INTRODUCTION.

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The problem of Woman's position, or "sphere,"--of her duties,
responsibilities, rights and immunities as Woman,--fitly attracts a
large and still-increasing measure of attention from the thinkers and
agitators of our time, The legislators, so called,--those who
ultimately enact into statutes what the really governing class (to
wit, the thinkers) have originated, matured and gradually commended to
the popular comprehension and acceptance,--are not as yet much
occupied with this problem, only fitfully worried and more or less
consciously puzzled by it. More commonly they merely echo the mob's
shallow retort to the petition of any strong-minded daughter or
sister, who demands that she be allowed a voice in disposing of the
money wrenched from her hard earnings by inexorable taxation, or in
shaping the laws by which she is ruled, judged, and is liable to be
sentenced to prison or to death, "It is a woman's business to obey her
husband, keep his home tidy, and nourish and train his children." But
when she rejoins to this, "Very true; but suppose I choose not to have
a husband, or am not chosen for a wife--what then? I am still subject
to your laws. Why am I not entitled, as a rational human being, to a
voice in shaping them? I have physical needs, and must somehow earn a
living. Why should I not be at liberty to earn it in any honest and
useful calling?"--the mob's flout is hushed, and the legislator Is
struck dumb also. They were already at the end of their scanty
resources of logic, and it would be cruel for woman to ask further: