the full equalization of the laws governing men and women are a part of the Socialist platform in every country in the world.  The woman member of the Social Democratic party is not working primarily for woman suffrage.  She is working for a complete overturning of the present economic system, and she advocates universal adult suffrage as a means of bringing about the social and economic changes demanded by the Socialists.

These German Socialist women are often very advanced spirits, who hold university degrees, who have entered the professions, and are generally emancipated from strictly conventional lives.  Others, in large numbers, belong to the intellectual proletarian classes.  Their American prototypes are to be found in the Women’s Trade Union League, described in a later chapter.

The other German suffragists are members of the radical, the moderate (we should say conservative), and the clerical parties.  These women are middle class, average, intelligent wives and mothers.  They correspond fairly well with the women of the General Federation of Clubs in the United States, and like the American club women they are affiliated with the International Council of Women.  Locally they are working for the social reforms demanded by the first American suffrage convention, held in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848.  They are demanding the higher education, married women’s property rights, free speech, and the right to choose a trade or profession.  They are demanding other rights, from lack of which the American woman never suffered.  The right to attend a political meeting was until recently denied to German women.  Although they take a far keener and more intelligent interest in national and local politics than American women as a rule have ever taken, their presence at political meetings has but yesterday been sanctioned.

The civil responsibility of the father and mother in many European countries is barbarously unequal.  If a marriage exists between the parents the father is the only parent recognized.  He is sole guardian and authority.  When divorce dissolves a marriage the rights of the father are generally paramount, even when he is the party accused.

On the other hand, if no marriage exists between the parents, if the child is what is called illegitimate, the mother is alone responsible for its maintenance.  Not only is the father free from all responsibility, his status as a father is denied by law.  Inquiry into the paternity of the child is in some countries forbidden.  The unhappy mother may have documentary proof that she was betrayed under promise of marriage, but she is not allowed to produce her proof.

Under the French Code, the substance of which governs all Europe, it is distinctly a principle that the woman’s honor is and ought to be of less value than a man’s honor.  Napoleon personally insisted on this principle, and more than once emphasized his belief that no importance should be attached to men’s share in illegitimacy.