(21) And
for many years past, in Paris, that state of things has been
reached which some women desire to effect amongst ourselves. The
women there mainly attend to business--serving the BOUTIQUE, or
presiding at the COMPTOIR--while the men lounge about the
Boulevards. But the result has only been homelessness,
degeneracy, and family and social decay.
Nor is there any reason to believe that the elevation and
improvement of women are to be secured by investing them with
political power. There are, however, in these days, many
believers in the potentiality of "votes," (22) who anticipate some
indefinite good from the "enfranchisement" of women. It is not
necessary here to enter upon the discussion of this question. But
it may be sufficient to state that the power which women do not
possess politically is far more than compensated by that which
they exercise in private life--by their training in the home
those who, whether as men or as women, do all the manly as well as
womanly work of the world. The Radical Bentham has said that man,
even if he would, cannot keep power from woman; for that she
already governs the world "with the whole power of a despot," (23)
though the power that she mainly governs by is love. And to form
the character of the whole human race, is certainly a power far
greater than that which women could ever hope to exercise as
voters for members of Parliament, or even as lawmakers.
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