wife in
your occupation; take care that she is always busy, for labor is the
preserver of chastity.
READER. To my daughter I will say: the social order in which we live
requires, my child, that you shall superintend your house; the state
of Society is still far distant in which our sex will be relieved from this
function. Do not forget that the prosperity of the family depends on
the spirit of order and economy of the wife. What your fortune or
special business exempts you from executing, superintend and
direct. Extravagance of dress and furniture now surpasses all
bounds. Luxury is not wrong in itself, but in the existing state of
things, it is a great relative evil, for we have not yet resolved the
problem of increasing and varying products without at the same time
increasing the wretchedness and debasement of their producers. Be
simple therefore: this does not exclude elegance, but only those
piles of silks and laces which trail in the dust of the streets, those
diamonds and precious stones which make the fortune of the few at
the expense of the morality of the many, and which are only dead
capital, the liberation of which would be productive of great good.
Do not suffer yourself to be ensnared by the sophism that honest
women must adorn themselves to hinder men from passing their
time with courtesans. Would you not be ashamed to compete in
dress with women whom you do not esteem, and would the man
who could be retained by such means be worth the trouble?
I have instructed you in your legal position as wife, mother and
property holder; I marry you under the system of separation of
goods in order to spare your husband the temptation of regarding
himself as your master; in order that he may be obliged to take your
advice and to look upon you as his partner. Despite these
precautions, you will be a minor, since the law thus decrees. But our
law is not Reason: never forget that you are a human being; that is,
a being endowed like your husband with intellect, sentiments, free
will, and inclination; that you owe submission only to Reason and
your conscience; that if it is your duty to make sacrifices to the
peace in little things, and to tolerate the faults of your husband as
he should tolerate yours, it is none the less your duty resolutely to
resist a brutal—I will have it so.
You will be a mother, I hope; nurse your children yourself, rear them
in the principles of Right and Duty which I have instilled into your
intellect and heart, in order to make of them, not only just, good,
chaste men and women, but laborers in the great work of Progress.
You understand the great destiny of our species; you understand
your rights and duties; I need not therefore repeat to you that
woman is no more made for man than man for woman; that
consequently woman cannot, without failing in her duty, become lost
and absorbed in man; for with him, she should love her children, her
country, humanity; she owes more to her children than she does to
him; and if forced to choose between family interests and generous
sentiments of a higher order woman should no more hesitate than
should man to sacrifice the former to justice.
AUTHOR. It will be said that you instruct your daughter in a very
manly way.
READER. Since in our days men play the mandolin, is it not necessary
that women should speak seriously? Since men, in the name of their
naïve selfishness, claim the right to confiscate woman to their use,
to extol to her the charms of the gyneceum, to suppress her rights,
and to preach to her the sweets of absorption, must not women re-
act against these soporific doctrines, and recall their daughters to
the sentiment of dignity and individuality.
AUTHOR. I endorse you with all my heart!
Now that we are nearly agreed on all points, we have only to sum
up what we have said, and to give an outline of the principal reforms
necessary to be wrought in order that woman my be placed in a
position more in conformity with Right and Justice.
SUMMARY OF PROPOSED REFORMS.
I.
AUTHOR. Identity of right being based on identity of species, and
woman being of the same species as man, what ought she to be
before civil dignity, in the employment of her activity and in
marriage?
READER. The equal of man.
AUTHOR. How will she become the equal of man in civil dignity?
READER. When she shall hold a place on the jury and by the side of
all civil functionaries; shall be a member of boards of trade and
mercantile associations; and shall be a witness in all cases in which
the testimony of man is required.
AUTHOR. Why ought the testimony of woman to be admitted in all
cases in which that of man is required?
READER. Because woman is as credible as man; because she is, like
him, a civil personage.
AUTHOR. Why ought woman to have a place on the jury?
READER. Because the Code declaring her the equal of man as
regards culpability, misdemeanor, crime and punishment, she is thus
declared capable like him of comprehending wrong in others;
Because the jury being a guarantee for the male culprit, the female
culprit should have a similar guarantee;
Because if the male criminal is better comprehended by men, the
female criminal will be better comprehended by women;
Because society in its aggregate being offended by the crime, it is
necessary that this society, composed of two sexes, should be
represented by both to judge and to condemn it. Because, lastly,
where the moral sense is concerned, the feminine element is the
more necessary inasmuch as men claim that our sex is in general
more moral and more merciful than their own.
AUTHOR. Why ought woman to hold a place among civil
functionaries?
