The theory of seduction is affiliated with the proprietary theory of woman and, needless to say, this general theory has been undergoing considerable change for several decades. To-day women are not only not property, they are property holders, and property holding has become a significant factor in the social independence of women. Of this social independence, independence in mating is the most recent expression, more recent even than political independence, and less fully realized or accomplished. Indeed it would be rash to predict how this type of independence may be expected to come about; apart from the gesture, sometimes gay, sometimes merely comic, of keeping one’s name in marriage, there is no conscious feministic movement, in this country at least, toward freedom in sex. The political emancipation of women came to us as a reflex from abroad, largely through England. Whatever the political effect of militancy in England, without the advertisement of the British suffragette American women would be voteless to-day. Quite likely the direction of emancipation in mating may be determined likewise from abroad, perhaps from innovating Scandinavia or from Soviet Russia, where the last legal word has been said on sex equality. In the soviet laws on marriage and domestic relations there is no mention of suit for breach of promise or for alimony whereby woman proclaims herself a chattel, and according to the soviet code husband as well as wife is entitled to support if incapacitated for work. Incapacity for work is the sole condition which entitles either spouse to support. In other words, the Russian state has interested itself not in maintaining the proprietary theory of woman; but in providing for the care of man or woman in distress. Of such clear distinction American law is innocent. In American law the husband is still the provider and in this law lags but little behind current opinion, which holds that a married woman should work only when she has to. Dr. Herskowits tells me that this American attitude is so well represented in the Negro population of Harlem that in gathering statistics of employment as soon as he learns the occupation of the husband he can predict whether or not the wife is at work. Low-paid employment for the husband means wage-earning by the wife, and highly paid employment means that the woman is not a wage-earner. Surveys in other parts of the country have shown the same condition. These surveys have been made among wage-earners, and concerned primarily with the margin of subsistence; but familiar enough is the record in other economic classes of the persuasion that marriage exempts a woman from industry or professional activity. The standing controversies about married women as school-teachers are fully documented instances. The Harvard prize play acted last year on Broadway hinged on the rigidity of the alternative of a man marrying and sacrificing his career or pursuing his career and sacrificing his love.