It is true many of our cherished traditions and customs are in grave danger of complete annihilation. If this destruction is to be brought about by the baser elements in human nature--the love of sensual ease, dissipation and depravity--our civilization is indeed in danger. But if the motive power is the love of freedom as against the needless sacrifice of the individual--a desire to give expression to creative instincts which are alike in men and women--there exist signs that out of the alarming confusion will arise something better, and more conducive to a progressive civilization. FOOTNOTES: [95] Willcox. [96] Special Report of the Census Office. _Marriage and Divorce_, 1867-1906. Part 1, 1909, pp. 68-69. [97] Brandt and Baldwin, _Family Desertion_, p. 8. [98] Howard, _A History of Matrimonial Institutions_, III, pp. 219-220. CHAPTER X THE POLITICAL RIGHTS OF WOMEN AND INDUSTRIAL CHANGES In studying the history of primitive societies, we find authority resting upon economic strength of military prowess, the latter nearly always associated with material advantages. Property is synonymous with power whether it consists of implements, herds or lands. Excepting personal belongings, women possessed little property and had little incentive to hold property as exclusively their own. There is a striking difference between the political powers and property rights of men and women, not only in primitive society, but all through history. To point out some fundamental reasons for this divergence will be the purpose of this chapter. In modern society, we are accustomed to ascribe this divergence in the political status of men and women, to custom, tradition, and the tyranny of one sex over the other. Customs have their roots in habits of life, and habits more often result from a convenience at an earlier stage of culture. Tyranny of one sex over the other--especially of man over woman--is not likely to occur among a peaceable people who show no aggressive qualities, or among a people the women of which outnumber men and apparently possess an equal degree of physical strength. All existing societies as well as all societies of the past that have left traces of their civilization, show the same tendency to place political power in the hands of men, and not in the hands of women. This practice has been so common among all peoples as to suggest some fundamental reason for a social development--apparently so unjust to half the race--other than an inherent conflict of interests, between the sexes. Certainly such a conflict of interests, as some would have us believe, has never existed in the animal world. The reason therefore must be social and not inherent. The injustices arising out of such a social scheme have little in common with the fundamental causes out of which the existing situation arose.