READER. Because society, represented by these functionaries, is
composed of two sexes;
Because even now in a number of public functions, there is a
department more especially belonging to woman;
Because, in the ceremony of the marriage celebration for instance, if
woman does not appear as magistrate, not only is society
insufficiently represented, but the wife may regard herself as
delivered up to the power of a man by all the men of the country.
AUTHOR. Why ought woman to have her place in boards of trade and
mercantile associations?
READER. Because she shares equally in industrial production;
Because she shares equally in commerce;
Because she understands business transactions and contracts as well
if not better than man;
Because, in all questions of interests, she should be her own
representative.
AUTHOR. When will woman become the equal of man in the
employment of her activity and of her other faculties?
READER. When she shall have colleges, academies and schools for
special instruction, and when all vocations shall be accessible to her.
AUTHOR. Why ought women to receive the same national education
as men?
READER. Because they exercise a vast influence over the ideas,
sentiments and conduct of men, and because it is for the interest of
society that this influence should be salutary;
Because it is for the interest of all to enlarge the views and elevate
the sentiments of women, in order that they may use their natural
ascendency for the advancement of progress, of truth, of good, of
moral beauty;
Because woman has a right, like man, to cultivate her intellect, and
to acquire the knowledge bestowed by the state;
Because, lastly, as she pays her part of the expenses of national
education, it is robbery to prohibit her from participating in it.
AUTHOR. Why ought woman to be admitted to academies and
professional schools?
READER. Because Society, not having a right to deny the existence of
any aptitude among its members, has consequently no right to
prevent those who claim to possess them from cultivating them, nor
to lock up from them the treasures of science and practice which are
at its disposal.
Because there are women who are born chemists, physicians,
mathematicians, etc., and because these women have a right to find
in social institutions the same resources as man for the cultivation of
their aptitudes;
Because there are professions practised by women who need the
instruction that is interdicted them.
AUTHOR. Why ought every field of occupation to be accessible to
woman?
READER. Because woman is a free being, whose vocation no one has
a right to contest or to restrict;
Because she, no more than man, will enter vocations forbidden her
by temperament, lack of aptitude or want of time; and it is therefore
quite as unnecessary to interdict them to her as to those men who
are unfit to enter them.
AUTHOR. Do you not even interdict to her those vocations in which
strength is needed, or which are attended with danger?
READER. Women are not forbidden to be carpenters or tilers, yet
they do not become such, because their nature opposes it; it is
precisely because nature does oppose it, that I think society
unreasonable in meddling with the nature. There is no need to
prohibit what is impossible; and if what has been declared
impossible is done, it is because it is possible: now society has no
right to prohibit what is possible to any of its members; this appears
even absurd where vocation is in question.
AUTHOR. Let each one follow his private occupation at his own risk
and peril, then; but are there not certain public functions which are
not suitable for women?
READER. No one knows this, since they are not open for her
admission; and, were it so, the prohibition would be useless:
competition would show the falsity of ill-founded pretentions.
AUTHOR. When will woman become the equal of man in marriage?
READER.When the person of the wife is not pledged in marriage;
when the engagements are reciprocal, and when the wife is not
treated as a minor and absorbed in the husband. And this should be
so:
Because it is not allowable to alienate one's personality, such an
alienation, being immoral and void of itself;
Because the wife being a distinct individual, cannot be actually
absorbed by the husband, and a law is absurd when it rests on a
fiction and supposes an impossibility;
Because, in fine, woman, being the equal of man before Society,
cannot, under any pretext, lose this equality by reason of a closer
association with him.
AUTHOR. There are two questions in marriage, aside from that of the
person—property and children. Do you not think that the married
woman ought, like the unmarried woman who has attained majority,
to be mistress of her property, to be free to exercise any profession
that suits her, and to be at liberty to sell, to buy, to give, to receive,
and to institute suits at law?
READER. The married man having all these rights, it is evident that
the married woman ought to have them under the law of equality.
Are you not of the same opinion?
AUTHOR. In all partnerships, we pledge a portion of our liberty on
certain points agreed upon. Now the husband and wife are partners;
they cannot therefore be as perfectly free with respect to each other
as though they were strangers; but it is necessary, we repeat, that
their position should be the same and their pledges mutual. If the
wife can neither sell, nor alienate, nor give, nor receive, nor appear
in court without the consent of the husband, it is not allowable for
the husband to do these things without the consent of the wife; if
the wife is not permitted to practise a profession without the consent
of the husband, the husband is not at liberty to do so without the
consent of the wife; if the wife cannot pledge the common property
without authority from the husband, the husband cannot pledge it
Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.
More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge
connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.
Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and
personal growth every day!
ebookbell.com
