Single women have always had private rights--But males preferred in inheritance--Examples--Power of parents--Husband and wife--Wife completely controlled by husband--He could beat her and own all her property--Recent abrogation of the husband's power--Divorce--Jeremy Taylor and others on duty of women to bear husband's sins with meekness--Injustice of the present law of divorce--Rape and the age of legal consent--Progress of the rights to an education--Women in the professions--Woman suffrage--Sources CHAPTER VIII WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES Examples of the early opposition to women's rights--Age of consent--Single women--History of agitation for women's rights--Convention of 1848--Progress after the Civil War--Beginnings of higher education--First women in medicine--And in law, the ministry, journalism, and industry--Status of women in all the States in 1910--Sources CHAPTER IX GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS The five arguments commonly used against equal suffrage--The theological--The physiological--The social or political--The intellectual--The moral--Lecky on the nature of women--The old and the new conception--Thomas on the power of custom--Taboo--All evolution accompanied by some extravagance--Macaulay on liberty--The double standard of morality--Co-operation--The proper sphere for a human being--Discrepancies of wages--Legal evolution in the interpretation of labour laws--The alarmist view of divorce CHAPTER X FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS The rapid spread of suffrage throughout the world--Table of suffrage gains from early times to present date--In national politics in the United States--Attack on the suffrage parade and colloquy between Mr. Hobson and Mr. Mann on the subject--Suffrage amendment defeated in the Senate--Mr. Heflin's remarks in the House--Mr. Falconer replies--President Wilson refuses to take a stand--Amendment lost--Mr. Bryan on suffrage--Examples of legislation to protect women passed recently--The tendency is to complete equality of the sexes--Suffrage in England--A delayed reform in divorce--Women's rights on the Continent--Especially in Germany--Schopenhauer's views of women--Further remarks on the philosophy of suffrage--"Woman's sphere"--Ultimate results of women entering all businesses and professions--Feminism--The home is not necessarily every woman's sphere and neither is motherhood nor is it her congenital duty to make herself attractive to men--Unreasonableness of gratuitous advice to women and none to men--What we don't know--Fallacy of the argument that the fall of the Roman Empire was due to the liberty given to woman--Official organs of various suffrage societies INDEX A Short History of Women's Rights CHAPTER I WOMEN'S RIGHTS UNDER ROMAN LAW, FROM AUGUSTUS TO JUSTINIAN--27 B.C. TO 527 A.D. [Sidenote: Guardianship.]