“No,” I said; “I have had no opportunity.”
“They are quite as wonderful as the men,” he said. “You never heard, for instance, of the great Emancipation Act, Regulation 19 of the Marital Law?”
“No,” I replied; “what is it?”
“No Meccanian woman is obliged to submit to the embraces of her lawful husband.”
“But how did the men ever consent to such a law?” I asked; “for in this country it is the men who make the laws.”
“It is rather a queer story,” he replied. “It is quite a long time ago, forty years or more, since a movement arose among the women, influenced no doubt by the women’s movement in Europe, which had for its object, or one of its objects, greater freedom from the domestic tyranny of the Meccanian husband. Some of them, of course, thought that the way to secure everything they wanted was to get the right to vote for the National Council; but the wiser among them saw that the vote was merely a bad joke. Anybody could have the vote, because it was worth nothing; seeing that the powers of the representatives were being reduced to nothing. All the same, this women’s movement, such as it was, was the nearest approach to a revolutionary movement that the Meccanians have ever shown themselves capable of. Once more our dear old Prince Mechow came to the rescue. He was a real genius.”
“But I thought you did not admire the Mechow reforms?” I interrupted.
“I do not; but I recognise a genius when I see him. Believe me, Prince Mechow was the first Meccanian to understand his countrymen. He knew exactly what they wanted, what they would stand, what they could do, what they could be made to believe. He was absorbed in his early reforms when this women’s movement broke out, and some people were afraid of it. He attacked the problem in his characteristic fashion. He knew the women didn’t want political power; he knew also that there was not the slightest danger of them getting it; but he saw immense possibilities in having the women as his allies in certain of his reforms, especially his Eugenic reforms. He hit upon a really brilliant idea. I don’t suppose you can guess what it was?”
“How can I?” I said. “All this is quite new to me.”