After having observed that, however different men may be, they are therefore none the less equal, since they all are sensation, sentiment and knowledge, Pierre Leroux, applying this principle to the question of the right of woman, adds:
"From whatever side we look at this question, we are led to proclaim the equality of man and woman. For, if we consider woman in the couple, woman is the equal of man, since the couple itself is founded on equality, since love is equality in itself, and since where justice, that is, equality, does not reign, there love cannot reign, but the contrary of love.
"And if we consider woman outside of the couple, she is a being like unto man, endowed with the same faculties in various degrees; one of those varieties in unity which constitute the world and human society."
The author says that woman should lay claim to equality only as a spouse and a human being; that to acknowledge her as free because she has sex, is to declare her at liberty not only to use but also to abuse love; and that the abuse of love must not be the appanage and sign of liberty.
He says that woman has sex only for him whom she loves and by whom she is loved; that to all others she can be merely a human being.
"From this point of view," continues he, "we must say to women: you have a right to equality by two distinct titles; as human beings and as wives. As wives, you are our equals, for love in itself is equality. As human beings, your cause is that of all, it is the same as that of the people; it is allied to the great revolutionary cause; that is, to the general progress of the human kind. You are our equals, not because you are women but because there are no longer either slaves or serfs.
"This is the truth that must be spoken to men and women; but it would be to pervert this truth and to transform it into error to say to women: You are a sex apart, a sex in the possession of love. Emancipate yourselves; that is, use and abuse love. Woman thus transformed into an unchaste Venus, loses at once her dignity as a human being and as a woman; that is, as a being capable of forming a human couple under the sacred law of love."
The excellent Leroux asks who does not feel, who does not admit at the present day the equality of the sexes?
Who would dare maintain that woman is an inferior being, of whom man is the guide and beacon light?
That woman is elevated by man, who is elevated only by himself and by God?