That to popularize justice through a domestic novel is labor;
Whence it follows that woman is a worker, that is, a useful producer; she differs from man, therefore, merely in the kind of production; and we have only to ascertain whether the labor of woman is as useful to society as that of man. I charge myself, when you like, with establishing this equivalence by facts.
I remark, in the second place, that the education of childhood, the instruction of young girls, the service of public charity, the arrangement of festivals and spectacles, the popularization of justice by literature, do not form a part of the labors of the household; and that woman, therefore, is not merely housewife.
I remark, thirdly, that our female superintendents, merchants, artists, accountants, clerks, and professors, are no more housewives than your male superintendents, merchants, artists, book keepers, clerks, and professors; that our female cooks and waiting-maids are no more housewives, than your male cooks, bakers, confectioners, and footmen; that, in all these functions, and in many others, women equal men, which proves that they are not less fitted than you for employments that do not pertain to the household, and that you are not less adapted than they to those that do pertain to it. Rude facts thus stifle your affirmations, and show us that woman may be something else than housewife or courtesan.
Lastly, Master, what is the position of all women relatively to all men?
PROUDHON. Inferiority; for the entire feminine sex fills the place with regard to the other sex, in certain respects, of the wife with regard to the husband: this proceeds from the sum total of the respective faculties.
AUTHOR. So there is neither liberty nor equality even for the woman who has not a father or husband?
PROUDHON. "The truly free woman is the woman who is chaste; the chaste woman is she who experiences no amorous emotion for any one, not even for her husband."—Vol. III.
AUTHOR. Such a woman is not chaste: she is a statue. Chastity being a virtue, supposes the dominion of the reason and the moral sense over an instinct: the chaste woman, therefore, is she who controls a certain instinct, not she who is destitute of it. I add that the woman who yields herself to her husband without attraction, plays the part of a prostitute. I knew well that you understood nothing either of love or of woman!
Shall we, in conclusion, compare your doctrine concerning the right of woman with that which you profess concerning right in general?