_Trade in Women_ It is necessary to define clearly the practical form of evil which is now under consideration, and to the effects of which the consciences of men and women must be roused. Ordinary immorality is not the demoralization of the slums--that horrible result of monopoly and speculation in land, where human beings are herded together like pigs--a condition into which the bargains of trade hardly enter. Neither is it the practice of free lust--a practice where unlimited liberty is claimed by both men and women to indulge the impulses of sexual caprice. Ordinary immorality is the distinct, deliberate application to women of the trading system of money values governed by unlimited competition. In this system activity, opportunity, and cleverness carry the day; conscientiousness and spiritual aspiration are out of place; innocence and ignorance constitute weakness, and, of course, go to the wall. Ordinary immorality or fornication, assuming the female body to be an article of merchandise, necessarily subjects this merchandise to those fluctuations of the market, those variations in demand and supply, and that tyranny of capital over labour which destroy freedom of contract. It may be urged that women ‘consent’ to be purchased, and that therefore there is a radical difference between the purchase of the bodies of men and women, which the anti-slavery movement has pronounced illegal, and the purchase of women by men which we are now considering. The sophistry of such evasion will be apparent if the question of ‘consent’ and the specious hypocrisy generally involved in freedom of contract be closely examined. Freedom of contract can only take place between those who in certain essential particulars are equals. The parties to any contract must be so far equals in intelligence, that they can equally understand any risks that may be run, and clearly foresee the probable results of the bargain; and they must be so far equals in social position, that neither party is compelled by the pressure of circumstances or the fear of want, to accept conditions which are unjust or unwise. No freedom of contract is possible where this degree of intellectual and practical equality does not exist. Freedom implies responsibility. There is no freedom if both parties are not free. Any insistence upon consent to a bargain ignorantly or forcibly made is fraud. It is fraud darkened by varying degrees of cruelty, proportioned to the superiority of intelligence and independence possessed by the stronger party in the bargain.