No account of women's rights would be complete without some notice of the claim to equality in marriage. This is the goal to which history points. "Among tribes which are still in a primitive condition, women were and are the slaves of men for pur poses of toil. All the hard bodily labor devolves on them. In a state somewhat more advanced, as in Asia, women were and are the slaves of men for purposes of sensuality. In Europe there early succeeded a third and milder dominion, secured, not by blows, nor by locks and bars, but by sedulous inculcation on the mind; feelings also of kind ness, and ideas of duty, such as a superior owes to inferiors under his protection, became more and more involved in the relation. But it did not for many ages become a relation of companionship, even between unequals." That stage has now been attained, and " for the first time in the world, men and women are really companions." Women cannot be good companions for men unless they are equals. If they are kept inferior in education and knowledge their influence will tend to drag men down to their own level. The intercourse, moreover, that is of value is not intercourse between an active and a passive mind, but between two active minds. The theory of the subordination of women involves several bad consequences; for, women being unable to attain their ends directly, have recourse to management and artifice.
The general movement of society is from subordination to equality. Under the
feudal system society was constituted on the principle ,of subordination. The land was tilled by serfs, and there were few but said that serfdom was the natural position of a creature so low as an agricultural laborer. But serfdom did not endure, and we have learned that it is happier for all parties that the land should be tilled by freemen. And now, too, negro slavery, the most plausible form of slavery, has been abolished. The tendency of social changes is toward equality, as the most satisfactory relation between man and man; it also seems to point to equality as the highest relation between man and woman.
In the year 1869 an important step was taken toward the recognition of the claim for the concession of political franchises to women. In a bill passed in parliament respect ing municipal elections a clause was inserted extending the right of voting at such elec tions to women. Similarly, by the English and Scoter] education acts of 1870 and 1872, women are permitted to vote at the elections of school-boards.—The subject of women's rights is discussed in the following: Dissertations and Discussions, by J. S. Mill, vol. ii., "Enfranchisement of Women ;" The Political and Social Dependence of Women (1867); The Industrial and Social Position of Women (1857); speech by J. S. Mill in house of commons, May 21, 1867; The Westminster Review, Jan., 1867; prof. Cairnes in Macmil lan's Magazine, Sept., 1874.