It was natural, I think, that revolt should be most bitter in England and in Germany, the two countries where women were driven to the verge of desperation. A Frenchman may hold the reins of his authority so gaily that a woman with skill evades them. And the dear American man will pass them right over to you if you’re a woman of any judgment and _finesse_ at all. But in those lands where a wife must not only promise to obey, but also they made her, the eruption was due. Action and reaction are equal in the old law of physics, and you can pretty accurately measure the rebound by that. It was because the ring hurt worse in Germany than anywhere else in the world, that they just tore it off. But the marriage strike that was started in Germany wasn’t staying there. In nearby Sweden, a woman who is a very prominent lawyer and a man who is a university professor, decided to do with an announcement in a newspaper instead of a ceremony in a church—and the lady remains a lawyer. It was the only way that she could. The law of that land places the woman, on the day that she marries, under her husband’s guardianship, and pronounces her incompetent thereafter to act as an attorney in court! The newspaper announcement as it is now used in Scandinavia is called the “conscience marriage.” There were also Anglo-Saxon women who had rebelled. In London, an Oxford graduate who had done with window breaking told me quite candidly that she was living what she called the “unorthodox life.” And there were others in her particular London suburb. In New York City, even, there are women who have preferred the “free union.” You see how near it was to being wrecked, this an institution more revered by society than all of the cathedrals and art galleries. Only this war, probably, could have averted the disaster. Now this new woman, with her wage envelope and her vote, has become articulate. She can speak as one who can pay the rent, about how “we” shall live. Oh, it’s not either Hampstead or Long Island. Never mind for a while whether the lace curtains will be long enough or shall the floors be done over. Yesterday her domain was the home. To-day it’s the wide, wide world to be set to order. For the first time she’s facing her destiny, with the right to decide more than the parlour carpet or her satin slippers or even her sociological principles.