560 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which people unite for a common object, from making a pair of shoes 

 up to governing an empire, in which the power to decide does not rest 

 somewhere ; and what is this but command and obedience ? Of course 

 the person who for the time being is in command is of all fools the 

 greatest if he deprives himself of the advantage of advice, if he is 

 obstinate in his own opinion, if he does not hear as well as determine ; 

 but it is also practically certain that his inclination to hear will be 

 proportioned to the degree of importance which he has been led to 

 attach to the function of determining. 



To sum the matter up, it appears to me that all the laws and moral 

 rules by which the relation between the sexes is regulated should pro- 

 ceed upon the principle that their object is to provide for the common 

 good of two great divisions of mankind who are connected together 

 by the closest and most durable of all bonds, and who can no more 

 have really conflicting interests than the different members of the same 

 body, but who are not and never can be equals in any of the different 

 forms of strength. 



This problem law and morals have solved by monogamy, indis- 

 soluble marriage on the footing of the obedience of the wife to the 

 husband, and a division of labor with corresponding differences in the 

 matters of conduct, manners, and dress. Substantially this solution 

 appears to me to be right and true ; but I freely admit that in many 

 particulars the stronger party has in this, as in other cases, abused his 

 strength, and made rules for his supposed advantage, which, in fact, 

 are greatly to the injury of both parties. It is, needless to say any 

 thing in detail of the stupid coarseness of the laws about the effects 

 of marriage on property laws which might easily be replaced by a 

 general statutory marriage settlement analogous to those which every 

 prudent person makes who has any thing to settle. As to acts of vio- 

 lence against women, by all means make the law on this head as severe 

 as it can be made without defeating itself. 



As to throwing open to women the one or two employments from 

 which they are at present excluded, it is rather a matter of sentiment 

 than of practical importance. I need not revive in this place a trite 

 discussion. My object at present is simply to establish the general 

 proposition that men and women are not equals, and that the laws 

 which affect their relations ought to recognize that fact. 



In my next letter I shall examine the opinion that laws which rec- 

 ognize any sort of inequality between human beings are mere vestiges 

 of the past, against which as such there lies the strongest of all pre- 

 sumptions. I am, sir, your obedient servant, "F." 



