380 LITERARY PAPERS 



ity; this is the inequality of duties, which is sorely felt by many 

 women. The loading of all domestic cares upon the woman, 

 to the exclusion of other duties to herself. The arbitrarily 

 established customs of society that men should labor for the 

 support of families and women should devote themselves to 

 the domestic work of the households, is an unequal position 

 from the point of view that either sex is lowered from its sphere 

 if assuming the scope of the other. A writer has said that this 

 fact of forcing household duties upon woman as a specialty 

 "is alone a proof of the inferiority which society ascribes to 

 woman, since it assigns her duties which it confesses are be- 

 neath the dignity of male labor.'' 



One other inequality is the inequality in the making of the 

 laws. Men make the laws, and, by voting, select the rulers 

 and representatives of women as well as themselves. If hap- 

 piness depends upon enlarged sources of activity, then truth 

 rests in these words : " It is quite certain that in all distribu- 

 tion of happiness, the stronger sex has seized the lion's share." 



The words just quoted are worth remembering when studied 

 in company with the utterances of one party among writers, 

 who maintain that masculine force has had no share in wo- 

 man's subjection, and who believe that woman alone has put 

 herself into bondage. 



Perhaps nowhere is woman's inequality more marked than 

 in her limited opportunities for experiences in the life sur- 

 rounding her. Whitman has given expression to woman's 

 longings for wider experience when he presents, in the " Song 

 of the Broad Axe," the shape of her who is to know all, pass 

 through all, untouched and spotless, a law to herself. It may 

 be said in general terms that, from the cradle to the grave, 

 woman is debarred by social restrictions from taking her share 

 either as observer or actor in the activities of the community 

 in which she resides. The freedom of men to go and come 

 as they please, and liberty in all their relations with their fellow 

 beings, is a factor, and a large one, in man's present vantage 

 ground. When woman attempts to step aside from her nar- 

 rowing spheres, she exposes herself not only to other incon- 

 veniences, but also to the anomalous criticisms of a binary 



