II THE INNER RESULTS OF THE WOMAN MOVEMENT 58 III THE INFLUENCE OF THE WOMAN QUESTION UPON SINGLE WOMEN 71 IV THE INFLUENCE OF THE WOMAN MOVEMENT UPON THE DAUGHTERS 89 V THE INFLUENCE OF THE WOMAN MOVEMENT UPON MEN AND WOMEN IN 111 GENERAL VI THE INFLUENCE OF THE WOMAN MOVEMENT UPON MARRIAGE 139 VII THE INFLUENCE OF THE WOMAN MOVEMENT UPON MOTHERHOOD 169 The Woman Movement INTRODUCTION The first “woman movement” was Eve’s gesture when she reached for the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge—a movement symbolic of the entire subsequent woman’s movement of the world. For the will to pass beyond established bounds has constantly been the motive of her conscious as well as of her subconscious quest. Every generation has called this transgression, this passing beyond the bounds, a “fall of man,” the “original sin,” a crime against God’s express command, a crime against the nature of woman as prescribed for her for all time. And yet from the beginning women have appeared who have passed far beyond the established boundaries set for their sex by their era and upheld by their own people. They have demonstrated that limitations thus prescribed do not always coincide with what is considered by the majority to be the “nature” of woman. At one time a woman has manifested the “masculine” characteristics of a ruler or has performed a “masculine” deed; at another time she has distinguished herself in “masculine” learning or art, or again has dared to love without the permission of law and custom. In a word the individual woman, when her head or her heart was strong enough, has always shown the possibilities of the development of personal power. But she has had in that effort only her own strength and her own will upon which to rely; she has neither been urged on by the spirit of her time (_Zeitgeist_) nor been emulated by the masses. Exceptional women have sometimes been glorified by their contemporaries and by posterity as “wonders of nature”; sometimes been cited as “warning examples.” Seen in connection with the world’s woman movement all these instances, where a bond was broken by woman’s power of mind or creative gift, by a heart or a conscience, are parts of what can be called the “prehistoric” woman movement. This movement for personal freedom formed no step in that phase of the development which possesses a conscious purpose, but was merely sporadic. Even so the participation was long nameless which women took in the great struggles for freedom where, without consideration for the “nature” of woman, they dared bleed upon the arena and scaffold, ascend the pyre, and be raised upon the gibbet. Very rarely did these women martyrs alter immediately men’s—or even women’s—conception of woman’s “being.” But just as many perfumes are dissipated only after centuries,