What eight million women want

n this volume the United States was compared most unfavorably with the countries of Europe, where the dignity and importance of women received some measure of recogniti

s of regiments, and take part with the men in military reviews. Women frequently hold high offices at court, acting as chamberlains, constables, and the like. The writer closed her la

ery measure of suffrage except the Parliamentary franchise. In England, throughout the Middle Ages, and even down to the present century, women held the office of sheriff of the county, clerk of the c

tland, Christina of Sweden, rulers in fact as well as in name; to say nothing of the long line of women regents in whose hands the state intrus

erstand the position of women in the United States it is necessary to make a brief survey of the laws un

ching equality with men. In these three countries when a monarch dies leaving no sons his eldest daughter becomes the sovereign. If the ruling monarch die, leaving no children at all, the oldest daughter-failing sons-of the man

al and Spain, although dispute on this point

le heir to the crown is dead. Queen Wilhelmina became sovereign in Holland only because the House of Orange was extinct

s described, lives under what is known as the Salic Law, accordin

ion of it permeates the whole atmosphere in which the women

nt Gaul they occupied at the time the code was formulated. Later the Salian Franks, as the tribe was designated, built on the le

icials; it designated the exact amount of blood money the family of a slain man might collect from the family of the slayer; it regulate

s passed out of existence, almost indeed out of the memory of man,-all except one paragraph of one division of one law. The law related to inheritance of property; the s

nch prince successfully contested with an English prince the crown of France, his claim resting on that obscure paragraph in the Salic code. The Hundred Years' War w

the individual, the "Rights of Woman" were actually revised downward. Up to this time the application of the Salic Law was based on tradition and precedent. Now a special statute was enac

fear lest their influence in any way might affect the conduct of state affairs. That explains why, at the present time, although in most European countries women are allowed to practice medicine, they are not allowed to practice law. Medicine may be as learned a profession, b

ic women sheriffs of counties, clerks of crown, chamberlains, and high constables held their high offices because the offices were hereditary property in certain titled families, and they had to belong to the entail, even when a woman was in possession. The offices were purely titular. No English woman ever acted as high constable. No English woman ever att

arish. It was really property interests and not people who voted. Those women who owned property, or who were administering property for their minor children, were entitled to vote, to serve on boards of guardians, and to dispense the Poor Laws. Out of their r

t in a very enlightened country, say Germany. The laws of Germany were founded on the Corpus Juris of the Romans, a stern code which relegates women to the position of c

man Women. The stated objects of the association give a pretty clear idea of the position of women at that time. The women demanded as their rights, Education, the Right to Work, Free Choice of Profess

s radiated that in 1887 the German Woman Suffrage Association was formed, with the demand for absolute equality with men. Two remarkable women, Minna Cauer and Anita Augsberg, the latter unmarrie

ber of the Social Democratic Party, allied to the International Socialist Party. She is a suffragist because she is a Socialist, because woman suffrage, and, indeed, the full equalization of the laws governing men and women are a part of the Socialist platform in every country in the world. Th

, and are generally emancipated from strictly conventional lives. Others, in large numbers, belong to the intellectual prol

with the International Council of Women. Locally they are working for the social reforms demanded by the first American suffrage convention, held in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. They are demanding the higher education, married women's property rights, free speech, and the right to choose a trade or profession. They are demanding other rights

ge exists between the parents the father is the only parent recognized. He is sole guardian and authority. When

nce. Not only is the father free from all responsibility, his status as a father is denied by law. Inquiry into the paternity of the child is in some count

's honor is and ought to be of less value than a man's honor. Napoleon personally insisted on this principle,

emove from the Codes. They have their origin in the belief in "The imprudence

omen were imprudent, frail, or imbecile. They placed women at a distinct disadvantage, it is true, but it was

suming that protection was all the right a woman needed or all she ought to claim. They even pretended that when a woman entered the complete protection of the m