Transcriber’s Note:
Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.
CONCERNING
WOMEN
CONCERNING
WOMEN
by
SUZANNE LA FOLLETTE
ALBERT & CHARLES BONI
NEW YORK 1926
Copyright, 1926, by Albert & Charles Boni, Inc.
Manufactured in the United States of America
To
Ellen Winsor
and
Rebecca Winsor Evans
CONTENTS
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| I | The Beginnings of Emancipation | 1 |
| II | Woman’s Status, Past and Present | 19 |
| III | Institutional Marriage and Its Economic Aspects | 56 |
| IV | Woman and Marriage | 93 |
| V | The Economic Position of Women | 157 |
| VI | What is to be Done | 207 |
| VII | Signs of Promise | 270 |
CONCERNING
WOMEN
Let there be, then, no coercion established in society, and the commonlaw of gravity prevailing, the sexes will fall into their proper places.
Mary Wollstonecraft.
CHAPTER I THE BEGINNINGS OF EMANCIPATION
It will be foolish to assume that women are free, until books aboutthem shall have ceased to have more than an antiquarian interest. Allsuch books, including this one, imply by their existence that women maybe regarded as a class in society; that they have in common certaincharacteristics, conditions or disabilities which, predominating overtheir individual variations, warrant grouping them on the basis of sex.No such assumption about men would be thinkable. Certain masculinequalities, so-called, may be singled out by amateur psychologistsand opposed to certain feminine qualities, so-called; but from booksabout the sphere of man, the rights of man, the intelligence of man,the psychology of man, the soul of man, our shelves are mercifullyfree. Such books may one day appear, but when they do it will meanthat society has passed from its present state through a state ofsex-equality [Pg 2]and into a state of female domination. In that day, inplace of the edifying spectacle of men proclaiming that woman is usefulonly as