It is not our business to examine the social value of this doctrine, but only to show what Communism thinks of woman and her rights.
The modern communists may be divided into two classes: the religious and the political.
Among the first are the Saint Simonians, the Fusionists and the Philadelphians.
Among the second, are the Equalitarians, the Unitarians, the Icarians, etc.
The first consider woman as the equal of man. To the others, she is free; among some, with a shade of subordination.
The Unitarians, who have drawn largely from Fourier, proclaim woman free, and equal with man.
We shall speak here of only a few of the communistic sects, reserving for separate articles what relates to the Saint Simonians and the Fusionists.
The Philadelphians, admitting God and the immortality of the soul, lay down these two principles: God is the chief of the social order; Fraternity is the law that governs human relations.
Religion, to the Philadelphians, is the practice of Fraternity; Progress is a dogma, Community is the law of the individual before God and conscience.
Touching the relations of the sexes and the rights of woman, M. Pecqueur thus expresses himself in his work La République de Dieu, pp. 194, 195: