Well, we will say that she is talking like this under the stars. The next morning at breakfast she will come right to the point. And I know where she will begin. “That old doctrine of coverture,” she will say, “take it away!” There is a place for the relics of an antiquated civilisation. In the museum of the Tower of London they have in a glass case the little model of the rack and thumb screw. The executioner’s block and the headsman’s axe is an important and impressive exhibit. And there are the coats of mail of early warriors. It is customary, I believe, to put there all things that are passing into desuetude: a hansom cab went in the other day. Now let them take also this ancient doctrine of coverture, and put it in a glass case for future generations to wonder at its barbarity. Then may the marriage contract be rewritten with a really free hand. How it will be done all over the world, we even at present may prophesy. See already Scandinavia. The northern sky was alight with the forecast of woman’s freedom, even before this war broke. Contemporaneously with the enfranchisement of women up there, completed in Denmark only in 1915, almost the first act of governments in which all of the people were for the first time represented, was to appoint a marriage commission. On it are both men and women from the three lands, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. It is still at work revising the marriage laws. The task is not completed. But there are important sections of the new code ready: they have taken the “obey” out of the marriage service; they have stipulated for divorce by mutual consent, that is by request of the parties interested, who are to be let out of wedlock as simply and as easily as they were let in. Further personal rights and property rights are all being defined and arranged on the new basis of equality of morality and duty and responsibility and on the assumption that the wife is a separate personality from her husband. The nearby country of Finland, where the woman movement has always kept step with Scandinavia, has also taken similar action. The Law Committee of the Finnish Parliament had in 1917 appealed to local authorities and other qualified bodies for suggestions on the subject of the reform of the marriage laws. Seven women’s associations united in formulating the pronouncement which was returned. There is no paragraph about divorce for the reason that Finland has already accomplished divorce by mutual consent. For the rest, it is probably the most complete presentment available of the new woman’s point of view. This is what she asks:— 1. That the guardianship of the husband shall cease, and the married woman have an equal right of action in all legal matters, even against her husband; that she shall have the right to plead in courts of law and to carry on business independently. 2. That the married couple shall have equal responsibilities and rights as regards the children and provide for them together.