All antiquity oppressed woman, although it recognized in her something superior, and made her a priestess or a prophetess. The Christian woman of the early ages, who alone could dethrone the Pagan woman, not only endured martyrdom as courageously as man, but was distinguished for her great charity, for the purity and lucidity of doctrine which rendered her the counsellor of learned men. We do not know, in reality, to what heights woman can attain; we cannot judge her by what she is to-day, since she is the work of the eternal oppression of man. "Who can say whether many of the ills that rend society, and of the insoluble problems that trouble it, may not be caused in part by the annihilation of one of the two forces of creation, the ban placed on female genius? Have we a right to say to half the human kind: you shall not have your share in life and in the state? Is it not to deny to them (to women) their title of human beings? Is it not to disinherit the state itself? Yes, woman should have her place in civil life," concludes Legouvé.
Woman and man are equal, but different. To man, belong synthesis, superiority in all that demands comprehensive views, genius, muscular force; to woman, belong the spirit of analysis, the comprehension of details, imagination, tenderness, grace. Man has more strength of reason and body, woman more strength of heart, with a marvelous perspicacity to which man will never attain. The division thus fixed, what ought woman to do?
In the family, the task of the wife is the management of domestic affairs, the education of the children, and the comfort of the husband, of whom she should be the inspiration. By the side of the eminent man, yet in the shade, there is always a woman; this career of hidden utility and of modest devotion is the one best suited to woman. In civil life there are several fields of occupation which they may enter with success: art, literature, instruction, administration, medicine. "Modesty itself demands that we should call in women as physicians, not to men, but to women; for it is an abiding outrage upon all purity that their ignorance should forcibly expose to masculine curiosity the sufferings of their sisters.... Nervous diseases, especially, would find in feminine genius the only adversary able to understand and combat them." The author says that it is the duty of society to see that poor women do not work for one-third or one-fourth the wages of men; and that, in manufactures, they have not the most dangerous and least remunerative labors. "Parent-Duchâtelet," says he, "attests that of three thousand lost women, only thirty-five had an occupation that could support them, and that fourteen hundred had been precipitated into this horrible life by destitution. One of them, when she resolved on this course, had eaten nothing for three days." M. Legouvé thinks it shameful that men should enter into competition with women in the manufacture of articles of dress and taste.
In the fifth and last chapter, the author recognizes the remarkable capacity of women in administration, of which he cites numerous examples. He demands that they should have the superintendence of prisons for women, hospitals, charitable institutions, the legal guardianship of foundlings, the management, in short, of all that concerns social charity, because they will acquit themselves in it infinitely better than men. But he refuses to them all participation in political acts and in all that concerns the government, because they have no aptitude for things of this nature. Finally, he concludes thus: "Our task is finished; we have examined the principal phases of the life of women, in the character of daughters, wives, mothers, and women, comparing the present with the past, and endeavoring to indicate the future; that is, by pointing out the bad, verifying the better, seeking the best.
"What principle has served us in this as a guide? Equality in difference.
"In the name of this principle, what ameliorations have we demanded in the laws and customs?
"Reform in education.
"Laws against seduction.
"The postponement of the marriageable age.