exists, and where the attitudes of both persons concerned are in
harmonious sympathy. That is why the erotic rights of women have been the
last of all to be attained.

Yet to-day we see a change here. The change required is, it has been said,
a change of attitude and a resultant change in the atmosphere in which the
sexual impulses are manifested. It involves no necessary change in the
external order of our marriage system, for, as has already been pointed
out, it was a coincident and not designed part of that order. Various
recent lines of tendency have converged to produce this change of attitude
and of atmosphere. In part the men of to-day are far more ready than the
men of former days to look upon women as their comrades in the every day
work of the world, instead of as beings who were ideally on a level above
themselves and practically on a level considerably below themselves. In
part there is the growing recognition that women have conquered many
elementary human rights of which before they were deprived, and are more
and more taking the position of citizens, with the same kinds of duties,
privileges, and responsibilities as men. In part, also, it may be added,
there is a growing diffusion among educated people of a knowledge of the
primary facts of life in the two sexes, slowly dissipating and dissolving
many foolish and often mischievous superstitions. The result is that, as
many competent observers have noted, the young men of to-day show a new
attitude towards women and towards marriage, an attitude of simplicity and
frankness, a desire for mutual confidence, a readiness to discuss
difficulties, an appeal to understand and to be understood. Such an
attitude, which had hitherto been hard to attain, at once creates the
atmosphere in which alone the free spontaneous erotic activities of women
can breathe and live.

This consummation, we have seen, may be regarded as the attainment of