In the foregoing chapters I have intimated that every phase of the question of freedom for women is bound up with the larger question of human freedom. If it is freedom that women want, they can not be content to be legally equal with men; but having gained this equality they must carry on their struggle against the oppressions which privilege exercises upon humanity at large by virtue of an usurped economic power. All human beings, presumably, would gain by freedom; but women particularly stand to gain by it, for as I have shown, they are victims of special prepossessions which mere legal equality with men may hardly be expected to affect. If, on the other hand, it is dominance that they desire, they might, indeed, conceivably attain this without freedom; but one can not see much encouragement for that wish in the present trend of affairs. Before women could dominate, they would not only have to overcome the prejudices, superstitions, and legal disabilities which have contributed to their subjection; but they would also have to get the upper hand of men economically. They would have to manœuvre themselves into that advantage in opportunity which men at present enjoy. One can hardly see how this could be brought about except by some kind of _coup d’état_, for the tendency of modern legislation, as I have shown, far from being calculated to enlarge the scope of women’s economic activity, is likely rather to narrow it; nor is it entirely probable that the establishment of mere legal equality would count for much in the premises, for the courts may always decide that any legislation designed for the Larger Good is valid even though it may clash with the principle of equal rights.[30] Suppose, however, that the momentum gathered by the woman’s movement should carry society through a period of sex-equality and bring it out on the other side--the side of female domination--then men and women would simply have exchanged places, and the social evils which now afflict mankind would remain, _mutatis mutandis_. Women would be more nearly free than men, as men are now more nearly free than women; but no one would be really free, because real freedom is not a matter of the shifting of advantage from one sex to the other or from one class to another. Real freedom means the disappearance of advantage, and primarily of economic advantage. It can not be too often repeated that political and social freedom are unattainable unless and until economic freedom has been attained--but this is not a concern of either sex or class. In order to live, women, like men, must eat; to eat, they, like men, must labour; to labour, they, like men, must have opportunity. Control of men’s and women’s economic opportunity, therefore, means control of their livelihood, and control of men’s and women’s livelihood means control of men and women. Real freedom, therefore, does not come in sight of either men or women until this control is abated; that is to say, until (speaking