[150] The census of 1900 gives 327,614 female teachers and professors in colleges, out of a total force of 446,133, leaving, accordingly, only 118,519 men on this field.--THE TRANSLATOR. CHAPTER V. WOMAN'S CIVIC AND POLITICAL STATUS. The social dependence of a rank or a class ever finds its expression in the laws and political institutions of a country. Laws are the mirror in which is reflected a country's social condition, to the extent that the same has been brought within definite rules. _Woman, as a subject and oppressed sex, constitutes no exception to the principle._ Laws are negative or positive. Negative in so far as they ignore the oppressed in the distribution of privileges and rights, as though he did not exist; positive, in so far as they expressly assign his dependent position to the oppressed, and specify possible exceptions in his favor. Our common law rests upon the Roman law, which, recognized persons only as property-holding beings. The old German law, which treated woman more worthily, has preserved its force only partially. In the French language, the human being and the man are designated by the same word, "_l'homme_"; likewise in the English language,--"_man_." French law knows the human being only as _man_; and so was it also until recently in England, where woman found herself in slavish dependence upon man. It was similarly in Rome. There were Roman citizens, and wives of Roman citizens, but no female citizens. Impossible were it to enumerate the numberless laws found on the motley map of German common rights. Let a few instances suffice. According to the common law of Germany, the wife is a minor towards her husband; the husband is her master, to whom she owes obedience. If the woman is "disobedient," then, according to the law of Prussia, the husband of "low" estate has the right of "moderate castigation." Men of "high" estate also there are said to be who arrogate such a right to themselves. Seeing that nowhere is the force or number of the blows prescribed, the husband is the sovereign judge. The old city law of Hamburg declares: "For the rest, the right of _moderate castigation of the wife by her husband_, of children by their parents, of pupils by their teachers, or servants by their masters and mistresses, is hereby adjudged just and permissible."