210 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



The foregoing considerations go to show that the main reason of 

 woman's position lies in her nature. That she has not competed 

 with men in the active work of life was probably because, not having 

 had the power, she had not the desire to do so, and because, having 

 the capacity of functions which man has not, she has found her pleas- 

 ure in performing them. It is not simply that man, being stronger in 

 body than she is, has held her in subjection, and debarred her from 

 careers of action which he was resolved to keep for himself; her 

 maternal functions must always have rendered, and must continue 

 to render, most of her activity domestic. There have been times 

 enough in the history of the world when the freedom which she has 

 had, and the position which she has held in the estimation of men, 

 would have enabled her to assert her claims to other functions, had 

 she so willed it. The most earnest advocate of her rights to be some- 

 thing else than what she has hitherto been would hardly argue that 

 she has always been in the position of a slave kept in forcible sub- 

 jection by the superior physical force of men. Assuredly, if she has 

 been a slave she has been a slave content with her bondage. But it 

 may perhaps be said that in that lies the very pith of the matter — 

 that she is not free, and does not care to be free ; that she is a slave, 

 and does not know or feel it. It may be alleged that she has lived 

 for so many ages in the position of dependence to which she was 

 originally reduced by the superior muscular strength of man, has 

 been so thoroughly imbued with inherited habits of submission, and 

 a\'erawed by the influence of customs never questioned, that she has 

 not the desire for emancipation ; that thus a moral bondage has been 

 established more eflectual than an actual physical bondage. That 

 she has now exhibited a disposition to emancipate herself, and has 

 initiated a movement to that end, may be owmg partly to the easy 

 means of intellectual intercommunication in this age, whereby a few 

 women scattered through the world, who felt the impulses of a higher 

 inspiration, have been enabled to cooperate in a way that would have 

 been impossible in former times, and partly to the awakened moral 

 sense, and to the more enliglitened views of men, which have led to 

 the encouragement and assistance, instead of the suppression, of their 

 efforts. 



It would be rash to assert that there is not some measure of truth 

 in these arguments. Let any one who thinks otherwise reflect upon 

 the degraded condition of women in Turkey, where habit is so in- 

 grained in their nature, and custom so powerful over the mind, that 

 they have neither thought nor desire to attain to a higher state, and 

 " naught feel their foul disgrace : " a striking illustration how women 

 may be demoralized and yet not know or feel it, and an instructive 

 lesson for those who are anxious to form a sound judgment upon the 

 merits of the movement for promoting their higher education and the 

 removal of the legal disabilities under which they labor. It is hardly 



