The system of marriage in vogue at the present time has never restricted men to the possession of a single woman. Monogamy, as established under male supremacy, means one husband for one woman, while a man may have as many women as he is able or willing to support. As women are still dependent upon men for the necessities of life, the supply of the former is regulated by the demands of the latter. Marriage still retains its original meaning and significance, namely, the ownership and control of women. With the exception of physical force all the ceremonies, customs, ideas, and usages of primitive marriage have been preserved. When a woman marries she is “given” to her husband by her father or some other male relative. She promises to obey her master and accepts a ring as a badge of her dependence upon him. She relinquishes her own name and family, accepting as her own the name and family of her husband. She follows him to his home where, as she is supported by his bounty, she is subject to his will and pleasure. Until women are economically free they will remain sexual slaves. Of all the forms of human slavery which have ever been devised there has probably never been one so degrading as is that which has been practiced within the marital relation, nor one in which the extrication of the enslaved has been a matter of such utter hopelessness. The present struggle of women for freedom shows how deeply rooted is the instinct which demands their subjection. The descent of woman has encompassed the lowest depths of human degradation, but the end of the long and weary road which she has traversed is nearly reached. Already the evolutionary processes which are to release her from bondage are in operation. From available facts relative to the development of early mankind, it is certain that it must have required centuries upon centuries of time to subjugate women and bring them into harmonious relations with men while occupying a position of sexual slavery; first, physical force, second, dependence, and third the substitution of masculine opinions for the instincts and ideas which are peculiar to the female constitution. This accomplished the processes were begun which were to rivet the chains by which they were bound and by means of which women themselves in their weakened condition were to acquiesce in their own degradation. Religion was the means employed. Apollo, according to Greek mythology, issued an edict declaring that man is superior to woman and must rule, and Athene herself finally accepted the edict. Through religion, women came to regard themselves simply as appendages to men, as tools or instruments for their pleasure and gratification, and as possessing no inherent right either to liberty or happiness.