Social Science and Woman Suffrage. 73 



We have no confidence in the distinction so often sought to 

 to be made between natural and political rights. Political 

 rights grow only out of natural rights, and of these latter wo- 

 man has as many and as comprehensive as man. And if the 

 agitation which we are having on this subject shall explode 

 the notion that man has some royal political prerogatives over 

 woman, it will have done a good work toward settling a basis 

 of correct ideal of the relation which should exist between the 

 sexes. 



We challenge also another of our political aphorisms com- 

 monly regarded as axiomatic ; to wit — that rights and duties 

 con'espond. This is only ideally true. It cannot be pressed 

 in practical life. We may have rights by the score without 

 duties attached. The man who stays by the bedside of a sick 

 wife or child, may have the right to vote. The duty may be 

 not to vote. So long as it is a question of "rights," we are 

 convinced that the right of a woman to vote is as good as that 

 of a man. But we have not solved the problem of society 

 when we have thought along the single line of personal rights. 



When in practical life all questions are considered, it may 

 not appear to be the duty of woman to assume active partici- 

 pation in politics. With the same inherent right to have share 

 in political affau's as man, woman may nevertheless refuse to 

 consider it to be her duty, either • from the consciousness that 

 nature has assigned her sufficient duties of another character, 

 or that she has already assumed a sufficient number of her 

 own choice. 



We see no insuperable obstacle why government may not 

 sit finnly in the " consent of the governed," though half of 

 the governed be women without the ballot, not even if 

 the statute gives the ballot to males exclusively. That statute 

 may and ought to express the consent and conviction of wo- 

 man as well as of man. We hope the discussion respecting 

 "rights " will be continued till this result is attained. Let no 

 government over woman rest on the suspicion of might or of 



