The assertion that housekeeping and child-rearing is woman’s natural sphere is as intelligent as the assertion that there must always be kings, because there have been kings as long as there has been a history. We do not know how the first king originated, just as we do not know where the first capitalist appeared. But we do know that monarchy has been greatly transformed in the course of thousands of years, that it is the tendency of evolution to diminish the power of kings more and more and that the time will come--and that time is not far distant--when kings will be quite superfluous. Just as monarchy, so every institution of state and society is subjected to changes and transformations and ultimate destruction. In the historical expositions of this book we have seen, that the present form of marriage and the position of woman have by no means always been what they are to-day. We have seen that both are the product of an historical line of development that is still in progress. About 2,350 years ago Demosthenes could assert that woman had no other vocation but to give birth to legitimate children and to faithfully guard the house. To-day this conception has been overcome. No one could dare to defend this standpoint to-day without being accused of contempt of women. Indeed there are some even to-day who secretly share the view of the ancient Athenian, but no one would dare to express publicly what one of the foremost men of ancient Greece asserted freely and openly ~as a matter of course~. Herein lies the progress.