CHAPTER I

WOMEN'S RIGHTS UNDER ROMAN LAW, 27 B.C.-527 A.D.

Originally women were always under guardianship—But under the Empire the entire equality of the sexes was recognised—Women in marriage—Their power over their property—Divorce—Women engaged in all business pursuits—Instances of women suing and pleading in law—Partiality of the law towards women—Rights of inheritance—Rights to higher education fully allowed—Provision made for poor children to be educated—The Vestals—Female slaves—Remarkable growth of humanitarianism towards slaves under the Empire—Sources

CHAPTER II

WOMEN AND THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH

Christ laid down ethical principles but not minute regulations—The Apostles affected by Jewish and Oriental or Greek conceptions of women—Examples of these—St. Paul and St. Peter on the position of women—The Church Fathers elaborated these teachings—Examples of their contempt for women—Mingled with admiration for particular types of women—Their views of marriage—Their strictures on unbecoming dress—Summary of their views and how the status of women was affected by them—Sources

CHAPTER III

RIGHTS OF WOMEN AS MODIFIED BY THE CHRISTIAN EMPERORS

Old Roman Law not abrogated suddenly—Divorce—Adultery—Second marriages—Engagements—Donations between husband and wife—Sundry enactments on marriage—Inheritance—Guardianship—Bills of Attainder of Christian Emperors merciless, in contrast to acts of pagan predecessors—Sources

CHAPTER IV

WOMEN AMONG THE GERMANIC PEOPLES

A second world force to modify the status of women—Accounts of Caesar and Tacitus on position of women among Germanic peoples—The written laws of the barbarians—Guardianship—Marriage—Power of the husband—Divorce—Adultery—The Church indulgent to kings—Remarriage—Property rights—Peculiarities of the criminal law—Minutely-graded fines—Compurgation and ordeals—Innocence tested by the woman walking over red-hot ploughshares—Women in slavery—Comparison of position of women under Roman and under Germanic laws—Influence of theology—Sources

CHAPTER V

DIGRESSION ON THE LATER HISTORY OF ROMAN LAW

Explanation of the various social and political forces which affected the position of women in the Middle Ages

CHAPTER VI

THE CANON LAW AND THE ATTITUDE OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

Canon law reaffirms the subjection of women—Women and marriage—Protection to women—Divorce—Cardinal Gibbons on protection of injured wives by Popes—Catholic Church has no divorce—But it allows fourteen reasons for declaring marriage null and void and leaving a husband or wife free to remarry—Some of these explained—Diriment impediments and dispensations—Historical instances of the Roman Church's inconsistency—Attitude towards women at present day—Opinions of Cardinals Gibbon and Moran, and Rev. David Barry and Rev. William Humphrey—Sources

CHAPTER VII

WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN ENGLAND

Single women have always had private rights—But males preferred in inheritance—Examples—Power of parents—Husband and wife—Wife completely controlled by husband—He could beat her and own all her property—Recent abrogation of the husband's power—Divorce—Jeremy Taylor and others on duty of women to bear husband's sins with meekness—Injustice of the present law of divorce—Rape and the age of legal consent—Progress of the rights to an education—Women in the professions—Woman suffrage—Sources

CHAPTER VIII

WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES

Examples of the early opposition to women's rights—Age of consent—Single women—History of agitation for women's rights—Convention of 1848—Progress after the Civil War—Beginnings of higher education—First women in medicine—And in law, the ministry, journalism, and industry—Status of women in all the States in 1910—Sources

CHAPTER IX

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

The five arguments commonly used against equal suffrage—The theological—The physiological—The social or political—The intellectual—The moral—Lecky on the nature of women—The old and the new conception—Thomas on the power of custom—Taboo—All evolution accompanied by some extravagance—Macaulay on liberty—The double standard of morality—Co-operation—The proper sphere for a human being—Discrepancies of wages—Legal evolution in the interpretation of labour laws—The alarmist view of divorce

CHAPTER X

FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS

The rapid spread of suffrage throughout the world—Table of suffrage gains from early times to present date—In national politics in the United States—Attack on the suffrage parade and colloquy between Mr. Hobson and Mr. Mann on the subject—Suffrage amendment defeated in the Senate—Mr. Heflin's remarks in the House—Mr. Falconer replies—President Wilson refuses to take a stand—Amendment lost—Mr. Bryan on suffrage—Examples of legislation to protect women passed recently—The tendency is to complete equality of the sexes—Suffrage in England—A delayed reform in divorce—Women's rights on the Continent—Especially in Germany—Schopenhauer's views of women—Further remarks on the philosophy of suffrage—"Woman's sphere"—Ultimate results of women entering all businesses and professions—Feminism—The home is not necessarily every woman's sphere and neither is motherhood nor is it her congenital duty to make herself attractive to men—Unreasonableness of gratuitous advice to women and none to men—What we don't know—Fallacy of the argument that the fall of the Roman Empire was due to the liberty given to woman—Official organs of various suffrage societies

INDEX

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